Automations are time-based rules. They act on tickets after a period has passed — closing solved tickets, chasing stale ones, escalating what has been ignored — without anyone remembering to do it.
An automation has two halves:
- Conditions — what must be true
- Actions — what happens when it is
The three kinds of rule
Pleased has three rule engines, and choosing the wrong one is the usual reason a rule "does not work". They differ in what they act on and when they run.
Ticket triggers — Act on an existing ticket. Run immediately when the ticket is created or updated. Configured at Settings > Ticket Triggers.
Automations — Act on an existing ticket. Run on a schedule, after time has passed since the ticket met the conditions. Configured at Settings > Business Rules > Automations.
Chat triggers — Act on a website visitor before any conversation exists. Run while the visitor is on your site and matches the conditions. Configured at Chat > Triggers.
Use triggers for instant reactions, automations for anything measured in hours, and chat triggers to start a conversation with someone who has not contacted you yet.
Ticket triggers
Ticket triggers share the same conditions-and-actions shape as automations, so anything you can express here you can usually express there. What differs:
- They run on a ticket event — created, updated, or both — not on a clock. There is no frequency to set.
- They fire instantly, which makes them right for tagging, categorising, routing to a group and notifying — the work that must happen before an agent picks the ticket up.
- They have their own Trigger Interval option, which limits how often the same trigger can act on the same ticket. That is a rate limit, not a schedule.
- They are processed in list order, exactly like automations, so one trigger's actions can feed the next.
- If you find yourself writing an automation with a frequency of a few minutes to imitate an instant reaction, you want a ticket trigger. See Using Ticket Triggers.
Chat triggers
Chat triggers are the one engine that is not about tickets, and they are configured under Chat, not Business Rules. They match on what a visitor is doing — the page URL, how long they have been there, metadata your site passes in — and then send messages or open a support request on their behalf.
Neither automations nor ticket triggers can reach a visitor who has not started a conversation, so proactive engagement ("stuck on the checkout page for 90 seconds") belongs here. See Using chat triggers.
The rest of this article covers automations.
Create an automation
- Go to Settings in the left-hand menu.
- Select Business Rules, then Automations.
- Select Add Automation.
- Enter an Automation Title — required, up to 50 characters.
- Enter a Description — optional, up to 100 characters.
- Choose your condition logic:
- Meet ALL conditions — every condition must be true
- Meet ANY conditions — at least one must be true
- Add your conditions.
- Add your actions.
- Set the frequency.
- Select Save.
- The automation starts running at the next scheduled interval.
Naming
Titles and descriptions exist so your team can understand a rule without opening it:
- Title: Close Solved Tickets After 48 Hours
- Description: Automatically closes solved tickets to clean up the queue.
- This matters more than it sounds once you have twenty rules.
Conditions
Automation conditions typically include time-based logic:
- Hours since the ticket was updated
- Hours since the status changed
- Hours since the ticket was solved
- Ticket open for more than X hours
- A tag has existed for X hours
- Combine these with standard conditions such as brand, status or tags.
ALL vs ANY
ALL is precise — every condition must hold. ANY is broad — one match is enough. Choosing the wrong one is the most common reason an automation fires when it should not.
Actions
An automation can perform several actions at once:
- Close the ticket
- Change the ticket status
- Add or remove a tag
- Assign the ticket to a group
- Send a message to Slack
Frequency
Frequency is how often the automation checks its conditions:
- Every 9, 12, 15 or 30 minutes
- Every 1 to 24 hours
- Every 1 to 7 days
- It keeps running on that schedule until deactivated. It will not run the moment you save it — it runs at the next interval.
Order matters
Automations are processed in the order they appear in the list. One rule can change a ticket in a way that affects the next: removing a tag another rule depends on, or changing a status that activates or deactivates later actions.
If you have several automations, read them top to bottom as a sequence and confirm the order makes sense.
Managing automations
At Settings > Business Rules > Automations you can:
- View all active automations
- See how many times each has run, over selectable intervals
- Edit, clone or move an automation
- Deactivate one — it moves to the Inactive tab
- Create a new automation
Troubleshooting
The Save button is disabled. You need at least one condition, at least one action, and a title.
My automation is not running. Check the frequency — the next interval may not have arrived. Confirm it is active, that ALL/ANY is set correctly, and that the time-based conditions are actually satisfiable.
The action did not apply. Confirm the conditions were met, that no other automation overrode it, and that it was not deactivated.
FAQs
Do automations run instantly? No — they run at the frequency you configure.
Can one automation activate another? Yes. They run in order, so one rule's actions can satisfy the next rule's conditions.
Should this be an automation or a ticket trigger? If it must happen the moment the ticket changes, use a ticket trigger. If it depends on time having passed, use an automation. See The three kinds of rule.
Can an automation message a visitor who has not opened a chat? No — automations act on tickets. Use a chat trigger for that.
Do they work for both solved and unsolved tickets? Yes — you define the conditions.
Can I see how many times an automation has run? Yes, with selectable time intervals.
Can I clone an automation? Yes — duplicate any rule and adjust it.