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

• Zoho CRM Layouts

  I have customised all our modules, Leads, Contacts and deals, and within them, I have created lots of different layouts depending on the type of Lead or contact, for example. Since the new Zoho UI came out, they have all disappeared. I have gone into

• WhatsApp IM in Zoho Desk always routes to Admin instead of assigned agent

  Hello Zoho Experts, I connected WhatsApp IM to my Zoho Desk account. I only assigned my Customer Service (CS) agent to the WhatsApp channel, and I did NOT include Admin in this channel. However, every new WhatsApp conversation automatically gets assigned

• hide resolution from help centre

  to my surprise, i just found out that the resolution text is public in the helpcenter, even if 'notify customer' is off. is there a workaround to that? how do others deal with this? How zoho support does this and I don't think its used by Zoho in the first place. the resolution is meant to be private, not public

• Zoho Analytics + Facebook Ads: Performance Alerts for Active Campaigns

  Is it possible with integration of Zoho Analytics with Facebook Ads and set up alerts or notifications for active campaigns when performance drops? For example, triggering a notification if CTR goes below a defined threshold or if other key metrics (like

• Multiple upload field CRM

  I desperately need the functionality to add more than one upload field to web to contacts form. How can I do this?

• Sort by age

  It would be very helpful if there was a way to sort by age in the Age column. Please add this function if possible. Thanks!

• Lookup Field Option Not Available in Customization

  Hello, I am trying to customize different modules (e.g., Work Orders, Systems, and others), but I am unable to find the Lookup field option in the layout customization. When I go to: Setup → Customization → Modules and Fields → Add Field The Lookup field

• Scheduled sending of a poll and its results

  Is there a way to schedule sending a poll to all my users and have the results sent separately to the team?

• Integrating Zoho Suite and apps more with Linux

  I just got introduced with Zoho just couple of months ago, and I've already planned to contribute to it, even though it's not an open-source software. Still I have found it's potential to beat the tech giants and still being respective towards data privacy

• Store Submitted Forms as PDF

  Hi there, Is there a method to store Form submissions as a PDF in workdrive for archival? I set the form to email the submission to the user and an internal inbox but I'd really love to store the final form as PDF in workdrive automatically. I can't seem

• System Components menu not available for Tablet to select language

  I have attached a screenshot of my desktop, mobile, and tablet menu builder options. I am using 2 languages in my application. Language Selection is an option under the System Components part of the menu, but only for my desktop and phone(mobile). My

• Separate Items & Services

  Hi, please separate items and services into different categories. Thank you

• CRM->INVENTORY, sync products as composite items

  We have a product team working in the CRM, as it’s more convenient than using Books or Inventory—especially with features like Blueprints being available. Once a product reaches a certain stage, it needs to become visible in Inventory. To achieve this,

• Add an option to disable ZIA suggestions

  Currently, ZIA in Zoho Inventory automatically provides suggestions, such as sending order confirmation emails. However, there is no way to disable this feature. In our case, orders are automatically created by customers, and we’ve built a custom workflow

• Peppol: Accept Bill (Belgium)

  Hi, This topic might help you if you're facing the same in Belgium. We are facing an issue while accepting a supplier bill received by Peppol in Zoho Books. There is a popup with an error message: This bill acceptance could not be completed, so it was

• Want to use Zoho Books in Switzerland. CHF support planned?

  Hi, We're a Swiss company using other Zoho suite software and I discovered Zoho Books and other accounting SaaS when looking for an accounting tool. Do you intend to cover Switzerland and CHF based accounting anytime soon? Roy

• Feature Request - Gift Cards or Gift Voucher Capability in Zoho Commerce

  Hi Zoho Commerce team, I'm comming accross more and more retail businesses who sell gift cards. As there is currently no way to manage this in Zoho Commerce, it is a blocker to addoption. This is particularly popular in Europe and North America. I recently

• Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

  Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

• Closing off tasks automatically based on project status

  Is there a way to close off all open tasks when a project is set as Cancelled?

