Workflow rules

The purpose of Workflow rules is to monitor predefined help desk actions and when they meet certain conditions and criteria, workflow commands and email notifications are added to alter the ticket.

The predefined actions that are subject to automation are:

1. Request submissions,

2. Scheduled actions, and

3. Workflow ticket actions enabling Email notifications:

   • Customer actions: Reply, Close ticket
   • Agent actions: Reply, Close ticket, Assign, Log a Call.

For Request submissions and Scheduled actions, you can alter the following commands that are performed automatically based on conditions that you define:

• Move ticket into a specific queue
• Assign ticket to your best representative so they get the best service based on the ticket description
• Set the ticket deadline for unsolved tickets based on issue severity
• Add the ticket tags
• Change priority to higher or lower
• Send email notifications to selected recipients.

Request submission

The Customer actions table in Settings > Automation > Workflow rules, Request submission represents a set of rules and the corresponding actions for new requests submitted by Customers.

Customer is able to submit a request by two submission channels. For each channel, the corresponding workflow rules can be set:

• Submission Form, either by private or public form
• Email, when customer submits a request to inbound e-mail address.

For each submission channel you can edit the System ("Catch all") rule, or create a set of Custom workflow rules.

There are several notes about relation and difference between the two types:

1. The System rule doesn't have any conditions defined, and therefore is evaluated unconditionally, each time the action is performed. It can't be deleted.
2. If a set of Custom rules are created for an action, during the action execution they are evaluated in the order of priority from the lowest value to the highest value. The System rule is evaluated last.
3. During the rules execution, if a value is set in a rule's step, it will not be set in the next step.

The Request submission table contains number of settings and conditions set for each rule, and overview of notifications that will be delivered when the corresponding commands are performed.

To edit a rule, click the rule type (link), or click the (+) Add Custom rule button to create a custom submission rule.

Each workflow rule contains four groups of information available in the corresponding sections:

1. Rule Description.
2. If the following conditions are met: conditions under the commands or email notifications are performed.
3. Set these values: alter the ticket with certain values, if the conditions are met.
4. And notify with email: set recipients that will be notified about the action results using selected email template, if the conditions are met.

Description

The Description region contains the general rule information:

• Description - Enter the rule description for your own reference.
• Channel: Select the submission channel for which you set the rule:
  - Form, or
  - Email
• Rule priority - Determines order of evaluation and execution between several rules, if exist. During the execution of several rules, they are evaluated in the order of priority from the lowest value to the highest value. The lower value means higher priority.

Info

• To cancel the current rule edit and back to the Rules list, click the Cancel button.
• To submit changes, click the Save button.
• To delete the Custom customer rule, click the Delete button and confirm. The delete action is not reversible.

If the following conditions are met

The conditions are compared to request's values each time the request is submitted. The conditions are linked through AND logic, meaning all conditions must be met in order to alter the ticket and send corresponding email notifications.

Depending on the submission channel and the type of customer, there are restrictions about the conditional values:

• Inbound email: Email channel only
• Topic: Form channel only
• Customer and Customer group: For requests submitted by registered customers
• Customer name contains and Customer email contains: For requests submitted by nonregistered customers.

Set these values

Set the commands that alter the ticket, if the conditions above are met:

• Queue: Select Queue from the select list
• Assignee: Select Agent from the select list. Make sure the agent has permission to access the Queue where a ticket will be stored
• Deadline (hours): Enter deadline in hours to add to the date/time of the submission
• Tags: Select one or more tags from the list
• Priority: Select Priority from the list.

And notify with email

For each recipient, click the toogle switch to set whether the recipient will get the email notification, and select an available email template from the list:

• Customer
• Assignee
• Queue Manager.

Scheduled actions

With Scheduled actions, you define automated actions such as reassignment, subsequent categorization, escalation in priority, and change in status which should initiate when established support or service standards with time-based obligations are at risk.

Multiple escalations can be set which are triggered by a cron job when a certain condition is met. For example, you can automate the following scenarios:

Example

If a request is submitted by a customer who belongs to Customer group "VIP", and if it is not solved/closed within 3 days after deadline:
1. Set priority to "Urgent",
2. Assign to "David Garret"
3. Move the ticket to "Support" queue.

Example

If customer did not replied for two days:
1. Close the ticket
2. Send e-mail notification about the closure to customer.

The Scheduled actions list in Settings > Automation > Workflow rules, Scheduled actions contains the list of all active scheduled actions. They can be added, edited and deleted to suit your needs.

The list also shows number of Pending tickets for each action/rule that will be processed in a next job schedule.

To edit a rule, click the Edit icon in front of the action/rule name, or click the (+) Add rule button to create a new Scheduled action rule.

Similarly to Request submission, the Scheduled rule contains four groups of information available in the corresponding regions:

1. Rule Description.
2. If the following conditions are met
3. Set these values
4. And notify with email.

The major difference to Request submission is that the Conditions region contains additional Time dependant condition values:

• Ticket is not - select one of values:
  • Responded by Agent
  • Responded by Customer
  • Closed
• for - enter time duration in hours
• Event type - select one of values:
  • After being created
  • Before deadline
  • After deadline
  • After responded by Agent.

You can create a number of different time dependant conditions, e.g.:

Ticket is not	for (hours)	Event
Responded by Customer	24	After responded by Agent
Responded by Customer	12	Before deadline
Responded by Agent	12	Before deadline
Closed	48	After responded by Agent

Similarly to Request submission, set the commands that alter the ticket, if the conditions above are met. The only difference is the additional command Status that changes the ticket status.

Email notifications

For predefined customer or agent action, you can set auto responses, notifications and alerts, that inform team members and customers about ticket changes. The notification messages are delivered via native email system.

Selected users can receive automated email notifications when a request is submitted, when a ticket is changed, closed, or under other conditions that you set using the workflow rules. The content of email messages relies on predefined Email templates.

Agent actions

Agent actions table in Settings > Automation > Workflow rules, within the Notifications section represents a set of email notification rules based on predefined Agent actions: Reply, Close, Assign, and Log a Call.

To edit a rule, click the Edit icon in front of the action/rule name.

Similarly to Request submission (section And notify with email), for each recipient (Customer, Assignee, Queue Manager), click the toogle switch to set whether the recipient will get the email notification, and select an available email template from the list

Tip

• When agent performs Reply or Log a Call action from their respective action forms, they can still choose whether or not to send notifications in the corresponding action form.

Customer actions

Agent actions table in Settings > Automation > Workflow rules, within the Notifications section represents a set of email notification rules based on predefined Customer actions: Reply and Close.

Note

• The reply action is related to either reply form or email client software

To edit a rule, click the Edit icon in front of the rule name.

Similarly to Request submission (section And notify with email), click the toogle switch to set whether the recipient will get the email notification, and select an available email template from the list.