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Adding Trigger, Macro and Automation Functionality to Side Conversations

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  • February 3, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 9 views
Wesley15

I have run into a situation where we are looking to try and automate the side conversation workflow so that the agent does not have to copy/paste a macro every time they need to nudge the side conversation for an update. Currently, there is no way to add an update to an existing side conversation, only to create a new side conversation, which will not work since there are many different recipients that we need to be able to push an "Is there any update on this request" email to within the side conversation. 

I believe that this could be solved by adding a "placeholder" to the available placeholders used in triggers and macros that allow the macro/trigger to send the update via an open side conversation. 

If it is possible to have an automation trigger a macro to be sent an update to the ticket, that would also be a nice functionality that I have not yet been able to create a workflow for. If this functionality exists, then I would ask if we can have the macros sent to the side conversation if it is open rather than a public or private comment. 

Case scenario: Side conversations are used to inquire with 3rd parties to make changes for clients. We want to be able to send a nudge notification to the side conversation manually after 72 hours of not having a reply on the side conversation. The current workflow is to use an automation to put the ticket into an Open Status so the agent can send this nudge notification manually, but with our busier teams, this means hundreds of additional tickets to modify each week where they need to go through the workaround of adding a macro, copying it to a side conversation, and then re-saving the ticket manually under a pending status. 

Is there a better way currently or is this something that can be added to the side conversation functionality in the future? Thoughts?

    2 replies

    Toby12
    • Toby12Employee
    • Employee
    • February 8, 2023

    Hey Wesley, thanks for the detailed feedback!

    We've definitely thought about ways to enable "nudging" for side conversations. Currently, automations only work with tickets, and they don't have a way to be associated with an individual side conversation. We have some ideas for how to do it outside of automations, but that also requires a lot of figuring out how/where that would be configured, etc. 

    As for macros, we've also thought about how macros could apply to existing side conversations. In your mind, how do you envision that working? Do you think of it as the addition of a new macro action like "reply to open side conversation" that would apply to whichever side conversation is open when the macro is called? Or more like "if a side conversation is open and a macro has an action for reply, apply it to the side conversation instead of the ticket"?

    Wesley15
    • Wesley15
    • Author
    • March 7, 2023

    Hello Tony,

    I apologize I did not see your reply last month, but better late than never. 

    For Macros within side conversations, I think of it more along the lines of a new action as you mentioned first: "reply to an open side conversation". Our team primarily uses macros to quickly write public reply comments, which they use the "/" key to populate, however, they can not use them on the side conversations. They instead implement a workaround of filling in the public comment using a macro and then transferring the info using Ctrl + X to the side conversation email body.

    If there were somehow a way to "nudge" the side conversation, and control what the nudge message says and contains, then that would solve most of our issues, as the main time drain is manually sending nudges on side conversations rather than responding to actual updates that the third party provides via the side conversation. 

    IF... there were macro capabilities to add text to a side conversation, AND there was the ability to add Macros in a Trigger/Automation and then save the case/send the side conversation as if manually submitting the macro/sending the side conversation email, then I could see there being this functionality implemented by way of automation/trigger that adds a macro that populates a nudge message on a side conversation. 

    I hope this helped shed more light and makes more sense.

    Thank you,

    Wesley Jamison

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