How a ticket is automated

Automating a ticket has two halves: first the automations decide what should change, then the changes and the note are written, according to the board’s mode.

1. The ticket is read

Ticket Automation works from the ticket as ConnectWise reported it when it was entered: its summary, board, company, contact, priority, Type, SubType and Item, source, agreement, SLA and date entered. It reads the ticket’s description and notes once from ConnectWise. Each automation is given only what it needs (What each automation is given).

A value that is plainly a placeholder counts as unset, by every automation: one containing “change me”, “must change”, “must select”, “(inactive)” or “do not use”, one that is exactly “?”, or one starting “z” and a capital letter, such as “zOld”. A placeholder is never chosen.

2. The automations decide

The ticked automations run side by side, each judging the ticket on its own, with your global and board instructions for it. One that fails or runs out of time does not stop the others. Split Tickets is the exception: it decides first, so that when it splits, the others judge the original by the issue that stays on it.

Each automation’s decision is one of:

• changed: it proposes a change;
• unchanged: it looked, and nothing should change;
• skipped: it does not apply, such as Correct Company on a ticket of an ordinary client;
• failed: it could not decide.

Every proposed value already exists in your ConnectWise for that board: a priority from your list, a Type, SubType and Item set up for the board, an existing contact.

3. The result is written

When nothing is proposed, nothing is written, in either mode.

In Live, in this order:

1. any new tickets a split proposes are created, each with its description, screenshots and split note;
2. every field change is made in one update of the ticket;
3. any tasks are added;
4. one internal note lists what was changed;
5. after a split, a second note on the original lists where the work went.

In Preview: one internal note, of what would have been changed. No field, ticket or task.

Each write is made once, however often the ticket is retried after a failure.

A field someone changed first is left alone

Before changing a field in Live, Ticket Automation checks that it still holds the value the ticket arrived with. If a technician changed it in the seconds since, it is left as it is, and the note says the field “had been changed since the ticket arrived, so it was left as it was.” The other changes are still made.

Failures

A failure that may pass, such as ConnectWise being briefly unavailable, is retried later, up to five attempts in all. A ticket deleted before it is processed is closed at once. If the company’s OpenAI key fails during the run, the automations it affects are reported failed and the key is marked failing (Add your OpenAI key).

MTX’s AI column shows Automation failed for a ticket that could not be finished (Read the AI column).

Nothing is logged about the ticket’s content

Nilear records each ticket’s outcome for each automation, with the ticket, board and note numbers. Its logs never hold the ticket’s summary, description, notes, contact details or the AI’s answer. See Data and security.