Choose how Robin handles each ticket custom field. Robin can fill it automatically, ask the end user when it can't determine the value, or leave it for a technician to complete. You can also add context to help Robin determine the right value.
What you can do
- Set a field behavior for each ticket custom field: Skip, Autofill, or Ask the user.
- Write instructions that tell Robin what a field means and when each value applies.
- Filter the field list by behavior to see what Robin is currently allowed to touch.
Before you begin
Important:
- Robin must be activated for this configuration to have any effect. See AI Center: Settings.
- These settings apply to ticket custom fields only. Device, agent, site, and user custom fields are not included.
- Field behaviors and instructions are set once for your whole account. There is no per-customer or per-site variation.
- To create the custom fields themselves, go to Admin Data management Custom fields. See Custom fields. The Custom fields page in the AI center controls how Robin handles fields that already exist; it does not create them.
Field behaviors
Every ticket custom field has one of three behaviors.
| Behavior | Robin fills it from the conversation | Robin may ask the end user | If Robin cannot determine a value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skip | No | No | The field is left untouched for a technician to fill in. This applies even if the field is required. |
| Autofill | Yes | No | The field is left empty. Resolution is not blocked. |
| Ask the user | Yes, it tries this first | Yes, but only for a value it could not work out on its own | Robin makes a best-effort fill. Anything still unresolved is left empty for a technician. Resolution is not blocked. |
Note:
- Ask the user does not mean Robin always asks. Robin tries to work the value out from the conversation first and only asks when it cannot. A field set to Ask the user often produces no question at all.
- A field set to Ask the user may have its name and its list of values shown to an end user. Before you use it on an internal classification field, check that the field name makes sense to someone outside IT.
When Robin asks, and what the end user sees
Robin asks about fields at the point it closes, resolves, or escalates the ticket, not during the conversation. All outstanding questions are combined into a single plain-text chat message rather than asked one at a time.
If the end user stops replying or never answers, the ticket still proceeds. Unanswered fields are left empty for a technician.
Some tickets have nobody to ask, for example tickets created by email. For those, a field set to Ask the user behaves like Autofill: Robin fills what it can infer and leaves the rest empty.
Set a field's behavior
- Go to AI center > Settings > Custom fields. The Custom fields page appears, listing your ticket custom fields with the field type shown beneath each name.
- Hover over the field you want to change and click the edit (pencil) icon. The row becomes editable.
- Select Skip, Autofill, or Ask the user from the dropdown.
- Optionally, enter instructions for Robin in the description box. See Write instructions for Robin below.
- Click Save. The row exits edit mode, the new behavior appears in the field's row, and the Last edited column updates to the current time.
The change reaches conversations that are already in progress immediately, so you can change a setting and test it right away.
To find a field on a long list, use the search box, or use the behavior filter to show only fields set to a particular behavior. Your filter selections appear as removable chips.
Write instructions for Robin
Without instructions, Robin works out a value from the field's name and its list of values alone. That is enough for a field called Affected device, and not enough for a field whose values only make sense if you already know how your team works.
Instructions are read by Robin only. They are never shown to an end user.
A useful instruction says what the field is for and how to choose between the values:
Which product line the request relates to, based on the app or service the user mentions.
Hardware Request covers any physical equipment: keyboards, headphones, docking stations, monitors. Software Request covers licenses and installs.
Keep them short and specific to the one field. Long, vague, or contradictory instructions make Robin's choices worse, not better. Instructions describing a different field, or restating your whole ticket taxonomy, will work against you.
Note: Instructions are optional. Leaving the box empty does not stop Autofill or Ask the user from working.
Fields you have not configured
A field you have never touched is not automatically left alone.
- A field you have explicitly configured always uses the behavior you set.
- A required field you have not configured follows your account's default behavior.
- A field that is not required and that you have not configured is treated as Skip.
Important: If you upgraded from the earlier Autofill mandatory custom fields setting, your required fields may already be set to fill automatically. Check the field list before assuming Robin is not touching anything.
Fields on dependent dropdowns
A dependent dropdown is one field to you but has more than one level. The behavior you set applies to the parent and to every level beneath it, so an Autofill dependent dropdown has all of its levels filled, not just the first.
Instructions are for the field as a whole and belong on the top level. Setting instructions or a behavior on a nested level has no effect.
How ticket forms affect this
The ticket's form decides which fields are in play:
- When a form is applied to the ticket, only the custom fields on that form participate. Their behaviors apply as configured; everything not on the form is left alone.
- When no form is applied, all of your ticket custom fields participate according to their behavior.
Important: If you set a field to Autofill or Ask the user and Robin never touches it, check the ticket's form first. A field that is not on the applied form is skipped no matter how it is configured. Assigning the right form to a ticket is set up per ticket, including through playbooks, and is not controlled from this page.
Good to know
- Warning: Robin never infers values for security, access, or financial fields. It fills them only from something the end user stated explicitly. Setting one of these to Autofill does not change that.
- Robin fills fields when it resolves or escalates a ticket, not the moment the ticket is created. A field can be legitimately empty on a ticket that is still open.
- Configuration applies to native Atera tickets. Tickets in an external system such as ServiceNow are not covered.
- Changing a field's behavior does not change tickets that are already closed.
If something doesn't look right
A field set to Autofill or Ask the user is still empty
Check, in this order: whether a form is applied to the ticket and whether the field is on it; whether the ticket was resolved or escalated at all; whether the field is a security, access, or financial field, which Robin never infers; and whether Robin had enough in the conversation to work the value out. An empty field is the expected outcome when Robin cannot determine a value, and it never blocks resolution.
An end user was asked about a field they could not answer
That field is set to Ask the user. Change it to Autofill so Robin fills what it can without asking, or to Skip so it is left for a technician.
Robin picked the wrong value
Add instructions to the field explaining what it means and when each value applies. If instructions are already there, make them more specific about how to choose between the values, rather than longer.
