Automation #6 - Prevent Re-opening of Closed Tickets

Automation #6 - Prevent Re-opening of Closed Tickets



This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk.

Typically when a customer submits a support ticket, it is assigned with a status to map its journey. Zoho Desk provides you with four default statuses: Open, On hold, Escalated, Closed; along with the option to create your own statutes which can then be mapped to these default ones.  
 
Once the solution has been provided to the customer and the ticket is resolved the ticket is marked as "Closed". But the status changes from "Closed" to "Open" if the customer replies to the same ticket. While this behaviour might be useful for some businesses who prefer to continue the same thread instead of reopening a new one, some might not want to do so. To ensure the ticket stays in the closed status and start a new thread for a customer reply, you can create a Workflow Rule and map it to a custom function script to achieve the desired results.

Prerequisite:

To ensure the Closed status is maintained even if a customer replies to a ticket, perform the following steps: 
1. Go to Setup, and under Customization, click Ticket Status, uncheck the "Fall-Back To Default" checkbox against "Closed" status.
2. OrgID, to get the OrgID, navigate to "Setup >> Developer Space >> API". Note down the OrgID

To create the workflow rule, perform the following steps:

1. Go to Setup, and under Automation, click Workflows.
2. On the left panel, under Workflows, click Rules > Create Rule.
In the Basic Information section, perform the following steps:
3. In the Module drop-down menu, select Tickets.
4. Enter a name and description for the rule.
5. If you want to activate the rule right away, select the Active checkbox. Else, you can just create the rule now and activate it later on the Rules page.
6. Click Next.
In the Execute on section, perform the following steps:
7. Select the Customer Reply checkbox to execute this rule every time a customer responds to a ticket.  
8. Click Next.
9. In the Criteria section, set the criteria as "Status is Closed" and click "Next"
In the Actions section, perform the following steps:
10. Click the + icon under "Action" and select "New" next to Custom Functions
11Enter a name and description for the custom function.
12. In the script window, input the Custom Function you find below:
  1. numberOfHours = 48;
  2. orgId = "Paste Org Id here";
  3. //Please paste your OrgID
  4. TicketInfo = zoho.desk.getRecordById(orgId,"tickets",TicketID);
  5. lastModified = TicketInfo.get("closedTime").toTime("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss");
  6. status = TicketInfo.get("status");
  7. hoursBetween = now.hoursBetween(lastModified).abs();
  8. if(hoursBetween >= numberOfHours)
  9. {
  10. threadResponse = zoho.desk.getRelatedRecords(orgId, "threads", "tickets", TicketID);
  11. if(threadResponse.get("data") != null)
  12. {
  13. latestThreadID = threadResponse.get("data").get(0).get("id");
  14. splitTicketResponse = zoho.desk.ticket.split(orgId, TicketID, latestThreadID);
  15. info "splitTicketResponse ::::" + splitTicketResponse;
  16. info "======================================================";
  17. NewTicketNumber = splitTicketResponse.get("ticketNumber");
  18. NewTicketID = splitTicketResponse.get("id");
  19. }
  20. }
  21. else
  22. {
  23. jsonString = {"status":"Open"};
  24. TicketResponse = zoho.desk.update(orgId, "tickets", TicketID, jsonString);
  25. info TicketResponse;
  26. }

NOTE:
Line 1 numberOfHours = 48, refers to the hours post which the new response received in a existing ticket should be split as new ticket. You can replace the number of hours based on your requirement.
Line 2 replace the orgId.

13. Click Edit Arguments
14. In the Name field type TicketID, and from the Value drop-down list select Ticket Id under Ticket Information
15. Click "Save" to save the custom function
16. Click "Save" again to save the workflow.

These steps would ensure that when a ticket is marked Closed, it stays in the Closed status, even if a customer replies after the mentioned hours. But also ensure that the new reply is added as a new ticket so you don't miss anything!

