Automations

Automated actions that get activated based on specific triggers & conditions

Automations in ClearFeed allow you to trigger specific actions when certain events occur on Requests or Tickets. Each automation consists of four components:

Component	Meaning
Trigger	This decides when the automation is activated
Conditions (Optional)	Conditions at the time of trigger that should be satisfied
Delay (Optional)	Wait duration after trigger before the actions should kick-in
Actions	Activities that should happen after a successful trigger

Example Use Cases:

• If a Request/Ticket’s Status is “Solved” for 48 hours, automatically move it to Closed.

• If a Request/Ticket’s Status is “Pending” for 24 hours, post an internal comment reminding the assignee to follow up.

• If a Request/Ticket’s Priority is set to a certain value, send a Slack notification to another channel.

• If a specific Form on a Ticket is filled, send a notification with ticket details to another team.

• If a Custom Field is updated to a certain value, assign the Request/Ticket to a specific user.

• If there's no response to a request in Slack for a set time, escalate it to a ticket on platforms like Zendesk.

• Prevent ticket creation for requests from designated individuals.

How to Create an Automation

• From the left navigation bar on the ClearFeed web app, Go to More → Automate.

• Click "Create Automation".

• Set a clear name for your automation, and proceed through the following steps:

Step 1: Select Trigger

Triggers determine when the automation will start. Available Triggers:

• Request Creation

• Request Update (if a field like Status, Priority, Assignee, or Custom Fields changes)

• Request Message Added

• ClearFeed Ticket Creation

• ClearFeed Ticket Update (if a field like Status, Priority, Assignee, or Custom Fields changes)

• ClearFeed Ticket Message Added

Triggers in Automations

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:

Field Type	Supported Operators
Single Line & Multi Line Text	is set to, is not set to
Number	is set to, is not set to, is greater than, is less than
Date	is set to, is not set to, is after, is before
Single Select	is set to, is not set to, is one of, is not one of
Multi Select	is set to, contains any of, contains all of, contains none of
User Select	is set to, is not set to, is one of, is not one of

Note:

• Adding a condition is optional

• You can add multiple conditions.

• Only one condition per field is allowed.

Step 3: Choose Delay (Optional)

You can introduce a delay before executing actions. Specify the delay in Days, Hours, and Minutes. By default, delay is set to zero.

Advanced Delay Invariance Settings While setting up the delay, you can select specific fields to monitor for changes. Here's how these settings affect the delay behavior:

• 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.

• Invarinart 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.

This gives you more granular control over when an automation should proceed or cancel after the delay, ensuring that changes to certain fields won't inadvertently disrupt the process.

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.

  >> 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}}"
  }
  }

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

• Send Message: Format your message and send it to any of the following places:

  • To a Slack Channel

  • To the Triage Channel

  • To a Teammate (via ClearFeed Slack App)

  • As a Public Reply on the request/ticket

  • As an Internal Comment

  • To the Assignee via ClearFeed Slack App

• Trigger Ticket Creation: Create a ticket based on your collection’s ticketing settings.

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.

The Actions are completed only when an automation is mapped to at least one Collection

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.