Zapier is a tool that makes it easy to automate your life across multiple platforms, send automated reminders, create new tickets, update spreadsheets, and much more! Similarly, Accelo offers an automated platform for tracking all of the work that you and your company are doing, across multiple teams and time zones.
As you’re probably already aware, Accelo offers a powerful, built-in integration with Zapier which takes advantage of these powerful automation tools. But these options are limited to actions that are built and coded by the Accelo team, like tasks being assigned or requests being created, which can make it difficult to kick off Zapier updates when more complex situations or updates occur. But don’t panic just yet...
For those of you who are looking to really automate your entire workflow, there’s hope! Zapier offers a special tool, called the Email Parser, which can be used to pull specific details from emails and incorporate them into Zapier’s Actions. By using Zapier’s email parsing tool, you can automate events and updates to occur across your tech stack, based on events which occur in Accelo. The email parsing tool works by taking template emails which you add to Accelo, and using that template’s information to intelligently create notifications and take actions based on your template’s dynamic content - genius!
We’ll be showing you a few examples of some more advanced things you can do with Zapier throughout this series, starting with one of the most commonly-requested examples, notifying the assignee via Slack when a new ticket is created.
Sending a Slack Notification for New Tickets
When you receive a new ticket, you want to be sure to follow up on that ticket as quickly as possible to help resolve your client’s issue as efficiently as possible. Accelo’s Progressions and Triggers tools already make it easy to send automatic notifications via email, but you’re not always checking your email. If you’re anything like us, however, you check your Slack messages religiously, so having a notification of these new Tickets is a great way to get right on them! Here’s how you’d set up a one-time notification in Slack for when a Ticket is assigned to your team:
Setting up the Email Parser
Open the Email Parser at https://parser.zapier.com/ and click Create Mailbox. This will begin the process of creating a new mailbox for taking in new notifications.
On the next page, you’ll be prompted to send an email to a special email address, which will be comprised of random letters and numbers, i.e. [email protected]. Take note of the address, and leave the tab open.
In a new tab, log in to your Accelo account and open the Users List at Configuration -> Users & Groups -> Users.
Click the Add User button, and enter Zapier’s email address in the user’s Email Address field. This user will be used to direct the Accelo email template to the Zapier email parser.
The new user’s name should be set to something indicative of its purpose, such as “Ticket Notifications”
Uncheck the “Invite User” box
Username can be anything, but is typically the same as the email address
Password can be anything; this user will not actually be logging in to Accelo
This user should not be made a part of any Group
The Access Level should be Collaborator or a Contractor. This will ensure that you’re not charged for the additional user.
No further permissions need to be granted to the user, as nobody will be logging in to this user.
Now we’ll create the template email to be sent to the parser via your new user. Open your Ticket Progressions page, found at Configuration -> Tickets -> Progressions & Fields and select the Ticket Type which you’d like to add a notification to from the list on the left.
Locate your Ticket’s first step, identified by a “From” status of “Available On Create, and click the “+” -> Create Activity buttons
Add your new user to the activity’s Recipients field, and enter a descriptive title for your Action Title and Subject fields, such as “Slack Assignment Notification”
Now we’ll add the dynamic content which you’d like to have included in your Slack notification to the email template. To add that content, simply add a new line to your email’s body, give the line a title, and add the corresponding merge field next to it. For this example, we’ll include the client’s name, the ticket summary, priority level and a link to view the ticket.
The list of merge fields, found on the right-hand side of the page, includes a wide array of merge fields which can be used to include details on the client and ticket. You can add as many additional fields to your notification as you’d like, using the above format.
For this and future examples, you’ll want to include the assignee’s first and last name as two separate fields. Having these names as two separate fields will make it much easier to match them to their corresponding accounts in Zapier.
Set the Hidden field to Yes, and click Save. You’ve now added the automated email which will be sent from Accelo to Zapier to initiate the automation in Zapier
Now you’ll send your first automated email to Zapier to start the mapping process. Create a new Ticket, and select the Type and Status which you added your email template to. Once your Ticket has been created, the email will be sent off automatically, and the Zapier mailbox window will update automatically to show you the content of the email which you just sent.
