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.
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.
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:
Select where Neo should get the pool of technicians from
The three available pool source options
Dashboard Pool
Company Team
Board Team (ConnectWise only)
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 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 builds the technician pool from the team that is already assigned to the ticket in ConnectWise.Here’s how it works:
In ConnectWise, a board can have many teams (e.g., “1st Line Support”, “Networking”, “Server Team”)
Each ticket on that board can only have one team assigned to it
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.
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.
In ConnectWise a ticket resource is a schedule entry, so what lands on the Schedule tab depends on whether the owner actually changes:
Neo assigns a different technician — ConnectWise itself adds an open resource entry (no start or end time) for the new owner. Any earlier entry stays on the ticket, no longer marked as the owner’s.
Neo assigns the technician who already owns the ticket — ConnectWise does nothing. If that technician’s only entry is marked done, the ticket is left with no open resource entry. This is the gap the setting below fills, and it shows up most on tickets that get re-dispatched.
Setting
What it does
When to use it
Also add the assigned technician as an open ConnectWise resource?
Makes sure the assigned technician has an open resource entry with no start or end time, adding one only when they don’t already have one
Your techs work from the ticket’s resource list and you don’t book calendar time
Should Neo book timed calendar time for the ticket? (under calendar settings)
Books a timed entry in the technician’s calendar for the slot Neo picked
You want the work reserved on a calendar
The open-resource setting is off by default and ConnectWise-only. Neo checks the ticket after setting the owner and adds an entry only if that technician has no open one already — so it never duplicates the entry ConnectWise just created, and re-dispatching the same ticket doesn’t stack up entries. When it does add one, it adds a new entry; a previous entry marked done stays as it is. It is also skipped when Neo is already booking a timed entry for that same technician, because that already puts them on the ticket as a resource.Assigning more than one technician (Add additional resources to tickets?) has always given the additional technicians an open resource entry; this setting extends the same guarantee to the primary technician.
Custom instructions cannot create resource entries — those are created by these settings, not by the AI. Wording like “ensure an open resource entry exists” in your instructions has no effect.
With the Teams Technician Mapping & Availability integration connected and technicians mapped to their Microsoft accounts (the integration’s auto-map does this — see the setup guide), the Teams availability toggle makes dispatch aware of each technician’s live Microsoft Teams presence and, optionally, their Teams Shifts rota:
Skip technicians who are on a break (on by default) — technicians who are Away, Offline, or out of office in Teams are not assigned work starting now. Busy, In a call, Presenting, Do not disturb, and Be right back still count as working. The check is time-scoped: a schedule entry booked further in the future is not blocked by someone being on a break right now.
Teams holding the shift rota — if your service desk runs its schedule in the Teams Shifts app, list the team(s) here. Neo prefers technicians whose shift covers the proposed assignment time and deprioritizes mapped technicians with no shift in the planning window. Neo also reads each shift’s label (an on-site client name, or an absence marker like Annual Leave) and, from the same team(s), each technician’s time off with its reason — an absence reason (Annual Leave, Sickness Absence, Bank Holiday) excludes them outright even if their PSA calendar looks clear, while a reason that only records where they’re working (London Office, Working from Home, On Call) is read as context.
Both checks degrade gracefully: if Teams can’t be reached or technicians aren’t mapped, dispatch falls back to its normal PSA-based logic and the run output says why. Round Robin honors the on-break skip too (shifts apply to AI dispatch only). Custom instructions override the defaults — e.g. “Treat Do not disturb as unavailable” or “Ignore Teams presence for P1 tickets”. If presence isn’t being picked up the way you expect, see the integration page’s troubleshooting section.
The Human in the loop step decides when Neo must ask a person before a dispatch is applied. Requests arrive as Teams cards and on the dashboard’s Approvals page; answering in either place resolves both.Pick one of three modes:
Mode
What Neo does
Never (default)
Dispatches autonomously.
Always ask first
Decides, then waits — a person approves every assignment before it is applied.
Ask only when unsure
Dispatches routine tickets itself and asks only on a genuine dilemma: it can’t meet the SLA, it would need to double-book someone, your instructions conflict for this ticket, or no technician is eligible.
