Once you have created and set up support emails for your Freshdesk account, you can configure advanced email settings to customize your support email setup.


For example, you can allow agents to create new outbound emails and choose to use their name as the sender and give a personal touch to emails. For forwarded emails, you can also configure contacts to be automatically created based on the reply-to address and the original sender.


To view the advanced email settings:

  1. Log in as an Administrator.
  2. Go to Admin > Channels > Email.
    1. Click Advanced Settings.


The various advanced settings configurations are:

  1. Configure DKIM
  2. Set automatic Bcc email
  3. Configure prefix for ticket ID
  4. Allow agents to initiate conversations with customers
  5. Use agent names in ticket replies and outbound emails
  6. Use Reply-to email address to create requester contacts
  7. For forwarded emails, use original sender as requester
  8. Allow emails to be sent to the wildcard support address
  9. Create a new ticket for each customer response
  10. Ignore the sender email address while threading replies to tickets
  11. Ignore the ticket ids in the subject line while threading replies to tickets
  12. Detect automated replies
  13. Enable all messages to be included as part of quoted text for agent replies
  14. Create a new ticket when subject line changes

Configure DKIM


DKIM plays a crucial role in enhancing email security, establishing sender legitimacy, and ensuring better email deliverability by reducing the chances of emails being marked as spam or phishing attempts. You can use this option to digitally sign emails sent from your helpdesk with your email domain name(s).  Hence no one can send emails impersonating your organization and support emails sent by Freshdesk on your behalf will not be marked as spam. 


Learn more about configuring DKIM here.


Note: DKIM configuration is not required for custom mailbox configuration, however, we would still recommend you configure this option for your custom email domains.


Set automatic Bcc email


Enable this option to include email addresses in BCC for all your ticket communications. You can use this option when you want to automatically add your supervisors or managers in email communications. 


To enable this option:

  1. On the Advanced Settings page, click Set automatic BCC email.

  2. Enter the email address. You can add multiple addresses separated by commas.

  3. Click Save.



Note: You can add up to 50 BCC emails.


Configure prefix for ticket ID


By default, for every incoming email, Freshdesk uses Ticket ID, Message ID, or a unique identifier to decide if the email should be created as a new ticket or threaded as a reply to an existing ticket. To learn more about how Email threading works, check Overview of Email Channel.


Additionally, you can configure a prefix for the ticket ID to ensure that threading is done accurately.


To add a prefix:

  • On the Advanced Settings page, click Configure prefix for ticket ID.
  • Enter the prefix name.



  • Click Save.
  • After you save the prefix, make sure to configure the subject line in all your email communications to include this prefix and ticket ID. Check the following steps below.



Enabling Ticket ID prefix in Email templates and notifications

If you add a prefix to the ticket ID, it is important to configure the email templates or notifications to include the ticket ID and prefix in the email subject line. Once you do this, Freshdesk considers the prefix and the ticket ID for ticket threading purposes.


For example, you can add the prefix in agent reply templates:


  1. Go to Admin Settings > Email notifications.
  2. Switch to the Templates tab.

  3. Click on the Edit icon next to the Agent Reply template.
  4. Click Insert Placeholders and select Tickets.

  5. The Ticket ID placeholder will be added to the Subject.


  6. Now add the prefix that you saved in Email Advanced Settings (check the previous section) page to the ticket ID in the following format: [#prefix-{{ticket.id}}].


For example, if your prefix is VIP, your subject should look like this:


             Click Save.


Now this prefix will be added to all agent replies sent from your helpdesk.

Allow agents to initiate conversations with customers


Enable this option to allow agents to send outbound emails using the +New email option to new or existing customers. Once enabled, the agents can see the New Email option and use it to send outgoing mail. For more details, check Sending an outbound email


Use agent names in ticket replies and outbound emails


Enable this option to allow agents to use their names in the ticket replies and outbound emails. If enabled, the agent’s name will be automatically prefilled in the “From” field. If you disable the option, the “From” field will only have the support email address.





