Automation#22 Track Ticket Duration at Specific Status

Hello Everyone!

Welcome back to the Community Learning Series! Today, we explore how Zylker Techfix, a gadget servicing firm, boosted productivity by tracking the time spent at a particular ticket status in Zoho Desk. 

Zylker Techfix customized Zoho Desk’s ticket statuses to align with their servicing process. Here’s their workflow: when a gadget was submitted for service, the ticket entered “Open” status. After an initial examination, it moved to “Service” status, mapped to the “Hold” type while repairs were underway. Once repairs were complete, the ticket progressed to “Billing” and then to “Closed” after payment and delivery. To improve operations, Zylker Techfix wanted to know how long tickets stayed in “Service” status, giving them insights into potential delays and resource use. With a custom function, they tracked this time in a custom field, then used it to generate reports that highlighted areas for process improvement.

With this custom function, you can gain a clear view of your support timeline, identify bottlenecks, and serve clients more efficiently. Let’s dive into how you can implement this custom function to refine your own operations and drive productivity forward.

Prerequisites

1. Create a Custom Field

To track ticket duration at a StatusName (call it In progress) mapped to the Status Type On Hold, 

     

      1.1 Go to Setup (S) >> Customization >> Layouts and Fields.

             Select Tickets under Layouts and the Department in which you would like to track the ticket duration. 

      1.2 Create a custom single-line field in the Tickets layout of the respective department. 

            1.2.1 Click on the layout, add a single-line field with a label StatusTime. 

                      You can label the field with your preferred name. 

      1.3 Note the API names for the single-line field to insert into the custom function.     

            To find the API name, click the Gear wheel icon in the single-line field.

            Click on Edit Properties, and you will find the API Name under the Edit Field. Refer to Create Custom Fields. 

2. Create a connection

      2.1 Go to Setup(S) and choose Connections under Developer Space.

      2.2 Click Create Connection.

      2.3 Select Zoho Desk under Default Connection.

      2.4 Set the connection name as deskconnection.

      2.5 Under Scope, choose the below scope values:

             Desk.tickets.READ

             Desk.tickets.UPDATE

      2.6 Click Create and Connect.

      2.7 Click Connect and click Accept.

Connection is created successfully.

Create a Workflow Rule

1. Go to Setup, choose Workflows under Automation. 

2. Under Workflows, click Rules >> Create Rule.

In the Basic Information section,

3. Select Tickets from the drop-down menu under Module.

4. Enter a Rule Name and Description for the rule.

5. If you want to activate the rule right away, select the Active checkbox. Else, create the rule and activate it later.

6. Click Next.

 

In the Execute on section, follow these steps:

7. Select Field Update, Choose Status.  

8. Click Next.

 

9. Leave the Criteria section blank and click Next. (Add a criteria if you require it.) 

10. In the Actions section, click the + icon and select New next to Custom Functions.

11. Enter a Name and Description for the custom function.

12. Under Argument Mapping, give a desired Method Name. Map the arguments as below: 

      12.1 In the Argument Name field, type ticketId and from the Value drop-down list, select Ticket Id under the Tickets Section.                                         

