Like all Ninja merchandise, Ninja Ticketing offers customers many alternatives to avoid wasting time by means of automation. Organising automations in opposition to a tabula rasa generally is a daunting process when first getting began with ticketing.
We wrote this weblog publish to assist new customers get began with widespread, useful automations you should use from day one. This information will present step-by-step explanations and screenshots to indicate arrange these automations. Moreover, this publish will probably be a part of a extra intensive sequence of ticketing automation examples that may improve complexity.
With out additional ado, let’s dive into 5 generally used automations that may make ticketing a breeze for your corporation:
1) Automate and Manage Tickets into Ticketing Boards Based mostly on Totally different Standards
On this instance, we’ll stroll by means of arrange ticketing automation to arrange and escalate tickets to 2 completely different ticketing boards: T2 Service Requests and T3 Service requests.
Use Case: Robotically route a assist ticket that requires extra in-depth data to the T2 ticket board. If that ticket requires a subject skilled, this ticket will be escalated to the T3 ticket board. Lastly, tickets will be auto-assigned to the T3 ticket board if they arrive from a sure assist e-mail (ex: ).
What is required:
- Create two ticket boards, one every for Tier 2 technicians and Tier 3 technicians
- Create an event-based automation to detect related tags (T2 or T3) and to ship notifications to the suitable e-mail handle
- Create a selected e-mail handle that may obtain all T3-level requests
How one can set this up – Escalation to T2 Board:
First, you want to arrange the ticketing boards for T2 and T3 tickets. Every board solely reveals tickets a selected technician stage ought to work on; for instance, the T2 board will solely present tickets that tier 2 technicians ought to be addressing. Ticketing board setup will be discovered below Configurations Integrations Ticketing Boards:
When you navigate to the Boards part of ticketing, you should create your T2 and T3 boards with the circumstances that greatest match your corporation. Within the picture under, we arrange the T2 board with circumstances we felt may match a regular T2 stage of assist:
Subsequent, we couple this board with an automation, discovered below Configurations ➡️ Integrations ➡️ Ticketing ➡️ Automation ➡️ Create. This automation is an event-based automation that may route any tickets that require a T2 stage of assist to the T2 ticket board after assembly all the circumstances that we set:
Lastly, as soon as these circumstances are met, we chosen the actions we need to be taken when a ticket is routed onto the T2 ticket board. The T2 tag will make sure the ticket is routed to the T2 board; we’ll additionally need to make sure the ticket is not on the T1 board, so we’ll take away the T1 tag. Lastly, we need to be certain all of the T2 techs are conscious of the brand new ticket, so we’ll notify them by sending an e-mail to their shared mailbox.
How one can set this up – Escalation to T3 Board from a Sure E-mail Handle:
Step one is to arrange an e-mail throughout the Ticketing part of Ninja’s platform. For this instance, we created this e-mail with the next settings. A method we set this up is to have an e-mail despatched to this handle auto-tag it with T3:
The following step is to arrange the T3 Board, just like establishing the T2 Board. The distinction right here is that we’re in search of any tickets that include the “T3” tag:
Subsequent, the automations should be arrange for the T3 tickets with the circumstances you need to take, equally to the T2 ticket automations. Nonetheless, in these circumstances, we’re in search of tickets that include the “T3” tag:
Lastly, the actions you need to be taken based mostly on this automation should be configured. Lastly, we’ll take the identical actions for the T2 escalation automation: take away the T2 tag and notify the T3 group through e-mail.
2) Automation Associated to Ticket Standing Modifications
On this instance, we’ll stroll by means of arrange automations to regulate the standing of a ticket based mostly on sure circumstances and to ship an e-mail to the requestor if a sure time frame passes with none motion.
Use Case: Ticket standing change automations help technicians with adjusting tickets to signify the place they’re within the “ticket lifecycle.” If statuses usually are not modified manually, these automations will assist make sure that tickets get moved to completely different boards, out of the present queue, or shut themselves if no additional actions are wanted, permitting your technicians to give attention to the present duties.
On this instance, we’ll routinely change a ticket from open to ready when the requestor hasn’t responded to a technician for no less than one hour.
