Triggers and automations

Let IntelliDesk do the routine work. Both are rules you set up once under Settings; the difference is when they act.

• A trigger acts the moment a ticket arrives or changes. "When an urgent ticket comes in from Ironwood Auto Parts, assign it to Thandi and tag it VIP."
• An automation acts after time passes. "When a ticket has been pending for 3 days, email the customer a reminder."

Only managers can create and change rules.

Triggers

Go to Settings → Triggers and click New trigger, or start from one of the examples.

When a trigger runs:

• A ticket is created: from any channel, including email, the customer portal, your website's contact form, the API and WhatsApp, as well as tickets agents create.
• A ticket is updated: whenever its status, priority, type, desk or assignee changes, including when a customer replies and the status changes to Customer responded.

Conditions narrow it down. All of them must be true. Leave them empty to act on every ticket. You can test:

For updated triggers you can also use changed to and changed from, e.g. Status changed to Customer responded.

Actions run in order:

• Set status, Set priority, Set type
• Assign to an agent (or No one to unassign)
• Add tag
• Add internal note, visible to your team only
• Email the customer. See Emailing the customer below.

As you build the rule, In short reads it back to you in a sentence. If something's missing, it tells you what.

AI checks

Keywords only go so far: "subject contains refund" misses "I want my money back". An AI check lets you describe what you're looking for in plain English, and Jev, IntelliDesk's AI, reads each new ticket and says how likely it is.

1. In a trigger that runs when a ticket is created, add a condition and choose AI check (Jev).
2. Write a statement about the customer's message, for example:
   • The customer is unhappy with the service and considering leaving for a competitor
   • The customer is asking about pricing or an upgrade
   • The message is about a damaged or broken item
   • The customer mentions a legal complaint or a lawyer
3. Choose is likely (Jev is 70% or more sure) or is unlikely (30% or less).
4. Add actions as usual: tag it, raise the priority, assign it to your account manager.

You can combine an AI check with ordinary conditions, e.g. Help desk is Billing and "The customer disputes a charge" is likely. Or start from the Flag customers about to leave (AI) example.

Good to know:

• When it runs. AI checks work on tickets customers send in (email, the portal, your website form, the API and WhatsApp), and only in ticket created triggers. The rule runs a few seconds after the ticket arrives, once Jev has read it: after AI triage has set the priority and type (so you can test those too), and before automatic assignment, so a rule that assigns someone wins.
• You can see why. Each time the rule runs, the ticket gets an internal note with Jev's score, e.g. Rule "Churn risk" ran: "The customer is unhappy…" 94%.
• When in doubt, it does nothing. If Jev isn't sure either way, or AI isn't available, the rule simply doesn't run.
• Write specific statements. "The customer is angry" is weaker than "The customer is unhappy with the service and considering leaving". Say what you'd want a colleague to spot.
• Cost. Checks are asked in the same AI call as AI triage, so they add almost nothing. You don't need AI triage switched on for the desk: writing an AI check is enough.

Automations

Go to Settings → Automations and click New automation, or start from an example. An automation has:

• A time: how many hours since the ticket was created, last had activity, the customer's last message, your last reply, went pending, or went on hold. 72 hours since it went pending is shown as 3 days.
• Conditions and actions, the same as for triggers (AI checks are for triggers only).

IntelliDesk checks automations every 15 minutes, and each automation acts on a ticket once. So "remind after 3 days pending" sends one reminder, not one every 15 minutes.

A common pair:

1. Remind after 3 days pending: 72 hours since it went pending, status is Pending → email the customer a friendly check-in.
2. Close after 7 days pending: 168 hours since it went pending, status is Pending → add an internal note, then set status to Closed.

If the customer replies in between, the ticket is no longer pending, so nothing more happens.

Emailing the customer

The Email the customer action sends a plain email from the desk's connected mailbox, and adds it to the ticket so your team can see it went out. You can fill in:

{{contact_first_name}} {{contact_name}} {{company_name}} {{ticket_id}} {{subject}} {{desk_name}}

The desk needs a connected mailbox (see Connecting a mailbox). If it doesn't have one, the email isn't sent and the ticket shows a note saying so.

Managing your rules

Each rule is listed as a sentence, for example "When a ticket is created and Priority is Urgent and Company is Ironwood Auto Parts: assign to Thandi Mokoena, then add tag VIP."

• Use the switch to turn a rule off without deleting it.
• Click the pencil to edit it, or the bin to delete it.
• Rules run in the order they're listed. A rule can't set off another rule in the same moment, so two rules can't keep undoing each other.

Tips

• Start small: one trigger for your most important customer, or one reminder automation. Add more once you've seen it work.
• To test a trigger, send an email that matches it to your support address and open the new ticket.
• Rules act for everyone. Turn a rule off rather than deleting it while you're unsure.

Related: Connecting a mailbox: Gmail, Outlook, and IMAP · Tags, priorities, and ticket types · SLA policies and business hours