NOTE: i see we can manually set customer notifications to none on the ticket. is there a NON manual way?

Welcome to ZSD and thank you for posting.

Though there are some notification configurations in privileges, most of the "notification" settings are at the Team level.
This is because each team may require different notifications as you mention.

There are generic "how to" notify the Customer and Technician and when a request is created / updated / escalated / closed.

When sending emails the system uses Templates for certain actions or states.

Reminder - notice the drop downs while in the templates.

• "Template" drop down, if you wish to use a preconfigured template
• "Insert Parameters" drop down, to automatically insert different details about the request to better personalize / clarify the email.

There are also Email Templates you can configure to when an action is taken on a request sending an email with a particular wording.

And a hidden gem - when a request enters a particular workflow "state" you can configure that "state" to "Send a Custom Email" .
Selecting the Lifecycle State will allow you to edit it's settings.

A request is entered for replacing a printer cartridge that had to be ordered. 
Once the cartridge is ordered and the request enters the "On Hold" state, an email can go out to say the order has been placed and we are waiting on the vendor. 

Let me know if this helps resolve your email sending requirements.

Be sure to check out the ZSD Customization Cookbook it is a compilation of Technical Information Documents (TIDs) from customers that reference different ways to configure for certain scenarios, branding and tools.

Feel free to email me for other questions.

Many thanks for your reply. The cookbook will be useful.

We are slowly moving forward and need advice on:

1- after hours? - All tkts will be created via email. ONLY the customer will get notified....BUT after hours we would like to have someone in IT emailed that a tkt has been submitted.  What are after hours best practices? can we disable/enable on a schedule the email polling?

2- the IP address is used in the email templates for the URL to services desk so we end up hard coding it. Is there a place we can change it to the hostname instead? not https://172.16.222.111/zsd   change to https://zsd83vm.domain.ca 

3- we would like all users (customers) to be able to resolve any of their tkts but some have option to add note and some have add note and resolve. We cant see why resolve isn't always available.?

Thanks again.

Great followup questions, I hope these answer effectively

1-After hours best practices 
ITIL practices are for ticket notifications are sent when opened this way the queue or technician has it available when they log in.
Email Polling can be adjusted by the minute interval but is not schedulable.  Great suggestion for scheduling, Add this to the Ideas Portal.

In the configuration you can set who gets notified but it doesn't distinguish time of day (afterhours).
The system does account for vacation and adjusts notifications depending on users leave settings.

2- This URL is formulated from the System Privilege
Check the Host address in the [Setup] > Setup > Privileges > System (Tab) | Host Address=https://zsd83vm.domain.ca 

3- Check the settings for the Customer - 
[Setup] > Setup > Privileges > Customer (Tab) | Service requests = Create And Edit

Idea added. Hostname Updated. Create and Edit Checked! THANKS!

Certificate issue.

I have try several ways to issue the cert but testing shows users get browser security errors like 'invalid security certificate'
Folllowing this doc: www.novell.com/.../certificates.html
"The Service Desk Appliance ships with a self-signed digital certificate. Instead of using this self-signed certificate, you must use a trusted server certificate that is signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA) "

I used the ZSD digital cert tool -> new cert -> created a cert request -> used our internal AD cert services "Certificate Authority" to issue using web server template. and tryed everything else i can think of........ still get error.

Should our Internal CA work ? 

Any thoughts appreciated.

To answer your question "Yes, your internal CA should work"..

I am not certificate savvy, but investigating details.

Asked development and they mentioned if your internal root CA is not distributed to the devices then the devices will nag about the security of any site not trusted. As long as the browser is not aware of the root CA, the browser will continue to complain.

The Internal root CA (or even External CA's) should be distributed to the local devices to achieve the trust needed. 
One way would be via MS Group Policy or other tools. 

Let me know if this helps or not.