If you are an existing user of OneDesk you are no doubt aware of our powerful workflow automation engine. Well with the latest release it just got even more powerful!
OneDesk has long had the ability to automatically take action on tickets and tasks whenever events occur in the system. Our easy-to-use rules engine lets you define what events, on what items trigger what actions. This has saved untold hours of labor for our customers. The new release extends this functionality even further by introducing automations on not just the items in the projects, but to the projects themselves.
It works the same way as the automations you are already familiar with, so if you are familiar with our system, you can just jump in and get started. For those of you new to OneDesk, I recommend you start by reading that article first.
Here’s what’s new when automating on projects.
Where to do it:
You can find the projects automation service under
Administration > Projects > Workflow Automations
Here you can create new automations, edit, disable, or delete existing ones. To view disabled automations, make sure you have the switch toggled correctly.
New Filters
All our project filters are available here. This allows you to narrow down what the automation will affect by project-type, status, author, custom property, and more.
New Trigger Events
When a trigger event occurs on your filters projects, this will cause the actions to be applied. The most popular of these are the project creation event, status change, new message added, or just on a predefined time-schedule. However, OneDesk supports events based on many other property changes including, %complete, portfolios, attachments, custom fields, due date, and more.
New Actions
You can of course select one or multiple actions you which to be taken on the filtered projects, when the trigger event occurs. Common actions include sending emails, posting messages, moving to portfolios, archiving, or modifying custom fiels, but there are more.
What can you do with these project automations?
There are som many things you can automate on projects, but here are a few ideas to get you started:
1) Automatically add a team of followers when a new project of a certain type is created.
2) Automatically archive a project (or unarchive it) when the status changes to a specified value.
3) Automatically post a message to all followers when the project status changes.
4) Let users know when a new attachment is added
Do you have other things you would like be be able to automate on your projects? Let us know.