Question
How can I automatically assign a follow-up ticket to the agent that was assigned when the ticket closed?
Answer
By default, you can not assign a follow-up ticket to the assignee of the ticket at the moment they closed. As a workaround, create a workflow through the use of triggers and tags to achieve this goal.
To set up this workflow you need to create three triggers:
Adding agent tags to tickets
The first trigger you need to set up adds agent tags to tickets automatically.
To add agent tags to a ticket with a trigger
- Create a new trigger.
- Add the following conditions under Meet ALL of the following conditions:
- Ticket | Is | Updated
- Assignee | Changed to | (agent name)
- Add tags | (agent name)
Find below an example of what your trigger looks like.
Auto-assigning a follow-up ticket
Create a trigger that auto-assigns any follow-up ticket to the desired agent. This trigger utilizes the tag that your first trigger applies to indicate who the ticket should be assigned to.
To auto assign a follow-up ticket with a trigger
- Create a new trigger.
- Add the following conditions under Meet ALL of the following conditions:
- Ticket | Is | Created
- Channel | Is | Closed ticket
- Tags | Contains at least one of the following | (agent name)
- Assignee | (agent name)
Find below an example of what the trigger looks like.
Removing a tag from an agent
The last trigger is designed to remove an agent tag, in the event that the ticket gets reassigned to a different agent.
To remove a tag from an agent using a trigger
- Create a new trigger.
- Add the following conditions under Meet ALL of the following conditions:
- Ticket | Is | Updated
- Assignee | Changed from | (agent name)
- Remove tags | (agent name)
Below is an example of what your trigger could look like:
11 Comments
Is there no way to do this based on the assignee of the original ticket? This is a very convoluted way to do this since it will have to be two triggers for every agent we want this to work for and that is not only time consuming. There is also the issue of multiple users updating a ticket breaking this logic. Instead of creating more work for your users, why not just add the option to assign follow ups to the original assignee as a default we can turn on or off?
Hey Jeremy! Thanks for the feedback!
We actually have a fairly active thread on this in our Product Feedback topic, which you can find here: Preserve Group and Assignee for user-generated follow-up tickets. The post has been around for a while and it looks like we haven't weighed in on it yet, but I'm going to check with our Product team to see if it's something that we're thinking about.
If you don't mind, it would be awesome if you could head over there to share your detailed use case! Any information you can provide really helps our Product Managers understand the problem that needs to be solved. You can check out our handy Product Feedback how-to post for some suggestions on how to make your post as useful has possible.
Has anyone implemented these triggers with the out-of-office app and gotten these triggers and the out-of-office app to play nicely together so that when the agent is out of office, he/she is not auto assigned a follow-up ticket?
User tag you mean, user=requester not user=assignee, because for assignee tags it's not working.
Hey Mindaugus!
In this case, a ticket tag is added via trigger when the ticket is assigned to an agent. This workflow doesn't user user tags.
We are getting assigned some follow up tickets, but we do not have any follow up workflows set-up. Any idea what default workflow or trigger could be generating the followup?
Hi Rob!
Follow-up tickets are generated any time an end user adds a comment to a ticket that is in Closed status. Closed tickets can't be re-opened or updated in anyway, so the system automatically creates a new one that links back to the original ticket.
As the customers' comment always has the string "This is a follow-up to your previous request" appended in follow-ups, this trigger rule should work (adjust based on your needs). I've just set this up in our environment.
A little late to the party here, but this would mean creating a ticket per assignee, and with agents coming and going and expanding teams, you'd need someone who simply administers all these triggers from time to time.
It would be great as a feature, to simply have a tick that when ticked allows you to have previously closed tickets followed up with the same agent, and if an agent is no longer working tickets - to not assign it at all and leave in the general queue.
Hello Bart,
We appreciate you sharing your thoughts about this! We do understand where you’re coming from and I think it is an opportunity for improvement.
Upon checking with the Product Team we don't have a specific timeline yet but this feedback has been added to the Product Board to look into it as a possibility in the future.
To simplify the first part of this, adding agent tags, one of our apps 'Agent Activity Tags' will handle this automatically for any number of agents. Note: this app is not a Zendesk made app and is not free ($0.75 per agent).
Actually, sorry, I just realized this will not work as it adds tags whenever an agent handles a ticket, even if not the assignee.
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