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72 Comments

  • Ian

    Hi @... @... - is the following possible?

    I'm looking to use automation to add and remove a tag for organizations based on the initial onboarding -> launch period with our business, rather than using automations to shape a particular ticket's lifespan. 

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  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Hey @... - 

    While Triggers & Automations are focused on the lifecycle of a ticket, you could 'piggyback' off this process to update the user profile using Triggers, json and Notifying External Targets.  When an employee is onboarded, create a ticket with them as the requester... this is used to add the organization tag.  Then, when the initial onboarding period is complete, (x hours after a ticket is created), push an update to solve the ticket, which would be used to remove the tag.  It would look something like this:

    Trigger: Ticket is created, New Hire box is checked, notify target "Add Org Tag"

    Notify HTTP Target
    PUT: http://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/users/{{ticket.requester.id}}/tags

    { "tags": ["new_hire_org"]}

    Automation: Hours Since Created > X & New Hire Box Checked
    Uncheck New Hire Box, notify target "Remove Org Tag", Status: Solved

    DELETE: http://yoursubdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/users/{{ticket.requester.id}}/tags

    { "tags": ["new_hire_org"]}

    More information here: https://developer.zendesk.com/rest_api/docs/support/tags

    Hope this helps!

    Brandon

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  • henri.pakola

    I've been wondering why is one of our automations never executing. Now I found the answer: automations don't run on closed tickets. What good are conditions like this below if they mean that the automation will never execute? 

    We would use it to remove a certain tag from users after X days has passed since ticket closure. 

    1
  • Nathan Purcell

    Is there a community thread for requesting automations run more predictably? 

    To have them running "at some point" in the hour is quite difficult to work with in both testing and production and a more granular approach would be a great quality of life improvement. 

    2
  • Dave Dyson

    Hi Nathan -

    Yes, here: Automation Timers - ensuring predictability / removing edge cases

    Be sure to add as much detail to your comment as you can about the nature of the problem you face because of the unpredictability of automation timing: the problem that causes, how you get around it today, the level of business impact, and how you'd like to see it improved. Thanks!

    1
  • Nathan Purcell

    Cheers Dave - that post sums everything up pretty well. Hope this gets some traction as working with automations (particularly chaining and testing/dev) is very difficult right now. 

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  • Dave Dyson

    Thanks Nathan!

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  • Shweta Gupta

    Hi,

    Is there a way to set a trigger based on who the ticket was addressed to?

    Context: Customers often tend to address the tickets to agents with whom they have had a good experience. This need not be the last agent they interacted with. So if a customer reaches out to me:

    Hi Shweta 

    < Ticket content>

    Is there a way to automatically triage this based on the agent name it's been addressed to?

    Thanks.

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  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Hi Shweta

    It's not an exact science, but you should be able to Trigger an assignment based on keyword matching.

    Hope this helps!

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  • Permanently deleted user

    Why is it possible from the interface to select a close status to activate an automation if it doesn't work?

    Could you please remove what is not possible to do or allow this?

    It forces me to create an open ticket which makes my overall stats wrong.

    1
  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Hi @...,

    While you are correct that leveraging "status is closed," "status changed to closed" or "hours since closed" as a condition cannot yield an action on that ticket itself, you are able to create other actions around that event, such as notifications.  

    I'm not sure I understand your last statement regarding forcing you to create an open ticket.  If you could explain your use case a bit further, we may be able to offer additional assistance.

    Hope this helps!

    Brandon Tidd

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  • Permanently deleted user

    Brandon Tidd, you are probably right. Still, I can't send en email after a ticket is closed for X days. The interface allows me to configure that (no warning) but it doesn't work. Had to do this with an opened status ticket which drives to overall stats that are wrong.

    Why not testing correctly what is possible and what is not possible ?

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  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Hi @...,

    A ticket can be held in a new, pending or on-hold status indefinitely.  A ticket that is "resolved" can stay in a status of solved for up to 28 days - this is what I refer to as a soft close.  During this time, the ticket can be reopened and edited.  If it is reopened, the 28 day clock starts over the next time it is solved.  Once the ticket remains solved for 28 days without activity, it does move into a hard close status of "closed," from which point it can't be reopened or edited and the only option will be to create a new ticket.

    The logic here is that tickets are intended to be incident based - and if the incident has been solved for more than 4 weeks, any follow-up is most likely associated with a new occurrence of the issue.  More information about Solved Vs Closed can be found here. Hope this helps!

    Brandon

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  • Permanently deleted user

    Hello Brandon Tidd,

    This doesn't help at all.

    I'm saying the automation allows to create workflow that will never happen. This needs to be corrected (remove this possibility as well as others when some triggers are missing). No question here just a fact.

    Thanks anyway for the time.

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  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    @...

    Ahh thanks for the clarification.  Yes, I see what you're saying.  Automations will block you from creating a rule that will run every hour, but there is no safety net for creating a rule that will never run.  I would suggest cross-posting this over to our Community's Product Feedback section.

    Brandon

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  • Robert Houston

    I am having an issue with setting up a pending notification email to clients at intervals. 
    Ideally this will automate with additional stages that will end with closing a ticket. However, it doesn't do anything. If I put the ticket status before the hours it demands the ticket make a larger change. I don't need this to happen.

    I need

    • the status to stay pending
    • track the hours in business hours up to 9 days continuously
    • close the ticket after 3 attempts to contact the client with no response

    The only field that changes in the subsequent automations stage 1-3 is the amount of hours since the ticket was set to pending. Logically what I have should work but there appears to be some catch that I can't choose to ignore because Zendesk has it hard coded in that the status or priority must change for this to be allowed. Please advise. Thank you.

