Documentation / Working with tickets
Forwarding a message
In short: With Forward in the menu next to a customer message, you send that message by email to an external party, with your own text above it and the customer context below it. The external party’s reply arrives in the same ticket, and you can reply to it there or send a reminder.
Where to find this
Open a ticket, click the three-dot menu next to a customer message and choose Forward. The option is only available for customer messages that came in by email. You can forward from the Agent role upwards.
Forwarding a message
- Choose Forward at the customer message. The Forward to an external party dialog opens (Write your message and control exactly which customer context is included.).
- In To, enter the email address of the external party, or pick a contact from the address book (see below). Use Cc and Bcc to add extra recipients; this is only possible if there is exactly one address in To, otherwise you see CC/BCC is only possible with a single recipient in the To field.
- Check the Subject.
- In Your message, write what you want to ask or explain (Write what you want to ask or explain.).
- Under After sending, choose whether the ticket should be set to Waiting for external reply, optionally with a deadline and a note. See Waiting for an external reply.
- Under Context for recipient, decide which parts of the customer message go along (see below).
- Check the result via Preview and click Forward.
The Forward to an external party dialog in the Compose view, with the fields To, Cc, Bcc and Subject, the Your message block, the After sending block and the Context for recipient block with the buttons Read in my language, Edit and Remove.
While sending, it says Sending… large attachments can take a while. If it fails, you see Could not forward the email.
Choosing the recipient from the address book
The To, Cc and Bcc fields work with the account’s address book: the External parties page. See External parties.
- When you click in a field, the suggestion list opens straight away if there are contacts in the address book. You do not have to type anything.
- The order is: first the contacts from the address book (filtered on name and on address), then addresses the organisation has used before, and last the address you type yourself. An address that is in both lists appears once, as a named contact.
- A contact you choose from the address book becomes a chip with that contact’s name; the address is in the tooltip. An address that is not in the address book becomes a chip with the address itself.
- Next to such an unknown address is the Add to address book button, with which you create the contact straight away. That button is only there for people who manage the account, so from the Account admin role. After saving, the chip shows the name of the new contact.
Deciding on the customer context
The Context for recipient block (This content is placed below your message.) contains the original customer message. You have these buttons:
| Button | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Read in my language | Shows the context in your own language, for reading only. See below. |
| Edit | Makes the context editable, so you can remove personal data, for example. The button is then called Preview, to switch back. |
| Remove | Removes the context completely. You then see No customer context will be included and The recipient only receives your message. |
| Restore context | Puts the original context back after editing or removing it. |
Below the context are the Attachments from customer message (number). Click the cross next to an attachment (Remove attachment) to leave it out.
Reading the context in your own language
If the customer context is in a language you cannot read well, click Read in my language. The context appears in the language from your profile, with the notice Translated for you only · the recipient receives the original. Use Show original to switch back.
- The recipient always gets the original, whatever you are reading at that moment.
- Editing is only possible on the original: if you choose Edit, the translation disappears.
- If the context is already in your language, you see This is already in your language. If translating fails, you see Could not translate this email.
You can write your own text in Your message in your own language and have it go out in the recipient’s language. A bar then appears above the text box with the language you are writing in and the language the message goes out in. See Translation.
Checking the preview
At the top of the dialog, use View to switch between Compose and Preview. The preview shows the subject (or No subject), the To line with the recipients (or No recipient selected), Attachments: (number) and below that the Recipient view: exactly what the external party will see.
The same dialog in the Preview view with the subject, the recipients, the number of attachments and the Recipient view.
The external party’s reply
When the external party replies, that reply arrives in the same ticket with the heading REPLY TO FORWARDED MESSAGE. Messages from external parties that are not a reply to a forwarded message appear under the heading External participant message. If the ticket was set to Waiting for external reply, it becomes Open again when the reply arrives.
In the menu next to such a message, choose Reply. The Reply dialog (Reply within the existing external email conversation.) works like the forward dialog: the same recipient fields with the address book, Subject, Your message, the After sending block and, as context, the Earlier email (This conversation context is included below your reply.). Send it with Send reply.
A message that you sent to the external party has Send reminder in its menu. The Send reminder dialog (Send a follow-up within the existing external email conversation.) places your previous message below the reminder (Your previous message is included below this reminder.). Send it with Send reminder.
Good to know
- Forwarding is only possible for email. You cannot forward a WhatsApp message or a phone call.
- Only customer messages have the Forward option; your own replies and notes do not.
- Every forwarded message and every reply simply appears in the ticket conversation, marked as External participant or External reply. The customer does not see these messages.
- A forwarded message has an External follow-up tooltip with the note, the deadline and the outcome: Waiting, Reply received, Deadline expired or Manually ended.
- aishaa itself may only send messages to parties on the account’s External parties list, for example when a deadline has expired. You can forward to any address. See External parties.
- A workflow can also propose forwarding a customer message to an external address. That proposal waits for a colleague: it is in To do, in the line above the composer (Waiting for you:) and as a button next to To in the composer. You check the address and the note, adjust the note if needed and send it. See The ticket screen and To do.
- You can also forward the latest customer message via the Write to someone else menu next to To in the composer, with Message to an outside party….
- Large attachments follow the same rules as in a normal reply. See Sending limits and image optimisation.
- The address book in the recipient fields only shows parties set to Active. A party set to Inactive is not in the suggestion list; you can still type the address yourself.