Zendesk Automations
Zendesk automations are the rules that fire because time passed rather than because somebody did something. That difference explains most of what confuses people.
Zendesk automations versus triggers, in one line
A trigger runs the instant a ticket is created or updated. An automation runs on a clock, whether or not anybody touched the ticket.
So "email the requester when we reply" is a trigger. "Email the requester if we have been waiting three days for their answer" is an automation, because nothing happened, and the nothing is the point.
Zendesk runs automations roughly once an hour. They aren't scheduled to a minute, and an automation can't fire more than once per hour on the same ticket. If you need something to happen the moment a field changes, you want a trigger. See triggers versus automations for the full comparison.
The stop condition problem
This is the thing that bites everyone once.
An automation checks its conditions every hour. If the action it performs does not change anything that would make those conditions false, the conditions stay true, and it fires again. And again. A customer gets your polite reminder email every hour until somebody notices.
Zendesk asks every automation to contain something that eventually stops it. The reliable pattern is a tag:
reminder_1_sent.reminder_1_sent.Now the first run tags the ticket, and the second run skips it, because the ticket no longer matches. Simple, and it survives people editing the automation later, which a condition based on status doesn't always do.
Status changes can work as the stop condition too, if the action genuinely moves the ticket. Setting a Pending ticket to Solved means the "status is Pending" condition stops matching. That is fine. Tags are just harder to accidentally break.
The four most teams need
You can run a healthy queue on these and nothing else.
The pending reminder
Status is Pending, hours since pending is greater than three (calendar or business, your call), tag reminder_1_sent absent. Email the requester a short nudge, apply the tag. This alone recovers a surprising number of tickets that were only waiting on a screenshot.
The pending auto-solve
Status is Pending, hours since pending greater than seven days, reminder already sent. Set the ticket to Solved and tell the requester it can be reopened by replying. Without this, Pending becomes a graveyard and your backlog number stops meaning anything.
The early close
Zendesk closes Solved tickets by itself after a set period. If you want them closed sooner, so that reopens become new tickets instead of resurrected old ones, an automation on hours since solved does it. Think about this one before you turn it on, because closing early trades a tidier queue for more new tickets.
The unassigned escalation
Hours since created greater than two, assignee is unassigned, status less than Pending. Notify the team lead or the group. This is the one that catches the ticket that arrived at 4:55pm on a Friday and landed in nobody’s view.
What automations can't do
They don't run on closed tickets, so any cleanup you want has to happen before closure.
They don't run at a specific time of day. If your requirement is "at 9am every Monday", automations are the wrong instrument and you want a scheduled job hitting the API.
They aren't a good backlog cleaner either. An automation is designed to act on tickets moving through your queue, not to sweep through years of history in one pass. For a one-off tidy, use a view and a bulk update.
Ordering and overlap
Automations run in the order they appear in the list, top to bottom, in a single hourly pass. That matters when two of them touch the same ticket: the reminder must sit above the auto-solve, or you will solve tickets you never chased.
Once a quarter, open the list and read it. Deactivated automations accumulate, and so do near-duplicates built by two different admins for the same job. If two automations both email a Pending requester, your customers are getting chased twice, and the second message is the one that makes them write in again on a new email thread.
Frequently asked questions
What are good Zendesk automation examples to start with?
A Zendesk pending reminder automation that chases the customer after three days, and an auto-close after seven. Zendesk time based rules like those are where the value is, and both need a stop condition or they fire forever.
How often do Zendesk automations run?
Roughly once an hour. They aren't scheduled to a precise minute, and a single automation will not fire twice on the same ticket within one hourly cycle.
Why does my automation keep sending the same email?
Its conditions are still true after it runs. Add a tag as an action and exclude that tag in the conditions, so the second pass no longer matches the ticket.
Can an automation run on a closed ticket?
No. Closed is final for automations, triggers and most bulk actions. Anything you need to happen has to happen while the ticket is still Solved or earlier.
Should I use an automation or a trigger?
If the rule is "when X happens", use a trigger. If the rule is "when nothing has happened for N hours", use an automation. Time is the only real dividing line.
Rules can't see across tickets
Automations act on one ticket at a time and have no idea a second one says the same thing. Ticket Merger does.
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