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Ticket Automations

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Ticket Automations are used to create rules and conditions for Tickets, then perform a certain action for those Tickets that meet the criteria. For example, if a ticket isn't updated in four hours, send an alert in Slack. You can setup an Automation and then every hour or so they will run on all of your Open Tickets. They don't run "on the hour," but they will run every hour.

What it does

  • A Ticket Automation will run a maximum of 5 times per Ticket, and then no longer run.
  • You can also use HTML to craft your email triggers to clients.
  • Lets you check multiple AND conditions and perform multiple actions—if condition 1 AND condition 2 are true, then do actions 1 and 2.
  • Using conditions, can be configured to run only inside or outside business hours if you have business hours enabled.

What it doesn't do

  • Run on Resolved Tickets.
  • Let you have OR conditions.

Table of contents

 

Video tutorial

 

Getting Started

First navigate to Admin > Tickets - Ticket Automations to view a list of your current Automations. You can do a few things from here.

  1. Type a full or partial Automation name and click Search to find those matching that name.
  2. Start a New Ticket Automation.
  3. Show all disabled Automations.
  4. Click a name to edit the Automation.
  5. Shows which Tickets currently meet the criteria for this Automation to run.
  6. Run the Automation right now so that you don't have to wait an hour for it to run.
  7. Make a duplicate of the Automation so you can edit it to do something different.
  8. Delete the Automation.

 

Add/edit an Automation

  1. In the upper right, click New Ticket Automation to add a new one (or click an Automation name to edit an existing one).
  2. Fill in the Automation Name with a description of what you want it to do. If you do not enter a name, the Automation will be listed as Automation on the Ticket Automations page.
  3. Under the Conditions section, click the + button.
  4. Now add the condition you want tickets to match by selecting or entering values in the the left, (sometimes) middle, and right dropdowns or fields. See the list of conditions below for more details.
  5. You may click the next green + button to add as many new conditions as you like. These are AND conditions; i.e., "If condition 1 is true AND condition 2 is true, then..." We do not currently have a way to add OR conditions.
  6. If you need to delete a condition, on its right click the red X.
  7. Under the Run the Following Actions section, click the + button.
  8. Now select an action in the dropdown that appears and enter or select the values to use in the fields that appear. This action will be performed when the conditions are true for a ticket. See the list of actions below for more details.
  9. The Available Template Tags at the bottom shows all tags you can put in fields that allow you to type values. For example, you could put "We received a part for {{asset_name}} and will begin repairs" in the Body field of an email.
  10. Automations will keep running on the same tickets as long as the Conditions are met, up to 10 times. To run them only once on those tickets, add an Action to make a Condition no longer true. For example, if a Condition is "Ticket Status is New," have an Action be "Change Status: In Progress."
  11. As with conditions, you may click the next green + button to add as many new actions as you like. When the conditions are met, it will perform all the actions.
  12. If you need to delete an action, on its right click the red X.
  13. Once finished, click Save.
  14. You will return to the Ticket Automations page and your new Automation will within an hour, and then every hour after that. You can click Run Now by the Automation to immediately run it.

 

When the Automation runs


Once an Automation runs, it will post an update to each ticket's Communications log that met the Conditions.

 

Conditions

The Conditions are the criteria that the Tickets have to meet for this Automation to run. For example you could use the "Hours until due date" Condition to track which Tickets were getting close to their due date. You can also use multiple Conditions to track things like Tickets that are set to "Invoiced" that have not been updated in X hours.

These are all the Conditions available to use.

Left dropdown Middle dropdown Right dropdown or field
Assigned SLA is, is not Dropdown of SLAs defined in Admin > Tickets - Service Level Agreements
Assigned to is, is not Users dropdown
Business Hours N/A Only Run During Business Hours, Only Run Outside of Business Hours*
Due date is passed N/A Yes, No
Has SLA N/A Yes, No
Has a contact N/A Yes, No
Hours until due date N/A Enter hours (whole numbers only)
Not updated in hours N/A Enter hours (whole numbers only)
Part Order Received N/A Yes, No
Ticket Billing Status is, is not, contains Non-Billable, Invoiced, Partially Invoiced, Invoice Required
Ticket Issue Type is, is not Dropdown of Ticket Issue Types defined in Admin > Tickets - Preferences
Ticket Priority is, is not 0 Urgent, 1 High, 2 Normal, 3 Low
Ticket Status is, is not, contains Dropdown of Ticket Statuses defined in Admin > Tickets - Preferences
Ticket Subject is, is not, contains Enter subject
Ticket Type is, is not Dropdown of Ticket Custom Field Types defined in Admin > Tickets - Preferences > Ticket Custom Fields
Ticket last comment subject is, is not Approval, Arrival, Automated Remediation, Automation, Bounce, Completed, Contact, Contacted, Diagnosis, Estimate Approved, Estimate Declined, Initial Issue, Invoice Emailed, Issue, Other, Parts Order, Parts Update, SMS Failure, Upgrade

* Will only run outside of business hours if business hours are enabled.

 

Actions

The Actions are run on the Tickets that meet the criteria set up in Conditions. You can do things like have the system add comments and change the Ticket info such as priority. You can also use multiple Actions. See an example Automation below.

These are all the Actions available to use and what they do.

Action dropdown Fields/values to enter What it does
Add Private Comment Select Update Subject dropdown, enter comment to post in Body Adds a private comment to the ticket's Communications log.
Add Public Comment Select Update Subject dropdown, optionally check Send SMS box, enter comment to post in Body Adds a public comment to the ticket's Communications log, emails the customer, and optionally sends an SMS to the customer. This is the same as sending an Email in the Communications section of a ticket.
Assign to Select User in dropdown Assigns ticket to the selected User.
Change Priority 0 Urgent, 1 High, 2 Normal, 3 Low Updates the ticket's priority.
Change Status Select Status from dropdown Updates the ticket's Status.
Email Assignee Enter Subject, optionally BCC email address, Body text Emails the assigned tech.
Email custom email address Enter email address in To, Subject, optionally BCC email address, Body text Sends an email to an address of your choosing. You can add multiple email addresses separated by commas or semicolons.
Email customer/contact Enter Subject, optionally BCC email address, Body text Emails the customer or contact. You can add multiple BCC email addresses separated by commas or semicolons. Note that it does not post the message to the ticket's Communications log, but only that it performed the Action. Check the Admin > Reports > Email and SMS - Communications Summary report to see the message sent.
Fire "Ticket Automation Triggered" notification N/A Based on the Ticket - Automation was triggered settings in the Notification Center, it sends the selected notifications (Email, SMS, etc.) to selected users.
Post to Slack Enter the Slack Webhook URL and Message Posts a message to Slack.
SMS Public Comment Select an Update Subject, enter message to send in Body Adds a public comment to the ticket's Communications log and sends an SMS to the customer.
Send Manual SMS Enter a valid SMS To number and a Message Sends an SMS to the number entered. You can only enter a single phone number.
Update Due Date Enter the number of hours to Extend either From the Due Date or When (the Automation is) Triggered Updates the ticket's Due Date.
Update Ticket N/A Enters the current timestamp in ticket's Last Updated field. Two possible uses:
1. Force a ticket update to trigger notifications found in Admin > Notification Center.
2. Re-trigger automations looking for tickets not updated in X amount of time.

 

Example Automation

Here is an example Ticket Automation that you can use to see how a Ticket Automation might look. When the Conditions find invoiced but unpaid Tickets that have been open for too long, it will send an email to the customer as well as the assignee.

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