Events and actions in TOPdesk: five automations

In many TOPdesk environments, operators do by hand what TOPdesk can do itself. They send acknowledgements, watch target dates and update the caller on every status change separately. Events and actions let you turn that work into rules. The names below follow the TOPdesk SaaS documentation.

How events and actions work

Events and actions belong to the Action Management module. An event is the moment, such as a call being closed; an action is what TOPdesk then does, such as emailing the caller.

In the Event Explorer you choose a card type and an event type: New card, Edit card, Delete card, Move to or from this card type, or Card date. Conditions determine which cards the event applies to, specifications which change triggers it.

You set up actions in the Automated Actions overview. An action can be an email, a generated document or an action sequence: a series of steps that can send HTTP requests to another system or to your own TOPdesk. TOPdesk advises using action sequences instead of separate HTTP actions wherever possible, partly for security reasons. Smart workflows in TOPdesk covers where fixed rules are enough and where AI adds something.

Five automations to start with

An acknowledgement to the caller

Link a New card event on calls to an email action to the caller. Insertion fields put the call number in the message, and a link lets the caller open the call in the TOPdesk SelfServicePortal.

Test this for every channel. A call from the SelfServicePortal or a mail import counts as new on arrival; an operator's first save after that counts as an edit. Also tick Suppress automatic replies in the email action, as TOPdesk recommends. Otherwise an out-of-office reply can end up in the card and trigger the email again.

Assigning to the right operator

TOPdesk has its own assignment functions, and they come first. On a (sub)category you set a default operator, which TOPdesk fills in as soon as the category is chosen. With keywords, TOPdesk categorises a call itself. Automatic assignment in Call Management distributes new first-line calls over the logged-in members of an operator group.

If that is not enough, an action sequence can change fields on the card through an HTTP request. That means more maintenance, so only build what the built-in assignment cannot do.

A warning before the target date

A Card date event looks at a date on the card, such as the target date. It fires when that date will be reached within a set period, or when a set period has passed. That way the operator or team lead hears about it in time. The same approach flags new calls that nobody has picked up after a certain time.

Choose deliberately which date you monitor. With SLA services, a call has an SLA deadline next to the target date. Depending on a setting, both are extended by the time the call spent On Hold, but only once it has been taken off On Hold. More on this in SLA reporting in TOPdesk on aureadesk.com.

Escalating also has a fixed meaning in TOPdesk: a first-line call becomes a second-line call. A Move to or from this card type event responds to that.

Feedback on a status change

With an Edit card event and a specification on the Status field, you email the caller as soon as the status takes a particular value. Closing works the same way, with the Closed field. If you ask the caller for more information and nothing changes on the card, the operator starts the action manually from the context menu.

TOPdesk warns of a pitfall: without a specification, Edit card fires for every attachment a caller adds in the SelfServicePortal. Three files then trigger the same action three times. The solution TOPdesk describes is a dedicated status such as “Updated by caller”, which is set when a call is modified via the SelfServicePortal. The event then responds only to the change to that status.

Passing a call to a supplier

An action sequence can run several HTTP requests in turn and use the response of one step in the next. TOPdesk gives the example of a supplier that also uses TOPdesk. When an operator sets the status to “To Supplier”, the action sequence logs a call there and writes its number back into your own TOPdesk.

Of the five, this one takes the most building. TOPdesk recommends knowledge of REST API requests and JSON, and of FreeMarker for more complex sequences. Agree beforehand which system leads for which data.

Before you go live

Testing

If you have a test environment, build and test there. You export an action sequence as a JSON file and import it into production. Only include variables when needed, because they can contain credentials. Check the execution logs straight after every test. According to the documentation, TOPdesk keeps at most 50 executions and then deletes the oldest.

Ownership

An automation without an owner only gets noticed through complaints. So assign an owner to each automation and set up a failure notification, which TOPdesk emails when an automated action fails. The Automated Actions overview shows the last execution status for each action and who last changed it. Permission groups control who may create and change actions.

Documentation

Fill in the Description field of every action sequence. TOPdesk notes that the next user may have no idea why an action sequence exists. Write down which event and conditions trigger each automation, what it does and why, and choose names that make sense without explanation. Whoever later changes statuses or categories can then see what depends on them. TOPdesk administrator leaving covers what else to record before a handover.

Start small

Start with one automation that occurs often, and only add the next once it has run without errors for a few weeks. We set up events and actions and build API integrations with other systems. See our TOPdesk consultancy page.