    1
  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Hi Robert Houston -

    In this case, "Hours since pending" will be cumulative, so you'll need 3 automations.  In this case, we will want to use greater than opposed to is, since automations don't always fire at exactly the top of the hour.  So your first automation would be "greater than 72" (3 days) the second would be "greater than 144" (6 days), and the last one would be "greater than 216" (9 days).  Something else to call out is that I notice your using business hours.  If you have a standard 8 hour business day, you'll need to adjust those down to 24 (8x3), 48 (8x6) and 72 (8x9) business hours, respectively.  You could also just use calendar hours and stick to the original hours. 

    Let's say, for example, your hours are 8A-4P M-F and a ticket comes in at 3PM on a Friday and is immediately responded to and put into a pending status by your support agent.  Under 24 business hours, the first automation would run around 3PM on Wednesday.  On 72 calendar hours the automation would run around 3PM on Monday.  On 72 Business Hours the first automation wouldn't run for 11 days (72 hours / 8 hours a day, excluding the weekend).

    One other thing to note when using greater than opposed to "is."  Since automations run every hour, you'll need a negating condition to stop the automation from running in hours 73, 74, 75 etc.  So, all together, this is what it looks like:

    Automation 1: If Status Pending & Business Hours Since Pending > 24 and contains none of the tags pending_notificaiton1, then send reminder #1 and add tag pending_notification1

    Automation 2: If Status Pending & Business Hours Since Pending > 48 and contains at least one of the tags pending_notification1 and contains none of the tags pending_notificaiton2, then send reminder #2 and add tag pending_notification2

    Automation 3: If Status Pending & Business Hours Since Pending > 72 and contains at least one of the tags pending_notification1 pending_notifcation2 and contains none of the tags pending_notificaiton3, then send reminder #3 and add tag pending_notification3 and set ticket to solved

    Lastly, you'll want a Trigger that 'resets the clock' if the end-user responds:

    Trigger, if ticket is updated and status changed from pending
    Remove tags pending_notification1, pending_notification2, pending_notification3.

    More information about this process can be found in the Bump Solve automation documentation.  Hope this helps!

    Brandon Tidd
    729 Solutions

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  • Robert Houston

    Hello Brandon Tidd,

    I have 4 automations set, all with increasing amounts of time. I also have an automation for when a client responds to set the status to open. The original pending automation was working then it just stopped. It isn't running at all.

    As an aside, I added tags to each stage and nothing happened. I even reordered the pending status and time to see if that had an effect. It doesn't appear to have.

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  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Product Manager Whisperer - 2021

    Hi Robert Houston,

    I believe it has to do with your condition that is set to "IS" rather than "Greater than" xxx hours.

    This is because automations run AROUND the top of the hour but not AT the top of the hour and can change slightly based on workloads on infrastructure.  

    If you change them to Greater than xxx hours you'll be fine BUT remember to do the tagging! Here's the recipe to follow: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832749210-Workflow-recipe-Sending-automated-ticket-reminders-to-customers 

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  • Robert Houston

    Heather Rommel

    I have added tags and a trigger for the initial change to pending in the hopes that this helps. This is the error I get now:

    Automation could not be updated as:

    • An automation that runs multiple times per ticket is not allowed. Use a time-based condition that is true only once (Hours since created is 24), or add an action that nullifies the condition. For example, a Priority is High condition paired with an action that sets the Priority to UrgentLearn more

    The ticket is identical to stage 1-3 with the exception of the hours and the specific tag it looks for and adds. Numerically ascending tags. This error does not appear if the time requirement is first and does not appear for the initial automation.

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  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Product Manager Whisperer - 2021

    Robert Houston

    You're going to want to add the pending_automated_2 tag to the "contains none of the following tags" condition. That's your nullifier the system is looking for.

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  • Robert Houston

    Heather Rommel

    I have implemented this. I will see if it works. Thank you.

     

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  • Brandon Tidd
    User Group Leader Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Humblident Award - 2021

    Thanks for the assist, Heather Rommel.  Glad you got it working Robert Houston

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  • Robert Houston

    Heather Rommel Brandon Tidd

    None of the automations are running. I remade 1 into an hour as a test, I changed nothing else and its run 8 times. Now I am extra confused. Also, is there a way to see tickets your automation has effected?

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  • Permanently deleted user

    Hi Robert Houston

    You can apply a marker to the ticket affected by the automation and then set a view based on this.

    Automation are not working well for me also.Zendesk should enhance this tool.

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  • Pablo

    Hello, thank you very much for the contributions. I want to set up different automations,

    in which I want to send internal notes,

    that come out from different senders.

    We have each configured different forms

    but the same recipient is always shown and we are both admins. Thanks a lot.

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  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Product Manager Whisperer - 2021

    Hi Pablo,

    I'm not aware of a way to send automations FROM a different user...

    Robert Houston,

    Hard to diagnose here, but how many pending tickets do you have right now?

    And can you post a screenshot of your "stage 1" automation?

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  • Robert Houston

    Heather Rommel
    These include the changes you suggested. Whats even stranger is that 2 of them ran this morning and only once. No clue what they did as the recently updated pending tickets remain unchanged.

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  • Heather Rommel
    Community Moderator
    Zendesk Luminary
    The Product Manager Whisperer - 2021

    Robert Houston,

    What's setting this pending_tag_automation tag on the ticket? This looks to me like you'd need this tag on the pending tickets in order to kick off the first one. Are you adding it in a trigger or something? Do you need it?

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  • Robert Houston

    Heather Rommel

    Its from a trigger that I made for when a ticket is changed to pending. It is meant to add a tag that the automation stage 1 could use to start or force start it. I can try deactivating it but it really shouldn't be an issue. The automation didn't work before or after.

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