13. In the script window, insert the Custom Function given below:

1. ///----<<<< User Inputs >>>>----
2. deskURL = "https://desk.zoho.com";
3. //Replace with your custom domain
4. //Replace your Custom Field API Name to Update Desired Type Status Duration Ex: Open 
5. durationApiName = "cf_status_name";
6. // ex: "cf_open_time"
7. //Replace your Desired Status Type Name Ex: Open
8. statusType = "On Hold";
9. // Open or On Hold or Closed
10. //Replace the Status Name 
11. statusName = "In Progress";
12. // Ex: In Progress, Waiting for Reply, etc
13. // ----<<<< Initial Configs >>>>----
14. logs = Map();
15. logs.insert("ticketId":ticketId);
16. openHoursToUpdate = 0;
17. openMinutesToUpdate = 0;
18. onHoldHoursToUpdate = 0;
19. onHoldMinutesToUpdate = 0;
20. //---------------------------
21. try 
22. {
23. // ---- start your logic from here ----
24. ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo = invokeurl
25. [
26.   url :deskURL + "/api/v1/tickets/" + ticketId + "/statusLifeCycle"
27.   type :GET
28.   connection:"deskconnection"
29. ];
30. logs.insert("ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo":ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo);
31. if(ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo != null && ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo.containsKey("statusLifeCycle") && ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo.get("statusLifeCycle").size() > 0)
32. {
33.   for each  statusInfo in ticketStatusLifeCycleInfo.get("statusLifeCycle")
34.   {
35.   statusType = statusInfo.get("statusType");
36.   statusName = statusInfo.get("status");
37.   if(statusType == statusType && statusName == statusName)
38.   {
39.     statusDuration = statusInfo.get("duration");
40.     if(statusDuration != null && statusDuration != "")
41.     {
42.     statusDuration = statusDuration.replaceAll(" hrs","");
43.     durationCollection = statusDuration.toCollection(":");
44.     hourDuration = durationCollection.get(0);
45.     minuteDuration = durationCollection.get(1);
46.     openHoursToUpdate = openHoursToUpdate + hourDuration.toNumber();
47.     openMinutesToUpdate = openMinutesToUpdate + minuteDuration.toNumber();
48.     }
49.   }
50.   }
51.   openHoursToUpdate = (openMinutesToUpdate / 60).toNumber() + openHoursToUpdate;
52.   openMinutesToUpdate = openMinutesToUpdate % 60;
53.   logs.insert("openHoursToUpdate":openHoursToUpdate);
54.   logs.insert("openMinutesToUpdate":openMinutesToUpdate);
55.   ticketUpdateParams = Map();
56.   ticketUpdateParams.insert("cf":{durationApiName:openHoursToUpdate + ":" + openMinutesToUpdate});
57.   logs.insert("ticketUpdateParams":ticketUpdateParams);
58.   ticketUpdate = invokeurl
59.   [
60.   url :deskURL + "/api/v1/tickets/" + ticketId
61.   type :PUT
62.   parameters:ticketUpdateParams + ""
63.   connection:"deskconnection"
64.   ];
65.   logs.insert("ticketUpdate":ticketUpdate);
66. }
67. }
68. catch (errorInfo)
69. {
70. logs.insert("errorInfo":errorInfo);
71. }
72. info "logs: \n" + logs; 
    
73. logs.insert("errorInfo":errorInfo);
    
74. info "logs: \n" + logs;

NOTE

a. In Line 2, Replace ".com" with the domain extension based on your Data Center.

b. In Line 5, add the API name of the custom field created within the Tickets layout. 

c. In Line 8 and line 11, enter the status type and status name. 

14. Click Save to save the custom function.

15. Click Save again to save the workflow.

Creating Ticket Tracking Reports

You can generate Reports under Analytics to view the time duration of your tickets in one go. 

Go to the Analytics module >> Choose Reports >> Add Report >> Select Tickets module and Time Entry under Related modules. Refer to Create Custom Report 

Let us know how this custom helps improve your ticketing process.

Until next week,

Warm regards,

Lydia | Zoho Desk 

• Topic Participants

• Lydia | Zoho Desk

  

• Mohd Hayzee

• Shivani | Zoho Desk

  

• admin

• Sticky Posts

• Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

  With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features

• Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

  Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 

• Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

  Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 

• Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

  Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here

• Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

  With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

• Recent Topics

• Extend the Image Choice Field

  Hi, The New Yes/No field is great for what it does, and the Image Choice Field is good but could be better with some functions from the Yes/No field. Take an example, rather than just Yes/No you want Yes/No/Maybe (Or more than 3 choices), but unlike the

• Reopen ticket on specific date/time

  Is there a way that we can close a ticket and setup a reopen of that ticket on a specific date and time? (without using the "on hold" ticket option)

• Customizing Helpcenter texts

  I’m customizing the Zoho Desk Help Center and I’d like to change the wording of the standard widgets – for example, the text in the “Submit Ticket” banner that appears in the footer, or other built-in widget labels and messages. So far, I haven’t found

• [Important announcement] Zoho Writer will mandate DKIM configuration for automation users

  Hi all, Effective Dec. 31, 2024, configuring DKIM for From addresses will be mandatory to send emails via Zoho Writer. DKIM configuration allows recipient email servers to identify your emails as valid and not spam. Emails sent from domains without DKIM

• Column letter from number

  Hello, I am trying to select a cell and i have the column number. How do i do this or is there a way of getting the letter from the number? Thank you

• API credit COQL COUNT

  The docs describe API credits in COQL from the LIMIT perspective: https://www.zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/COQL-Overview.html When using aggregate functions such as `COUNT` or `SUM`, is that billed as 1 API credit?

