Urgent Request Workflow
When marked urgent: notify assigned staff, subscribe manager, email customer acknowledgment. Three actions from one button click.
Help Desk Automation Software
Let the system
do the work.
Triggers, rules, and smart routing handle the repetitive tasks. Your team focuses on what matters: helping customers.
Three layers of automation
Each layer handles different scenarios, working together to keep your help desk running smoothly.
F-01
Triggers
Fire instantly when conditions are met. Assign tickets, notify staff, and update fields the moment something happens.
F-02
Automation Rules
Scheduled scans that catch what falls through the cracks. SLA warnings, stale tickets, and follow-up reminders.
F-03
Mail Rules
Route incoming emails before anyone sees them. Match subjects, senders, and content to set category, assignee, and priority.
Conditions trigger actions
Define the conditions. HelpSpot handles the rest. Every automation follows the same simple pattern.
EVENT OCCURS
New ticket created
CONDITIONS MATCH
IF subject contains "urgent"
AND category = "Support"
ACTIONS EXECUTE
Mark as urgent
Assign to Sarah
Notify manager
EVENT OCCURS
Ticket Created
or updated, or time passes...
CONDITIONS MATCH
IF
subject contains "urgent"
AND
category = "Support"
AND
business hours = true
ACTIONS EXECUTE
Mark as urgent
Assign to Sarah
Notify manager via email
15+
AVAILABLE ACTIONS
∞
CONDITION COMBOS
24/7
ALWAYS RUNNING
Real-Time Automation
Triggers: instant reactions
Triggers watch every change to every ticket. The moment conditions match, actions fire instantly. Mark urgent, assign staff, notify managers, send emails. One trigger, multiple outcomes.
-
Fire on ticket creation or any update
-
Match category, status, urgency, or custom fields
-
Run only during business hours if needed
-
Chain multiple actions from one trigger
-
See trigger history in ticket timeline
TRIGGER
Urgent Request Handler
Active
WHEN
category changes TO
'Billing'
urgency IS
'Urgent'
THEN
Assign to: Sarah K.
Notify: #billing-alerts
Set priority: High
Trigger scenarios
that save hours daily.
Real examples from HelpSpot customers.
VIP Customer Handling
Detect VIP customers by email domain or custom field. Route to senior agents automatically.
Business Hours Aware
Rules know your schedule. Run different actions during office hours vs. nights, weekends, and holidays.
Escalation Subscriptions
When status changes to Escalated, subscribe manager to all updates.
Category Change Notifications
Moved to Server category? Notify the server team lead with customer info.
"It was like triage for us. Like having a non-paid employee that got to do it. It was HelpSpot doing the work instead of all of us."
Lisa DeLapo
Director of Instructional and Information Technology, Union School District
SLA Enforcement Rule
Auto-escalate stale tickets
Active
SCHEDULE
Runs every:
15 minutes
CONDITIONS
Status IS
Open
Minutes since opened
> 120
No public reply exists
ACTIONS
Mark as Urgent
Assign to Manager
Email notification
Scheduled Automation
Automation Rules: catch inaction
Triggers react to changes. Automation Rules catch what did not change. Tickets sitting too long? Customers who have not replied? SLAs about to break? Rules find them and take action.
-
Run every minute, hourly, daily, or weekly
-
Track minutes since opened, closed, or last update
-
Run only during or outside business hours
-
Email summary tables of matching tickets
-
"Run once per request" prevents loops
Common automation patterns
Set up once, run forever. These patterns save teams hours every week.
01
SLA Enforcement
Request open more than 2 days without reply? Mark urgent, reassign to manager, set "Broke SLA" field for reporting.
02
Stale Request Alerts
Daily email listing all requests with no public update in 3+ days. Helps identify stuck or forgotten requests.
03
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Request closed more than 1 day ago? Email customer with survey link. "Run once" ensures single survey per ticket.
Email Routing
Mail Rules: route before anyone sees it
Mail Rules work like Outlook or Gmail rules but for your help desk. Match sender domains, subject keywords, or body content. Route VIP customers to senior agents. Categorize system alerts automatically. Teams managing IT service desks and B2B support rely on mail rules to handle high volume.
