A complete guide to Freshdesk scenarios automation

If you work in customer support, you know the drill. So much of your day is spent on the small stuff: tagging tickets, assigning them to the right person, changing a status, repeat. Each click only takes a second, but they add up, pulling you away from the tricky customer problems that actually require your brainpower.

It’s the kind of busywork that can make a day feel twice as long.

Freshdesk scenarios automation is Freshdesk's built-in answer to this problem. It’s a feature designed to bundle a bunch of those clicks into a single action. Think of it as a handy shortcut to chip away at some of that manual work.

In this guide, we'll get into what Freshdesk scenarios automation is, how to get it set up, and where it can genuinely make your life easier. We're also going to look at how to take these automations even further. While simple, rule-based macros are a fantastic starting point, the game has changed. Modern support teams are now using AI to build workflows that complement these rules by handling complex ticket analysis.

What is Freshdesk scenarios automation?

Put simply, Freshdesk scenarios automation is a macro tool. It lets an agent run a pre-set list of actions on a ticket with just one click. It’s basically a one-click checklist for your most common ticket-handling routines.

The whole point is to standardize how your team handles certain recurring tickets (like refund requests or bug reports) and cut down on the time it takes to process them. So, instead of an agent needing to remember to manually tag a ticket, reassign it to the finance team, and change its status to "pending," they can just click a button, and the scenario does all three things at once.

It’s important to be clear about what this is: a reliable, rule-based system. It does the exact same thing, in the exact same order, every single time an agent clicks the button. It is a focused and useful instrument that ensures consistency in the right situations.

You can create these scenarios just for your own use, share them with a specific group of agents (like the Tier 1 team), or make them available to everyone. This gives you a bit of control over who can use which shortcuts, which helps keep things organized.

How to set up Freshdesk scenarios automation

The good news is that getting a new scenario up and running in Freshdesk is pretty straightforward. You don't need to be a developer; you just need to know which steps you want to automate.

Here’s a quick walkthrough to create one. Let's pretend we're making a scenario to escalate a ticket from a VIP customer.

1. First, head over to Admin > Agent Productivity > Scenario Automations in your Freshdesk account. You'll need admin permissions to get in here.

2. Look for the New Scenario button and give it a click.

3. Give your scenario a name that makes sense to everyone. Something like "Escalate VIP Ticket to Tier 2" is perfect because anyone on the team will know exactly what it does just by reading the name. Clear naming helps keep your workspace efficient.

4. Now for the fun part. Under the Actions section, you'll start adding the steps for your macro. For our VIP escalation example, it might look like this:

   • First, you'd select "Set Priority as" from the dropdown menu and choose "Urgent." This makes sure it gets seen right away.
   • Next, click "Add new action." This time, select "Assign to group" and pick your "Tier 2 Support" group from the list.
   • Let's add one more. Click "Add new action" again, select "Add Tag," and type in "VIP_Escalation." This helps with tracking and reporting later.

5. Finally, you get to decide who can use this shiny new scenario. You can keep it for yourself, share it only with agents in your group, or make it available to all agents. For something like an escalation, you'd probably want all your front-line agents to have access.

6. Click Save, and that's it! Your scenario is live.

Agents can now find and run this scenario from the "More actions" menu when they're looking at a single ticket. They can even apply it to a whole batch of tickets at once from the main ticket list page, which is a huge time-saver.

A few of the most common actions you can string together in a scenario include setting priority or status, adding notes, applying tags, assigning to an agent or group, and even sending out templated emails.

Common use cases and limitations

Scenarios are genuinely helpful for those simple, repetitive tasks that benefit from standardization. They add a layer of consistency and a nice little speed boost to your team's day-to-day work.

Common use cases

Here are a few real-world examples of where scenarios are a great fit:

• Processing Refunds: An agent identifies a refund request. One click on the "Process Refund" scenario can tag the ticket as "Refund," instantly assign it to the finance team's queue, and change the status to "Processing Refund" so everyone knows what's happening.

graph TD A[Start: Agent identifies refund request] --> B{Clicks 'Process Refund' Scenario}; B --> C[Tag ticket as 'Refund']; B --> D[Assign to Finance Team]; B --> E[Change status to 'Processing Refund']; C --> F[End]; D --> F[End]; E --> F[End];

• Handling Bug Reports: A customer reports a glitch. The agent triggers a "Bug Report" scenario. This tags the ticket appropriately, sends it over to the engineering queue, and even adds a standard private note asking the engineering team to verify the reproduction steps.

