Redundant Email Notifications

There are a couple of situations where email notifications are sent out that I feel are unnecessary.

We have notifications enabled for the group when a request is assigned to the the group and to the technician when a request is assigned to them. Often a ticket is assigned to the group and individual technician at the same time. I'd like to request that a check be put in place so that an email is not sent to the group if the technician field is populated.
We also have the notification enabled to email the technician when the requester replies to the ticket. Occasionally, a technician will create a request with themselves as the requester and technician for tracking purposes. When the technician/requester sends a reply to the ticket to record some information, ServiceDesk Plus sees the reply as coming from the requester and sends a notice to the technician, which in this case is the same person. Can a check be put in place for this that will not send notifications if the requester and technician are the same person.

Thanks,
Sheila