Using macros to update tickets

You can simply and effectively streamline your workflow by creating macros for support requests that can be answered with a single, standard response. This saves you the time and effort of crafting a separate response to each customer with the same issue.

This article contains the following sections:

• Macros to get you started
• Applying macros to tickets
• Previewing macros (Enterprise only)

Related articles:

• Creating macros for tickets
• Building macro action statements
• Creating macros from existing tickets
• Organizing and managing your macros

Macros to get you started

There are a number of macros you can use to get started, including:

• Close and redirect to topics

  This sets the ticket status to closed. If it is an incident of a known problem, the requester will be informed via a comment that the ticket has been closed and recommended that they visit the forums for more information about the incident.

• Customer not responding

  This is a reminder that can be sent to the requester if they have not responded to a request for more information on a pending ticket.

• Downgrade and inform

  This tells the requester that the priority of their request has been downgraded to low and that there may be some delay in resolving their request.

• Take it!

  This macro is a shortcut for agents to assign a new request to themselves.

These macros can be used as is, edited, or cloned, so you can modify and repurpose them as needed.

Applying macros to tickets

You can manually apply one or more macros to a ticket at once. Keep in mind that what one macro does can easily be undone by another macro.

Just as you can make bulk updates to many tickets at once, you can also apply a macro to more than one ticket using your views. See Managing tickets in bulk.

So why would you apply more than one macro? A typical use case is a ticket that contains more than one question or issue, let's say two in this example. You might have set up two macros that both insert a comment into a ticket to answer each issue separately. By applying each macro to the ticket, you add two comments and address both issues in a single response.

Tip: Fine Tuning: Learn how to improve your agents' productivity in Sylviana Ho's Fine Tuning: Agent Productivity.

To apply a macro

1. In a ticket , click the Apply macro button in the bottom toolbar.

   

2. Typically, your five most commonly used macros from the past week appear at the top of the macros list.

   

   You can select one of these, begin typing the name of the macro, or scroll through the list to find the one you want to use.

   The most-used macros display can be disabled, in which case, you'll only see the all macros list. For information, see Disabling the most-used macros option.

   Note: Macros cannot be set up for specific channels.

   The actions defined in the macro will be applied. If the macro updated the ticket comment, you can edit the text before submitting the ticket.

3. To apply another macro, click Apply macro again and select another macro.
   Tip: Fine Tuning: Check out how we use macros to manage tickets with Jilliana Peterson's Fine Tuning: How Zendesk uses Zendesk, Part 1.

Previewing macros (Enterprise only)

Enterprise customers have the option to view a description of a macro, and preview the update it will make to a ticket, before applying it.

To preview and apply a macro

1. In a ticket, click the Apply macro button in the bottom toolbar.

   

2. Scroll through the list to locate the macro you want to use.
3. Hover your cursor over the macro to display its description tooltip.

   

   If the macro does not have a description, the tooltip does not appear.

4. If the description matches the macro you want to apply, open the macro preview by clicking the Open preview icon (), or shift + enter on your keyboard.

   

   The preview shows the macro's title and description, as well as all of the fields and elements the macro will change, add, or remove, including:

   • Ticket fields
   • Comments, replies, or notes (including placeholders and dynamic content)
   • Attachments
5. If the macro looks correct, click the Apply Macro button.

   You can also click the Cancel button to return to the ticket screen, or click Open in Settings to view the macro's settings page.