This article provides examples of how you can use automation rules that run on ticket creation.  

The automation rules for ticket creation are triggered for each incoming ticket and are executed based on the conditions and actions specified in the rule.


For a general overview of Automation Rules for ticket creation, refer to Setting up automation rules to run on Ticket Creation.


In this article, we talk about the following examples, 


Assigning to the right group or agent


Once a ticket goes to a group, you can automatically route it based on agent availability, skill, and bandwidth using automatic ticket routing. For more information, read this article. 


Automations are used predominantly to ensure a ticket is assigned to the right group. We recommend using routing for assigning tickets to agents. 

How to automatically assign tickets of a specific language to a specific agent/group?


Consider a scenario where you have a business spanning multiple geographies that cater to a multilingual customer base. Using automation rules on ticket creation, you can directly assign tickets from each language to a specific agent/group. 


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.

  3. Choose the following conditions and actions:

    Condition: In Contacts > Requester Language > Is. Then, choose the language from the list.
    Action: Assign to agent/group and choose the agent or group name.

  4. Click Preview and Save.

  5. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable. 

How can I assign all or specific incoming tickets to a particular agent on the portal?


For assigning all the tickets to one particular agent, you can set the condition to check if 'Priority' is 'Low', 'Medium', 'High', or 'Urgent' (include all 4 priorities), so that the automation runs on all incoming tickets.


To streamline ticket distribution by assigning all incoming tickets or specific types to a designated agent based on defined criteria, use the following condition and action:


Condition: In Tickets > If Priority > is > Low, Medium, High, Urgent

Action:  Assign to Agent > Saul

For assigning specific tickets to one particular agent (John Doe), apply the desired Conditions (can be based on either ticket, contact, and company fields) and set up the required Action block. Say you want the tickets with the subject containing the words ‘Article Feedback’ to be assigned to John Doe, the following condition and action setup can be used:


Condition: Subject contains 'Article Feedback'

Action: Assign to Agent > John Doe


How to automatically assign tickets from a specific email with a specific subject?


You can automatically assign tickets from a specific email with a specific subject to an agent or group of choice using automation rules. Use the following setup for Condition and Action:


Condition:

In tickets > if Requestor email > Is > xyz@example.com

AND

In Tickets > if Subject > Contains > XYZ tech

Action:

Assign to group > Select the group you want to assign the tickets to.



How to assign all new tickets to a specific agent?

Automatically update all the new tickets in your Freshdesk with a specific action through ticket creation automation. Following is the condition and action setup,

Condition:

In Tickets, > Priority > Is > Low, Medium, High and Urgent.

Action: Assign to agent > Agent name.

Automated Ticket Notifications

How to automatically send custom email notifications for different products?

When you set up multiple products in Freshdesk, you can customize your email notifications using automations to ensure that your outgoing messages reflect your brand voice. Here's how you can set it up.


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.

  3. Choose the following conditions and actions:

    Condition: In Tickets > If Product > Is. Then, choose the Product
    Action: Send email to requester. Compose the email subject and description



  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable. 



How to set up different ticket notifications for different customers?

For businesses managing multiple clients or customer segments, each requiring unique notifications or updates based on their preferences or service-level agreements,


You can turn OFF the automated email notifications (New ticket created) under Admin > Workflows > Email notifications > Requester notifications.


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name


If the ticket type is "refunds and exchanges," and you aim to send two separate email notifications: one to the QA team and another to the billing team, the following configurations can be used for condition and action,


Condition:


In tickets > If Type > is > Refunds and Exchanges


Action: 


Choose Send email to group and send separate emails to the QA and Billing teams under actions


  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable


How to automatically send custom email notification for new tickets from a specific requester?

Setting up custom email notifications for specific scenarios when tickets are created or updated helps agents save time and meet unique requests. Use the condition and action setup below to create a new custom ticket notification for tickets from a particular company or requester.


Condition:

In Tickets > If Requester email > Is > specify customer email address or domain


Action:

Select Send email to agent > Customize the email content as per your business requirement.

How to automatically send custom notifications to specific Slack channels?

When you need to keep a specific team or department informed about new tickets or updates within your Freshdesk through a dedicated Slack channel.


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.


Say you want to notify the Engineering team on Slack regarding feature requests,


Condition:

In Tickets > Type > Is > Feature Request
Action:

Select Push to Slack option from the dropdown > select the appropriate Slack channel in the Push to dropdown.

Enter your message under the Message block. You can customize the message with dynamic content using Insert Placeholder option.


  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable


Note: 

  1. Push to Slack option will appear in the dropdown only when Slack is integrated with the helpdesk.

When the automation rule pushes an update to the corresponding group in Slack, the message will contain the following:

  1. User Defined Message: This will be available as the first data element. It will have actual values for the dynamic placeholders used in the rule.

