Automation Rules in BoldDesk: Boost Productivity with Triggers

Automation rules—also known as triggers or workflows—are business rules that automatically perform repetitive ticket-related actions to boost agent productivity. By leveraging these rules, businesses can streamline tasks, minimize manual effort, and ensure faster response times. BoldDesk enhances this process with powerful automation capabilities, helping teams improve efficiency and deliver exceptional customer support. This guide explains how automation rules work, why they matter, and how to use them effectively.

Check out the video tutorial below.

Common Actions Supported

Automation rules can perform actions such as:

• Route ticket to the appropriate support team
• Send notifications to user, agent, or group
• Add watchers or CC recipients
• Add tags
• Add a private note
• Update ticket properties

Available Condition Fields

Conditions can be based on:

• Ticket properties (status, priority, category, etc.)
• Requester properties
• Contact group properties
• Custom fields

Rule Execution Order

Rules run in the order they are listed. You can reorder rules as needed.

Types of Automation Rules in BoldDesk

BoldDesk supports four main types of automation rules:

• Auto Assignment
• Create Ticket Triggers
• Update Ticket Triggers
• Time Triggers

Each rule consists of conditions and actions. A rule executes only when its conditions are met.

Auto Assignment Rule

• Automatically assigns incoming tickets to a specific team or group based on ticket properties.
• Uses round-robin logic to distribute tickets evenly among agents.
• Executes during ticket creation or update only if assigned agent and group are empty.
• The first matching rule is applied; remaining rules are ignored.
• You can also add watchers related to the assigned group.

Create Ticket Triggers

• Executes during ticket creation if conditions match.
• Common use cases:
  • Add user to watchers list
  • Add tags
  • Assign ticket directly to an agent

Update Ticket Triggers

• Executes when a ticket is updated and conditions match.
• Triggered by events such as:
  • Reply added
  • Note added
  • Property update
  • Customer feedback added
• Common use cases:
  • If requester and agent reply count exceeds a threshold, change priority to High
  • Notify manager when negative feedback is received

Time Triggers

• Runs every hour on unclosed tickets if conditions match.
• Common use cases:
  • Notify group if ticket is unassigned for X hours
  • Auto-solve ticket if waiting for customer response for X hours
  • Auto-close ticket if solved for X hours

Time Trigger Criteria

• A ticket can participate up to 100 times in its lifecycle.
• Only unclosed tickets updated within 30 days are eligible.
• To prevent endless loops:
  • Use hour-based conditions so rule matches only once
  • Change ticket properties in actions so conditions become false after execution

Trigger Summary

A trigger summary in BoldDesk is a quick, high‑level overview of an automation trigger rule. It shows you what the trigger does, including:

• What event activates the trigger
• What conditions must be met
• What actions will be executed

This summary helps admins instantly understand the purpose of a trigger without opening the full editor.

How to View Your Trigger Summary

• Navigate to: Admin → Automation → Ticket Automation then click the kebab icon on the particular trigger.
  
  
  
  
  
• Click on view summary and the trigger summary will be displayed.
  
  
  
  
  

How to Deactivate a Trigger in BoldDesk

BoldDesk allows you to disable automation rules (Create Ticket Triggers, Update Ticket Triggers, Time Triggers) by editing or removing the rule so it no longer executes.

Steps to Deactivate a Trigger

• Navigate to: Admin → Automation → Ticket Automation then click the kebab icon on the particular trigger.
• Click on deactivate.
  
  
  
  
  
• Click on Yes deactivate to confirm the action. Once it is deactivated, you can find the trigger under the inactive triggers tab.
  
  
  
  
  

How to Delete a Trigger in BoldDesk

In BoldDesk, triggers are part of Automation Rules (also called workflows). To remove an old trigger, you simply delete the automation rule itself.

Steps to Delete a Trigger (Automation Rule)

1. Go to Admin Settings.
2. Locate the Trigger You Want to Delete. Find the rule/trigger you want to remove from the list. For example, Create Ticket Triggers
3. Navigate the rule. From the rules, navigate to the trigger you want to delete and click on more option.
   
   
   
   
   
4. Click Delete
   Select the delete option and confirm to permanently remove the trigger.
   
   
   
   
   

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: Can I reorder automation rules?
Yes, rules run in the listed order, and you can reorder them.

Q2: What happens if multiple rules match?
The first matching rule executes; others are ignored.

Q3: How often do time triggers run?
Every hour, up to 100 times per ticket lifecycle.

Q4: Is there a set action to change the brand in a ticket trigger?
No, brand change is done manually and cannot be done using triggers or automations.

Related Articles

• Using Triggers to Send Custom Email Notifications
• Ticket Auto-Assignment in BoldDesk: Automatically Assign Tickets