    • 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

      • Dynamic Signature - Record owner

        Hi everyone, I’m using Zoho Writer merge templates from Zoho CRM and have two questions: Owner signature: How can I automatically insert the CRM record owner’s signature in the merged document? I’m not sure where this signature is stored or how to reference
      • Color of Text Box Changes

        Sometimes I find the color of text boxes changed to a different color. This seems to happen when I reopen the same slide deck later. In the image that I am attaching, you see that the colors of the whole "virus," the "irology" part of "virology," and
      • PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) INDIA - NOT AVAILABLE IN BANKING

        Dear sir, Kindly fix it. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (INDIA) is available but PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK (CORPORATE) is not available. Kindly enable this banking since we need to categorize the entries. Regards, Sanjay Jena email id/ user id : travewithmerchant@
      • Applications built with Zoho Creator

        Hi, I’m really interested in seeing how others have built their application using Zoho Creator, especially those designed for external users (clients, vendors, or the public). If you’ve developed something along those lines and don’t mind sharing, I’d
      • Amazon invoice in Zoho Books

        I have just made my first few sales on Amazon India. Amazon Seller account generates invoices for the sales made on Amazon. These invoices are sent to customers also. Now when I was only making offline sales, I used to create Invoices in Zoho Book. Now
      • Exported Slide Image Lacks Portion of the Background Image

        This does not always happen, but when I export (or "download") the rendered image of a slide, it sometimes lacks a portion of the background image. I created a sample slide deck to demonstrate it and shared it with the admins. It is also publicly available
      • CUSTOM FUNCTION GIVE ERROR #EVAL!

        CUSTEM FUNCTION CREATE KYA ZOHOSHEET ME US FUNCTION KO USE KIYA LEKIN DATA TO SAHI HAI LAKIN DATA SHEET ME NAHI LAG LAHA HAI KRUPYA SOLVE KARE MY CODE IS float ADDTWO_TWO(float NO1, float NO2) { ADD = NO1 + NO2; return ADD; }
      • Sales Order, Invoice and Payment numbers

        Hi zoho friends, it is me again, the slow learner. I'm wondering if there is a way to have it so the Sales order, invoice and payment numbers are all the same? It would be easier for me if they were the same number so there is not so many reference numbers
      • Items Below Reorder Point Report?

        Is there a way to run a report of Items that are below the Reorder Point? I don't see this as a specific report, nor can I figure out how to customize any of the other stock reports to give me this information. Please tell me I'm missing something s
      • Enhance Sign CRM integration

        Hello all, I'm working on a custom Deluge script to enhance the integration between Zoho CRM and Sign by using a writer merge template for additional flexibility. I want to replicate the post-sign document integration that exists between CRM and Sign
      • Shortcut to fill a range of cells

        Good evening: I'm writing because I haven't been able to find a feature that allows you to select a range of cells, type in one of them, and then use a key combination to type in all of them. In Excel, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Enter. I haven't found
      • 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
      • Capture Stripe’s Customer ID

        Does anyone know of a way to capture Stripe’s customer ID that is created when the form/payment is processed? I would like to have the customer ID stored in our CRM so we could utilize in some custom functions down the road.
      • External User onboarding for zoho connect is not really intuitive.

        So the external user is sent an invite, which has a button that directs them to login to zoho to view the invite, but if they don't have a zoho account, they cannot access that invite, which seems kinda silly, as there is not real way on for them to create
      • Playback and Management Enhancements for Zoho Quartz Recordings

        Hello Zoho Team, We hope you're all doing well. We would like to submit a feature request related to Zoho Quartz, the tool used to record and share browser sessions with Zoho Support. 🎯 Current Functionality As of now, Zoho Quartz allows users to record
      • Bigin Android app update: Zoho Books integration

        Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce Zoho Books integration on the Bigin Android App. Once the integration is completed in the web(bigin.zoho.com), the Zoho Books tab will be visible in detail View of Contacts, Companies, and Pipeline records. The
      • IMAP Migration from Gmail

        I have been trying to import my email from a Gmail server and keep receiving the following error. I have reduced the security, activated imap and no improvement. The link to the Google support item has not helped. Unable to connect to your account. Please
      • Your Incoming has been blocked and the emails will not be fetched in your Zoho account and POP Accounts Click here to get unblocked.

