Ticket Actions
WHMCS’s automation can perform many actions to help you handle tickets. You can add scheduled actions to individual support tickets, configure escalation rules for support departments, or automate closures for inactive tickets.
Scheduled Actions
Scheduled actions allow you to add and manage automated actions for an individual support ticket. This allows you to provide enhanced customer service by changing the ticket status, department, and other actions on a scheduled date or after a set amount of time.
You can view and manage the scheduled actions for a ticket in the Scheduled Actions tab. The list of scheduled actions orders actions by the scheduled execution time and then, for actions with the same execution time, by the execution order.
You can schedule the following actions:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Pin to Top | Pin the ticket to the top of the list at Support > Support Tickets. |
| Assign Ticket | Assign the ticket to an admin. If the ticket is already assigned to the selected admin at execution time, no change will occur. |
| Update Department | Move the support ticket to a different support department. |
| Update Priority | Update the ticket’s priority. |
| Update Status | Update the ticket’s status. |
These actions send notifications at execution time using the same logic and settings that the system uses when you perform these actions manually.
- The system will not send notifications when you schedule the action.
- For more information, see Notifications.
Statuses
The list of scheduled actions includes a status for each action. Actions may display the following statuses:
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Scheduled | The action is scheduled to run at the listed execution time. |
| Completed | The action ran successfully at its execution time. |
| Cancelled | An admin manually cancelled the action before its set execution time occurred. |
| Failed | The system attempted the action, but a problem prevented it from succeeding. For more information, see Scheduled Action Failures. |
Action Execution
The system automates scheduled action execution using the system cron. When the system cron runs, it automatically attempts to run any action in the Scheduled status that has reached its execution time.
- If the system cannot execute the action, it will attempt to retry it for up to one hour.
- After one hour, any actions that the system cannot successfully execute will move to the Failed status and the system will not attempt them again.
If there are multiple scheduled actions with the same execution time, the system will attempt them in the following order:
- Pin to Top
- Update Status
- Update Department
- Update Priority
- Assign Ticket
Close Inactive Tickets
To automatically close tickets after a certain amount of inactivity, enter a number of hours for Close Inactive Tickets at Configuration () > System Settings > Automation Settings.
- By default, this applies to tickets in the Answered or Customer Reply statuses.You can update which statuses close due to inactivity at Configuration () > System Settings > Ticket Statuses.
- When it automatically closes a ticket due to inactivity, the system sends the Support Ticket Auto Close Notification email to the user.
Escalation Rules
Ticket escalation rules allow you to specify actions to take automatically if a support ticket is in a specified state for a set period of time.
You can configure automated escalation rules at Configuration () > System Settings > Escalation Rules.
You can apply escalation rules according to specific support departments, ticket statuses, or priority levels. For example, in the example below, low and medium priority tickets will change to high priority, an automatic response will go to the client, and members of the relevant support department will receive an email after four hours with no response:
Escalation rules apply to every ticket that meets the specified conditions. If nothing happens to ensure that the ticket doesn’t meet the conditions, the escalation rule will continue to affect the ticket. It will only stop affecting the ticket when it no longer matches the escalation rule conditions.
Merge Fields
Escalation rule replies and scheduled action replies support the use of merge fields using the same method as in individual ticket replies.
By default, support ticket replies can use the following merge fields:
[NAME]— The ticket submitter’s full name.[FIRSTNAME]— The ticket submitter’s first name.[EMAIL]— The ticket submitter’s email address.
[FIRSTNAME]) with the client’s data (for example, Cassidy) when you enter it. You can also use some custom fields as merge fields.Last modified: December 17, 2024