Automations

Automations in ClearFeed help streamline your workflows by triggering specific actions when defined events occur on Requests or Tickets. Each automation is made up of four components:

Example Use Cases:

Automations can support a wide range of scenarios:

• ✅ Auto-close after resolution: If a Request/Ticket’s Status is “Solved” for 48 hours, automatically move it to Closed.

• ⏰ Follow-up reminders: If a Request/Ticket’s Status is “Pending” for 24 hours, post an internal comment to remind the assignee.

• 📣 Priority-based alerts: If a Request/Ticket’s Priority is updated, send a Slack notification to a specific channel.

• 📝 Form-based notifications: When a specific Form is filled on a Ticket, send the ticket details to another team.

• 👤 Field-based assignment: If a Custom Field is updated to a defined value, assign the Request/Ticket to a specific user.

• 📈 Slack inactivity escalation: If there’s no response to a Slack request for a configured time, escalate it to a ticket in Zendesk or other platforms.

• 🤖 AI field auto-fill: When a request is created, auto-fill the Issue Category field using AI.

• 🚫 Request filtering: Prevent ticket creation for requests from designated individuals.

How to Create an Automation

• From the left navigation bar, go to More → Automate.

• Click "Create Automation":

• Give your automation a meaningful name.

• Configure the Automation by going through the following steps:

Step 1: Select Trigger

Triggers define the conditions under which the automation will begin. The following trigger options are available:

Request-Based Triggers:

• Request Created – Trigger when a new request is submitted.

• Request Updated – Trigger when a field such as Status, Priority, Assignee, or a Custom Field is changed.

• Request Message Added – Trigger when a new message is added to the request.

• Request CSAT Submitted – Trigger when a CSAT rating is submitted for the request.

• Request Reaction Added – Trigger when a reaction (emoji) is added to the request. You can specify the emoji.

Clearfeed Ticket-Based Triggers:

• Ticket Created – Trigger when a Clearfeed ticket is created.

• Ticket Updated – Trigger when a ticket field (e.g., Status, Priority, Assignee, or Custom Fields) is updated.

• Ticket Message Added – Trigger when a new message is added to the ticket.

• Ticket CSAT Submitted – Trigger when a CSAT response is submitted for the ticket.

• Ticket Reaction Added – Trigger when a reaction (emoji) is added to the ticket. You can specify the emoji.

Step 2: Set Conditions (Optional)

Conditions define when an automation should run, based on the properties of a Request or Ticket. You can add conditions based on standard fields, business hours, and custom fields.

Standard Fields

For standard fields (Status, Priority, Assignee, Channel, Assigned Team and First Message Author) you can use the following operators:

• is set to

• is not set to

• is one of

• is not one of

Business Hours

You can also create conditions based on the trigger time relative to your business hours:

• Trigger time is inside business hours

• Trigger time is outside business hours

Custom Fields

Operators for custom fields depend on the type of the field:

Step 3: Choose Delay (Optional)

Add a delay before actions execute (set in days, hours, minutes). Default = 0.

Advanced: Invariance Settings

Specify fields to monitor during the delay to control automation cancellation.

• If a selected field is part of the automation's Conditions, the automation will only be canceled if a change to the field causes the condition to fail.

• If a selected field is not part of the Conditions, any change to the field will automatically cancel the automation.

📌 Example: Let’s say you're setting up an automation to send a follow-up message to the Assignee if the Status of the request remains "Open" for 3 days. You set a delay of 3 days before sending the message.

• Invariant Field is part of Conditions: You choose to monitor the Status field (since it is part of the condition for triggering the action). If the Status changes to "Resolved" within the 3-day delay, the automation will cancel because the condition (Status = "Open") is no longer true. However, if the Status remains "Open," the automation will proceed and send the follow-up email after 3 days.

