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Creating an external event

Last edited 20/10/2026 by Connor Paterson

Permissions: Workspace Admin or configured role permissions

Where it is

  • Settings → Automation Builder → External Events tab

What the page is for

External Events let monitoring or business systems signal Pleased when something important happens (e.g. payment success rate drops, a fraud spike, a region outage). Matching rules then turn existing Ticket Triggers, Chat Triggers, or Automations on or off so the helpdesk automatically changes mode.

Example narrative/case:

When Grafana reports that card withdrawal success rate is critically low, an External Event rule can activate a Ticket Trigger that tags and prioritises payment tickets, and later another event (or status) can deactivate that trigger when the incident clears.

List page

  • Columns - Rank, Title, Updated by, Last update, Created at, Created by, Status, Actions
  • Add - Add External Event
  • Special CTA - Generate JSON Structure - sample payload/expected structure for integrators
  • Search - By title
  • Filters - Active / Inactive
  • Rank - Reorder active rules (move up/down)
  • Status - Per-row and bulk activate / deactivate
  • Row actions - Edit, Clone, Move (when active), Delete

New rules are created active. Active/inactive is managed from the list (not as a separate form toggle on save).

Create / Edit form (sections)

A. General

  • Title - Required, max 255. Human name for the rule.
  • Description - Optional, max 200. Why this rule exists.
  • Event type - Required, max 255. Must exactly match the inbound payload’s eventType.

B. Conditions

Two groups (same pattern as other business rules):

  • Meet all - every listed condition must match
  • Meet any - at least one must match

Each condition row:

  • Data key / property name - Top-level key under the event’s data object
  • Data type - Integer, Floating Point, String, Date, Datetime
  • Operator - Depends on type (see below)
  • Value - Compared against the inbound value

Operators by data type:

  • Integer, Floating Point, Date, Datetime - IS, IS NOT, ≥, ≤
  • String - IS, IS NOT only

Matching rules:

  • Keys are flat - data.region works; nested paths are not supported.
  • String match is exact (watch casing / spaces).
  • Server allows at most 25 conditions total across both groups.
  • At least one condition is required.
  • Two External Event rules cannot share the same event type and the same condition sets.

C. Actions

Pick one of:

  • Set Ticket Trigger Active / Inactive
  • Set Chat Trigger Active / Inactive
  • Set Automation Active / Inactive

Then select the existing rule to control.

If that rule is already in the desired state when the event arrives, Pleased skips it (no-op).

D. No schedule

Unlike time-based Automations, External Events have no frequency / schedule section. They run when an inbound event is accepted.

Priority / rank

  • Rules are ordered; higher priority is considered first when several match the same event type.
  • Rank controls apply to the active list.
  • New/reactivated rules go to the end of the active list.
  • Per inbound event, Pleased considers up to a capped number of processable rules (platform default: 50).

Dependency when deleting a trigger/automation

If you delete a Ticket Trigger, Chat Trigger, or Automation that an External Event rule points at, the product warns and lists dependent External Event rules (with links).

  • Affected External Event rules can show the target as (Deleted) in the form.
  • Confirm with product/eng before documenting that dependents are automatically set Inactive — UI copy suggests this; automatic cascade was not clearly verified in backend code.

Deleting an External Event rule itself is a normal delete confirmation only.