Auto Responses

Quick and transparent service is vital to maintaining a good working relationship with your customer. Email, fax, social media and other non-real-time communication are patient, but you want to engage your customer immediately upon receipt of a request.

OTRS allows you to respond to a customer immediately upon receipt of a request giving the customers instantaneous feedback assuring them that their request is in processing, establishing expectation.

Automatic responses can be sent to customers based on the occurrence of certain events, such as the creation of a ticket in a specific queue, the receipt of a follow-up message in regards to a closed or rejected ticket, etc.

Use this screen to add automatic responses for use in queues. A fresh OTRS installation contains some automatic responses by default. The automatic response management screen is available in the Auto Responses module of the Ticket Settings group.

Auto Response Management Screen

Manage Auto Responses

Note

Adding automatic responses requires a valid system address. Create system addresses in the Email Addresses screen.

To add an automatic response:

1. Click on the Add Auto Response button in the left sidebar.
2. Fill in the required fields.
3. Click on the Save button.

Add Auto Response Screen

Warning

Auto responses can not be deleted from the system. They can only be deactivated by setting the Validity option to invalid or invalid-temporarily.

To edit an automatic response:

1. Click on an automatic response in the list of automatic responses.
2. Modify the fields.
3. Click on the Save or Save and finish button.

Edit Auto Response Screen

Note

If several automatic responses are added to the system, use the filter box to find a particular automatic response by just typing the name to filter.

Auto Response Settings

The following settings are available when adding or editing this resource. The fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

Name *

The name of this resource. Any type of characters can be entered to this field including uppercase letters and spaces. The name will be displayed in the overview table.

Subject *

The subject of the email sent to the users.

Response

The body of the email sent to the users.

Type *

The event type that triggers the sending of this automatic response. Only one automatic response can be sent automatically. The following event types are available:

auto follow up

Confirms receipt of the follow-up.

auto reject

The message rejects a customer follow-up.

auto remove

Deletion of a ticket, done by the system.

auto reply

A newly raised ticket will trigger this auto response.

auto reply/new ticket

This message informs the customer of the new ticket number.

Auto response from *

The sender email address, from which the automatic response will be sent.

Validity *

Set the validity of this resource. Each resource can be used in OTRS only, if this field is set to valid. Setting this field to invalid or invalid-temporarily will disable the use of the resource.

Comment

Add additional information to this resource. It is recommended to always fill this field as a description of the resource with a full sentence for better clarity, because the comment will be also displayed in the overview table.

Auto Response Variables

Using variables in the text makes it possible to personalize messages. Variables, known as OTRS tags, are replaced by OTRS when generating the message. Find a list of available tags stems for this resource at the bottom of both add and edit screens.

Auto Response Variables

For example, the variable <OTRS_TICKET_TicketNumber> expands to the ticket number allowing a template to include something like the following.

Ticket#<OTRS_TICKET_TicketNumber>

This tag expands, for example to:

Ticket#2018101042000012