• Invariant Field is not part of Conditions: Now, let’s say you also monitor the Priority field (which is not part of the automation's Conditions). If the Priority field is updated during the delay (e.g., from "Medium" to "High"), the automation will cancel, regardless of whether the Status remains "Open" or not, because you set the Priority field to automatically cancel the automation on change.

Step 4: Choose Action

Define what happens once the trigger and conditions are met.

Available Actions:

• Webhook: Send ClearFeed Request or Ticket data to an external endpoint. Read more about formatting the message with Request Parameters here.

  Copy

  >> Default Webhook Payload
  {
  "id": "{{request.id}}",
  "web_url": "{{request.web_url}}",
  "status": "{{request.status}}",
  "priority": "{{request.priority}}",
  "assignee": {
  "id": "{{request.assignee.id}}",
  "name": "{{request.assignee.name}}"
  },
  "channel": {
  "id": "{{request.channel.id}}",
  "name": "{{request.channel.name}}"
  },
  "title": "{{request.title}}",
  "request_message": {
  "ts": "{{request.request_message.ts}}",
  "thread_ts": "{{request.request_message.thread_ts}}",
  "csat_survey": {
  "status": "{{request.csat_survey.status}}",
  "response": {
  "value": "{{request.csat_survey.response.value}}",
  "max_value": "{{request.csat_survey.response.max_value}}",
  "survey_type": "{{request.csat_survey.response.survey_type}}"
  }
  }
  }

• Set Field Update fields like Status, Priority, Assignee, or any Custom Field.

• Send Message Post formatted messages to:

  • Slack Channel

  • Triage Channel

  • Teammate (via ClearFeed Slack App)

  • As Public Reply

  • As Internal Comment

  • To Assignee via ClearFeed

• Trigger Ticket Creation Create a ticket per collection's settings.

• Auto-Fill AI Custom Field Use AI prompts defined for the custom field to auto-populate values.

Map Collections

Use the button Map Collections to choose the Collection that should use the Automation and click on the toggle to enable the automation.

• You can select Email and Portal Collection to let the Automations act on Tickets originating from these sources.

Adding Parameters in Messages

You can add Request/Ticket parameters such as the Request ID, URL, Status, Priority, values of other custom fields, etc. when configuring the payload sent via Webhook Action or a Sent Message action.

1. In the message box, type {{ to invoke the parameters dropdown.

2. Select and enter the relevant parameters in your messages

Coming Soon:

• More Trigger Events - Eg. External Webhooks, APIs.

FAQs

1. How are Automations different from Workflows? Answer: Workflows are special cases of automation that are designed to solve the following use cases:

   • Escalation notifications to specific users/teams in case of no response to users - After sending a notification, workflows also manage the state of the triggered notification. Eg. there automatically get dismissed in case the messages are replied to. This is not the case with notifications triggered via automation.

   • Automated reply on request or ticket creation. These messages can be dismissed by users on Slack.

2. How does ClearFeed check for invariance of triggers and conditions during the delay period in automation? Answer: During the delay period in automation, ClearFeed checks for the invariance of the "status" property only. For all other properties defined in the automation, the trigger and conditions are evaluated only at the time of the initial trigger. This means that changes to properties other than "status" during the delay period do not affect the automation's execution.

3. Can we Clone or Delete an Automation? Answer: Yes, it is possible to clone an automation. Simply go to Automations and click on the three-dot button. It will expose the options to Clone or Delete the Automation.

   
4. Can we set Automations to trigger for our business hours? Answer: Yes, it is possible to only trigger Automations inside or outside your business hours. You can do this by: Adding a Condition and Selecting the Trigger Time option to be Inside or Outside Business Hours.

5. Can a ticket be automatically created when certain predefined keywords are detected in the request content? Answe: Yes, this can be achieved. Clearfeed automatically sets the priority to High when a request contains certain predefined keywords (Learn more here). You can then create an automation that triggers ticket creation whenever the priority is set to High. Make sure the Trigger mode is set to Emoji Mode under the Collection's Ticketing Settings.