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Automation rules that run on ticket updates let you automate actions for real-time events that occur on tickets. It enables your agents to stay on top of things as they occur, eliminating the need to check for updates manually. For example, you can automatically reopen resolved tickets as soon as a customer replies or send an email to your supervisor when you receive a bad customer rating.


Unlike the rules that run on ticket creation (which runs on newly-created tickets) and the time trigger rules (which run once every hour and check all tickets), this automation rule is an event-based automation that constantly watches all activities in your helpdesk and matches them against the conditions you've specified.


This article details the overview of how automation rules on Ticket Updates work and the steps to configure them.


Tip: Check out this article to learn more examples and usecases for creating automation rules on ticket updates.



Understanding how automation rules on ticket updates work

To run an automation rule on Ticket Updates, you must specify:

  • Event performer: The person who triggers the action. For example, Agent, Requester, or System.
  • Event: The specific incident that occurs on tickets. For example, when customer feedback is received.
  • Condition: The criteria you set based on Ticket, Contact, or Company properties that need to match for the rule to activate.
  • Action: The response or action you want to trigger when the specified conditions are met.


So, an automation rule on ticket update executes and triggers an action when an event occurs on a ticket and matches a condition on Ticket, Contact, or Company properties. You can add multiple conditions based on the event and trigger multiple actions.


For example: 

When a customer feedback received is extremely dissatisfied (event),

If the Contact is a VIP customer (condition), 

then Change the priority of the ticket to urgent and send an email to the Escalation Group (Actions).


Events for which you can set up rules

Here are a few examples of ticket events based on which you can set up automation rules on ticket updates:

  • When a customer responds to a ticket
  • When an agent updates the ticket property from one state to another. For example, an agent changes the ticket priority from low to urgent.
  • When a ticket is deleted, updated, or marked as spam by agent.
  • When customer feedback is received. You can also specifically choose the type of feedback received (extremely satisfied/dissatisfied)

You can view the complete set of events while setting up the rule.


Conditions and Actions

The list of conditions that you can add varies based on Ticket, Company, or Contact parameters. With conditions, you can run automation only for certain customer segments, tickets with a particular property, etc. For example, under Tickets, you can have automation rules to run only for tickets in the group “ EU support” or in the product “ Acme”. Similarly, under contacts, you can choose the requester's name, email, timezone, etc. 


Based on the conditions set, you can trigger corresponding actions, ranging from sending emails to agents, changing the ticket status, or triggering a webhook. You can view the complete list of conditions and actions while setting up the rule.



Using pre-configured automation rules on ticket updates

To help you get started, Freshdesk provides a standard set of automation rules that automatically execute based on the specified conditions. You can choose to enable, disable, or modify them based on your requirements. To disable the rules, click on the toggle button next to the rule name.




Tip: Learn more examples and use cases for creating automation rules on ticket updates here.

Rule 1: Automatically assign ticket to first responder

When an agent replies to an unassigned ticket, this automation rule assigns the ticket to the agent so that they can continue to take ownership. Click on the rule to view or edit the rule.


Rule 2: Automatically reopen tickets when the customer responds

The recommended best practice is for agents to focus on ticket views that only have open tickets. This ensures a clutter-free view. When a customer responds, this automation rule automatically reopens the ticket, making it appear in an agent's open ticket view. This eliminates the need for agents to constantly monitor for customer responses.


To ensure not all tickets are reopened, the rule executes only if one of the conditional blocks match:

  • If the ticket status is not closed or resolved and if the incoming email is not an auto-response.
    or
  • If the incoming email is not an auto-response and if Freddy's suggestion is not Thank you Note.

If the above conditions match, the ticket will be automatically reopened, and an email will be sent to the assigned agent.


Click on the rule to view or edit the rule.


Rule 3: Add assigned agent as a watcher on the ticket

This rule lets you monitor and keep track of tickets that receive negative feedback and have a low health score.


The rule triggers when an agent updates the status of a ticket to pending (from any status) and if the associated company’s health score is “doing okay”, then the assigned agent will be automatically added as a watcher on the ticket.


Click on the rule to view or edit the rule.


Rule 4: Create a new ticket via Webhook on replies to closed tickets

Note: By default, the rule is disabled. You can enable it using the toggle button next to the rule name.


The rule triggers whenever a customer replies to a closed ticket and automatically creates a ticket via the webhook. To know more about using webhooks to create automation rules, refer to Using Webhooks.


Creating automation rules for ticket updates

  1. Log in to Freshdesk as an admin.
  2. Go to Admin > Workflows > Automations.

  3. Switch to the Ticket Updates tab. You can see a list of default rules created and enabled for you. You can choose to edit, clone, or delete them based on your requirements.

  4. To create a new rule, click New rule.
  5. Enter the rule name. To create an automation rule, you need to specify the following:

    • Event performer
    • Events
    • Conditions
    • Operators
    • Actions
  6. Choose the event performer:
    Specify if you want to create rules based on the actions performed by the Agent, Requester, or System. Note: The Requester can include any contact in the CC and BCC fields in the ticket.
  7. Choose the events
    Select the events for which you want to run the rule. For example, you can create rules when an agent changes the priority of a ticket from low or urgent. To add more events, click Add new event.

  8. Add conditions
    Select the parameter on which the rule should execute. You can choose from Tickets, Contacts, Company, and Threads. To add multiple conditions, click Add Condition.
    Also, specify if you want to match All the conditions or any one condition. Based on this, And/Or operators will be automatically selected.
  9. Add multiple condition blocks
    Use the Add new filter option to create two condition filters and use the AND/OR operators to determine whether the rule should be triggered by satisfying both or only one of the conditions. This enables you to utilize both operators to match your conditions.
  10. Choose Actions
    Select the action to trigger based on the events and conditions. For example, you can change the status of the tickets to Closed. To add multiple actions, click Add new action.
  11. Once you are done adding conditions and actions, click Preview and Save. A summary will be auto-generated, that gives a brief description of the rule. 
  12. Click Save and Enable to enable and run the rule.

Notes

  • You can create automation rules with custom objects. Once you create custom objects and associate them with tickets, you can view them in the conditions or actions drop-down options.

Viewing automation rule statistics

To evaluate the effectiveness of automation rules, you can check the following statistics against each rule:

  • View the number of tickets impacted by the rule in the last 7 days
  • The last modification date of the rule
  • The agent who made the last update


Cloning rules

If you want to reuse an existing rule but just modify a few conditions or actions, you can avoid creating a rule from scratch and instead clone an existing rule.


To clone a rule:

  1. Hover over an existing rule and click on the three dots next to the rule name, and select Clone.
  2. Make the required changes and save the rule.


Reordering Rules

If more than one rule is activated, you can use the Reorder option to reorder the rules. 

  1. Click Reorder.
  2. Select the rule you want to reorder.
  3. Place the rule in the right position.
  4. Finally, click Done.

Watch this video for an overview of this automation rule: