Ticket Dispatch (Suggest Technician)

Intelligently recommend which technician should handle a ticket

The Ticket Dispatch (Suggest Technician) action intelligently recommends which technician should handle a ticket. It considers factors like availability, skills, current workloads, and customer relationships to make the best suggestion.

Stop playing ticket assignment roulette! This action takes the guesswork out of dispatching by automatically finding the best technician for each ticket. It saves managers time, balances workloads fairly, and ensures tickets go to people who actually know how to solve them.

This action can suggest a technician, but you’ll need to add the Assign Ticket to Technician action afterward to actually make the assignment in your PSA.

Quick start

1. Choose your trigger

   Add to workflows triggered by “Ticket Created” or when tickets move between boards/statuses.

2. Select your technician pool

   Choose how Neo gets the pool of technicians: manually select them (Dashboard Pool), pull from the ticket’s company team, or use the ticket’s board team (ConnectWise only).

3. Enable smart features

   Turn on calendar checking and workload balancing (both are on by default).

4. Add assignment action

   Follow this action with “Assign Ticket to Technician” to actually make the assignment.

How it works

This action uses intelligent analysis to recommend the best technician:

1. Analyzes ticket requirements - Reviews ticket content, priority, and complexity
2. Checks technician availability - Considers calendars, working hours, and current status
3. Evaluates expertise - Matches technicians to similar past tickets and skill areas
4. Balances workload - Considers current ticket assignments and capacity
5. Maintains relationships - Prefers technicians who have worked with the customer before

Setup

Technician pool

The first thing to configure is where Neo should get the pool of technicians to consider for dispatch. You can choose from three sources using the Technician Pool Source dropdown:

Dashboard Pool

Dashboard Pool lets you manually select a fixed set of technicians directly in the workflow configuration. This is the default option.

Use this when you have a specific team or group of technicians you always want Neo to choose from, regardless of the ticket’s company or board.

After selecting this option, use the Technician Pool dropdown below it to pick which technicians should be included.

Company Team

Company Team dynamically fetches technicians from the team assigned to the ticket’s company in your PSA.

Neo automatically looks up which technicians are assigned to that company’s account team and considers only those technicians for dispatch. This is useful when different companies are managed by different teams, and you want dispatch to respect those assignments.

Make sure your companies have a team assigned in your PSA. If a company has no team configured, Neo won’t have any technicians to choose from.

Board Team (ConnectWise only)

Board Team builds the technician pool from the team that is already assigned to the ticket in ConnectWise.

Here’s how it works:

1. In ConnectWise, a board can have many teams (e.g., “1st Line Support”, “Networking”, “Server Team”)
2. Each ticket on that board can only have one team assigned to it
3. When dispatch runs, Neo reads which team the ticket belongs to, then pulls all technicians from that team into the pool

How does the ticket get a team? You have two options:

• Manually — a dispatcher or technician sets the team on the ticket in ConnectWise before the workflow runs
• Automatically with Triage — use the Ticket Triage action before dispatch. Triage analyzes the ticket content and assigns the correct team based on your instructions (e.g., “if the ticket is about server issues, assign to the Server Team”). Then when dispatch runs next, it automatically picks up the technicians from that team.

Triage + Board Team Dispatch is a powerful combo. Triage decides which team should handle the ticket, and Dispatch decides which technician on that team is the best fit. This gives you intelligent two-step routing without maintaining a static technician list.

Other settings

Smart features: Enable calendar checking, workload balancing, and expertise matching.

Custom instructions: Provide specific guidance for your team’s needs and preferences.

Scheduling options: Enable automatic calendar booking to reserve time for assigned work.

Round Robin mode (optional): Use fair rotation instead of AI optimization for equal distribution.

