Office 365 App for Freshdesk enables you to add notes, priority, and agent from your Outlook Account (via Outlook Actionable Messages) without logging into Freshdesk. Furthermore, you can also open tickets in Freshdesk right from your Outlook email.

Feature Availability:

Note:
1. Currently, this integration works only for individual office 365 accounts and not for groups, for more details see the Microsoft article. 

2. You need to make sure that the agent's email Id is updated with the corresponding Outlook email address in Freshdesk and configure required Freshdesk Automation rule(s) to complete this integration.

3. This integration does not require any configuration setup in Outlook. 

Feature Details:

Outlook Actionable Messages: This feature enables you to add public/private note, update ticket information (status, priority & agent information), and open tickets in Freshdesk right from Outlook. 
Push to Outlook: This feature enables you to automatically forward tickets to the corresponding agents Outlook email as per the condition set in the Dispatch’r or Observer rule.

Installation Procedure:

1. Login to Freshdesk as an administrator.

2. Go to  Admin > Support Operations > Apps.

3. Click on "Get More Apps". Search and select Office 365.

4. Click Install.

5. Once the app is installed, ensure that the Agent's Outlook email Id is updated in Freshdesk.
   Emails with actionable messages will be sent only to the agent who is assigned to the ticket and the agent's email Id in Freshdesk is updated with his/her Outlook email.
6. Configure automation rules to run on ticket creation or any updates made to a ticket.
   Once you have configured either one of the above rules, whenever a rule is triggered successfully, that ticket will be forwarded as actionable messages to agent's Outlook email.
   Note: Until you add your agent's outlook email in Freshdesk and configure an automation rule to run on ticket creation or any updates made to a ticket rule, the tickets will not be forwarded to the agent's Outlook account.

Automation rule configuration

Once you enable the Office 365 app, you need to create these automation rules in order to automatically forward the tickets to your outlook account whenever a new ticket is created in Freshdesk.  You will need to add the agent's outlook email in Freshdesk and ensure that the same agent is assigned to the ticket before proceeding to set up this rule. 

To know more about this automation, please click here. 

Setting up an automation rule to run on ticket creation

The automation rule that runs on ticket creation runs on all incoming tickets and executes specified actions whenever the predefined conditions matches a ticket. If there is a parametric match, the rule will be executed. With the Office 365 app enabled, you can now use this feature to make sure that your agents stay updated. Every time a ticket comes in, you can use this rule to match it to the right parameters and forward the ticket to the corresponding Agent's Outlook account.

The following example shows how to send all incoming ticket notification to the agent’s Outlook Account. The admins can if required set more restrictive rules. Every rule can also be configured to send a custom message which will support dynamic content to provide more information.

When a new ticket is created, this rule pushes an update to that ticket's agent's outlook account. Ensure Push to Outlook is selected as the action, user defined message will be fully qualified with the actual values of the dynamic content that was defined in the rule using placeholder variables.  

Automation rule that runs on any updates made to a ticket

Once you enable the Office 365 app, you need to create an automation rule in order to automatically forward the tickets to your outlook account whenever a ticket’s property is updated in Freshdesk. You will need to add the agent's outlook email in Freshdesk and ensure that the agent is assigned to the ticket before proceeding to set up this rule. 

To know more about this automation rule, please click here. 

Setting up an automation rule to run on ticket updates

This automations responds to configurable event triggers in real time and executes the corresponding actions. You can use the Office 365 app in combination with this automation to keep the agent in the loop regarding updates to tickets in the helpdesk. The following example shows how to notify the agent whenever a ticket’s priority is updated. 

Whenever the conditions are met, this automation pushes an update to that ticket agent's outlook account. Ensure Push to Outlook is selected as the action, user-defined message will be fully qualified with the actual values of the dynamic content that was defined in the rule using placeholder variables. 

Use Outlook Actionable Messages

With the Outlook Actionable Message feature you can perform the following Freshdesk actions within your Outlook email: 

• Add Note: You can add a private note through the widget from the Outlook email view. Agents can also add a public note by replying to the ticket email.
  
  
• Update Priority: You can update the ticket priority without accessing your Freshdesk account.
  
  

• Update Agent: You can update agent from the Outlook email.
  

  
  

• Open Tickets in Freshdesk: You can open the Freshdesk ticket using the View in Freshdesk option.