Creating and managing triggers for Answer Bot

Once you’ve enabled Answer Bot, you can create triggers to direct Answer Bot to send results to your end users, and update existing triggers to do the same. Trigger conditions determine when Answer Bot's Article Recommendations are sent to an end user, and trigger actions determine what information is included in the email response.

This article discusses the following topics:

• Creating new triggers for Answer Bot
• Converting an existing trigger for Answer Bot

Related articles:

• Using Article Recommendations in email notifications
• Best practices: Setting up Answer Bot triggers, views, and workflows
• Answer Bot resources

Creating new triggers for Answer Bot

If you're creating a new trigger, make sure you're familiar with the process. See Creating and managing triggers for information.

To create a trigger that includes Answer Bot

1. In Admin Center, click the Objects and rules icon () in the sidebar, then select Business rules > Triggers.
2. Click Add trigger.
3. Create the trigger conditions. For example, you may want to have Answer Bot send an email with suggested articles to an end user as soon as they submit a help request, but only from a mobile device. That trigger would include the following conditions:
   • Ticket | Is | Created

     AND

   • Requester: Role | Is | (end user)

     AND

   • Ticket: Status | Is | New

     AND

   • Ticket: Channel | Is | Mobile
4. Next, configure the trigger to perform the following action:
   • Notifications: Answer Bot | (requester)

     This establishes that all tickets that meet the above conditions will send your Answer Bot email (see below) to the ticket requester.

5. When you select Answer Bot from the Actions drop-down, the Answer Bot email field appears:

   

6. Fill out the subject and body text you want to include in the Answer Bot email. Use the following placeholders to customize the email text. You can also click View available placeholders to view and copy placeholder text:
   • {{answer_bot.article_list}}

     Required. You must include this placeholder for the feature to work. This placeholder adds a list of up to three articles that best match the request, links to those articles, and inserts buttons the end user can use to choose which article solved the request.

     Note: This placeholder includes two pieces of text that are determined by the user's profile language: The header Do any of these articles answer your question?, and the two buttons located underneath each suggested article Yes, close my request and View article.
   • {{answer_bot.first_article_body}}

     Optional. This placeholder renders the first matching article (full HTML) into the email body, allowing end users to read the article and solve their problem without needing to leave the email experience.

   • {{answer_bot.article_count}}

     Optional. This placeholder allows you to create an optional condition to send different body copy to customers based on how many articles are returned, for example:

     {% if answer_bot.article_count > 0 %} 
         Here are some great articles that may help:
         {{answer_bot.article_list}}
         {{answer_bot.first_article_body}}
     {% endif %}

     Note: Answer Bot is not compatible with the {{header}} placeholder, which is an unsupported and deprecated placeholder that some customers may still be using in their HTML Email Template. The HTML Email template can be found in Admin Center, by clicking the Channels icon () in the sidebar, then selecting Talk and email > Email and scrolling to the Email templates section.

     While this placeholder currently functions with standard email notifications, it produces a malformed header in Answer Bot Notifications. To resolve the issue, remove this {{header}} placeholder from the Zendesk HTML Email template. To replicate the look and feel of this placeholder, you can add the following code (with appropriate styling added as desired) to the Email Body section of your account's Notify Requester triggers.

      <a href="{{ticket.link}}">Ticket #{{ticket.id}}: {{ticket.title}}</a>

7. In the section Configure article labels and test Answer Bot, click Configure and test to filter the list of offered help center articles based on labels:

   

   • Ticket brand: Use the drop-down to select a brand to run the test on. The brand selected here is purely for testing purposes, and will not be added to the trigger you are creating.
   • Ticket subject: This field is used to test the articles returned when a ticket is filed with this subject.
   • Ticket description: Enter a short description of seven or more words, written from the ticket submitter's perspective.
   • Article restrictions by label: Enter labels you want to use to filter the articles. As you type into the tag field, autocomplete displays available labels beginning with the same word or characters. Any articles with any of these labels will be used as potential Answer Bot articles.
8. Click Show suggested answers for a list of articles the user may receive if these labels are applied when submitting a similar ticket. If you approve, click Apply labels; if you don't, edit the entries and try again, or click Cancel.
9. Click Submit.

The new trigger appears in the list on the triggers page, as well as on the Answer Bot admin page.

Converting an existing trigger for Answer Bot

If you're editing triggers, make sure you're familiar with the process. See Creating and managing triggers for information.

To convert an existing trigger for Answer Bot

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Answer Bot.
2. Find the trigger you'd like to convert from the Recommended triggers list. If your trigger is not listed there, it likely doesn’t meet the essential conditions needed for Answer Bot triggers.

   

3. When you've found the trigger you want to convert, click the Edit button. The trigger's edit page opens.
4. In the triggers Actions section, click the Convert to Answer Bot button.

   

   This updates the trigger, including adding the Answer Bot placeholders into the email body.

5. Edit the email as needed, and click Save. The trigger now includes Answer Bot functionality.