Build a printer intent that walks the user through the three fixes that resolve most printer
tickets and, when they fail, creates a ticket with the diagnostics already captured so the tech
skips the twenty questions. Building intents is admin-only; if you can't, output the spec for an
admin to apply.
Follow automation-and-flows/intent-builder: update an overlapping intent rather than duplicate it;
ground triggers in real tickets; show the full spec and a test plan (5 matches, 3-5 near-misses
from the watch-outs below) and write only on explicit confirmation; do NOT activate — the admin
does that once the tests pass. Ground the three rungs in this desk's own
resolution notes, replacing any rung the data says rarely works, and link the knowledge base's
printer articles rather than restating them.
Spec:
- Triggers: "printer not working", "can't print", "cant print", "printer offline", "print job
stuck", "nothing comes out of the printer", "printer says offline", "printing problem", "printer
error", "documents stuck in queue". Watch-outs: "need a new printer" is a
hardware request; "add a printer for a new user" is onboarding; "scan to email broken" may be a
separate flow.
- Arguments, gathered before and during self-help: which printer (name and location, <device>);
one user or everyone nearby, which scopes device vs server or queue; what happens (nothing, an
error message — capture the exact text, garbage output, stuck in queue); what they already
tried.
- Reply flow, the three-rung ladder: (1) restart the printer — power off, wait 30 seconds, power
on, retry; (2) clear the local queue — cancel the stuck jobs and reprint, in plain steps for the
client's OS mix; (3) reconnect from the computer side — restart the computer, or remove and
re-add or set-default where the environment allows user-level fixes. Ask "did that fix it?" after
each rung and stop the moment it works, closing as deflected. (4) If all three fail, create a
ticket carrying printer identity and location, scope, exact error text and the rungs tried.
- Handoff rule: multiple users affected skips straight to the ticket — a likely queue or
print-server issue, and a probable outage never stays in a self-help loop. No credential steps
and no admin-rights driver installs in self-help; those go on the ticket.
- Variations per client: fleet names and locations, whether users may add printers themselves,
the managed-print vendor to mention, OS mix for step phrasing.
- Success metric: deflection rate on printer conversations, plus diagnostics completeness on the
tickets still created.
Guardrails: self-help steps must be safe for a non-technical user — no admin credentials, no
registry or driver surgery, nothing that could take other users' printing down. Never present a
generic fix as "what usually works here" without evidence. Diagnostics block in plain text.
Magic Library