Writing effective custom instructions

Custom instructions help Neo make better dispatch decisions, but they need to be clear and specific. Here’s how to write instructions that work:

Key principles for good custom instructions:

• Always use full names (first and last) for technicians
• Write dates in full format (e.g., “2nd October 2025” instead of “02/10/25”)
• Be specific about clients, ticket types, or conditions that trigger the rule
• Identify exact technicians, skill tags, or team names for routing

Examples: Good vs. Bad

❌ Bad	🤔 Why It’s Problematic	✅ Better Approach
”Jordan is off 02/10/25-11/10/25”	Ambiguous date format (US vs. UK) and missing last name make it hard for Neo to identify the right person	”Jordan Kim is on PTO from 2nd October 2025 to 11th October 2025 — exclude from assignment suggestions during that period"
"Send security issues to Priya”	Too vague—which clients? What severity level? No context for when this applies	”Critical network outages for Apex Fabrication must go to Priya Shah or Mateo Alvarez"
"Don’t assign waiting tickets”	Unclear what “waiting” means—could be a status, board, or custom field	”When calculating workload, ignore tickets in the ‘Waiting on Customer’ status so team members are not penalized for stalled work”

What you get

After running, you’ll have technician recommendations with detailed reasoning, availability analysis, and workload considerations ready to apply with assignment actions.

Running this action on high-volume workflows? See Parallel Dispatch — Neo Agent automatically prevents double-bookings when multiple dispatches run at the same time, so you can drop the Process Entities Sequentially safety knob and recover full burst throughput.

Common use cases

Intelligent ticket routing

Automatically route new tickets to the best available technician based on skills, availability, and workload balance.

Customer relationship continuity

Maintain customer relationships by preferring technicians who have previously worked with specific clients.

Workload balancing

Distribute tickets fairly across your team while still considering expertise and availability.

Round Robin dispatch

Use simple, fairness-first rotation to spread work evenly across your team, regardless of workload optimization.

Best practices

Start simple

Begin with basic availability and workload checking enabled. Add more sophisticated rules later once you see how it works.

Keep calendar checking enabled

Calendar integration ensures Neo considers technician availability and working hours when making suggestions.

Use custom instructions

Add specific guidance like “Prefer Sarah for network issues” or “Critical tickets go to senior technicians first.”

Enable smart scheduling

Turn on automatic calendar booking to not only assign technicians but also reserve time in their calendars.

Balance expertise and fairness

Use AI optimization for skill matching or Round Robin mode for equal distribution, depending on your priorities.

Monitor and adjust

Check Event History to see dispatch reasoning and adjust settings based on actual assignment effectiveness.

Prevent re-processing assigned tickets

To prevent Neo from re-processing tickets that already have an owner, add a Filter Ticket condition to your Dispatch workflow:

ConnectWise Manage

Add a filter condition: owner.id is null

Autotask

Add a filter condition: assignedResourceID is null

This ensures Neo will never re-process tickets that already have an assigned technician, even if the workflow triggers late.

Example workflows

Smart New Ticket Dispatch

1. Trigger: New ticket created
2. Ticket Dispatch - Suggest best technician based on skills and availability
3. Assign Ticket to Technician - Apply suggestion and update ticket status
4. Result: Every new ticket gets optimal technician assignment automatically

Priority-Based Assignment

1. Trigger: Ticket priority changed to “High” or “Critical”
2. Ticket Dispatch - Find senior technician with availability
3. Assign Ticket to Technician - Assign immediately with calendar booking
4. Notify Ticket’s Owner - Alert technician about urgent assignment
5. Result: High-priority tickets get immediate attention from qualified staff

Round Robin Fair Distribution

1. Trigger: New ticket created in specific queue
2. Ticket Dispatch - Round Robin mode for fair rotation
3. Assign Ticket to Technician - Apply rotation assignment
4. Result: Work distributed equally across team members

Triage + Board Team Dispatch (ConnectWise)

1. Trigger: New ticket created
2. Ticket Triage - Analyze the ticket and assign the correct team (e.g., “Server issues go to the Server Team”)
3. Ticket Dispatch (Board Team pool) - Neo reads the team from the ticket, pulls its technicians, and suggests the best one
4. Assign Ticket to Technician - Apply the assignment
5. Result: Triage picks the right team, Dispatch picks the right technician on that team — fully automated two-step routing

Frequently asked questions

How does Neo calculate technician workload?

