Workflows

Automate conversations with plain-English procedures, and automate cases with drag-and-drop triggers

IrisAgent has two ways to automate work:

• Plain-English procedures for chat, voice, ticket auto-respond, and the Agent Assist copilot sidebar (Suggested and Dynamic Resolution).
• Case triggers (drag and drop) for cases only.

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Create procedures in plain English

Describe the scenario and the steps, and IrisAgent learns to recognize the scenario and run the steps end to end. These are also called SmartOps.

Procedures take precedence over your knowledge base. When a query matches a procedure’s scenario, the AI Agent and Agent Assist follow the procedure instead of answering from articles or past tickets. Use procedures to enforce a flow, such as collecting fields, calling an API, or handing off to a team.

Example scenarios:

• Order status: “When a customer asks about the status of their order, collect their order ID and look it up using the Order Status API.”
• Refunds: “If a customer requests a refund, verify the order is within the 30-day window, confirm the reason, and create a refund ticket in Zendesk.”
• Account lockouts: “When a user says they are locked out, verify their email, trigger a password reset link, and confirm once it has been sent.”
• Plan changes: “If a customer wants to change their plan, confirm the new tier, check eligibility, and hand off to billing if manual approval is needed.”

To create a procedure:

1. Go to Automate → Procedures on the IrisAgent dashboard and click Create New Procedure / Q&A.
2. Enter a name. Under Scenario, describe when to use it, such as “When the customer asks for a refund.” Add training examples if they help.
3. Under Action, choose Instructions for AI Agent for a flow that asks questions or takes actions, or Direct Answer for a fixed reply. Write the steps or answer.
4. Set Availability (products, channels, and assistants), choose a Status, and click Save.

Describe the customer’s intent (“when a customer asks about…”) the way you would brief a new agent. You do not need to list every phrasing.

Older dashboard versions called this area Custom Answers or Customer-Provided Tags.

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Information to collect

For Instructions for AI Agent procedures, the Information to collect list sets the fields the AI asks for, one at a time, before it calls an API or continues. Add, reorder, or remove fields. Labels become snake_case keys (for example, caller_email). The list is hidden for Direct Answer, which never asks questions.

Custom API placeholders like {{orderId}} are collected automatically even if you do not list them. List them to control the questions and their order.

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Scope by product and channel

• Product ID (optional): limits the procedure to one or more products (comma-separated). A case or chat with a product gets procedures that share that product plus all unscoped procedures. A case or chat with no product gets every procedure. Leave empty for all products.
• Channels: the Procedures table filters by Chat, Email, and Voice. A procedure with no channel scope runs on every channel. Agent Assist uses the Email channel, so unchecking Email also removes the procedure from the agent sidebar.

When you create a procedure from a Support Analyst recommendation, Product ID is prefilled from the source tickets.

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Create Zendesk tickets from a procedure

The built-in Create Zendesk ticket action creates a ticket in your connected Zendesk account from the information the procedure collected. It is available when Zendesk is your active ticketing provider. No Custom API or extra credentials are needed.

1. Open or create a procedure under Automate → Procedures.
2. In Availability, choose channels. For inbound calls, select Voice and Inbound under Voice calls.
3. Under Action, choose Instructions for AI Agent.
4. Add fields to Information to collect in the order the AI should ask, for example Caller name, Caller email, Caller phone, and Issue summary.
5. Put the cursor at the right step and click Actions → Connected actions → Create Zendesk ticket. This inserts {{Create Zendesk ticket}}.
6. Describe when to run the action and what to do after it succeeds. It can be any step, not just the last.
7. Set Status to Enabled and save.

If the action is missing, ask an admin to confirm Zendesk is the active ticketing provider.

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What goes into the ticket

Ticket value	Source
Requester name	First found of Caller name, Requester name, Customer name, Full name, Name. Defaults to IrisAgent customer.
Requester email	First found of Caller email, Requester email, Customer email, Email address, Email.
Subject	First found of Ticket subject, Issue summary, Subject, Summary, Reason. Otherwise Customer request from plus the requester name.
Description	Every non-empty collected field, with label and value.

• Use a recognized email label if the ticket needs the customer’s email. The action never substitutes the admin’s email.
• Collected fields are not mapped to Zendesk custom fields, and the transcript is not attached. For a custom payload, use a Custom API action.
• On success the action returns status: created and ticket_id. Only tell the customer a ticket exists after success.

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Example instructions

1. Greet the caller and explain that you can record their request for the support team.
2. Collect the listed information one item at a time. Reuse information the caller has already provided.
3. Confirm the issue summary and callback details with the caller.
4. Run {{Create Zendesk ticket}} with the collected information.
5. If creation succeeds, give the caller the returned ticket number and explain the team's follow-up process.
6. If creation fails, do not claim that a ticket was created. Explain the problem and offer the configured alternative contact method.

Ticket creation and escalation are separate. To create a ticket and then hand off, run the ticket action first, then use Escalate to human (it inserts [ESCALATE]). For phone handoff, also set up Voice AI call transfer.

To test, start a conversation on a selected channel with your scenario. Check that the AI collects the fields, runs the action at the right step, and reports success only after creation. Then check the ticket in Zendesk. Tests create real tickets, so use test details.

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Using Custom APIs in plain-English workflows

Procedures can call your own APIs mid-conversation to look up live data, such as order status or account tier:

1. A customer asks something that needs live data.
2. IrisAgent matches the procedure and asks for any missing fields, one at a time.
3. It calls your API with the collected data and ticket context.
4. It turns the response into a plain-language answer.

First set up the API under Custom APIs. Any {{variableName}} placeholder in the URL or body that is not a built-in ticket variable (for example {{orderId}}) becomes a field to collect.

For example, “When a customer asks about the status of their order, collect their order ID and look it up using the Order Status API” maps to your Order Status API, collects {{orderId}}, and replies with the result.

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Create case workflows with drag and drop

Case triggers apply to cases (tickets) only. For chat, voice, ticket auto-respond, and Agent Assist, use procedures.

Combine Conditions (AI category, AI sentiment, subject or description keywords, priority, channel, customer attributes) with Actions (assign to a team, add tags, set priority, post an internal note, send a notification). No code needed.

Examples:

• Tag cases billing, refund, or outage based on AI category.
• Route billing cases to Finance, or “cancel my subscription” cases to retention.
• Set priority to Urgent and notify a supervisor in Slack for outage cases.
• Route enterprise or high-ARR customers to a dedicated team and tag them “VIP”.
• Send negative-sentiment cases to a senior agent.

To create a trigger:

1. Go to Automate → Case Triggers on the IrisAgent dashboard and click Create New Trigger.
2. Drag in Conditions and Actions. All conditions must match (AND logic).
3. Click the pencil icon to name the trigger.
4. Click Add New Trigger to save. It runs on new incoming cases right away.

Start narrow (one AI category plus one keyword) and review the first few cases before broadening.

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Enable AI insights as a private note in your ticketing system

Show IrisAgent’s AI insights as a private note on tickets:

1. Go to Automate → Case Triggers on the IrisAgent dashboard.
2. Turn the toggle on the AI Private Notes card on or off.
3. Click the settings (gear) icon on that card to choose which insights appear.

Need help? Email us.