Available on Pro, Premium, and Enterprise subscriptions.
Feature overview
What
Supported trigger conditions and actions for creating custom triggers.
Why
  • Know the full scope of triggers and the condition-action combinations you can create.
  • Identify how you can leverage triggers to automate key steps in your workflow.
Who
  • Site admins (can create and manage triggers across all inboxes)
  • Inbox admins (can create and manage triggers across inboxes where they're an admin)
When
Any time there is an action that regularly has to occur and there is an inbox trigger that can carry out that action.
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Understand automatic and manual triggers

Teamwork Desk has two custom trigger types: automatic and manual. Choose the type that best fits your team's needs, or use both for different scenarios.

Automatic triggers

Automatic triggers run when a matched ticket is created or updated:
  • Time-based automatic triggers will run when ticket is updated if the conditions match. e.g. if status = was in the conditions, then changing status will run trigger the action.
  • All other automatic triggers only run once per ticket.

Manual triggers

Manual triggers are applied to individual tickets manually by agents.
Site admins can grant all agents permission to run a manual trigger. Otherwise, only site admins and inbox admins can do so.

Trigger flow

Triggers provide a variety of conditions you can use to initiate certain actions. In addition to the basic condition/action relationship, you can leverage match any and match all criteria to refine conditions.

Trigger flow: Trigger condition → Additional condition(s) (optional) → Action event(s)
When a trigger condition is met, and additional conditions are also met, the selected actions run.
Desk triggers combine conditions and actions to automate ticket workflows. Use automatic triggers to run actions when matching tickets are created or updated, and manual triggers when agents need to run actions on individual tickets.

Examples

Condition 
(when this happens)		additional condition
(and this happens)		Action(s)
(perform these actions)
Priority is set to "High"
Tags contain "Bug report"
Change status to "Follow up"
and
Create a task in "Reported Issues" project
Creation date is within business hours
no conditions
Send an email to assigned agent
Has an attachment
Priority is set to "High"
and
Type is equal to "Invoice request"
Move to "Billing" inbox
and
Add a note to the ticket


Trigger conditions

Set one or multiple conditions the trigger has to meet using the following options:
  • Meet any: run the trigger's actions whenever a ticket meets any of a group of conditions.
  • Meet all: run the trigger's actions only when a ticket meets all of a group of conditions.
    You can set multiple meet any or meet all conditions on a trigger, or use them in combination.
Category
Condition
Criteria
Agent
Assignee
A specific agent is (or is not) a ticket's assigned agent.
Follower
A specific agent is a ticket follower.
Mention
A specific agent is mentioned in a note.
Message added by
A specific agent adds a message to a ticket.
Note added by
A specific agent adds a note to a ticket.
Customer
Company
Ticket is (or is not) associated with a specific company.
Customer email
Ticket's associated customer's email:
  • Contains / Does not contain
  • Is equal to / Is not equal to
  • Starts with / Ends with
  • Matches regex pattern
Customer name
Ticket's associated customer's name:
  • Contains / Does not contain
  • Is equal to / Is not equal to
  • Starts with / ends with
  • Matches regex pattern
Original recipient email
Ticket's original recipient's email:
  • Contains / Does not contain
  • Is equal to / Is not equal to
  • Starts with / ends with
  • Matches regex pattern
Ticket
Attachment
Ticket has (or does not have) attachments.
Body of the initial message
Ticket's initial message contains a specific word or phrase.
Creation date
Ticket's creation date:
  • Is / Is not within business hours
  • Is / Is not on holidays

Choose a business hours schedule.
Inbox
Ticket's associated inbox is (or is not) a specific inbox.
Priority
Ticket's priority level is (or is not) a specific priority (ex. low).
Recipient
Ticket's recipient:
  • Contains / Does not contain
  • Is equal to / Is not equal to
  • Starts with / ends with
  • Matches regex pattern
Source
Ticket's source is (or is not) a specific source (ex. Email).
Status
Ticket's status is (or is not) a specific status (ex. "Waiting on customer.")
Subject
Ticket's subject line:
  • Contains / Does not contain
  • Is equal to / Is not equal to
  • Starts with / ends with
  • Matches regex pattern
Tags
Ticket contains (or does not contain) specific tag(s).
Type
Ticket's type is (or is not) a specific type (ex. "Question.")
Time
Hours awaiting agent reply
Number of hours since an agent replied is:
  • Greater than or equal to
  • Is less than
Hours awaiting customer reply
Number of hours since customer replied:
  • Greater than or equal to
  • Is less than
Hours since last update
Number of hours since ticket was updated:
  • Greater than or equal to
  • Is less than
Hours since ticket created
Number of hours since ticket was created:
  • Greater than or equal to
  • Is less than
Custom fields

When a selected custom field (applied to the ticket) has a specific value.
Corresponding actions only run on matched tickets with access to the chosen custom field.
Custom fields are available on Premium and Enterprise subscriptions.
Tasks
Any linked task
When any linked task on a ticket:
  • Gets completed 
  • Gets reopened
Any task except last one
When any linked task on a ticket except one:
  • Gets completed
  • Gets reopened
Last open task
When the last open task on a ticket:
  • Gets completed — aka all other tasks are already complete or the ticket only has one linked (active) task.
Any task when all are completed
When all linked tasks on a ticket are already completed and one of those tasks:
  • Gets reopened


Trigger actions

Set one or multiple actions for the trigger. These actions only take effect on tickets meeting the trigger's conditions.

Action
Criteria
Add tag(s)
Add one or multiple tags to matched tickets.
Remove tag(s)
Remove one or multiple tags from matched tickets.
Add a note
Add a note to matched tickets.
Assign to user
Change matched tickets' assigned agent or mark as "Unassigned."
Add follower
Add an agent as a ticket follower.
Change priority
Change matched tickets' priority level.
Change status
Change matched tickets' status.
Change type
Change matched tickets' type.
Move to inbox
Move matched tickets to a specific inbox.
Changing a ticket's assigned inbox affects who can access the ticket. For example, if the ticket's assigned agent is not a member of the destination inbox, they will not have access after the ticket is moved.
Delete
Delete matched tickets.
Send an email
Send an email to a specific group of people:
  • All agents 
  • Inbox's agents (agents with access to the ticket's inbox) 
  • Other inboxes' agents (all agents on the ticket's inbox or inboxes the trigger is shared with)
  • Specific agent(s)
  • Assigned agent
  • Ticket creator (if the creator is a customer)
  • Customer(s)

Toggle on Set a custom email to include a custom message in the email. If turned off, a copy of the current ticket (including all messages) is sent. 
Apply business hours
Apply a business hours schedule.
Add a task
Create a task in a Teamwork.com project. The task's details map from the ticket:
  • Ticket subject → task name
  • Ticket attachments → task attachments
  • Ticket's last message contents → task description

Best practices

  • Tell your team: Make sure to tell your team which automated processes you have set up so they can understand what'll happen when they complete or reopen tasks on tickets. This is good practice for all triggers, not just task-related ones.
  • Combine processes: Support more sophisticated workflows by adding multiple conditions / actions (or both) to a trigger.
    Need some ideas? Set a trigger to 1) change a ticket's priority to high and 2) send an email to the assigned agent when the ticket's last open task is completed and the ticket's inbox is "Customer Support."