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Helpdesk · Automation
The desk that routes, replies and escalates — when nobody remembers to.
Canned replies that fill themselves in and close the ticket in the same click. Assignment that rotates through the people actually at work today. Escalation rules that raise priority, pull in a manager and leave a note when a clock runs down. And a deadline on every ticket that arrives through your public form.
Canned replies · Round-robin and least-open assignment · Escalation rules · SLA on public intake · Web and mobile
New ticket · public form · 08:12 TKT-000418 · Router down at Kisumu branch Requester: Grace Atieno · priority normal
Category and clock Network outages · first reply in 1 hour Public-form tickets file here, so the clock starts at arrival
Assignment · least open
Brianon leave
Wanjiru6 of 6 open
Achieng3 open
Otieno2 open · picked
Escalation ladder
+30 mNo first reply: notify the team lead
+2 hRaise to high, hand to the assignee’s manager, tag
+1 dUnresolved past deadline: urgent, notify head of operations
3 strategiesdefault owner, round robin or least open, chosen per category
3 triggersstill unassigned, no first reply, unresolved past the deadline
14 placeholdersin canned replies, filled in on the server and never run as code
Every 15 minescalation rules are checked, beside the SLA breach sweep
Why automate a helpdesk at all
Most missed deadlines are not hard tickets. They are tickets nobody picked up.
A ticket that sat in a queue over a long weekend, a rotation that kept handing work to the agent on leave, a reply typed from memory with the wrong reference number. None of those needed a better agent. They needed the desk to do the routine part on its own, the same way every time.
Each automation here does one plain job, explains itself on the ticket when it acts, and never acts with more authority than the person it acts for. The rules sit under Helpdesk settings, so a supervisor can change them without asking for a developer.
Canned replies
Reusable answers with placeholders and optional one-click actions on the ticket.
Auto-assignment
A pool of agents per category, rotated or balanced by load, skipping anyone away.
Escalation rules
When a ticket has been stuck for a set time, raise it, move it, tag it and tell someone.
SLA on public intake
Tickets from your public form land in a category, so they start with a deadline.
Canned replies
Write the answer once. Send it correctly every time after.
Search your library from the reply box, insert an answer, and the requester’s name, the ticket reference and the due date are already in it. A reply can also move the ticket on in the same click.
Outage acknowledged · shared · used 214 times Network
The canned reply Hi {{ requester.first_name }}, thanks for reporting this. We have logged it as {{ ticket.number }} and an engineer is on it. We aim to have it resolved by {{ ticket.due_date }}.
— {{ agent.first_name }}, {{ organization.name }}
— {{ agent.first_name }}, {{ organization.name }}
What Grace receives Hi Grace, thanks for reporting this. We have logged it as TKT-000418 and an engineer is on it. We aim to have it resolved by 02 Oct 2026, 16:00.
— Otieno, Lakenet Communications
— Otieno, Lakenet Communications
Status: in progress Tag: outage Priority: high Reassign: skipped, agent cannot assign
A closed list of placeholdersFourteen names, from the requester’s first name to your organization’s name. Anything else stays exactly as typed, so a typo shows in the reply box instead of going out blank.
Filled in once, never runValues are swapped in a single pass. A requester who types a placeholder into their own name gets it printed back as text, not expanded.
Actions follow the agent, not the authorA shared reply a supervisor wrote to close and reassign tickets still works for an agent who may only reply. The reply goes out; the actions that agent is not allowed to take are skipped and listed.
Personal and shared libraries, in foldersEvery agent keeps their own. The shared library needs its own permission to edit. Each reply counts its uses, so the ones nobody sends are easy to retire. A reply can also post as an internal note instead.
{{ requester.name }}{{ requester.first_name }}{{ requester.email }}{{ ticket.number }}{{ ticket.subject }}{{ ticket.status }}{{ ticket.priority }}{{ ticket.category }}{{ ticket.department }}{{ ticket.due_date }}{{ agent.name }}{{ agent.first_name }}{{ agent.email }}{{ organization.name }} Auto-assignment
A rotation that knows who is on leave.
Each category picks how its tickets find an owner, from a pool of agents you choose for it, with an optional cap on how many open tickets any one of them may hold.
Strategy 1 · the default
One default owner
Every ticket in the category goes to the one person you name. This is how every category starts, so switching assignment on moved nobody’s routing.
Strategy 2
Round robin
The pool agent who has waited longest since their last ticket gets the next one, and someone who has never had one goes first.
Editing the pool does not reset the order. Adding a new agent does not hand them the next ten tickets.
