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How to trigger a notification in SweetHawk Notify when a card moves columns in the Kanban app

Peter

Overview

When using the SweetHawk Kanban app, each column in your board represents a selection from a Zendesk dropdown field. Moving a card between columns effectively changes that dropdown field’s value on the ticket — and vice versa.

This guide walks you through how to send a popup notification in the SweetHawk Notify app whenever a card moves into a specific column (For example, when a project ticket moves into the Go Live phase).

The whole setup can be done in a few steps:

  1. Identify the tag for the Kanban column
  2. Create a new trigger in Zendesk
  3. Define the trigger conditions
  4. Define the trigger actions
  5. Create the notification template in the Notify app
  6. (Optional) Create a reset trigger

Once done, moving a card in Kanban will automatically pop up a real-time notification to your chosen audience in Zendesk.

How the Kanban app works

Each Kanban column corresponds to a selection in a Zendesk dropdown field (for example, Implementation phase).
When you move a card from one column to another, the underlying dropdown field value changes.
Each dropdown selection automatically adds and removes tags:

For example:
• When the field is set to Go Live, the tag implementation_phase_go_live is added.
• When the field changes away from Go Live, that tag is removed.

This tag behavior allows us to detect when a card has moved to a new column and trigger a notification accordingly.

Why you must use tags instead of “Changed to” conditions

Zendesk triggers can’t directly detect when a custom dropdown field changes to a specific value.
However, since each dropdown selection applies a unique tag, you can use tag-based logic to detect these changes reliably.

Step 1. Identify the tag for the Kanban column

  1. Go to your dropdown field settings in Zendesk.

  2. Locate the tag associated with the column (selection) you want to track.

Example:

• Field: Implementation phase
• Selection: Go Live
• Tag: implementation_phase_go_live

Step 2. Create a new Trigger

  1. In Zendesk, go to Admin Center → Objects and rules → Triggers.

  2. Click Add Trigger.

  3. Give your trigger a descriptive name, such as
    Notify when Implementation Phase moves to Go Live.

Step 3. Define the Trigger conditions

All conditions (AND):

• Ticket -  Is - Updated 
• Tags - Contains at least one of the following - implementation_phase_go_live 
• Tags -  Does not contain - implementation_phase_go_live_fired

This ensures that the trigger fires when the dropdown field changes to “Go Live” and that it doesn’t repeatedly fire for the same ticket.

Step 4. Define the trigger actions

  1. Add tag → implementation_phase_go_live_fired
    (This prevents the trigger from looping endlessly.)

  2. You will link to the notify app in the next step. 

Step 5. Create the notification template in the Notify App

Now that you have a Zendesk trigger to detect the field change, you need to define what the notification will say and who will receive it.

  1. In Zendesk, open the SweetHawk Notify app.

  2. Go to Notification templates → Add template (or edit an existing one).

  3. In the Trigger dropdown, select the trigger you created in Step 2.

  4. Configure the notification content:
    • Choose the banner type (green, yellow, red).
    • Set the message text (e.g., “🟢 Implementation ticket has entered the Go Live phase!”).
    • Select the recipients (e.g., Managers group).

  5. Save the template.

For detailed instructions on creating and managing templates, see the How to use the Notify App article on SweetHawk Support.

Step 6. (Optional) Create a reset trigger

To allow the notification to fire again if the ticket later re-enters the same phase, you can create a reset trigger that removes the “fired” tag when the dropdown field changes away from that selection.

Trigger name: Remove Go Live Fired Tag

Conditions (ALL):

Ticket is Updated

• Tags do not contain implementation_phase_go_live
• Tags contain implementation_phase_go_live_fired

Action:

• Remove tag implementation_phase_go_live_fired

Example use case

Let’s say you’re managing project implementation tickets.
When a ticket moves from In Progress to Go Live in the Kanban board:

  1. The dropdown field changes to “Go Live”.

  2. Zendesk adds the tag implementation_phase_go_live.

  3. Your trigger fires and sends a popup via the Notify app.

  4. The ticket is tagged with implementation_phase_go_live_fired to prevent repeats.

  5. The reset trigger clears the fired tag when the ticket leaves “Go Live”.

 

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