• Trigger a Workflow Function if an Attachment (Related List) has been added

  Hello, I have a Case Module with a related list which is Attachment. I want to trigger a workflow if I added an attachment. I've seen some topics about this in zoho community that was posted few months ago and based on the answers, there is no trigger

• Standard Description Field - Can I change label or add dd tooltip

  Is there a way fo you guys to allow the customer to change the label name for the description field in the customer portal when submitting tickets. Or at least allow us to add a tooltip to clarify what description we need from them. I know I can create my own separate multi line description field but if I do that, it doesn't have the nice toolbar with Bold, Italic, Underline, color, font, indent, etc. Can you please allow us to add a tooltip to the zoho standard description field?

• Weekly Tips : Save Time with Saved Search

  Let's assume your work requires you to regularly check emails from important clients that have attachments and were sent within a specific time period. Instead of entering the same conditions every time—like sender, date range, and attachments included—you

• Remove 'This is an automated mail from Zoho Sign' in footer

  Hi there, Is it possible to remove or change the text under the e-mail templates? I can't figure out how to do that: Would love to hear from you. Kind regards, Tristan

• How can I link Products in a Deal Subform to the Products Module

  Hello, I have a pricing subform on our Deals page and use a lookup field to associate a product with each line. I want to be able to look at a product page within the Products module and see a list of the deals connected to that product. I have this working

• Organize and manage PDFs with Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard

  Hello users, Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard is a one-stop place to upload, sort, share PDF files, and more. This article will explore the various capabilities that Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard offers. A few highlights of Zoho PDF Editor's dashboard: Upload

• Updating records through Zoho Sheets View doesn't update timeline or trigger workflow rules

  I have noticed that when i update a series of record with the zoho sheets view (see here http://d.pr/i/ahnR) it doesn't update timeline history or trigger workflow rules. I am using it in the Deals module. Looking forward for some more info. Denis

• Passing Info from Function to Client Script

  Hello, I have recently started making use of client script for buttons, allowing me to give the user information or warnings before they proceed. This is great. However, I have never quite managed to pass back any extra information from the function to

• Automatically Update Form Attachment Service with Newly added Fields

  Hi, When I have a Form Setup and connected to a 3rd Party Service such as OneDrive for Form Attachments, when I later add a new Upload Field I have to remove and redo the entire 3rd Party Setup from scratch. This needs to be improved, such as when new

• Cannot get code to work with v2.mergeAndStore!

  Please can someone help me pass subform items into a repeating mail merge table row using v2.mergeAndStore? I have a mail merge template created in Writer and stored in Workdrive. This template is referenced by a custom CRM function which merges all of

• Drag 'n' Drop Fields to a Sub-Form and "Move Field To" Option

  Hi, I would like to be able to move fields from the Main Page to a Sub-Form or from a Sub-Form to either the Main Page or another Sub-Form. Today if you change the design you have to delete and recreate every field, not just move them. Would be nice to

• Zoho Payroll for Canada

  Is anyone else having problems getting setup for Canada?

• Passing the CRM

  Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when

• Super Admin Logging in as another User

  How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working

• One Contact with Multiple Accounts with Portal enabled

  I have a contact that manages different accounts, so he needs to see the invoices of all the companies he manage in Portal but I found it not possible.. any idea? I tried to set different customers with the same email contact with the portal enabled and

• User Automation: User based workflow rules & webhooks

  User management is an undeniable part of project management and requires adequate monitoring. As teams grow and projects multiply, manual coordination for updating users & permissions becomes difficult and can give way to errors. User automation in Zoho

• Disable Zoho Contacts

  We don't want to use this app... How can we disable it?