Strategy 3
Least open
The pool agent with the fewest open tickets right now. Ties go to whoever has waited longest, so a quiet desk does not send everything to the same person.
| Agent in the Network outages pool | Status today | Open tickets | Verdict for TKT-000418 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brian Kiprono | Approved leave, back Monday | 4 | Skipped: on leave |
| Wanjiru Mwangi | At work | 6 of 6 | Skipped: at the cap |
| Achieng Odhiambo | At work | 3 | Eligible |
| Otieno Ouma | At work | 2 | Assigned, and told |
If every agent were away or at the cap, the ticket would stay unassigned and the department would be told — or whoever assigns tickets, when it has no department — rather than it going to someone over their limit. People who have left, and anyone without a login that can open tickets, are never chosen. Move an unowned ticket into a category with a rotation and it is assigned, and the new owner notified, there and then.
Escalation rules, played out
TKT-000418 is not answered. Here is what the desk does about it.
A rule says: when this has been true for this long, do these things. Levels are several rules on the same trigger with growing delays. A rule can cover one category or all of them.
08:12 · Arrives
Filed, assigned, clock running
The public-form ticket lands in Network outages with a first-reply deadline of 09:12 and goes to Otieno. Then Otieno is pulled into a site visit and the ticket waits.
09:42 · Level 1 · no first reply, 30 minutes past the deadline
The team lead is told
The rule notifies a named person. Nothing about the ticket changes yet, and an internal note on it records which rule fired and why.
Notify: team leadInternal note
11:12 · Level 2 · no first reply, 2 hours past the deadline
Raised, moved and tagged
Priority goes up to high, never down. The ticket is handed to Otieno’s manager from your HR records, because they are still employed; had they left, the note would say so and the ticket would stay put. A tag marks it for the weekly review.
Priority: highReassign: assignee’s managerTag: escalatedNotify: manager
Next day · Level 3 · unresolved, 1 day past the resolution deadline
Urgent, with operations told
Priority goes to urgent and the head of operations is notified. While the ticket is waiting on Grace for information, this trigger does not count.
Priority: urgentNotify: head of operations
Resolved, then reopened
The ladder resets with the ticket
Each rule fires once per ticket per time it is open. If Grace reopens the ticket next week, the rules apply again, from the start.
Never twiceA rule claims a ticket before it acts, so two runs at the same moment cannot both fire it. If the action fails, the claim is released and the next run tries again.
Always explainedEvery firing leaves an internal note on the ticket naming the rule and what it did, so nobody wonders why the priority changed overnight.
Only to real peopleA reassignment goes only to someone still employed, and notifications only to active users. Otherwise the note says why the step was skipped.
An SLA on public intake
A complaint from outside starts a clock, like any other ticket.
Your public support form reaches people with no account in your workspace: customers, suppliers, members of the public. Choose one category for those tickets on the Intake Portals settings, and each one takes that category’s deadlines, routing and escalation rules the moment it arrives.
No category chosen
A ticket that looks healthy forever
First-reply deadlineNone
Resolution deadlineNone
AssignmentDepartment queue
Escalation rulesNothing to measure from
Category for public-form tickets set
The same promise as every other ticket
First-reply deadlineFrom the category, counted from arrival
Resolution deadlineFrom the category
AssignmentThe category’s pool and strategy
Escalation rulesApply in full
The settings page warns you while the public form is switched on with no category chosen. If someone later moves the ticket to a different category, its deadlines are worked out again from when it arrived, not from when it was moved.
The details that hold it together
Small rules, all pointing the same way.
One route in for every ticket
A ticket raised in the app, on the employee portal, on the public form or from the mobile app goes through the same step that sets its deadlines and its owner.
Leave from HR, not a toggle
Assignment reads approved leave from your HR records, so nobody has to remember to mark themselves away before a holiday.
A cap per category
Set the most open tickets one agent may carry in a category. Reaching it takes them out of the rotation until they close something.
Deadlines on your working hours
A category can count its deadlines in working hours, skipping weekends and public holidays, and escalation delays are measured from those deadlines.
Alerts that reach phones
Escalation notices arrive in each person’s notifications and follow their settings to the mobile app.
Canned replies on mobile
Agents pick a canned reply from the reply box in the mobile app, with the same placeholders and actions as on the web.
Easy to find
Canned replies are in the command palette, settings search and the in-app assistant, so a new supervisor finds them without a tour.
Permission-gated settings
Escalation rules and intake settings sit behind helpdesk settings rights; the shared canned-reply library has its own permission.
Internal notes stay internal
Escalation notes and internal canned replies are never shown to the requester on the tracking page or in their emails.
What AWRA OpsHub does today
- Canned replies in personal and shared libraries with folders, fourteen placeholders and usage counts, from the web and the mobile reply box.
