Preventing agents from starting side conversations

Some agents should not be contacting suppliers directly. That is a role permission rather than a setting on the feature.

Some agents should not be contacting suppliers directly. That is a role permission rather than a setting on the feature.

Restrict it

1. Open Admin Center, then People, then Roles.
2. Edit the role you want to limit. This needs a custom role, so it is an Enterprise capability on standalone Support.
3. Find the side conversation permissions and remove the ability to start or reply.
4. Save. Agents in that role keep seeing existing side conversations but cannot add to them.

When this is the right control

• An outsourced or first-line team that should escalate internally rather than contacting your suppliers.
• New agents during their first weeks.
• Regulated communication, where any message leaving the organisation needs to come from a named group.

Give them a route

Removing the ability without providing an alternative produces agents copying and pasting into their own mailbox, which is exactly the behaviour side conversations were meant to end.

The usual answer is child tickets: they can hand work to another team inside Zendesk, and that team owns the outside contact.

See also

• Child tickets from a side conversation
• Creating custom roles