Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Agent |
A macro applies a set of changes to a ticket in one click. It is the difference between typing the same answer daily and not.
What a macro can do
More than insert text, which is what most people assume. A macro can also set the status, assign a group or agent, change fields, and add tags. That combination is what makes it useful: the reply and the bookkeeping in one action.
Nothing a macro sets is committed until you submit: you can edit the inserted text and change the fields it filled. There is no undo button, though. Backing a macro out means reversing its changes by hand, or applying a macro that contradicts it.
Two things follow from that. You can apply several macros to one ticket before submitting, which is how you answer a message that raises two separate issues in a single reply. Watch what they have in common while you do: where two macros set the same field, the last one applied wins, and the first one's work is gone without a warning.
And a macro can only set a field that appears on the ticket form in use, so a macro built for one form quietly does less on another.
Macro or trigger
The distinction people mix up. A macro is applied by a person, deliberately, on one ticket. A trigger runs by itself whenever its conditions are met.
If the answer is "always do this when X happens", that is a trigger. If it is "an agent decides this is the right response", that is a macro.
When to make one
- You have typed roughly the same thing three times this week.
- A common request needs several fields set, and people forget one.
- A handover always needs the same group and internal note.
When not to
Macros for answers that need real thought produce replies that read as though nobody read the question, because nobody did. The test is whether an agent still has to edit it substantially. If so, the macro is doing harm rather than saving time.
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