Did you know you can collaborate on customer tickets with people that don't have an eDesk account, such as suppliers or third-party services? eDesk allows you to safely share a link to a ticket thread with a verified collaborator. Customer and order information is excluded by default.
This help file will guide you through sharing a ticket thread with a verified, external user.
Before you start
- You’ll need a login to eDesk. If you don’t have a login, you can request one from an Admin user within your business.
- You'll also need to have External share permission enabled for the user you would like to access this feature, which can be requested from/enabled by an Admin user within your business. You can do so from Settings, Company Settings, Users, To find out more information about enabling custom permissions for roles, click here.
- Multi-agent collaboration is only available on the Enterprise and Professional plans. To find out more, click here.
01 Sharing tickets externally
eDesk's Share feature enables you to safely share the conversation in a ticket with a verified collaborator that doesn't have an eDesk account, such as a fulfilment service or supplier. The purpose of this feature is to allow an agent to give the collaborator a one-off view of the messages in a ticket to provide the background context to a request.
For example, a customer is angry about a received item because it is labelled with the correct size but is much smaller than expected. The agent creates an external note to ask the supplier about the expected sizing, and shares the customer's messages with the supplier to demonstrate how unhappy the customer is. The supplier then responds in a note to say they will replace the item. The agent can then inform the customer that a replacement will be sent. These External notes will appear on the thread inside eDesk but will not be sent to the customer.
02 What can the collaborator see and do?
The collaborator cannot access the messages in eDesk because they don't have an eDesk account. Instead, the agent shares a secure link to a webpage that is populated with all incoming and outgoing messages in the ticket, and the collaborator will receive the link by email.
By default, the webpage will contain no details about the customer or their order; however, the agent can choose to include the customer name and order details.
Note: The responsibility for adhering to GDPR lies with the agent.
The collaborator can respond to the agent by leaving an External note, and nothing they enter will be visible to the customer. They will also have no means of contacting the customer through eDesk.
03 How does it work?
The agent must follow these steps:- In the Mailbox, open the ticket.
- In the Reply box, select Share.
- Enter the collaborator's email address, a subject for the email, and a message containing an explanatory note. This note won't be shared with the customer.
- If you want to share the customer's name and order information with the collaborator, select the Include Customer information checkbox at the bottom of the Reply box.
- Select Send.
The recipient, subject and message will appear as an External note in the ticket thread that you can see inside eDesk. The collaborator will be sent an email containing the link.
- Select the link in the email.
A browser is opened to show a verification message.
An email containing a verification code will be sent.
Enter the code into the textfield in the verification message, and select View ticket. - The ticket view page is opened in the browser.
In the example below, the agent has ticked the Include Customer information checkbox in the Reply box, so some basic customer and order details are on the right-hand side of the view.
- The collaborator types their reply into the field. They can include attachments or hyperlinks, and can format the text.
- The collaborator selects Send to send their reply.
The reply will be added to the ticket in eDesk so that the agent can see the collaborator's message. The customer will not see the collaborator's message.
Note: The link will expire 3 days after it has been shared. If the collaborator needs access to the messages in the ticket after this point, an agent will need to share the ticket again.
04 Can I cancel the share?
Yes, an agent can cancel the share with immediate effect. If you want to cancel the share for any reason, for example, if you've shared the ticket with the wrong email address, or have changed your mind about sharing, then select Cancel in the ticket.
This will immediately invalidate the link and the collaborator/s will no longer be able to access it. The ticket is updated to show that the link is now invalid.
If a collaborator tries to open the link in the email after it has been cancelled, they will see an invalid link message.
Further Readings
To find out more about using creating new tickets and external emails, click here.
Interested in learning about the different ways you can respond to your customers? Click here.
