Best Practice: Common Workflow Automations

OneDesk allows you to set workflow automations, which are a set of rules that take care of repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Setting workflow automations will allow your business to save time and money and to boost overall productivity.

Automation Rules

Every workflow automation rule consists of the following 3 parts:

Automation Rules
  1. Filters that define the item(s) to which the rule will be applied
  2. A trigger that will cause the action to be performed
  3. One or more actions that OneDesk will take

Workflow Automation Examples

Below are some useful workflow automations that can help you make the most of the OneDesk’s workflow automation capability. Some are activated within OneDesk out of the box, others need to be activated, and some are useful suggestions for common workflows.

Already Activated

The following are automations created and enabled in a new account.

1. Auto-reply to new tickets

Send an automated bot reply to the individual who triggers the creation of any ticket.

send message on creating ticket

2. Close inactive tickets that are pending customer

Declutter your workspace by auto-closing tickets that have become inactive due to customer inactivity.

close old tickets

3. Apply a Service Level Agreement (SLA) to newly created tickets.

4. Change pending status when agent replies

Automatically change the status of a ticket to ‘pending customer’ to identify tickets that are awaiting a customer reply.

change to pending customer

5. Change pending status when customer replies

Automatically change the status of a ticket to ‘pending agent’ to identify tickets that need an agent’s attention to ensure a timely response.

change to pending agent

6. If a timer is started change the status to “in progress” 

7. Send a customer satisfaction survey to customers after a ticket is ‘finished’.

8. Publish new tickets on the Customer portal

Automatically publish new tickets that are created to the customer portal to keep your customers updated on its progress.

auto publish

9. Archive tickets that are finished and have not been touched in the last month

Automatically archive tickets when in a finished state and have not been modified in 30 days

archive old tickets

10. Notify requester of closed ticket

Let the requester of a ticket know when the ticket’s lifecycle state is changed to ‘closed’.

send message on close

11. When status is updated on project, post a message

Send an automated message from the OneDesk bot to notify the followers of a project when its status changes.

message project state changes

12. Remind assignees of upcoming tasks

Send a reminder to the assigned OneDesk user(s) of tasks that are upcoming to allow them to be better prepared.

13. Change item state to “closed” when percentage is 100

Set the item state to “closed” when the percentage of completion on the item changes to 100% to keep track of finished items.

close at 100 percent

14. Set task status to “reopened” when percentage goes down from 100

Set the item state to “reopened” when the percentage of completion is reduced from 100% to identify items that need more work.

reopen when less than 100

Not Activated

The following automations are pre-created in a new account but are not enabled (not running). Toggle on ‘Show Disabled Automation’ to find these automations. You can enable them if you choose.

1. When new item is created, email Admin

admin email when created

2. Auto-assign new tasks to Admin

Automatically assign newly created items to account admin in OneDesk.

assign to team auto

Useful Automation Examples 

1. Auto-assign new items to an individual

Automatically assign newly-created items to an individual user on your OneDesk team.

assign to user

2. Notify support if a ticket hasn’t been closed after a specified time period

Ensure that your support team is notified automatically when a ticket is taking too long to resolve.

SLA timer notify

3. Automatically organize items into projects based on item type

Have newly-created items automatically organize into different projects based on their item type.

Example: organize an item that is a bug into its own project.

auto send items to specific project

4. When a ticket is created by email, send out an auto-reply

Send an automated message back to the individual who contacts you via email to start the conversation flow.

respond to ticket via email

5. Auto-assign specific items to the appropriate team

Auto-assign an item based on its type to the team that is best suited to handle its care.

Example: assign a bug task to the Dev Team.

assign bug to dev

6. Update the follower of an item for all status changes

Ensure that when someone is assigned as a follower, they receive all the updates on the item’s status changes as they happen.

send message when state changes

7. Organize tickets into projects based on email domain

When a ticket is created by an email with a particular domain, add the ticket to the project with the correlating domain name.

filter by customer email

8. Change ticket type based on urgent status in name

Notify your customers that they can add “urgent” to the title of their emails/webform submissions and auto-change those ticket types to an “urgent” ticket.

change if name contains urgent

9. Assign high-priority items to a manager 

If a ticket gets raised to 5-star priority, the assignee immediately changes to the manager so that it can be handled by the person most capable.

assign to user on priority

10. If item is created by email, send email and assign to an individual

When an item is created from an email, send back a message reply and assign it automatically to a OneDesk user.

send message and assign automatically

11. When status changes, reassign to another team

Customize your statuses to represent the teams who handle an item’s different stages and auto-assign to the appropriate team as the status changes.

Example: When the writing team completes an article, they update the status and the item is automatically reassigned to the development team.

reassign based on status to team

12. Auto-assign new tickets to an individual by Round-Robin

Automatically assign incoming tickets by rotation to each member of a group of your choosing.

auto round robin assign

13. Archive a project after it’s been completed

archive finished project

14. Notify followers of a project when its due date changes

send message project date change

15. Archive closed/completed tickets

archive old tickets

16. When a ticket is created with the keyword $critical, set ticket priority to 5 stars.

change prio on phrasing

17. When a ticket is marked as closed, close all conversations.

close conversations when ticket closed

18. Send a Satisfaction Survey email template within 24 hours of a ticket being closed.

send survey

19. Automatically share a project with a customer when its placed into a customer portoflio.

share project with customer

20. How to archive incoming tickets from a specific sender.

You can archive tickets automatically that come in from a specific email domain.

archive spam tickets

21. Close items when a key-phrase is posted.

You can automatically close items when a certain message is sent, such as “#closeticket”.

close ticket on keyword

22. Automatically Create a New Customer Project for items when Items are Created in OneDesk

Whenever a new item is created inside OneDesk, move it into a project of items submitted by the same customer.

customer project automation

23. When creating a new item automatically, copy any attachments of the triggering item

When a new item is created by an automation, copy any attachments the item which triggered the automation has to the newly created item.

copy attachments to new item

24. Route based on the incoming email queue (the inbox the ticket originated)

An email queue is the inbox or inboxes creating tickets in your account. In the example below the queue is named ‘support’ and will automatically assign all tickets from this queue to the support team. See also: Email Queues.

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