Creating and managing automations for time-based events

Automations are similar to triggers because both define conditions and actions that modify ticket properties and optionally send email notifications to customers and the support staff. Where they differ is that automations execute when a time event occurs after a ticket property was set or updated, rather than immediately after a ticket is created or updated.

Administrators on Team, Professional, or Enterprise can create, edit, and manage default and custom automations. Administrators on Essential have one default automation, which they cannot modify, and they cannot create custom triggers.

Note: Each business rule must be less than 65kb.

Topics covered in this article:

• Creating automations
• Editing and cloning automations
• Reordering your automations
• Deleting and deactivating automations

You can also watch this video:

What's Good: Business Rules (1:38)

Tip: If you want to learn more about setting up business rules to meet specific business needs, check out the Zendesk Support for Admins, II training course.

For an overview of automations, see About automations and how they work. For a list of default automations, About Zendesk Support default automations.

Creating automations

Administrators can create automations from scratch, as shown here, or create copies of existing automations and then modify and use them for some other purpose (see Editing and cloning automations).

Tip: Learn how automations can improve agent productivity in Sylviana Ho's Fine Tuning: Agent Productivity. And be sure to check out all our community tips for automations.

Note: Tickets that are not closed but have had more than 100 automations occur during the life of the ticket are excluded from the hourly automations run. To view events for a ticket, see Viewing all events of a ticket.

To add an automation

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Automations.
2. Select Add Automation.
3. Enter a title for your automation.
4. Add the conditions and actions for your automation.

   An automation is made up of three parts:

   • Conditions to be met for the automation to run (see Building automation condition statements)
   • Actions to perform when the conditions are met (see Building automation action statements)
   • At least one of the following: one action that cancels a condition after the conditions are met or a condition than can only be true once (see Ensuring your automation only runs once)
5. Test your automation by previewing the tickets that match the conditions that you have specified by selecting Preview match for the conditions.

   The automation will have no effect on any closed ticket listed in your preview.
   
   Each automation can act on a maximum of 1,000 tickets each hour. If there are more than 1,000 tickets where conditions are met for an automation, 1,000 tickets will be processed in that hour, and the remaining tickets will be processed during the next hour, if conditions are still met, or the hour after that, until all tickets are checked. On jobs that are very large it may take several hours to work through all of the tickets that would have otherwise been acted upon that first hour.

6. Save your new automation by clicking Add Automation.

 

 

Editing and cloning automations

You can edit and clone automations. Cloning an automation creates a copy that you can modify and use for some other purpose.

To edit an automation

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Automations.
2. Locate the automation you want to edit and select Edit.
3. Modify the title, conditions, and actions as needed.
4. Click Update Automation.

To clone an automation

You can create a copy of an existing automation to use as the basis of a new automation.

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Automations.
2. Locate the automation you want to clone and select Clone. This command appears when you move your mouse over the automation in the list of automation.
3. Enter a new name for your automation and modify the conditions and actions as needed.
4. Click Add Automation.

Reordering your automations

You can reorder your automations, but keep in mind that the order of your automations is important because all automations run (first to last) every hour. Actions in one automation may affect the actions in another.

To reorder the list of automations

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Automations.
2. Click Reorder. You’ll find this at the end of the list of active automations.
3. Click and drag automations to new locations as needed.
4. Click Done.

Deleting and deactivating automations

If you decide that you no longer need an automation you can either delete it or deactivate it. Deleting it of course means that it’s gone and can’t be retrieved. You can instead deactivate automations. Deactivated automations are listed in a separate table on Manage > Automations and can be reactivated if needed.

To delete an automation

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Automations.
2. Locate the automation you want to delete and select Edit.
3. Click Delete.

To deactivate/activate an automation

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Automations.
2. Locate the automation you want to deactivate and select Deactivate. This command appears when you move your mouse over the automation in the list of automations. The automation is deactivated and displayed in the list of inactive automations.
3. To reactivate the automation, select it from the list of inactive automations and select Activate.