  2. Standard Freshdesk ticket data snippet: The standard data snippet contains the following: 

    1. Ticket ID and Subject as the header with link to the ticket in Freshdesk

    2. Requester Name

    3. Priority

    4. Name of the assigned agent

    5. Description of the ticket abbreviated to 120 characters

    6. The Slack message will also be color-coded in the sidebar based on ticket status for easy recognition. The following priorities have the respective colours - Urgent, High, Medium, and Low

Note: In case you are using dynamic variables to configure custom messages for Slack, use the following variables for ticket description, last public note, and last private note so that only the text content of the description and notes is sent to Slack, otherwise the html tags will get pushed to slack as well.

 

  • Use {{ticket.description_text}} in place of  {{ticket.description}}

  • Use  {{ticket.latest_public_comment_text}} in place of {{ticket.latest_public_comment}}

  • Use {{ticket.latest_private_comment_text}} in place of {{ticket.latest_private_comment}}

How to turn OFF the new ticket email notification for the requester based on the ticket's properties?


You can set up an automation rule to achieve this. For example, if you do not want the new ticket created notification to go out to customers reaching out to your support through 'Chat', use the following condition and action setup:


Condition:

In Tickets > If source > Is > Chat

Action:


Select Skip new ticket email notifications



How to send an email notification to a specific agent for all new tickets?


Automatically update all the new tickets in your Freshdesk with a specific action through ticket creation automation. Here’s how you can do it.

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

Condition:

In Tickets, > Priority > Is > Low, Medium, High and Urgent.

Action: Send email to agent > Agent name followed by the email Subject and Description 


If my customer replies from another ticketing system, that creates a notification loop. How do I break this loop?


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

  3. Choose the following condition and action


Condition: 

Choose Match ALL of the below

In tickets > If Requester email > is > support@domain.com (enter the customer's support email address here)

In tickets > If Subject or Description > contains > Ticket Received

Actions:

Skip New ticket email notifications

Mark as Spam

Click on Preview and Save, and then Save and enable.


How to get email notifications for all/specific tickets, when a customer replies on the ticket and you are not the assigned agent?

If you would like to be notified about any updates made to certain tickets that are not assigned to you or that you are not a part of, you can add yourself as a 'Watcher' by clicking on the star icon (or use the keyboard shortcut 'W') on the ticket page.

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

  3. Choose the following condition and action

Condition:

In tickets > if Requester email > is > sara@acmecorp.com

Action: 

Send 'Email to Agent' > Customize your email 

Alternatively, you can also add the corresponding agent as a watcher under Actions.


How to send automated messages outside Business hours?

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

  3. Choose the following condition and action


Condition

In tickets > If Created > During > Non-business hours > choose your business hours


Action:

Send email to requester > customize your email


To learn more about sending custom email notifications in Freshdesk, view the following videos on YouTube.

  1. Custom Email Notifications: Sending Emails Automatically to Requesters from a Specific Company

  2. Custom Email Notifications: How to Automatically Convey SLA Expectations to High-priority Customers

  3. Custom Email Notifications: Automatically Inform Customers to Email Another Support Email Address

Automated Spam Management

How can I block emails from a specific domain name as spam?

Consider a scenario where your support team is receiving an influx of spam emails from a particular domain, hindering productivity. You want to block these emails automatically to prevent them from cluttering your ticket system.


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.

  3. Say, the domain name is test.com or spam.com, choose the following condition and action:


Condition: In Tickets > If Requester email > Contains any of > test.com OR spam.com

Action: Mark as spam

  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable


How to automatically close a ticket or mark it as spam based on keywords?

Say the keywords you want to mark as spam are ‘Free offer’, ‘win a prize’, and ‘limited time offer’; the following configuration will be the condition and action,


Condition:

In tickets > If Subject or Description > contains > sample text
Action:

Set status as 'Closed' or 'Mark as Spam' or 'Delete the ticket' (based on your requirement)


How to move tickets from a particular contact to spam?

Suppose you receive continuous spam emails from a contact. In that case, the following Condition and Action can automatically mark tickets coming from the contact as Spam. 

Sample rule:


Condition: 

In Contacts > Requester Name/Requester Email > is Requester/Requester@abc.com


Action: 

Mark as Spam


Automated Ticket Tagging

How to add tags to a ticket automatically?

Consider a scenario where you need to categorize incoming tickets based on specific criteria, like urgency or topic, automating the tagging process can streamline ticket organization.


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.

  3. Say you want to add a tag to tickets with source as Phone,choose the following condition and action:

Condition:  In Tickets >  Add ticket properties for which you wish to add tags.

Action: Add tag > Choose action dropdown.


  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable


How to add tags to tickets by customer’s email domain?


Use the condition and action mentioned below, if you want to differentiate tickets based on the email domain they originate from, like handling tickets differently for different client companies.


Condition:

In Tickets > If Requester email > Contains any of > sauls.com

Action:

Add tag > Sauls



This sample rule will check the requester's email address for the domain @sauls.com and when the condition is satisfied, the tag 'Sauls' will be added to the ticket.

Note:

  1. You can do the same for required domains and create multiple rules.

  2. The order of the rules is important. Make sure to place the most important rules first on the list. For every incoming ticket, this automation will execute the first matching rule and stop.

