Understanding Triggers and Automations in Zendesk: Best Practices and Setup Guide

Triggers and Automations are two of the most powerful tools in Zendesk to streamline workflows, reduce manual tasks, and improve response times. While they may sound similar, they serve distinct purposes and work at different times in the ticket lifecycle.

In this article, we’ll walk you through:

• What triggers and automations are

• When to use each

• Best practices for setup

• Real-life examples

---

🔄 What’s the Difference Between Triggers and Automations?

Feature	Triggers	Automations
When it runs	Immediately when ticket is created or updated	On a schedule, based on time conditions
Triggered by	Events (ticket updates, form changes, etc.)	Time-based rules (e.g., 24 hours after ticket is solved)
Use case	Routing, notifications, tagging, escalations	Follow-ups, reminders, inactivity alerts

---

⚙️ When to Use Triggers vs. Automations

• Use Triggers when you want something to happen as soon as an event occurs, like:

  • Auto-assigning a ticket to a group when a specific form is selected.

  • Sending a confirmation email when a customer submits a request.

  • Escalating urgent tickets to Tier 2.

• Use Automations when you want to act after a time delay, such as:

  • Sending a reminder if a ticket hasn't been updated in 48 hours.

  • Closing solved tickets after 4 days of no response.

  • Notifying agents if a ticket is stuck in pending for too long.

---

✅ Best Practices for Using Triggers & Automations

1. Use clear naming conventions
   Example: Trigger - Assign: VIP Customers or Automation - Reminder: Pending > 48 hrs

2. Avoid duplication
   Review your existing rules to prevent overlaps or conflicts between multiple triggers.

3. Test with dummy tickets
   Before going live, create test tickets to see how your rules behave.

4. Order matters (for triggers)
   Zendesk runs triggers in order—use the drag-and-drop interface to prioritize correctly.

5. Keep it simple
   Too many nested conditions can make rules hard to troubleshoot. Break complex workflows into smaller steps.

6. Use tags to track automation
   Add unique tags (like auto_closed or vip_assigned) to monitor and report on actions taken automatically.

---

🔍 Examples You Can Try

Trigger Example:
Auto-assign urgent tickets

• Conditions:

  • Ticket > Priority > Is > Urgent

• Actions:

  • Group > Assign to > Tier 2 Support

  • Add tag > urgent_ticket

Automation Example:
Remind agent of pending ticket after 48 hours

• Conditions:

  • Status > Is > Pending

  • Hours since update > Is > 48

• Actions:

  • Email user (assignee)

  • Add tag pending_48hr_reminder

---

📘 Final Thoughts

Using triggers and automations effectively can save your team hours of manual work, ensure tickets don’t fall through the cracks, and create a seamless support experience. Start small, monitor performance, and refine over time.

Need help setting up a specific workflow? [Contact your Zendesk admin] or [Submit a support request].