• [Free webinar] Understanding connections and datasources in Zoho Creator - Creator Tech Connect

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to another edition of the Creator Tech Connect webinar. About Creator Tech Connect The Creator Tech Connect series is a free monthly webinar featuring in-depth technical sessions designed for developers, administrators,

• Bridge the Gap Between your Service and Finance Teams

  In field service, the most expensive distance isn’t the drive to a customer’s home—it’s the gap between a finished job and a paid invoice. Zoho FSM leverages the power of Zoho Invoice to handle and manage billing operations. It enables you to: Instantly

• Direct URL to "View Record"

  I would like to create a button (Deluge Script) to jump to the "view record" without passing by the record menu, but I can not aford to find the right url. I don't want the "view record" as a single page. I want the "view record" in the application like the picture below: Thanks in advance for your help

• Live Chat for user

  Hi everyone, I’m new to Zoho Creator and wanted to ask if it’s possible to add a live chat option for all logged-in portal users so they can chat internally. I’m trying to create a customer portal similar to a service desk, but for vehicle breakdowns,

• SalesIQ Chat Owner to CRM Lead Owner Mapping

  There is no proper mapping between the SalesIQ chat owner and the CRM lead owner. When a chat is assigned to an agent, the lead created in CRM is often assigned to a different user, forcing admins to manually change ownership every time. This creates

• Product line search in quotes

  Is there a way to change the search setting when you add a product line to a quote. We have created a field in products called 'Part Number' and I would like when I'm adding a product line to the quote that I can search on that field. At the moment it only searches on product description. In products I can search on the 'Part Number' field Any help welcome.

• Searching for an item from within an invoice should show any item containing the string, not just those that begin with the string.

  Hello, I've found myself becoming increasingly frustrated with the limited line-item seach when adding new items to an invoice. The problem is that the characters being typed are only being matched from the beginning of the item name.  This might be usable

• Storage Limits

  Hello, What is the storage limitations for each user on professional edition?  Thanks, Mekki

• Power Pivot and Data Modeling functionality in Zoho Sheet

  When will MS Excel functionalities like Power Pivot and Data Modeling functionalities be available in Zoho Sheet?

• Global Search placement in the new UI

  Having a hard time with the global search placement in the UI redesign. Surely I can't be the only one. Previously global search placement was perfect. A bar at the top/center of the page. Exactly where you would expect it to be. Since the new UI has

• What's New - January 2026 | Zoho Backstage

  Welcome to 2026! If you thought last year was big, buckle up. We’re stepping into this year with a singular focus: unimaginable growth, elite scalability, and performance benchmarks that leave the old ways of event management in the rearview mirror. As

• Cliq on your mobile phone

  Some of the employees in my company get their cliq on their mobile phones but it will not let them answer the call. The employee has to go to their laptop to access it. 

• Bulk Delete Messages in Cliq

  Isn't it possible to bulk delete messages in Cliq? I have them delivered to me as notifications from another service but most of them need to be deleted as not of value. I get dozens of them per day, and deleting them is already difficult is the "Delete"

• stock movement report by each transaction for each item

  Dear Sir we are using zoho inventory for foodstuff and we lack the transaction report which clearly shows movement of an item from Opening balance of the month to Goods received in, Supplier return out, Invoice out, Sales return In, Transfer out and Transfer

• Unable to change Company Logo

  Hi Guys, I have an issue where I've uploaded a Company image in Gif format and the logo has now got a black background whereas the logo is supposed to be black not the background. I didn't think it would be an issue so I created a PNG version to upload

• Metadata API Access to Functions

  I think it would be incredibly helpful to have api access to every function's code. Our team primarily uses deluge functions to update fields across modules according to business logic. I would like to create a visual dependancy model for our CRM, but

• Historical Sales Info - Blend with Finance Invoice Line Items, Access in CRM and Desk

  My company has been using Zoho One since 2021, with sales data going back through 2020. However, we have been in business much longer, and we have historical sales information that we want to have at our fingertips when talking with customers (usually

• Introducing Record Category in CRM: Group options to see record status at a glance.

  Release update: Currently available for CN, JP, and AU, CA, Sa, and UAE DCs (all editions); EU, US, and IN (Standard and Professional editions). It will be made available to other DCs by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to introduce Record Category

• Service disruption in Zoho Cliq (EU Region) – February 9, 2026

  Hello everyone, We’d like to inform you about a brief service disruption that affected Zoho Cliq users in the EU region earlier today. The issue has been resolved, and all services are now operating normally. Summary On February 9, 2026, Zoho Cliq experienced

• Spotlight series #26 - Build slides with visual clarity using Diagram

  Hello all! The feature in the spotlight this month is Diagram. Let's say you are a part of a project kickoff meeting and your teammate starts explaining the project life cycle like this: "First we ideate, then we create an initial prototype and share

• Client scripts for Zoho Books ?

  Good day everyone, I am looking for a way to be able to interact with the Quotes and Invoices as they are being created. Think of it like Zoho client script in Zoho CRM. But for the life of me I dont see a way to do this. The issue with having function

• Next Page