Enabling, disabling, and setting up Answer Bot

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Aimee Spanier

Updated 4 months ago

Important: Answer Bot is currently only available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Dutch.

In order to use Answer Bot, you must enable it in Zendesk Support, and create triggers that will launch it when a user submits a ticket.

This article includes the following topics:

• Enabling and disabling Answer Bot
• Creating new triggers for Answer Bot
• Converting an existing trigger for Answer Bot
• Testing Answer Bot

Related articles:

• About Answer Bot (for administrators)
• Working with Answer Bot (for agents)

Enabling and disabling Answer Bot

Enabling and disabling Answer Bot is simply a matter of toggling it on or off in Zendesk Support.

To enable Answer Bot

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Answer Bot.
2. Click the Try Answer Bot for 30 days to activate your 30-day unlimited trial.

   

   When the Answer Bot page opens, follow the onboarding tool tips, along with the information in this article, to get Answer Bot up and running.

If you'd like to disable Answer Bot, you have to disable it for both email and the web form.

To disable Answer Bot emails

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Answer Bot.
2. Click the Email tab.
3. For each trigger listed in the Answer Bot triggers section, click Edit to open that trigger's admin page.
4. Now, you can:
   • Deactivate the trigger by clicking the Options menu icon () and selecting Deactivate

     OR

   • Edit the trigger to remove any Answer Bot-related actions. See Editing and cloning triggers for more information.

To disable the Answer Bot web form option

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Answer Bot .
2. Click the Web form tab.
3. Toggle off Web form channel enabled to disable.

   

Note: Note: If you currently are on a trial for Answer Bot, once your trial is done and you don't subscribe to Answer Bot, the feature will be deactivated automatically.

Creating new triggers for Answer Bot

If you're creating a new trigger, make sure you're familiar with the process. See Creating and managing triggers for information.

To create a trigger that includes Answer Bot

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Triggers.
2. Click Add trigger.
3. Create the trigger conditions. For example, you may want to have Answer Bot send an email with suggested articles to an end-user as soon as they submit a help request, but only from a mobile device. That trigger would include the following conditions:
   • Ticket | Is | Created

     AND

   • Requester: Role | Is | (end-user)

     AND

   • Ticket: Status | Is | New

     AND

   • Ticket: Channel | Is | Mobile
4. Next, configure the trigger to perform the following action:
   • Notifications: Answer Bot | (requester)

     This establishes that all tickets that meet the above conditions will send your Answer Bot email (see below) to the ticket requester.

5. When you select Answer Bot from the Actions drop-down, the Answer Bot email field appears:

   

6. Fill out the subject and body text you want to include in the Answer Bot email. Use the following placeholders to customize the email text. You can also click View available placeholders to view and copy placeholder text:
   • {{answer_bot.article_list}}

     Required. You must include this placeholder for the feature to work. This placeholder adds a list of up to three articles that best match the request, links to those articles, and inserts buttons the end-user can use to choose which article solved the request.

   • {{answer_bot.first_article_body}}

     Optional. This placeholder renders the first matching article (full HTML) into the email body, allowing end-users to read the article and solve their problem without needing to leave the email experience.

   • {{answer_bot.article_count}}

     Optional. This placeholder allows you to create an optional condition to send different body copy to customers based on how many articles are returned, for example:

     {% if answer_bot.article_count > 0 %} 
         Here are some great articles that may help:
         {{answer_bot.article_list}}
         {{answer_bot.first_article_body}}
     {% endif %}

     Note: Answer Bot is not compatible with the {{header}} placeholder, which is an unsupported and deprecated placeholder that some customers may still be using in their HTML Email Template. The HTML Email Template can be found here: Admin > Channels > Email > Email Templates > HTML template

     While this placeholder currently functions with standard email notifications, it produces a malformed header in Answer Bot Notifications. To resolve the issue, remove this {{header}} placeholder from the Zendesk HTML Email Template. To replicate the look and feel of this placeholder, you can add the following code (with appropriate styling added as desired) to the Email Body section of your account's Notify Requester triggers.

      <a href="{{ticket.link}}">Ticket #{{ticket.id}}: {{ticket.title}}</a>

7. In the section Configure article labels and test Answer Bot, click Configure and test to filter the list of offered Help Center articles based on labels:

   

   • List of article labels to be included by Answer Bot for this trigger: Enter labels you want to use to filter the articles. As you type into the tag field, autocomplete displays available labels beginning with the same word or characters. Any articles with any of these labels will be used as potential Answer Bot articles.
   • Ticket brand: Use the drop-down to select a brand to run the test on. The brand selected here is purely for testing purposes, and will not be added to the trigger you are creating.
   • Ticket subject: This field is used to test the articles returned when a ticket is filed with this subject.
   • Ticket description: Enter a short description of seven or more words, written from the ticket submitter's perspective.
8. Click Show suggested answers for a list of articles the user may receive if these labels are applied when submitting a similar ticket. If you approve, click Apply labels; if you don't, edit the entries and try again, or click Cancel.
9. Click Submit.

The new trigger appears in the list on the triggers page, as well as on the Answer Bot admin page.

Converting an existing trigger for Answer Bot

If you're editing triggers, make sure you're familiar with the process. See Creating and managing triggers for information.

To convert an existing trigger for Answer Bot

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Business Rules > Answer Bot.
2. Find the trigger you'd like to convert from the Recommended triggers list. . If your trigger is not listed there, it likely doesn’t meet the essential conditions needed for Answer Bot triggers.

   

3. When you've found the trigger you want to convert, click the Edit button. The trigger's edit page opens.
4. In the triggers Actions section, click the Convert to Answer Bot button.

   

   This updates the trigger, including adding the Answer Bot placeholders into the email body.

5. Edit the email as needed, and click Save. The trigger now includes Answer Bot functionality.

Testing Answer Bot

You can test Answer Bot results for existing tickets, as described in the procedure Creating nw triggers for Answer Bot. Simply open the trigger's edit page, and click the Configure and testbutton.