Transcription
Hi there. Today’s webinar will focus on automations in OneDesk. Here is our agenda for today. We will talk about the different types of automations, we will talk about the out-of-the-box templates and automations in OneDesk, how to edit and set up some email templates and automated messages, and workflow automations. Let’s get started, feel free to follow along.
Automations in OneDesk include automated messages or replies, automated emails and workflow automations.
Automated messages and replies are pre-written messages that are sent based on conditions you have set up. These messages can contain dynamic properties which populate automatically based on context. They post a conversation reply or message to the ticket or task they are connected to and if the message is unseen it is sent to email.
Email templates are pre-written emails that are sent based on conditions you have set up. Templates can contain dynamic properties which populate automatically based on context. Templates can be reused in multiple different automations. Compared with automated replies, templates are sent directly by email and a message is not posed to the conversation. I will show examples later in the webinar.
The workflow automation tool is a feature built into OneDesk. You can think of it as a rules engine that will automatically perform specific actions for you when some conditions are met. You can use it to make your life easier by automating actions in OneDesk that you would have to do manually otherwise. You can also use it as the “logic engine” part of your workflow to move items between statuses, assignments and more.
Let’s head to our OneDesk account. First we will go to administration settings, then email settings. Here you’ll find your messaging center where you can control emails and messages. OneDesk comes with some out-of-the-box automations to get you started. Let’s first talk about automated messages and the out-of-the-box automations that run them. SO as mentioned, automated messages run off automations. Here we can see all our automated messages and replies and which ones are currently sending. Let’s go over what these do. This first message cannot be turned off as it is critical to the OneDesk workflow. This automation ensures that when a new message is posted in a conversation linked to an item, all the followers of the item are notified. Note that customer replies are sent to both users and customers but internal messages are sent to users only. This message is NOT created by an automation and, thus, cannot be disabled. You can edit the message that is inserted by this automation, but you cannot disable it. So when you reply to a customer ticket and they do not see it within a minute, this is what is being sent to them, it displays the ticket or task’s name and the first message that was posted in the subject line then shows all messages on that ticket. Select the pencil and you can edit the message if you choose but be careful as it is crucial to notification workflow. In most cases, companies usually want to configure the subject line. As an example, Let’s edit the subject line then Let me send a customer reply and go see what this looks like in a customer email inbox. So here’s the reply I sent to my customer displaying the edited subject line and all the messages related to this ticket.
Back to our email settings. Here are the other default automated messages. These can also be edited or they can be controlled with the automation engine.
Let go to our tasks application for a minute so I can show you an example of an automated message. I am going to update the lifecycle status of this task. You can see a message is posted in the conversation panel of my tasks. This is an automated message that runs when a task status is updated.
Back to administration.
Click the automation ID A06. Here you see the workflow automation that runs this message. In a nutshell, automations run on items, trigger on a condition then perform an action. So in this automation, it runs on any task types, then whenever the lifecycle status of a task changes it inserts this message. Click the message to see what is being posted. This message is being posted as the company bot. It is a customer reply that is updating both the customer or user who is following this task that the status has been updated. These are the dynamic properties being embedded into the message. These properties are generated automatically based on the context of the message. You’ll want to edit this part of the message, which informs you of the automation. Remember you can add additional dynamic properties to customize the message to your liking. You can also choose who posts the discussion, by default here the bot appears as the poster. But you can configure this to be another user in your company. You can also configure your messages to be public or internal. Remember customer replies are sent to a customers inbox while internal messages can only be seen by users on your team.
Make sure to hit apply to save the message. Then save to save the automation. The next automation A20 similarly updates the customer when a ticket changes to a finished state.
The next automated message A02 is sent whenever a ticket is created. This message invites the customer to login to the customer portal. If you do not use the portal or prefer to invite a customer manual you can edit this message.
The last automated message is running on A28, this automation runs on projects, inserting the message when a project status changes. Once again edit the message to your liking.
So what if you want to create a new automated message? Well, we will need to set up a new workflow automation. Head to the ticket settings and scroll down. Here you will see all workflow automations which are running on your tickets. Next go to the tasks settings and scroll down. Once again here are the automations running on tasks. Then, timesheets and finally projects. These are currently the items you can run workflow automations on. To clarify these automations are not only automated messages but all the different time saving automations OneDesk is running. We’ll have a look in more detail about workflow automations in just a bit. But first let’s set one automated message up. Since we are in the projects setting lets create an automated message that runs on projects. Select create workflow automation. Let’s set the automation to run on any project type. Let’s set a trigger condition. Let’s say whenever a project is created, I want to post a message. Select project is created. Next add the action insert/create message. Just like when we edit our messages, we can choose who to post as and whether it is public or private. Apply and save our message and automation. If we head back to our email setting you can see the new automated message running. Of course you can set up the automated messages to run on tickets, tasks, or projects.