• Default Ticket View - Table?

  Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JV

• Zoho One IS BUGGY

  Here are some things that just don't work: - Disabling applications from certain Spaces - Adding users (probably only for me) - Renaming applications in Zoho One Portal (fixed by now) - Reordering applications in Spaces When I try to reorder: It feels

• Paid Support Plans with Automated Billing

  We (like many others, I'm sure) are designing or have paid support plans. Our design involves a given number of support hours in each plan. Here are my questions: 1) Are there any plans to add time-based plans in the Zoho Desk Support Plans feature? The

• Merge Fields that previously worked are now giving an Error!

  Saving a URL Link button on the Deal module. The below fields used to save without issue at all, but now produce an error of "URL contains unsupported merge field!" ${Contacts.Mailing Street} ${Contacts.Mailing City} ${Contacts.Mailing State} ${Contacts.Mailing

• Move email between inboxes?

  Is it possible to move emails from one team inbox to another? We would like to be able to have a single "catch-all" inbox for incoming requests, and then move the email to the appropriate department inbox. I was hoping we would be able to accomplish this

• Clarification on Zoho Forms 1-User Plan: Multiple Submitters and Approvers

  Question Content (Copy–Paste Ready) Hello Zoho Team, I would like clarification regarding Zoho Forms pricing and user limits. I am planning to subscribe to the ₹700/month (1 user) plan. My use case is as follows: Only 1 person (myself) will create and

• CRM Cadences recognise auto-responses

  I have leads in a Cadence. I get an auto-responder reply "I'm out of the office..." Normally Cadences seems to know that isn't a real reply and keeps the lead enrolled in the cadence. However, today, Cadences has UNENROLLED a Lead who sent an auto-reponse

• App for Mac OS X please!

  It would be awesome to have a mail app for Mac OS X that included all the cool features such as steams, calendar, tasks, contacts, etc. Most people prefer native apps, rather than running it through a web browser. I know that we can use the IMAP, CalDAV,

• Ability to Edit Ticket Subject when Splitting a Ticket

  Often someone will make an additional or new request within an existing ticket that requires we split the ticket. The annoying part is that the new ticket maintains the subject of the original ticket after the split so when the new ticket email notification

• Facing Issues with Sites Mobile font sizes

  my page renediaz.com is facing issues mobile view, when i try to lower font sizes in home page, instead of changing the size, it changes the line space

• Zoho Books Payroll

  How am I supposed to do payroll and pay my employees with Zoho Books? I think it's pretty strange that an accounting software doesn't have the ability to perform one of the most common functions in business; paying your employees. Am I missing something,

• Different Task Layouts for Subtasks

  I was wondering how it would be possible for a subtask to have a different task layout to the parent task.

• 60 Days Into Zoho - Tiktok Branding Startup -7 Questions?!

  Wsp Everybody I co-own a TikTok Branding / Consulting Startup & have been using Zoho for the past 60 days - Am now looking to make our overall operations & processes more Efficient & Effective! Curious to know how others are using the platform & what's

• Notifications in Cliq client for Linux

  If I got it right, Cliq desktop client for Linux does not use the generally accepted notification method via org.freedesktop.Notification interface. For this reason, Cliq notifications do not look and behave as all other notifications. Is it possible

• Canvas templates can now be shared with different CRM organizations

  ----------------------------------------Moderated on 14th February, 2023------------------------------------------- Dear all, This feature is now open for all users in all DCs. To learn more about importing and exporting canvas templates, read our help

• Unable to produce monthly P&L reports for previous years

  My company just migrated to Books this year. We have 5+ years financial data and need to generate a monthly P&L for 2019 and a monthly P&L YTD for 2020. The latter is easy, but I'm VERY surprised to learn that default reports in Zoho Books cannot create

• Change Last Name to not required in Leads

  I would like to upload 500 target companies as leads but I don't yet have contact people for them. Can you enable the option for me to turn this requirement off to need a Second Name? Moderation update (10-Jun-23): As we explore potential solutions for

• Next Page