Streamlining your support workflow

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Streamline your support workflow by using ticket handling
shortcuts, triggers, and automations. Macros help with repetitive tasks,
while triggers and automations manage ticket actions based on conditions
or time. Notify external targets about ticket events and use tags to
categorize and search tickets. These features enhance efficiency and
organization in managing customer inquiries.
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<div class="body">
<p class="p">
Managing your customers’ support issues and your ticket workflow requires
tools to help
create as many efficient processes as possible. The best way to understand
how Zendesk
Support helps you manage your support workflow is to look at how a typical
ticket
workflow can be streamlined with the tools that Zendesk Support provides.
</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="note tip">
<span class="tiptitle">Tip:</span>
<strong class="ph b">Fine Tuning: </strong>Learn more about how you
can optimize your Zendesk
to best support your workflow in Don Newton's Brick-by-brick: How
to piece together
your ideal Zendesk,
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886987546" target="_blank">Part 1</a>
and
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408882066202" target="_blank">Part 2</a>.
</div>
</div>
<p class="p">This article discusses the following tools: </p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="id113ND01055Z__ul_pfm_ltm_5bb">
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#id113ND0H60Y4">Ticket handling shortcuts</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#id113ND0NF0HS">Triggering actions when tickets are
created or updated</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#id113ND0S06UI">Using time-based events to activate
actions</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#id113ND0XL0HT">Notifying external targets about
ticket events</a>
</li>
<li class="li">
<a class="xref" href="#id113ND0V08YK">Using tags to manage
workflow</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="id113ND0H60Y4">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Ticket handling shortcuts</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">
It's common to get support requests for issues that affect more than
one person and
can be answered with a single, standard response. To do this, you
use
<dfn class="term">macros</dfn> to create the standard responses,
that agents can apply to
tickets. Macros can also be used to update tickets without also notifying
the
requester. For example, you can use macros to change the agent or
group assignment.
See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887656602-Using-macros-to-update-tickets" target="_blank">Using macros to update tickets</a>
and
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408844187034" target="_blank">Creating macros for tickets </a>for
more information.
</p>
<p class="p">
Below is an example of a macro that sends an email notification to
the requester in
response to an issue that affects many people in an organization:
</p>
<p class="p">
<img class="image img-screenshot" height="470" id="id113ND0H60Y4__image_trw_kta_xb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/macro_intranet.png">
</p>
<p class="p">
This macro adds a public comment to the ticket, sets the status to
solved, and adds a
relevant tag. You will see included in the comment the text
"{{ticket.requester.first_name}}". This is called a
<em class="ph i">placeholder</em> and is used
for automatically inserting data into an email notification. For
this example, the
placeholder would automatically insert the first name of the ticket
requester in the
email notification. For more information about placeholders and how
they are used,
see
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408887218330" target="_blank">Using placeholders</a>.
</p>
<p class="p">
Macros can also be used as shortcuts to streamline repetitive ticket
handling tasks.
See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832783642" target="_blank">Building macro action statements</a>
for
information on the different macro actions available.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="id113ND0NF0HS">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Triggering actions when tickets are created or updated</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">
When a ticket is created or updated, you can automatically respond
by modifying
ticket properties and sending email notifications to the requester
using
<em class="ph i">triggers</em>.
</p>
<p class="p">
Triggers are built off of conditions and actions. Conditions define
the criteria, and
if the criteria is true, trigger the actions. In other words, if
a ticket condition
is true then perform actions, such as make changes or notify a customer
or agent.
For example, you can use triggers to automatically assign tickets
based on a
requester's email domain or keywords in the ticket description. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408822236058-About-triggers-and-how-they-work" target="_blank">About triggers and how they work</a>.
</p>
<p class="p">
Zendesk Support provides a set of
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408828984346" target="_blank">standard triggers</a>
as best practices in a typical ticket
workflow. You can view the default triggers and create or edit new
triggers in Admin
Center by clicking the <strong class="ph b">Objects and rules</strong>
icon (<img class="image" id="id113ND0NF0HS__image_ic2_1mp_wqb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_objects_rules_icon.png">)
in the sidebar, then selecting
<strong class="ph b">Business rules &gt;
Triggers</strong>
One available default trigger is "Notify requester of received
request". On the Triggers admin page, you can click Notify requester
of received
request to view all the conditions and actions it uses.
</p>
<p class="p">
<img class="image img-screenshot" id="id113ND0NF0HS__image_ufv_qtm_5bb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/trigger_notify_requester_new.png" width="470">
</p>
<div class="p">
As you can see the conditions require the ticket to be created and
the status to not
be Solved. If those two conditions are true, the action sends an
email notification
to the requester informing them the request has been received and
is now a ticket.