Next, you’ll be mapping the content of your email template to use in future zaps. To map that content, highlight the content in the Initial Template field Be sure to highlight the entire content, following the field’s name and colon
When you highlight the content, you’ll be prompted to name that content. This is the name that you’ll be referencing when creating Zapier actions, and should, therefore, be clear and descriptive of the content which it will represent.
Highlight each field’s content separately, and give it a unique name. After you’ve named the content, Zapier will show that content as {{fieldname}}
No further changes should be made. Click Save Address and Template.
You’re all done setting up the email parser! Now log in to your Zapier account at https://zapier.com/app/dashboard and click the orange Make A Zap! Button.
Setting up Zapier
Zaps in Zapier are created in three parts: Triggers, Filters, and Actions. For this example, we’ll only be creating one Trigger and one Action, but you can add additional Actions as you find yourself wanting to do (and automate) more events using Zapier.
Trigger
Use the search field to locate and select Email Parser by Zapier
Select the New Email Trigger. This will cause automation to occur when the email parser receives a new email (which we’ve set Accelo up to do in the prior steps).
If you haven’t connected your email parser account to Zapier yet, click Connect an Account. If you have already connected your account, click Test. This will confirm that Zapier and the parser are able to communicate successfully.
Once the test has completed successfully, click Save + Continue.
Select the mailbox which you created back at the beginning, and Continue
You’ll then be prompted to test the step. Click Fetch & Continue.
Once the test is run successfully, click Continue to complete your Zap’s trigger!
Action
The Action will be used to send the notification to the ticket assignee in Slack. To begin, select the “Slack” app (not the Slack (Legacy) app).
Select the “Send Direct Message” Action from the resulting page. This will help to reduce company-wide noise that can result from other actions, like sending a channel message.
You’ll then be prompted to test the connection to your Slack account, similar to the previous test of the Email Parser account. If you haven’t connected your Slack account to Accelo yet, click Connect an Account. If you have already connected your account, click Test. This will confirm that Zapier and Slack are able to communicate successfully.
Once the test has completed successfully, click Continue.
Now we’ll configure how the notification will appear to the ticket assignee in Slack, by setting up the message template. You can customize this content to match your particular personality, but these details represent best practices for including the necessary details:
To Username: This field ensures that the notification is sent to the correct person based on the details included in the email. We’ll be using the fields which set up in email parser setup steps to represent the assignee’s Slack username. In this example, Slack usernames have been formatted as “firstname.lastname”. If your usernames are different, such as just your “firstname”, your To Username will be different.
Click the “+” button and select “Parse Output Assiggneefirstname”
Now type a “.” into the To Username field. This is necessary because, in this example, Slack usernames are formatted as “firstname.lastname”
Click the “+” button again, and this time select Parse Output AssigneeLastName.
Message Text: This is a great place to add your own personal flair to the notification. For this example, we’ll be keeping it simple by including some text of our own, and three details from your template email. Click the Message Text field, and write out your notification.
Now click your cursor next to the Client line, and click the “+” button. Select “Parse Output Clientname”
Repeat this step for each line to add the details from the parser to the notification
Send as a bot?: Select Yes. This will send the notifications to your team via a Slack bot, so that they’re clearly identified as notifications, not messages from another person.
Bot Name This is the name of the bot which your team will receive notifications from, so it’s a good idea to make the name as clear as possible
That’s it! You can customize the notification further by including more details using the Action’s other fields, but these are all the fields you’ll need. Click Continue. You’ll then be prompted to send a test message in Slack. Click Send Test To Slack.
The test will be sent, and if everything lines up correctly, you’ll receive it in Slack. Click Finish
Your final step is to give your new Zap a name and turn it On. The name will be used to differentiate this Zap from other Zaps, so you’ll want to give it a descriptive name.
Conclusion
You’re all done! Zapier will now automatically notify the assignee via Slack whenever a new Ticket is created.
Remember, if you run into any problems just contact [email protected] and we’ll be happy to help you out. Technology can be overwhelming at times so don’t ever hesitate to ask for a helping hand :)
