Helpdesk Automation Rules

Automation rules is an if this - then do that engine built-in right into the helpdesk app. You can read more about it here.

Basically, a rule says when X happens - and Y conditions are met - do Z

Some great examples are:

1. "When a ticket becomes overdue - send an alert to administrator" (comes handy for SLA policies)
2. "When a new ticket is created and the subject-line contains 'XYZ' - move the ticket to category ABC"
3. "When a new ticket is created and the category is XYZ - assign the ticket to technician John Doe"

Every rule consists of three parts:

1. a trigger - which can be "new ticket created" or "ticket becomes overdue" etc.
2. one or more conditions - like "ticket is assigned to John" or "ticket comes from company XYZ" etc.
3. one or more actions - "close the ticket" or "add a reply" or "send an email" etc.

IMPORTANT NOTE: time based automation rules ("ticket becomes overdue" and "ticket hasn't been updated for X hours") run ONLY ONCE for a given ticket. Otherwise things break. Say, you have set up an overdue alert for your tickets - you would be getting this alert every hour, forever, because the ticket would STILL be overdue (until someone moves the due date).