Then pick the approvers — who receives the card and can answer. At least one is required; when several are configured, everyone gets the card and the first answer wins.While a request is waiting, the ticket is parked: later runs skip it (free) and the execution shows Paused. It stays parked until someone answers, so keep an eye on the Approvals page’s pending count.Answering an “Always” proposal — the card shows the technician, the time slot, and any existing calendar entries Neo will move to make room:
Approve — Neo applies exactly what the card shows. Nothing is re-decided or re-checked, so what you approved is what happens.
Decline — nothing is applied. Neo won’t ask again for this ticket until the ticket changes.
Rerun with feedback — Neo re-decides, following your note (e.g. “Assign Alex instead, afternoon only”), and asks again with the new proposal.
Answering a “When unsure” question — the card states the dilemma and offers 2–4 concrete options:
Pick an option and Submit — Neo dispatches per that option, exactly as written.
✏️ Tell Neo what to do — type your own answer (it overrides any selected option); Neo dispatches following it. Your instruction wins even over the workflow’s standing rules — including working hours — so be as specific as you like.
Submit with nothing selected — Neo resolves the dilemma with its best judgment.
Decline — the ticket is left as is until it changes.
Credits: a dispatch that asks costs the same one credit as a dispatch that doesn’t. The run that decides (or asks the question) bills one credit per ticket; waiting is free, and applying your answer — including the re-decision after a note — is free. See Billing.
“When unsure” only asks when no lawful decision exists. If your instructions leave Neo an escape — e.g. “assign backup tickets to Casey” plus “don’t schedule Casey on weekends” on a Saturday — Neo will book Casey for Monday rather than ask. If tickets that feel like dilemmas aren’t producing questions, tighten the time bounds in your instructions (“…scheduled the same day the ticket arrives”).
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.
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.You can also control the name of the booked entry through your custom instructions — for example, “Name every schedule entry ‘NEO - [client] - [short summary]’”. If you don’t specify a naming convention, the entry is named after the ticket title (the default).HaloPSA appointment types: Neo can set the appointment type on the entries it books (e.g. Firm vs Tentative, Remote vs Onsite) from your own Halo appointment types. Two ways to control it, and they work together:
Default appointment type — a dropdown in the calendar settings, populated from your Halo appointment types. Neo puts this type on every entry it books unless a per-ticket rule overrides it.
Per-ticket, from custom instructions — tell Neo which type to use per situation, for example “Use ‘Firm - Remote’ for strictly scheduled remote tickets and ‘Tentative - Remote’ for work that just needs to happen sometime today; use the Onsite equivalents for on-site visits.”
Neo matches the name to your tenant’s appointment types. If a ticket matches no rule and no default is set, the entry keeps Halo’s own default type.
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
Autotask
Add a filter condition: owner.id is null
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.
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
Autotask
Halo PSA
Setup in ConnectWise Manage:
Create different calendar templates for each work schedule (e.g., “7AM-4PM Schedule”, “8:30AM-5PM Schedule”, “9AM-6PM Schedule”)
Assign the appropriate calendar to each technician in their member profile
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.
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.
In Autotask, go to Admin > Organization Settings and Users > Your Organization > Internal Locations > Select your Organization > Hours
Configure your organization’s standard working hours
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)
Create another internal location in Autotask with different working hours
Assign that internal location to the technician
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.”
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.
In Halo, go to Configuration > Teams & Agents > Agents
Select the agent you want to configure
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)
Configure each agent's timezone and working hours in their Halo profile
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.
Why was a ticket left unassigned after a busy morning?
During a burst, Neo limits how many tickets one technician can be handed in a short window (five per rolling 60 seconds). When that limit is reached, Neo picks a different technician — but only one your custom instructions actually allow.If every remaining candidate would break a routing rule you declared (for example “Escalation Team → do NOT downgrade to lower teams” or “Security Incidents → only the Security Squad”), Neo leaves the ticket unassigned for manual triage instead of routing around your rule. Event History shows “No technician recommendation found” along with the restriction that blocked the substitution.See Parallel Dispatch for the full behavior.
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:
Open the Configure Message Settings section in your Ticket Dispatch action
Find the Number of technicians to suggest field
Increase this number to however many technicians you want suggested (e.g., 10)
Configure how many technicians Neo should suggest for each ticket
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
Autotask
First technician: Assigned as the ticket Owner (primary resource)
Additional technicians: Added as Resources (secondary resources)
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.
⌘I
Assistant
Responses are generated using AI and may contain mistakes.
