This article will explain what the CC field is, where it is used in BoldDesk, and how to configure the CC field settings in BoldDesk for the agent, customer portals, and support emails.

What is the CC field and where is it used?

The CC field is a field that is given for the purpose of providing additional notification support. It is primarily used at BoldDesk for ticket and forward ticket activities. When a ticket or activity is changed, email notification alerts are sent to the users who are associated with the ticket or activity. Those on the CC list will also receive a carbon copy of this email alert.

Check out this video for more.

Configuring the CC field settings in BoldDesk

To configure the CC field settings, follow the given steps:

1. Go to the Admin module > General settings.
   You will find a series of nested settings at the bottom of the General Settings page to customise the CC fields for the agent, customer portals, and support emails.

   
   
   

2. Based on the needs of your organization, you can customise the existing settings by enabling or disabling the different options available in these settings.

3. After making changes to these settings, click the Update button to save the changes.

Configuring the CC field settings

Follow the step below to configure the CC field settings:

1. To configure the CC field settings, turn on the Enable CC Fields option.
   

   
   
   

• If this option is enabled, agents and customers will be able to add or change CCs from the agent and customer portals, as well as from the support email replies.

• If it is disabled, even agents will be unable to add CCs to tickets and activities. Furthermore, other options in the CC field Settings will be unavailable for configuration.
  

  
  
  

• Disabling this feature will prevent the sending of email notifications to CC recipients on a ticket. Additionally, if a CC user replies to a ticket or a forward ticket activity via email while this setting is inactive, their message or comment will be marked as suspicious. Note that tickets that had CC recipients included before the deactivation of this setting will no longer send out CC notifications. These updated settings will be applicable to both existing and new tickets.

Configuring the CC field settings for the Customer Portal

To configure the CC field settings for the customer portal, follow the given steps.

1. Turn on the Enable CC Fields option to enable the CC field settings for the customer portal.

2. Enable the Edit CC field in the customer portal option to allow the users to edit the CC field in the customer portal.
   

   
   
   

• Users will be unable to add or edit CCs to tickets in the customer portal if the Edit CC field in the customer portal option is disabled. Furthermore, unless the user is an agent, they will not be able to open the tickets in which they are CC’d in the customer portal. Agents will be able to add CC to tickets via the agent portal.

3. If you wish to allow users to add a non-existing contact to a CC via the customer portal through the CC field update, enable the Allow users to add a new contact to the CC field via the customer portal option. If disabled, users will not be able to add a non-existing contact/customer in CC. They will be able to add only users who are already existing contacts in the portal.
   

   
   
   

Hide CC Field in Customer Portal Using Custom CSS

You can hide the CC field in the customer portal if you want to restrict customers from adding additional recipients. This customization is useful for organizations that prefer controlled communication.
Steps:

• Navigate to Admin → Customer Portal → Customization → Custom CSS.
• Add the following CSS:

.product-header .cc {
   display: none;
} 

• Click Save to apply the changes. Once saved, the CC field will be hidden from the customer portal ticket submission form.

Configuring the CC field settings for Support Emails

To configure the CC field settings for support emails, follow the steps given:

1. Turn on the Enable CC Fields option to enable the CC field settings for the support emails.

2. Enable the Allow users to add CCs via email option to allow the users to update the CC fields via support emails.
   

   
   
   

• If this option is disabled, then the CC field will not be updated in the ticket or activity through the email replies. Any CC added via email will be dropped and will not be added in the ticket.

3. If you wish to allow users to add a non-existing contact in your portal to the CCs from support emails, then enable the Allow users to add a new contact to the CC field via email option. When disabled, only existing contact CCs can be included through email, and no new user accounts will be created for CC recipients non-existent in the system; their CC information will be dropped.
   

   
   
   

Allowing CC Contacts to Reply to Tickets in BoldDesk

CC contacts can be allowed to participate in ticket conversations in BoldDesk based on your ticket update settings. They can reply either through the Customer Portal or by responding to support emails.

CCs Reply via the Customer Portal

By default, CC contacts can access the Customer Portal and navigate to Tickets → I’m CC’d on to view tickets where they are included as CC recipients. They can open any ticket they are cc’d on and select Add Reply to submit a comment. If the Restrict CC users from updating tickets via the customer portal setting is enabled, CC contacts will be prevented from adding replies through the portal.