• Onboarding New Customers: When a "welcome" ticket comes in, a scenario can fire off a pre-written welcome email with helpful links, assign the ticket to an onboarding specialist, and set a task for them to follow up in two days.

• Managing Spam: We all get spam. Instead of multiple clicks to mark and delete, a one-click scenario can mark the ticket as spam and delete it immediately, helping to keep your queue clean.

Scaling beyond standard scenarios

While scenarios are excellent for the basics, their rule-based nature is best suited for specific types of tasks. To build even more sophisticated workflows, teams can look toward advanced integrations.

• Focus on rule-based logic: Scenarios follow the instructions you give them perfectly. For tasks that require understanding complex customer intent or sentiment automatically, you can pair scenarios with AI tools that help analyze tickets before an agent ever touches them.

• Focus on core helpdesk actions: The list of available actions is optimized for Freshdesk's internal ecosystem. For teams needing to pull data from Shopify or trigger actions in external databases, Freshdesk's marketplace and AI add-ons offer powerful ways to bridge those gaps.

• Manual updates: As your business changes, products get updated, and processes evolve, you can easily go in and update your scenarios. This gives you direct control over your team's workflows, ensuring they always align with current policies.

This is where you can choose to enhance your rule-based tools. When you want to automate more of the analysis and cross-platform work, complementary tools like eesel AI are built to help. Instead of waiting for a manual trigger, eesel’s AI Agent integrates with Freshdesk to help identify ticket context, draft answers from scattered knowledge sources, and even facilitate actions in other apps.

Pricing for automation features

Scenario automations are available on all paid Freshdesk plans, making it a very accessible feature. If you want to tap into more advanced, built-in AI features, Freshdesk offers these through tiered options.

Here’s a quick look at the annual pricing for plans that include these features:

Feature / Plan	Growth	Pro	Enterprise
Price per agent/month	$15	$49	$79
Scenario Automations	Yes	Yes	Yes
Freddy AI Agent (Email Bots)	No	500 sessions included, then $100/1k sessions	500 sessions included, then $100/1k sessions
Freddy AI Copilot (Agent Assist)	No	$29/agent/month Add-on	$29/agent/month Add-on

As you can see, the core macros are standard across all paid tiers. For teams looking for high-level Freshdesk native AI (called Freddy AI), Freshdesk provides various add-on options to suit different enterprise requirements.

For comparison, eesel AI's pricing offers a different approach based on overall usage. All the core tools, like the AI Agent, Copilot, and Triage, are included, providing a predictable cost structure that scales with your support volume.

The next step: AI-powered automation for Freshdesk

Freshdesk scenarios automation is a solid and reliable way to streamline your helpdesk. It’s a great way to introduce automation into your workflow. For even greater efficiency, you can let AI handle the initial analysis and decision-making.

This is where a tool like eesel AI comes into the picture. It works as a smart layer on top of your existing Freshdesk setup. That means you get all the power of cutting-edge AI while keeping the Freshdesk platform you already know and trust.

How eesel AI enhances your Freshdesk workflow

Instead of just running a simple macro, eesel AI enhances the flow of work from the moment a ticket arrives.

• Go beyond macros with intelligent responses: eesel AI complements your scenarios by reading tickets and figuring out the actual problem. It then consults your entire knowledge base, whether it's in Confluence, Google Docs, or past tickets, to draft a complete, accurate response.

• Simulate with confidence before you launch: eesel AI includes a powerful simulation mode that lets you test your AI agent on your real Freshdesk history. You can see exactly how it would have replied and get a data-backed forecast of your results before it ever touches a live interaction.

• Take action in any system: eesel AI works alongside Freshdesk to connect with other systems. Using custom actions, it can look up order details in Shopify, check a subscription status in Stripe, or create a new issue in Jira.

The combination is powerful. A scenario workflow handles your standard routines perfectly, while an AI-driven workflow handles the initial lift, freeing up your team to focus on the conversations that matter most.

Final thoughts on Freshdesk scenarios automation

So, what's the verdict? Freshdesk scenarios automation is a valuable feature for any team looking to automate predictable workflows inside their helpdesk. It's a fantastic way to save time on the tasks you do every single day.

It is a reliable, rule-based tool that ensures consistency across your team. While it thrives on human-guided triggers, it provides a very strong foundation for any modern support desk.

For teams that are ready to move beyond basic macros, bringing in an AI platform like eesel AI is a powerful and low-risk way to automate entire resolutions, empower your agents, and scale your support, all while continuing to use the Freshdesk tools you love.

Curious how eesel AI can work with your Freshdesk setup? You can get it live in minutes. Start your free trial.