Neo calculates workload based on settings you configure under “Consider technician Workload” in dispatch settings:

• Time period: Choose how many days back Neo should look (e.g., last 7 days)
• Activity criteria: Select what counts as activity:
  • Ticket last update (any change to the ticket)
  • Last ticket time entry (logged work time)
  • Last ticket note (comments or updates)

Neo counts all open tickets (regardless of status, board, etc.) that had the selected activity within your chosen time period. If you want to filter by specific status, board, or any other field, you can customize this in custom instructions. For example, “When calculating workload, exclude tickets on the ‘Waiting for Customer’ board/status.”

Start with a 7-day lookback period using “Ticket last update” for a balanced view of recent activity.

How do I set up technician work schedules for dispatch?

Neo automatically reads technician working hours from your PSA system. The setup process depends on which PSA you’re using:

ConnectWise Manage

Setup in ConnectWise Manage:

1. Create different calendar templates for each work schedule (e.g., “7AM-4PM Schedule”, “8:30AM-5PM Schedule”, “9AM-6PM Schedule”)
2. Assign the appropriate calendar to each technician in their member profile
3. Neo will automatically use these calendars when checking availability

For your example schedules:

• Create a “7AM-4PM” calendar and assign it to your 2 help desk technicians
• Create an “8:30AM-5PM” calendar for your 2 technicians with that schedule
• Create a “9AM-6PM” calendar for your 1 technician with that schedule

Make sure your technician calendars in ConnectWise are kept up to date. Neo checks these calendars in real-time when making dispatch suggestions.

Autotask

Setup in Autotask: Neo reads working hours from your Autotask calendar. Important: Neo cannot see Outlook events—it only sees the Autotask calendar. Working hours are defined under Internal Locations in Autotask.

1. In Autotask, go to Admin > Organization Settings and Users > Your Organization > Internal Locations > Select your Organization > Hours
2. Configure your organization’s standard working hours
3. Neo will use these business hours when checking technician availability

For technicians with different working hours: If you have technicians with different schedules from your standard internal location hours, you have two options:

Option 1: Create separate internal locations (most robust)

1. Create another internal location in Autotask with different working hours
2. Assign that internal location to the technician
3. Neo will automatically detect and respect each technician’s assigned location hours

This is the most robust way to handle different working hours. If you need help setting this up, reach out to support.

Option 2: Use custom instructions (most simple) Add specific instructions to your Neo workflow’s custom instructions. For example:

“Henry’s working hours are from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM — do not assign any tickets to him outside these hours.”

“When dispatching tickets before 8:30 AM, prefer technicians on the 7AM-4PM schedule. For tickets after 5 PM, prefer technicians on the 9AM-6PM schedule.”

Halo PSA

Setup in Halo PSA: Neo reads working hours directly from each agent’s profile in Halo. Each agent can have their own timezone and work schedule configured individually.

1. In Halo, go to Configuration > Teams & Agents > Agents
2. Select the agent you want to configure
3. In the Details tab, configure the following fields:
   • Time Zone: Set the agent’s timezone (e.g., “(UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)”)
   • Work Hours: Select the appropriate working hours template (e.g., “Default Working Hours” or a custom schedule)

For technicians with different schedules: Since Halo allows per-agent configuration, simply edit each agent’s profile to set their specific timezone and work hours. Neo will automatically respect each agent’s individual schedule when making dispatch suggestions.

Make sure all your technicians have their Time Zone and Work Hours fields properly configured in Halo. Neo uses these settings in real-time when checking availability for dispatch.

How do I assign multiple technicians?

You can configure Neo to suggest multiple technicians for a single ticket using the “Number of technicians to suggest” setting.

To set up multiple technician suggestions:

1. Open the Configure Message Settings section in your Ticket Dispatch action
2. Find the Number of technicians to suggest field
3. Increase this number to however many technicians you want suggested (e.g., 10)

How multiple technicians are assigned:

When you use the “Assign Ticket to Technician” action after getting multiple suggestions, the PSA will assign them differently based on your system:

ConnectWise Manage

• First technician: Assigned as the ticket Owner (primary resource)
• Additional technicians: Added as Resources (secondary resources)

Autotask

• First technician: Assigned as the Primary Resource
• Additional technicians: Added as Secondary Resources

This is useful for complex tickets that require multiple skill sets or when you want to ensure coverage across shifts.