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Managing Additional Ticket Contacts in Autotask

Overview​

This guide explains how Autotask handles ticket contacts, additional contacts, and email notifications. It addresses common questions about ensuring all relevant parties receive ticket updates via email.

How Autotask Handles Ticket Contacts​

Autotask has specific limitations regarding how contacts can be associated with tickets and how email notifications work:

  1. Each ticket has a primary contact
  2. Tickets can have multiple additional contacts
  3. Email notifications for ticket updates are automatically sent only to the primary contact and additional contacts

Common Question: Adding CC Recipients to Ticket Notifications​

A frequent question from users is how to ensure that people who were CC'd on an original email will continue to receive updates about the ticket.

Example Question: "How can emails we receive with multiple CC recipients have those recipients added to Autotask's additional contact area? I don't want those additional contacts added as contacts to Autotask, just added on a per-ticket basis so those who were CC'd on the original ticket receive the same updates as the primary ticket contact."

Important Limitations to Understand​

Contacts Must Exist in Autotask​

The key limitation: To add someone as an additional contact on a ticket, they must first exist as a contact in Autotask associated with the same account as the ticket.

There is no way to add an email address as an additional contact without first creating that person as a full contact in Autotask.

Account Association Requirements​

Contacts can only be associated with tickets that belong to the same account as the contact:

  • If a person needs to receive notifications for tickets across multiple accounts, you must create separate contact records for that person in each account
  • This means you may end up with multiple contacts in Autotask (associated with different accounts) all sharing the same email address

Common Scenarios and Solutions​

Scenario: Vendor Needs Access to Multiple Customer Tickets​

When a vendor works with multiple of your customers:

  1. Standard Approach: Create separate contact records for the vendor in each customer account
  2. Drawback: This creates duplicate contacts with the same email address across multiple accounts

Scenario: CC Recipients Need Ticket Updates​

When someone was CC'd on the original email that created a ticket:

  1. Requirement: They must be added as a contact in Autotask to receive automatic updates
  2. No Temporary Solution: Autotask doesn't support "temporary" additional contacts that aren't full contacts in the system

Alternative Approaches​

1. Manual CC on Each Update​

  • When adding ticket notes or time entries, Autotask allows you to manually enter any email address in the CC field
  • Limitation: This requires manual entry each time and relies on users remembering to add the email address

2. Autotask Workflow Rules​

  • Create workflow rules that automatically send email notifications to specific email addresses when tickets are updated
  • Use Case: Good for consistently notifying vendors about ticket updates for specific accounts
  • Limitation: Less precise than per-ticket notifications and applies broadly to all tickets matching the rule criteria

Conclusion​

While Autotask provides several methods for managing ticket notifications, the system requires that additional contacts exist as full contacts in Autotask associated with the ticket's account. There is currently no way to add "temporary" additional contacts or to automatically include CC recipients without creating them as contacts.

For the most reliable notification system, we recommend creating the necessary contacts in Autotask, even if this results in some duplication across accounts.