Replying via Email

When CC contacts receive a ticket notification email from the BoldDesk support address, they can respond directly to that email. Their reply will be added to the ticket as a public response, even if portal restrictions for CC users are enabled.

Permissions to manage the CC field settings

To manage these CC field settings, an agent should have the Manage Settings permission assigned to his or her role.
Explore further instruction about Managing Roles and Permissions in BoldDesk.

Permissions to edit CCs in tickets

An agent must have the Edit CC permission granted to his or her role in order to modify the CC field in BoldDesk.

If the agent’s role does not have this Edit CC permission, then the CC field will be displayed as read-only.

Prevent unintended CC recipients from receiving ticket reply emails

When a ticket contains CC recipients, BoldDesk can send reply notifications to those CC recipients based on your email notification configuration and CC field settings. CC recipients are stored on the ticket (not in your email client), so removing people from the CC line in Outlook does not automatically remove them from the ticket’s CC list.

• The CC field in BoldDesk is designed for “additional notification support.” If a user is listed in the ticket’s CC field, they can receive email notifications when the ticket is updated if the email notification event for contacts’ specific event is enabled.
• If you originally created the ticket with CC recipients, those recipients remain on the ticket until they are manually removed from the BoldDesk portal (or email notification is disabled).

Fix option A (recommended): Remove the unwanted CC recipients from the ticket

1. Open the ticket in the Agent/Customer Portal.
2. Locate the CC field and remove the email addresses that should no longer receive updates.
3. Save/update the ticket.

This prevents those removed recipients from continuing to receive ticket reply emails, because CC notifications are tied to the ticket’s CC list.

Fix option B (global): Disable CC notifications by disabling CC fields

If your use case requires that CC recipients should never receive ticket notifications, you can disable CC fields globally:

1. Go to Admin → General settings.
2. Disable Enable CC Fields.
3. Click Update.

Behavior note: When CC fields are disabled, BoldDesk stops sending notifications to CC recipients (and CC replies may be treated as suspicious while CC fields are inactive).

Fix option C (targeted delivery): Send emails without CC recipients using triggers (global event impact)

If you want to reply to the requester without including CC recipients, BoldDesk supports a trigger-based approach:

• Disable the default email notification event and replace it with a trigger that emails only the intended recipient.

For ticket updates by agents:

1. Go to Admin → Email Notifications → Contact tab.
2. Disable Tickets Replied By Agent.
3. Create an Update Ticket Trigger that sends email to only the requester.

Learn more on Using Triggers to Send Custom Email Notifications.

Use Forward Ticket instead of replying with CC

If you need internal or third‑party approval (for example, finance approval) and want to control exactly who sees the message, use Forward Ticket:

• Forwarding sends the ticket (or a specific message) to selected external recipients by email.
• Replies from forwarded recipients are captured back into BoldDesk as a Forward activity, allowing you to track the response without exposing the ticket thread to unintended CC recipients.
  Forwarding prerequisites (email notifications):
  Enable the Forward activity email notifications:
• Ticket Forward Activity Created
• Ticket Forward Activity Replied
  in Admin → Email Notification → Contact tab.

Subject control:
When forwarding, you can customize the forwarded email’s Subject and Description to match your business context (for example, include an internal job number).

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What happens if I disable CC fields?
   All CC-related notifications stop, and replies from CC recipients are flagged as suspicious.

2. Can customers add new contacts to CC?
   Yes. If “Allow users to add a new contact to the CC field via Customer Portal” is enabled, the new contact will be added to your contact list. Similarly, if “Allow users to add a new contact to the CC field via Email” is enabled, new contacts can be added through the CC field in emails.

3. How do I hide CC fields without disabling them?
   Use Custom CSS in the Customer Portal settings to hide the CC field.

4. Do CC recipients need BoldDesk accounts?
   No. CC recipients do not need a BoldDesk account. They can be external contacts, as long as the setting that allows adding new contacts to the CC field is enabled.

5. Why is the CC field read-only for some agents?
   Their role lacks the Edit CC permission.

Related Articles

1. How to Add CCs to Tickets in the Customer Portal
2. How to Find CC’d Tickets and Organization Tickets
3. How to Add CCs to Tickets in BoldDesk