Automating your service desk

What is automation?

If you find your team stuck completing repetitive tasks or missing important request notifications, you can use automation to complete those tasks and send those alerts. Automation consists of rules that perform actions (e.g. alert agent) based on specific events (e.g. issue is created) and conditions (e.g. issue is high priority). 

On this page:

How to use it

Your service desk project comes with preset rule templates that you can use to quickly set up automation. You can also create a custom rule (essentially a blank rule template). Here are some ways that automation can help your team and your customers, and the preset rule templates used to do so: 

What automation doesRule template used

Alert a member of your team when a customer submits an urgent request

Be aware of urgent issues
Alert your team lead when a serious issue is about to breach one of your SLAsKeep on top of SLAs
Let your customers know when to expect a response from your team based on the priority of their ticketSet customer expectations
When a customer comments on a ticket, transition it to "Waiting on Support"; when your team comments, transition the ticket to "Waiting on Customer"Transition on comment
When a customer comments on a closed ticket, re-open it so your team can followup with more informationRe-open on customer comment

Automatically trigger specific actions on multiple incidents, based on the status of a linked problem

Update incident when a linked problem is transitioned

Automatically update issues received by email with the correct request type based on keywords present in the request summary or description.Triage requests sent by email

Set up a rule

  1. In your service desk project, proceed to Project administration > Automation and select Add your first automation rule (or New rule if you have previously created one). 
  2. Select a preset or custom rule template from the list and then select Next. You'll see the rule configuration screen.
  3. Edit the rule name and description as needed. The rule name will appear on the main automation settings page, so changing the name will help you more easily reference what each rule does.
  4. Fill in the WHEN, IF, THEN fields. Use Tips for customizing this rule for suggestions on what to enter in these fields.
  5. Select Options to set the "Run as" user, or the user who will appear to perform the rule's action on the service desk ticket:

    Note that the project default user can be set on the main automation settings page. Certain rules, such as those based on an SLA, cannot be run as the user who triggered the rule. You will simply be unable to select this option when that's the case. 
  6. In Options, check "Allow this rule to be triggered by other rules".
    This option is useful if you have a rule that results in a comment from your team (e.g. Set customer expectations), and want that comment to trigger another rule that transitions the issue back to the customer (e.g. Transition on comment). 
  7. Select Save and you're done!
Last modified on Jan 20, 2016

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