Concepts

Virtual Attendants

Virtual Attendants (VAs) are automated workers. You can think of them as robotic personal assistants that handle repetitive tasks for you. Every worker and group has their own Virtual Attendant. VAs are capable of making complex decisions based on the details of a given situation.

Virtual Attendants can perform almost any action that a worker can. For example, they can:

• Read and write email
• Create tasks
• Modify object properties and custom fields
• Add comments
• Generate arbitrary notifications
• Make assignments
• Send time-sensitive reminders
• Establish links between objects

Virtual Attendants endow any worker with the ability to automate repetitive tasks and enforce desirable behavior. Unlike the creation of plugins, VAs can be mastered without any computer programming experience.

Understanding how Virtual Attendants work will give you an incredibly powerful tool that can be applied to countless situations. For example, VAs can be used to:

• Send automated replies that utilize personal information about the contact, their organization, and history
• Generate notifications in response to specific kinds of email (e.g. orders)
• Quarantine spam
• Set due dates based on an organization’s service-level agreement
• Distribute assignments to workers based on complex criteria (e.g. skills, schedule, availability)
• Organize incoming work into buckets
• Relay important messages to workers’ mobile phones
• Create a reminder to follow up with a client at a future date
• Schedule a series of tasks to be followed as a checklist
• Escalate assignments to ensure response time guarantees are met

Virtual Attendants can also provide quick access to shortcuts. A worker can instruct their VA to repeat a frequently used sequence of actions with a single click.

One of the most powerful aspects of Attendants is that you aren’t limited to our built-in conditions and actions. Through plugins, VAs can even send SMS text messages to workers’ mobile phones, or write messages to instant messengers and chat rooms. While we’ve tried to eliminate the requirement of plugins for automation, combining plugins and Virtual Attendants will allow you to automate almost anything.

Virtual Attendants are given instructions by creating custom behavior on various events. This behavior is comprised of decisions, outcomes, and actions. More information can be found in the pages below.

• Events
  • Global
    • Before new mail is accepted
    • Mail conversation viewed by worker
    • Task created by worker
  • Role
    • Custom address behavior
    • Custom calendar even behavior
    • Custom group behavior
    • Custom knowledgebase article behavior
    • Custom opportunity behavior
    • Custom organization behavior
    • Custom sensor behavior
    • Custom server behavior
    • Custom task behavior
    • Custom ticket behavior
    • Custom time tracking behavior
    • Custom worker behavior
  • Group
    • After sending worker message
    • Before sending worker message
    • Conversation assigned in group
    • Conversation closed in group
    • Conversation moved in group
    • Custom address behavior
    • Custom calendar even behavior
    • Custom group behavior
    • Custom knowledgebase article behavior
    • Custom opportunity behavior
    • Custom organization behavior
    • Custom sensor behavior
    • Custom task behavior
    • Custom ticket behavior
    • Custom time tracking behavior
    • Custom worker behavior
    • New message on group conversation
  • Worker
    • Custom address behavior
    • Custom calendar even behavior
    • Custom group behavior
    • Custom knowledgebase article behavior
    • Custom opportunity behavior
    • Custom organization behavior
    • Custom sensor behavior
    • Custom server behavior
    • Custom task behavior
    • Custom ticket behavior
    • Custom time tracking behavior
    • Custom worker behavior
    • New message on a watched conversation
    • New notification for me
• Behavior
• Variables
• Decisions
• Conditions
• Outcomes
• Actions
  • After sending worker message
    • Add watchers
    • Create a comment
    • Create a notification
    • Create a task
    • Create a ticket
    • Move to
    • Relay to worker email
    • Schedule behavior
    • Schedule email to recipients
    • Send email
    • Send email to recipients
    • Set owner
    • Set reopen date
    • Set spam training
    • Set status
    • Set subject
    • Set links on sender
    • Set links on sender org
    • Set links on ticket
    • Unschedule behavior
  • Before new mail is accepted
    • Append text to message content
    • Prepend text to message content
    • Replace text in message content
    • Reject delivery of message
    • Redirect delivery to another email address
    • Reply to sender
    • Set message header
  • Before sending worker message
    • Append text to message content
    • Prepend text to message content
    • Replace text in message content
    • Create a notification
  • Conversation assigned in group
    • Add watchers
    • Create a comment
    • Create a notification
    • Create a task
    • Create a ticket
    • Move to
    • Relay to worker email
    • Schedule behavior
    • Schedule email to recipients
    • Send email
    • Send email to recipients
    • Set owner
    • Set reopen date
    • Set spam training
    • Set status
    • Set subject
    • Set links on initial sender
    • Set links on initial sender org
    • Set links on latest sender
    • Set links on latest sender org
    • Set links on ticket
    • Unschedule behavior
  • Conversation closed in group
    • Add watchers
    • Create a comment
    • Create a notification
    • Create a task
    • Create a ticket
    • Move to
    • Relay to worker email
    • Schedule behavior
    • Schedule email to recipients
    • Send email
    • Send email to recipients
    • Set owner
    • Set reopen date
    • Set spam training
    • Set status
    • Set subject
    • Set links on initial sender
    • Set links on initial sender org
    • Set links on latest sender
    • Set links on latest sender org
    • Set links on ticket
    • Unschedule behavior
  • Conversation moved in group
    • Add watchers
    • Create a comment
    • Create a notification
    • Create a task
    • Create a ticket
    • Move to
    • Relay to worker email
    • Schedule behavior
    • Schedule email to recipients
    • Send email
    • Send email to recipients
    • Set owner
    • Set reopen date
    • Set spam training
    • Set status
    • Set subject
    • Set links on initial sender
    • Set links on initial sender org
    • Set links on latest sender
    • Set links on latest sender org
    • Set links on ticket
    • Unschedule behavior
  • New message on a group conversation
    • Add watchers
    • Create a comment
    • Create a notification
    • Create a task
    • Create a ticket
    • Move to
    • Relay to worker email
    • Schedule behavior
    • Schedule email to recipients
    • Send email
    • Send email to recipients
    • Set owner
    • Set reopen date
    • Set spam training
    • Set status
    • Set subject
    • Set links on sender
    • Set links on sender org
    • Set links on ticket
    • Unschedule behavior

Previous topic:
« Choosers

Next topic:
Events »