  3. You can also choose Execute all matching rules option by clicking on the gear button above the rules list to execute all rules on tickets

Automated CC for Tickets

Can an email address be automatically added to the CC for new tickets?

Consider a scenario where certain stakeholders or team members need to stay informed about new tickets automatically, such as managers or supervisors wanting visibility into incoming issues. You can follow the below-mentioned steps to achieve this:

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.


Say you want to CC urgent tickets to a few supervisors, the following configuration will be the condition and action,

Condition:

In Tickets > If Priority > Is > Urgent

Action:

Add a CC > Add the required email address


  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable



How do I add an email to CC automatically, when the ticket comes from a specific company?


There might be cases where a third person, a delivery partner, or the point of contact from a customer wants to be looped in on any conversation for tickets raised by other members from their end. To meet this requirement,


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.


Conditions: 

In Companies > Company name > is ABC

Actions: 

Add CC > requester@domain.com


Adding CC automatically to an email.

Once you add the rules, here's how you can reorder them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt2VWBeuBU8&list=PLsYJ3BsyR4qGFujlW0iDtOBOf4IPVsAqt&index=14

How to filter out tickets that have a particular e-mail address in CC?

You may want to segregate or filter tickets based on specific email addresses included in the CC field, to prioritize or handle them differently. Use the below mentioned condition and action setup to achieve this:

 

Condition: 

In Ticket > If Ticket CC > is > sara@acmecorp.com

Action: 

Add tag > CC_tag


Go to the Tickets list page, and filter out tickets with the tag 'CC_tag', to display all tickets with that particular email address in CC.


How to add a watcher automatically to a ticket?

In instances where you need specific team members or experts to be automatically notified whenever certain types of tickets are created.


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.


Condition:

In tickets > Specify the requester's email address or any other required parameter
Action:

Add watcher > choose agent name


  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable


How do I delete some tickets automatically without having them in my ticket queue?


Consider scenarios where you receive test tickets or unwanted messages that clutter your queue, and you want to automate their removal without manual intervention.

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name.


Condition:

In tickets > Specify the requester's email address or any other required parameter OR If Subject or Description > contains > sample text


Action: Delete the ticket

  1. Click Preview and Save.

  2. After you preview the rule, click Save and enable

Note: You will be able to see these tickets in the trash. Click the hamburger menu on the tickets list page to go to the Trash view.

Can I forward tickets using an automation rule?

Consider a scenario where your customer support team receives escalated technical issues that require specialized attention from an external vendor or a dedicated team of experts. You want to ensure that any ticket marked as "Technical Escalation" is automatically forwarded to the vendor's support email for immediate resolution. In such cases, you can follow the below steps to forward tickets using an automation rule:


  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

Condition:

In Tickets > if Satus > Is > Waiting on Third Party

Action:

  1. Under the "Perform these actions" section, select "Forward" as the option in the dropdown.

  2. Enter the forwarding email address under the "To" textbox and mention the CC or BCC email addresses.

  3. Customize the email message under the "Description" section. 

  4. Choose the option to include the quoted text based on your business use case.

  5. Click on Preview and Save. For every rule you create, Freshdesk creates an automatic summary of the rule that makes reviewing the automation quick and easy. 

  6. Click on Save and Enable to get the rule working on upcoming tickets.

Can I make use of an automation rule that runs on Ticket creation to update custom fields?

With Freshdesk's automation, you can update your custom fields for incoming tickets based on specific business conditions. Let's take a real-world example. You can update a custom field based on the content of the ticket.

Say you want to update the value of the custom field, Billing Type to Refund, if the ticket type is Billing and the email subject contains the word ‘Refund’.

Here is how you can do it.

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

Condition:

In Tickets > If Type > Is > Billing.

Click on Add new condition, and choose In Tickets > Subject > contains > Refund

Action:

Select Billing Type > Refund

  1. Click on Preview and Save, and then Save and enable

Is there any way to automatically update the 'Type' of a ticket?

In scenarios where the type of ticket needs to be automatically updated based on certain keywords or content within the ticket.

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

  3. Choose the following condition and action


Condition:

In tickets > If Subject > Has any of these words > Issue or Refund


Action:

Set type as > Issue/Refund

How to restrict certain domains in Freshdesk?

You can control access to your Freshdesk account by allowing or restricting specific domains through, helpdesk restriction or through Automation rules.


Create an automation rule to delete tickets based on the email domains by following the steps below.

  1. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations

  2. Click New Rule from the Ticket Creation tab and enter the rule name 

  3. Choose the following condition and action


Condition:

Under the On tickets with these properties section, select In Tickets, then if Requester email, and Contains.

Enter the email domains that you wish to restrict.


Action:

Under the Perform these actions section, choose Delete the ticket option from the drop down.

Click Preview and Save, and then Save and enable.


How to send an attachment to the requester automatically?

You can configure an automation rule under Admin > Workflows > Automations > Ticket creation /Ticket updates > New rule to Add a Note/Reply to a ticket by triggering a webhook. Modify the webhook, to add an attachment in the note/reply so that this would be sent to the customer automatically. Click here to find detailed information on adding an attachment to a note or reply.