How to Notify the Client if there is no Ticket Contact on an Autotask Ticket

Sometimes you’ll need to create a Ticket in Autotask but not have a Ticket Contact assigned. But, you still want the client to be notified.

Generally, the core issue is: why isn’t there a Ticket Contact? Are you not managing your Autotask CRM? Are you creating NOC-style tickets that don’t require client interaction? But, let’s assume that it is part of your process that some ticket types do not have a Ticket Contact assigned. Now what?

Out-of-the-box, Autotask can’t notify anybody if there isn’t a Ticket Contact. In the blog Notify Ticket Contact of Internally Created Ticket in Autotask, I walked you through creating a WFR that will notify a Ticket Contact of the new ticket. But that WFR will fail in this situation because there isn’t a Ticket Contact.

Fortunately, Autotask is, if nothing else, infinitely customizable. Here is a method to get around this issue (which is likely more of a business process than technical issue). What we can easily do is setup Autotask to always send the new ticket notification to not only the Ticket Contact but also copy your primary contact at the client site. This may not be suitable for your needs — but, it’s really the only solution if you don’t want to require a Ticket Contact for every ticket. (Otherwise, how will Autotask know WHO to email?)

To do this, you can either pre-define this person in an Autotask Account or the Autotask Contract. Let’s do it via the Account for this example.

1. Go to a target Account
2. Go to Contacts
3. Edit the Contact in question
4. Flag them as Primary Contact
5. Click Save&Close

You now have a “special” Contact for this Account that you can use in your WFRs!

Let’s go edit the WFR we created in Notify Ticket Contact of Internally Created Ticket in Autotask.

1. Go to the WFR and edit it.
2. Go to the Notification tab
3. Keep the Ticket Contact but also click Primary Account Contact
4. Click Save&Close

Now, both the Ticket Contact and Primary Account Contact will get the notification. If there is no Ticket Contact, the Primary Account Contact will STILL get the notification from Autotask.