Triggers for side conversations

Triggers can react to side conversations: set the parent on hold when one opens, or bring it back when a reply arrives.

Triggers can react to side conversations: set the parent on hold when one opens, or bring it back when a reply arrives.

The two rules worth having

Almost every account that uses side conversations ends up wanting these two, and building them takes a few minutes.

Put the parent on hold

1. Create a trigger.
2. Condition: the side conversation state is Created.
3. Action: set status to on-hold.

Without this, a ticket waiting on a supplier looks like a ticket nobody has touched, and it clutters your open queue.

Wake it up on reply

1. Create a second trigger.
2. Condition: the side conversation state is Replied to.
3. Action: set status to open, and optionally notify the assignee.

This is the one that stops answers sitting unnoticed. Without it, the supplier replies and nothing changes on the ticket.

The four states you can react to

Created, Replied to, Closed when somebody marks it done, and Reopened. The two rules above use the first two; the other two apply when you want the assignee told that a side conversation was closed without an answer.

All four work because any of those events is a ticket update, which is what makes triggers run at all.

Narrow the conditions

Add the group or form so these rules apply where you meant them. A blanket rule setting every ticket with a side conversation to on-hold will eventually do it to a case where that is wrong.

Test with a real exchange

Open a side conversation to an address you control, reply from it, and watch the parent. Two minutes of testing tells you more than reading the conditions again.

See also

• Turning on and configuring side conversations
• Creating a trigger
• The difference between pending and on-hold