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Organizing and Troubleshooting Triggers and Automations

  • March 16, 2013
  • 12 replies
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J

For a long time I just kept creating triggers and automations... and then one day I looked up and we had almost 100 of them.  Even though they were named uniquely, they were difficult to find and troubleshoot in that long list.

 

So what I did just recently was to coded them starting the triggers with "T001" and automations with an "A001".  So, for example, the second trigger is T002 and the thirty-third automation is A033.  While re-naming these, I also tacked that code on to the end of any email messages that was a part of those triggers and automations.

 

Now, when anyone gets a strange email, I just ask them for the code at the very bottom of the email and I can easily trace it back to the correct trigger or automation.  This also works when viewing the events of a ticket.

 

One note of caution: don't re-use your codes.  If you ever stop using a trigger or automation, just retire that code and use a new one.

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    12 replies

    A
    • Andrew42
    • March 16, 2013

    Great tip Justin!

    I hadn't thought of adding codes to the mails.  

    One thing I have stuck to is giving a good explanation of wht the trigger is FOR in the name.  I have also started adding the group name that they affect in the title.

    J
    • Justin27
    • Author
    • March 16, 2013

    Agreed.  I'm sure it seems kinda crazy to anyone starting out but I also get very granular with the name to the point of listing out all of the conditions and the actions taken so if I need to find all of my triggers which set the Status to Open or something I can just search for "Status = Open" and find them all quickly (and fix my problems quickly).

    T
    • Todd30
    • March 18, 2013

    That's a great idea. Another helpful technique (mentioned elsewhere in this community) is to create placeholder triggers to separate the sections. For example:

    ////  NOTIFICATIONS  ////

    You can set them to fire only when a very unlikely tag is added to a ticket.

    Jennifer16
    • Jennifer16
    • March 18, 2013

    Justin, thanks for sharing this great tip! This is exactly the type of "real-world" info that users need but we can't always provide in the product usage docs. I'll make sure this is linked from the docs.

    And thanks guys for jumping in with more great tips for triggers! This is what the community is about! :)

    A
    • Andrew42
    • March 18, 2013

    Hello Todd, thanks for that tip, I hadnt thought of that!

    J
    • Justin27
    • Author
    • March 18, 2013

    @Todd - what a great idea.  Can I ask how group your triggers?

    I know that ZD processes them top-down so there has to be some logical ordering, right?

    Mine are generally grouped as Field & Tag Modification & , then Email Notifications, then Resolutions.

    A
    • Andrew42
    • March 18, 2013

    Maybe thats why I hadnt thought of grouping them... the order is important at times... but I will re-look at it.

    T
    • Todd30
    • March 18, 2013

    @Justin - I had to do some analysis when I reorganized them in this fashion so that the logical ordering wasn't disturbed. Actually, I think the reorganization helped make the ordering a bit more logical, actually!  Here are the sections I use:

    Misc. (mostly comprised of adding tags to certain kinds of tickets)

    Set Organization

    Set Priority

    Set Category

    Set Status

    Send Notifications

    Assign to Person, Queue, or Group

    A
    • Anonymous
    • October 23, 2013

    Hello Todd, thanks for that tip, I hadnt thought of that!

    D
    • Diane19
    • October 24, 2013

    I think I probably asked this somewhere before, but since we have folks using these AND organizing them...

     

    has anyone come up with a way to document them external to Zendesk? 

     

    are they exportable in CSV format or something.  I have probably 30 macros and we grouped them according to whom they affect, i.e. Production: disc uploaded, Production: photos uploaded, etc, so they appear in drop downs.

    I think we have more than we need and i know that i have macros based on custom fields that I would like to remove.  I just need a more complete way to see these instead of clicking into each one individually.

    I don't do API stuff, but I'm okay with CSV export and putting them into Access to manipulate more easily.

    Diane

    Jennifer16
    • Jennifer16
    • November 12, 2013

    Hey Diane,

    Sorry, but it looks like your only option for exporting macros is via the API.

      http://developer.zendesk.com/documentation/rest_api/macros.html

    I know that doesn't help you.

    There are several feature requests you can check out: 

    https://support.zendesk.com/categories/search?utf8=%26%23x2713%3B&query=export+macros

     

    Thanks! 

     

     

     

     

    A
    • Aaron59
    • October 2, 2017

    @Justin - This might be helpful to you: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203660826-Triggers-Organized-Reassigning-Tickets

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