What is required:
- Create time-based automations to detect how a lot time has handed since a requestor has responded to a ticket
- Dedication of particular ticket SLAs to construct out the time-based automations (ex: average has a four-hour SLA, pressing has a one-hour SLA)
- Decide inside meanings of particular ticket statuses
How one can set this up:
Step one right here is to arrange the proper automation sort, which on this case will probably be a time-based automation. This may be completed by going to Configurations ➡️ Integrations ➡️ Ticketing ➡️ Automation ➡️ Create ➡️ Time Based mostly:
Subsequent, we need to alter the standing of a ticket. On this instance, we would like solely “Open” tickets to be routinely up to date as soon as a technician has responded, however the requestor hasn’t responded for no less than an hour:
As soon as this situation is met, we would like the “Open” ticket to be set to “Ready.” That is achieved within the actions part:
Our hope is that the requestor will ultimately reply, and we are able to transfer the ticket in direction of decision. If not, although, we are able to routinely shut the ticket.
The second a part of this automation can deal with tickets that fall into this class. Following the identical steps as earlier than, the subsequent automation will start like this:
Subsequent, we need to arrange the motion that may take any tickets with a standing of “Ready” that hasn’t been modified in 120 hours to replace to Resolved. An additional advantage right here can be to have the requestor of the ticket obtain an e-mail informing them that the ticket has been “Resolved” on our finish:
One ultimate step is required to arrange the topic line that accommodates the ticket ID and the physique. Click on into the textual content subject subsequent to the added “E-mail” motion and insert the topic line, placeholder, and physique that’s most related to you:
3) Robotically Route Particular Tickets to a Technician
On this instance, we’ll stroll by means of arrange automations that may ship tickets about particular issues, duties, merchandise, and so forth., to a specific technician that will have a specialty in that space.
Use Case: A majority of these automations might help with ticket dispersion and group to technicians which are material specialists or who’ve a specialty with questions that could be requested. Reasonably than having the technicians look by means of extra generic boards which are damaged out by service-level complexities, they will have all of the tickets they want be assigned on to their boards. This enables them to spend their time extra effectively addressing the request moderately than trying to find related tickets.
What is required:
- Create a response template automation that may take the next actions: add a selected tag, assign it to a selected technician, and supply that technician with a message
- Create particular tags which are associated to widespread requests that particular technicians specialise in resolving
How one can set this up:
With different items already arrange (i.e., technician accounts created, ingestion strategies arrange within the earlier automation we reviewed), there are two principal items left to create this model of automation. Step one is to create the required template, which will be discovered by going to Configurations ➡️ Integrations ➡️ Ticketing ➡️ Automation ➡️ Create ➡️ Response Template:
Subsequent, we have now to arrange the response template with the actions essential to route any tickets that should do with backup restore to a selected technician (myself within the instance under):
Lastly, you possibly can click on throughout the textual content subject subsequent to “Add Remark.” When you click on that subject, you’ll be given three choices: Fill out the physique of the remark, determine if the remark is Personal or Public, and insert a Placeholder. For this instance, we inserted the “${ticket.tags}” placeholder, nonetheless. There are a number of choices to select from that is likely to be extra related to your group:
4) Create an Alert for “Out of SLA” Pressing Tickets
On this instance, we’ll stroll by means of create alerts for pressing tickets which are out of their SLA occasions. We are going to start with automations round ingesting pressing tickets and finish with an automation that alerts the required events.
Use case: Pressing ticket visibility is crucial to make sure that issues are rapidly addressed and decrease enterprise impacts. Automations are important for ensuring that any pressing ticket that is available in is routinely routed to the technicians geared up to deal with these rapidly and successfully. A drop-off at any step within the course of could cause important issues, so decreasing human error is crucial in these conditions.
What is required:
- Arrange e-mail and Slack integrations to ship notifications to the required events if a ticket is out of SLA
- Create particular tags that signify a ticket that may be thought-about “pressing.”