- One-click actions on a canned reply: set status, priority, tags and assignee, each gated on the permissions of the agent using it.
- Auto-assignment per category by default owner, round robin or least open, over a pool you choose, with an optional cap per agent.
- Assignment that skips leavers, agents on approved leave today and anyone at the cap, leaving the ticket for the department queue when nobody is free.
- Escalation rules on three triggers with a delay: still unassigned, no first reply past the deadline, unresolved past the deadline.
- Escalation actions: raise priority, reassign to the manager or a named person, notify the manager or named users, add a tag, with an internal note every time.
- Once per ticket per open cycle, re-armed when the ticket is reopened.
- A category for public-form tickets, so every external request starts with deadlines, routing and escalation.
More we can add to your workspace
- Email-to-ticket from your own support mailbox, with replies threading back onto the ticket and auto-replies and bounces filtered out. We switch it on per workspace as the mail routing is set up.
- Assignment by skill or language, so a French-language ticket or a payroll question goes to the agent who can answer it.
- Rebalancing when an agent goes on leave with tickets already open, handing their queue to the rest of the pool.
- Escalation delays counted in working hours, to match a category whose deadlines already are.
- An idle trigger, firing when nobody on your side has touched a ticket for a set time.
- A different category per intake form, for an organization running separate public forms for separate audiences.
- WhatsApp messages that open and update tickets, alongside the WhatsApp notifications the desk already sends.
- Creating and editing canned replies in the mobile app, beside picking and sending them there.
Where we point you to a specialist
- We will not let an automation act with more authority than the person it acts for. A canned reply runs with the rights of the agent who sends it, whoever wrote it.
- We do not lower a ticket’s priority on a timer. Escalation only ever raises it; lowering it is a person’s decision.
Each row in the middle column builds on rules that already have the scheduler, the per-ticket claims and the audit notes behind them. Tell us which one your desk would use first.
The rest of the helpdesk
Automation sits on top of these. Read them next.
Helpdesk automation
Helpdesk automation questions
What is a canned reply, and what can it do besides send text?
A saved answer an agent inserts from the reply box. It can carry placeholders such as the requester’s first name, the ticket reference and the resolution due date, which are filled in when it is used. It can also run one-click actions on the ticket in the same step: set the status, set the priority, add tags and set the assignee. Each agent has a personal library, and there is a shared library that needs its own permission to edit.
Can a canned reply let an agent do something they are not allowed to do?
No. Actions run with the permissions of the agent who sends the reply, not of the person who wrote it. If a shared reply closes and reassigns tickets and the agent may only reply, the reply goes out and the actions they cannot take are skipped and listed back to them.
How does auto-assignment decide who gets a ticket?
Each category chooses one of three strategies. Default sends every ticket to one named owner, which is how every category starts. Round robin gives the next ticket to the agent in the pool who has waited longest since their last one. Least open gives it to the agent with the fewest open tickets, with the rotation as the tie-break. In every case, people who have left, people on approved leave today, anyone at the category’s cap and anyone without a login that can open tickets are skipped.
What happens when nobody in the pool is available?
The ticket stays unassigned and goes to the department queue, where anyone with assign rights can pick it up. It is never forced onto someone who is over their cap, because that is the overload the cap exists to prevent.
What can an escalation rule do?
A rule watches for one of three conditions lasting a set time: a ticket still unassigned after it was raised, no first reply past its deadline, or unresolved past its deadline. When it fires it can raise the priority, reassign the ticket to the assignee’s manager or to a named person, notify the manager and named users, and add a tag. Every firing leaves an internal note on the ticket. Levels are built as several rules with growing delays.
Can an escalation fire over and over on the same ticket?
No. Each rule fires at most once per ticket each time it is open. It claims the ticket before acting, so two checks running at once cannot both fire it, and if the action fails the claim is released for the next check. Reopen a resolved ticket and the rules apply to it again from the start. The checks run every fifteen minutes.
Do tickets from our public support form get an SLA?
Yes, once you choose a category for public-form tickets on the Intake Portals settings. Every ticket from the form then takes that category’s deadlines, assignment and escalation rules on arrival. The settings page warns you while the form is on and no category has been chosen, because without one those tickets have no deadline at all.
Can customers email a ticket in?
Email-to-ticket is something we can add to your workspace: you forward your support mailbox to an address we give you, new messages open tickets in a category of your choice, and replies thread back onto the right ticket, with auto-replies, bounces and mailing-list mail filtered out. Today tickets arrive through the app, the mobile app, the employee portal and the public form.
Let the desk do the routine
Stop losing tickets to the weekend.
Set a pool, write three canned replies and one escalation rule, and the next ticket that would have waited gets an owner and a nudge on its own.