Note: When this option is enabled, only the sender's name changes to the agent's name. However, the sender's email will still remain the support email addresss.

In case you want to customize/add your customer name automatically in the ticket replies sent by agents, you can navigate to Admin > Email notifications > Templates > Agent reply template and add the contact name placeholder accordingly.


Use Reply-to email address to create requester contacts


When you send an email, the 'Reply' usually goes to the sender's address. However, when you use the 'Reply-To' address, responses will be sent to a different email. 


For example, if the From: field displays support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com, but the 'Reply-To' is to 'support@domain.com,' any replies will be sent to this address. 

For forwarded emails, use original sender as requester


When an agent forwards an email from their agent mailbox to the helpdesk, the ticket will be created under the original sender’s name. If disabled, the agent will be marked as the requester.


In the following example, agent Rachel Doe has forwarded an email received from Sadie (customer) to the support email address configured in Freshdesk. Since the above option is enabled in Advanced Settings, the original sender’s name is marked in the email.



If the option is disabled, the agent, Rachel Doe will be marked as the ticket requester.

Allow emails to be sent to the wildcard support address


Use this option to allow users to create tickets by sending emails to any variation of the support email address *@yourcompany.freshdesk.com.


When you sign up for a Freshdesk account, you will get a wildcard email address in the format <support@yourcompany.freshdesk.com>. The wildcard support email address is the account's catch-all address. This means that any email sent to your domain that is not yet set up to be an email account or an email alias will be sent to the wildcard address for your account. This allows you to catch any emails sent to the misspelled email address. Emails to this address become tickets with the customer as the requester.


If disabled, tickets will be created only when emails are sent to the configured support addresses under Admin > Channels > Emails.

Create a new ticket for each customer response


Enable this option to create new tickets for every reply/response received from the requester on tickets. This means the responses from the customer/requester to a ticket will not be threaded to the original ticket instead, each response will be created as a new ticket.



Note:

The SLA policies apply to each new ticket created in this case.

Enabling this option may create duplicate tickets for the same issue. To avoid this and append all responses to a particular ticket in a single email thread, it is recommended to disable this option. Check this article to understand how threading works.


Ignore the sender email address while threading replies to tickets


As per the default email threading behavior, Freshdesk will check for email and requester checkers to append the incoming emails as replies to existing tickets. If you enable this option, requester checks are not considered while threading a customer response to an existing ticket.

Assume when a distribution list is added as a CC in a ticket, and someone from that list replies, the system creates a new ticket instead of considering this as a reply because that person wasn't on the original ticket. To resolve this, enabling "Ignore the sender email address while threading replies to tickets" in the Advanced settings under Admin > Emails will allow replies from users on the distribution list to be appended to the original ticket.



Note: It is recommended to disable this option to ensure that email threading works correctly and no duplicate tickets are created. You can also refer to this video.


Ignore the ticket ids in the subject line while threading replies to tickets


Enable this option to choose the threading method for your tickets. If you enable this option, Freshdesk ignores the ticket ID in the subject line of the email, instead the ticket replies will be threaded based on the message ID or the span tags present in the email.

Detect automated replies


Enable this option to automatically identify automated replies in the ticket and not consider them as customer responses. This means if this option is enabled, the automated replies configured by customers will not be received at the support email address.

Enable all messages to be included as part of quoted text for agent replies


Enable this option to include all the previous messages of the ticket as part of the quoted text in agent replies. If disabled, only four messages will be included in the quoted text. Click the three dots at the bottom of the reply page to see the quoted text.




Notes: 

Agents can send up to 1MB of quoted replies when enabled this option

In case you do not want to send quoted text in any of your agent replies, you can make use of Remove quoted text app. Article for help.


Create a new ticket when subject line changes


If you enable this option, ticket replies will not be threaded to the existing ticket when the subject line changes, instead, a new ticket will be created.