Within Teamwork Desk, you can use ticket forwarding to connect your third party vendors into a ticket without giving them direct contact with your customers.

Forwarded messages will be created as child tickets of the original parent ticket. Child tickets can be:

  • Assigned to a different recipient (customer) than the original.
  • Associated with a different inbox than the original.
  • Assigned to a different agent than the original.

Note: Forwarding a ticket creates a new child ticket, therefore will count as one of a part-time agent's monthly 10-reply allowance.


Forwarding a ticket

When viewing an existing ticket, select the Forward tab at the top of the editor which allows you to forward the ticket to a third party email address.

Use the To field to type out the relevant recipient email address.

  • Desk will automatically make suggestions for any matching existing customers on your site as you type.
  • Use the Cc and Bcc options on the right to add additional addresses.





You can also enter a custom subject line. By default, it will inherit the parent ticket's ticket number and subject.

In the body area of the Forward editor, the previous replies of the original ticket will be included and can be edited or removed as needed.

  • You can also uncheck the Include ticket history option at the bottom of the editor to exclude the entire history from the forwarded message.

To add a new reply to the forwarded thread, type your message above the Forwarded message line.




For inboxes that have an email signature enabled, the signature will be included by default when forwarding a ticket. You can view the signature using the three dots at the bottom of the editor to expand the hidden content. 




Once you have prepared your forwarded message, click the Send Message button at the bottom of the editor.

The forwarded conversation will be created as a child ticket of the original parent ticket.




Viewing forwarded tickets

When you forward an existing ticket, the forwarded message will be created as a new separate child ticket.

In any inbox or tickets list view, child tickets (forwarded conversations) will be indicated with a blue forwarding arrow beside the subject.





The Messages tab of the original ticket will include an activity reference to a forward being created. You can click the ticket number to view the child ticket.




An additional Forwards tab will also become visible on the original ticket which will display any existing forwards created from the original. Clicking a ticket will open a quick preview panel on the right.




The Forwards tab will only show child tickets (forwarded tickets) that are associated with inboxes you have permission to access.




When viewing a child ticket, you will see a Forwarded conversation label at the top of the ticket view. Hovering over this label will show you a clickable ticket ID for the associated parent ticket.




You cannot forward an already forwarded conversation (child ticket). While viewing the ticket, the Forward tab will be locked.




When a third-party recipient replies to a child ticket (forwarded conversation), their response will be added as a regular reply on the child tickets.




Deleting original tickets

Forwarded conversations (child tickets) will remain in the Forwards tab of the original ticket as long as the original ticket exists on your site.

If the original parent ticket is deleted, you will be alerted before confirming deletion that the ticket has child tickets associated with it.

Once a parent ticket is deleted, the relationship with any child tickets is removed. The child tickets are not deleted and will remain on your site.







Forwarding exceptions

  • Tickets cannot be forwarded to email addresses that are already being used as inbox addresses in your Desk site as this would create a duplicate of the ticket in multiple inboxes. It is also not possible to forward tickets to addresses that are already being used as a Desk alias. 
  • Forwarded conversations (child tickets) cannot be forwarded.
  • Forwarded conversations (child tickets) cannot be merged.
  • Tickets cannot be forwarded from one inbox to another on the same site or another site.
  • If the private notifications option is enabled in your Advanced Security settings, forwarding will be disabled for all tickets on your site and the Forward tab will be locked in each ticket.
    • Note: This advanced security feature is available on Premium and Enterprise subscriptions.
  • Attachments from previous messages in a ticket will be included by default when forwarding.
    • The files will be listed at the bottom of the forward thread and you can use the x to the right of each file to exclude them.


    • These files will be available for download by anyone with the link and expire after 30 days.
    • Note: Total email size limit is 25MB including any attached files.

For more information, see: Creating a New Ticket or Message