-
Match sender address, domain, or email pattern
-
Check subject line and email body content
-
Access email headers for advanced routing
-
Set category, assignee, status, and custom fields
-
Process before any agent sees the ticket
MAIL RULE
VIP Client Router
Active
MATCH
from domain IS
*@enterprise.com
subject CONTAINS
'account'
SET
Category: Enterprise
Assign to: Senior Team
Priority: Urgent
Processed before ticket creation
Automatic assignment
F-01
Round Robin
Assign agents one after another for even distribution over time.
F-02
Least Requests
Always assign to the agent with the fewest open tickets. Balance workload automatically.
F-03
Default Contact
Route all tickets in a category to one person. Perfect for specialists or managers.
F-04
Random
Distribute randomly among category staff. Evens out over time with less predictability.
Canned responses
way more than text
Request Actions
Insert a response and watch the ticket transform. Status, category, custom fields, note type, CC recipients, email subject. All set automatically.
Type # to Insert
Never leave the keyboard. Type # and start typing the response name. Autocomplete does the rest.
Dynamic Placeholders
Personalize every response with customer data, ticket info, and custom field values.
Three Response Types
Full templates, partial paragraphs, or single links. Mix and match to build any reply.
Chain Responses
Combine multiple responses into one polished reply. Greeting + steps + closing.
Attached Documents
Attach PDFs and files to responses. Insert the response, file attaches automatically.
Organized & Permissioned
Group responses by folder. Control visibility by team. HR sees HR responses.
Always Accurate
Process changed? Update the response once. Every agent sends the correct information from that moment on. No retraining needed.
Ready to simplify your support?
Recurring Schedule
3 Active
Backup verification
WEEKLY
Every Monday at 9:00 AM → IT Lead
M
T
W
T
F
S
S
repeats
Security audit
MONTHLY
1st of each month at 9:00 AM → Security Team
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
…
License review
QUARTERLY
Start of quarter at 9:00 AM → IT Manager
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
next: Apr 1
Ticket #4821 auto-created from Backup verification · Feb 17
Scheduled Tasks
Recurring Requests
Convert any response into a scheduled task. Check backups weekly. Audit security monthly. Any recurring responsibility becomes a tracked ticket, automatically created on schedule.
-
Daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly schedules
-
Auto-assign to specified staff
-
Pre-populate all ticket fields
-
Perfect for compliance and maintenance tasks
-
Customer notified when task is completed
TIME-AWARE AUTOMATION
Business hours
built in.
Define your support hours. Triggers and automation rules can fire only during business hours, only outside hours, or all the time. SLA reports calculate against business hours automatically.
- Set hours for each day of the week
- Mark holidays with specific dates
- Speed reports respect business hours
- Different auto-replies for after hours
BUSINESS HOURS
Monday
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Tuesday
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Wednesday
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Thursday
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Friday
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Saturday
Closed
Sunday
Closed
Holidays: Dec 25, Jan 1, Jul 4...
Automation at scale
The largest HelpSpot installations process tens of thousands of automation checks daily. Your rules run reliably, every time.
10M+
Tickets
50M+
Emails Processed
500+
Mailboxes
50+
Portals
Battle-Tested Infrastructure
Trusted by the United States Space Force, Northrop Grumman, and the University of Michigan for mission-critical support.
Common questions
Everything you need to know about HelpSpot automation.
Triggers fire instantly when a ticket is created or updated. Automation rules run on a schedule and look for tickets matching certain criteria. Use triggers for immediate reactions (notify on escalation). Use rules for catching inaction (ticket open too long without reply).
Yes. Create the automation but leave it disabled. Use the condition preview to see which tickets would match. When satisfied, enable it. You can also check "Show in request history" to see when triggers fire on individual tickets.
Over 15 actions: assign category and staff, set custom fields and tags, change status, mark urgent, add notes, send emails (to agents, customers, or external addresses), subscribe staff, perform Live Lookup, post webhooks, and more. AI categorization can also be triggered automatically.
Yes. Use the "Post Webhook" action to send data to any external URL when conditions match. This enables integration with Slack, Teams, CRMs, or any system that accepts webhooks. You can also use Zapier for no-code integrations. See our API and integrations page for more.
No. Triggers execute in milliseconds. Automation rules run on separate scheduled processes and do not affect agent performance. The architecture is designed to handle millions of tickets.
Automation rules have a "Run once per request" option that prevents the same rule from firing on the same ticket twice.
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