You can use this trigger as is or clone it to make copies that you
can modify and
repurpose. If you need to, you can deactivate these default triggers
or you can
create entirely new triggers. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886797466" target="_blank">Creating triggers</a>
for more information.
<div class="note note">
<span class="notetitle">Note:</span> Zendesk
Support automatically runs through all of your triggers (from
first to last) to
see if each trigger's criteria is met. Whenever the ticket matches
the
conditions the trigger is fired. This means the actions of one
trigger might
affect the actions of other triggers. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886797466#topic_vnl_zpy_tb" target="_blank"> Reordering triggers</a>
for information
on selecting the order of triggers fired.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="id113ND0S06UI">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Using time-based events to activate actions</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">
While triggers enable you to automatically act on tickets when they
are created or
updated, you can also modify tickets and send email notifications
based on events in
time. For example, you might want agents to be alerted if tickets
remain unassigned
after 24 hours. To do this in Zendesk Support, you can use
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832701850" target="_blank"><em class="ph i">automations</em></a>.
Zendesk Support provides a set of
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408835051546" target="_blank"> standard automations</a>
which administrators
can edit or they can create new automations. You can access your
automations in
Admin Center by clicking the
<strong class="ph b">Objects and rules</strong> icon (<img class="image" id="id113ND0S06UI__image_rlp_bmp_wqb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_objects_rules_icon.png">)
in the sidebar, then selecting
<strong class="ph b">Business rules &gt;
Automations</strong>
</p>
<p class="p">
Automations, like triggers, contain conditions and actions. The image
below shows an
example automation that will automatically close a ticket four days
after the ticket
is solved.
</p>
<p class="p">
<img class="image img-screenshot" id="id113ND0S06UI__image_ogk_qwa_xb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/automation_close_4days.png" width="470">
</p>
<p class="p">
As you can see the conditions require the ticket to be solved and
will activate after
96 hours, or four days, after the ticket has been solved. The action
then changes
the status from Solved to Closed. Four days is a best estimate for
the minimum
amount of time a ticket should remain in the Solved state before
it is closed.
</p>
<p class="p">
Unlike triggers, which are based on ticket events and run immediately
after tickets
are created or updated, automations only run once every hour and
only on tickets
that have been created or updated in the last 28 days.
</p>
<p class="p">
For more information about using automations, see
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883801626" target="_blank">Streamlining workflow with time-based events and
automations</a>.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title5" class="topic nested1" id="id113ND0XL0HT">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title5">Notifying external targets about ticket events</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">
There may be times when you want to notify an external target about
a new ticket or
an important state change to a ticket. For example, you might want
to send a text
message or post a notification to a company-wide stream. By setting
up external
<dfn class="term">targets</dfn> you can communicate with many cloud-based
applications and
services, as well as HTTP and email.
</p>
<p class="p">
After you've defined a target you can add it to automations and triggers.
For
instructions on adding and managing external targets, see
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408883282458-Notifying-external-targets" target="_blank">Notifying external targets</a>.
</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title6" class="topic nested1" id="id113ND0V08YK">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title6">Using tags to manage workflow</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">
To help you categorize, act on, or search for tickets, you can add
<dfn class="term">tags</dfn>.
Tags can be added to tickets automatically based on the words in
the request,
manually by agents, or via triggers, automations, and macros. Once
added, you can
create views by tags, search for tags and the tickets in which they
are included,
and use tags in your triggers, automations, and macros. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408888664474-Using-tags" target="_blank">Using tags</a>
for more information about
tags.
</p>
<p class="p">
<img class="image img-screenshot" height="NaN" id="id113ND0V08YK__image_ddj_zwa_xb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/tags.png" width="NaN">
</p>
<div class="p">
Tags are helpful throughout the entire support workflow, but are
especially for the
following support tasks:
<ul class="ul" id="id113ND0V08YK__ul_hwa_vmi_xb">
<li class="li">
Locating answers to support requests that have already been
answered. Agents
can search for tickets by tags. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408888664474-Using-tags#topic_ntk_ina_vb" target="_blank">Searching for tickets by tags</a>.
</li>
<li class="li">
Creating ticket reports using tags. This provides you with
a way to monitor
hot issues and trends, for example. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408838151450" target="_blank">Reporting on ticket tags
(Explore)</a>.
</li>
<li class="li">
Creating custom workflows. Perhaps you want to add a custom
field to your
support request form and then act on that data. Custom fields
contain tags
that can then be added to triggers to, for example, route
a request for a
specific product to a specific support group or agent. See
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408886624410" target="_blank">Understanding how creating, deactivating,
or deleting ticket fields impacts tickets</a>
for more information on
custom fields and tags and see
<a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408888664474-Using-tags#topic_umd_ona_vb" target="_blank">Using tags in macros, triggers, and
automations</a>
for more information on incorporating tags into your
business rules.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
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