Next are automated emails. They have similarities with automated messages in that they run based on automations however there are a few differences. One the are reusable, the same email can be run in several different automations. And two, automated emails are direct sends to an email and do not post a message onto the item. You can see that my automated emails have an ID number because as mentioned, the same email can be sent through different automations. Let me set up a new automation that runs an email in order to illustrate. In our ticket settings, and workflow automations, create a new automation. For example this will run on any item when priority changes. I will add the action send email template. It then prompts me to select which template to use. And you can select who this email will be sent to, such as a specific user or customer, the assignee and so on. Back to me email settings you will now see two blocks with E01, that is because there are two automations running this Email template. Now lets look at editing the templates. Select the pencil icon beside the template. Similar to automated messages you can configure the message and insert dynamic properties. You can also configure the email subject line as well; it can include dynamic properties. If I edit the email template it edits it accordingly across the other automations because once again these are reusable. Note If you want to delete a template you must delete the automations linked to it. You cannot just disable the automation but delete the linked automation. This is done by going to tickets, tasks, projects or timesheets automation settings we looked at earlier. Finally we can also create a new template by selecting create email template. Just like earlier, let’s create an example template.
There my new template was created with a unique ID. It is currently inactive and not linked to any automations. You can click set up an automation to create the conditions in which to run this template.
Now that we’ve looked at automated messages and emails let’s look at workflow automations in more detail. Here you can see all automation currently enabled. You can edit the name of your automations here to help you understand them better. And you can edit the automation itself by clicking the pencil icon on the right side here. Let me explain some of the default automations. So you can get an idea about your own workflows. A07 here if I edit it, you can see that it runs on tickets in a pending customer state, last modified 7 days ago and closes the ticket. In other words this automation will close a ticket if the ticket meets these conditions which is, if the ticket is waiting for a customer to respond and has still not received a response in 7 days.
Let’s look at another example. A11 here runs on a ticket where a user has posted a public reply and when the user has added a message it changes the ticket to the ‘pending customer’ status.
Let’s look at A17. This automation runs on tickets when they are created, it changes the published status to published. This refers to the customer portal. This means that the ticket is viewable by the requester that is the customer who submitted the ticket from the customer portal. Keep in mind you can configure the permissions of your portal from your portal settings but you can also disable this automation if you do not want a customer to see the ticket in the portal.
If you have any other questions on what a default automation does feel free to reach out to us. While many common automations are already enabled, let’s go over some other common automations you may want to create.
Let’s set up an automation that will enable a customer to close a ticket from their email by using a keyword. Select to run on any ticket types. Select filter ‘Last message’. Then enter the keyword the customer can use to close the ticket, for example ‘$closeticket’. Hit apply. Add trigger ‘message is added. Add action change lifecycle status to closed. Now when a customer enters this keyword the ticket will close automatically.
Lets next create an automation that 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. It will run on tickets. The trigger condition will be priority changes to 5 stars. Then the action will be to add an assignee. Then choose the user to assign the ticket to. Remember to save your automation.
Let’s go into our project settings and set up an automation there for example. Let’s make an automation that informs users if the project schedule has changed. This is a helpful automation for your project management, to keep everyone on track. Select to run on all projects . Trigger condition is when the due date changes. Here you can choose to either send an email template or you can create an automated message. Let’s say I want to send this as myself and create an internal message to inform my team of the project changes. Let’s create an example message here. Apply and save.
Finally lets create one more automation, this time on our timesheets. Lets say my workflow is that I am a manager who approves billable timesheets. I want to automatically let my teammates know when their time has been approved. It will run on billable timesheets so the filter billing type is billable. Next add trigger condition approval status changes to approved. Then add the action, to send an email template. Let’s create our template with our dynamic properties. Finally we will want to send this to the assignees, that is whoever was assigned to the task and submitted the timesheet.
Automations are highly flexible, with maybe hundreds of different cases you could come up with to streamline your work. Hopefully this webinar helped you understand the capabilities of automations and how to get started setting up your workflow. If you have questions or need help on how to set up an automation, reach out through live chat or at support@onedesk.com . Thanks.