- Create an event-based automation that may parse the topic line of an e-mail for “pressing” and add an “pressing” tag
- Create a time-based automation that may search for any “pressing” tags and for any tickets which have surpassed a selected period of time since a technician responded and can ship Slack and e-mail notifications to escalate
How one can set this up:
Step one is to arrange an e-mail to ingest pressing tickets and arrange a Slack integration that may enable us to ship notifications to the required events if a ticket is out of SLA. These two integrations will be arrange by going to Configurations ➡️ Integrations ➡️ Notification Channels ➡️ Enabled:
The following step is to arrange the ingestion strategies for any drawback or challenge that might be thought-about “pressing.” On this instance, we’ll use two normal ingestion strategies: one through a devoted pressing challenge e-mail handle and one other for parsing a topic line for the phrase “pressing.”
We’ll first need to add an e-mail particularly for pressing requests on this step. We’ll additionally need this e-mail so as to add the tag “pressing” to any of those requests coming in, which can assist with our circumstances within the subsequent step. This may be completed by going to Configurations ➡️ Integrations ➡️ Ticketing ➡️ E-mail ➡️ Create:
Subsequent, we’ll arrange an event-based automation that may parse the topic traces for the phrase “pressing” and add the tag “pressing,” permitting the subsequent automation to gather these tickets as effectively and escalate if wanted:
Lastly, we’ll create an automation that escalates any tickets which have the tag “pressing” and haven’t had a technician reply in over two hours:
5) Server is Down Automation
In our final instance, we’ll stroll by means of arrange an automation that may open a ticket if a server is down, shut the ticket if the problem is resolved, and escalate that ticket if the identical drawback occurs once more.
Use Case: This automation is crucial, for instance, if a server goes down in an vital division. When this challenge is detected, a number of steps will be automated to assist your technicians give attention to addressing the problem moderately than in search of it and gathering info that would delay a repair.
This automation can:
- Use a type that you really want,
- Tag the problem (which, coupled with extra automation, can route this ticket to a extremely seen ticket board),
- Auto assign a precedence and severity (based mostly in your current insurance policies),
- And deal with the next steps if the state of affairs is resolved or arises once more in a brief time frame.
This use case makes use of a number of different functionalities inside Ninja, permitting for a swift and easy course of, though it might appear advanced at first look.
What is required:
- Create a situation ticket automation that may tag a ticket when it’s created and assign severity and precedence based mostly in your insurance policies, resolve a ticket when the situation is reset, and escalate the ticket if the situation is retriggered
- Edit your server insurance policies to incorporate circumstances particularly for when servers are down
- Decide server circumstances that may decide when the preliminary ticket is created, preliminary severity and precedence settings, and preliminary auto-reset circumstances.
How one can set this up:
First, we need to create a brand new situation ticket automation to create a ticket when a server is down. There are three sections to this ticket that we are going to stroll by means of right here. The primary part fills out the required fields for the preliminary ticket being created. Right here we’ll choose a type to make use of (we used ‘Default’), then add a tag, standing of the ticket, and precedence and severity based mostly in your current insurance policies:
Subsequent, we’ll fill out the ‘On Situation Reset’ part. This part will deal with resolving the ticket routinely if the server is again on-line inside a sure time frame:
The final step on this automation is filling out the ‘On Situation Retrigger’ part. This part will deal with escalation if the server goes again down in a sure time frame (inside 48 hours, for instance). Based mostly on the fields, it should open the ticket once more, be certain the ‘serverisdown’ tag is added, and lift the precedence and severity to the best stage:
To finish the loop, the final piece that’s essential to make sure this automation is working appropriately is Server Coverage Situations. So we went to Insurance policies ➡️ Home windows Server ➡️ Situations ➡️ Add a situation (provided that a Machine is down circumstances isn’t already arrange).
We created the situation ‘Machine is down for five minutes,’ crammed out the remainder of the fields, and most significantly, chosen the Ticketing Rule that we simply constructed above. That is what kick begins the automation that we simply constructed and can create that preliminary ticket:
Ticketing is a strong characteristic inside Ninja and provides one other layer of versatility to the single-pane view Ninja gives, as automations can initially be daunting when you haven’t had expertise with a ticketing platform earlier than. As a substitute, we wished to supply a How-To for among the widespread executions we see, transferring from straightforward to extra advanced setups.
We are going to proceed publishing some extra posts that will help you out with some extra widespread automations so you possibly can effectively assist your technicians clear up no matter drawback comes their means. Be happy to supply options for the subsequent iteration of this sequence and attain out if in case you have any questions in regards to the executions above!