        When entering my account, this error is thrown at me, and I deleted a good part of my deleted messages, but I still can not unblock it, I would appreciate your help. reservas@lineasperutravel.com
      • Email login error

        Login successfully but email page error
      • I want to add my other zoho account in same pc

        why does zoho restrict me doing many things as i also want to add my second mail account bit its not allowing me to do that
      • Request for Creating Multiple Email Accounts on One Mobile Number

        Dear Zoho Team, I am planning to shift all my work-related communication to Zoho Mail because of its reliability and features. For my work, I need to create 3–4 separate email accounts for different purposes. Could you please confirm if it is possible
      • Automatically Add Recurring Zoho Meeting Events to Zoho Calendar / Zoho Meeting Calendar

        Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement regarding recurring meetings created inside Zoho Meeting. At the moment, when we schedule a recurring meeting in Zoho Meeting, it does not appear in Zoho Calendar
      • Signature issue

        Problem: The signature does not appear when replying or forwarding an email. solve issue: settintgs/Signature Check option place a signature above the content with quotation marks
      • Unable to Receive Emails on Zoho Mail After Office 365 Coexistence Setup – Error: 553 Relaying Disallowed

        Hello, My domain name is bigniter.com, and I’ve been using Zoho Mail as my email service provider without any issues. Recently, I followed the steps outlined in the Zoho documentation to enable Coexistence with Office 365: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/adminconsole/coexistence-with-office365.html#multi-server
      • mail admin not loading

        i am trying to login to mailadmin ... gears keeps rotating forever... its not a password issue whats so ever ... not cookies issues whatsoever from android app i can login but there so few things to do from there .. i changed ip address the same... i
      • Unify All Zoho Video Meeting Experiences into One Standardized Platform

        Hi Zoho Team, We would like to share an important user experience concern regarding the current state of video meeting functionality across the Zoho ecosystem. The Problem Within Zoho, there are multiple ways to initiate or schedule a video meeting: Zoho
      • Unify All Zoho Video Meeting Experiences into One Standardized Platform

        Hi Zoho Team, We would like to share an important user experience concern regarding the current state of video meeting functionality across the Zoho ecosystem. The Problem Within Zoho, there are multiple ways to initiate or schedule a video meeting: Zoho
      • Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

        Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,
      • Zoho One Backup of entire account

        Hello, When using Zoho one is there a way to backup your entire account of all apps that you are using \ activively using in a single step or do you have to backup each applications data individually? Thanks,
      • CRM Mobile reports

        When our engineers finish a job they like to email the customer a job report. This is best done todate as an email template but we can find no way to include an image field from that module. Is there any other options?
      • why cant i access my email account. it keeps asking me for reverifiying my account by entering my password.

        I cant access my account. it keeps asking me for reverifcaton by entering my password. once its entered it asks for it over and over.
      • Issue with “CC” and “Subject Details” of the initial mail when reply / replied all / forward using Zoho Mail Client (Desktop / Web Mail / Mobile App)

        It is observed that when I reply / reply all / forward a mail using Zoho Mail Client (Desktop / Web Mail / Mobile App), the “CC” and “Subject Details” are omitted from the mail which was replied/forwarded. However this is not the case with outlook mail
      • Unable to send Emails - 452 4.3.1 Temporary System Error

        Whene ever i request smtp server to send the email (without attachment). i recieve error "452 4.3.1 Temporary System Error"
      • I can't receive email

        I cannot receive any email sent to my Zoho email after the free upgrade plan trial is finished.
      • Help for the alisa adding

        Sorry, I would like to add a paypal alias on my domain email address. However, the system blocked it. How can I do it?
      • Problem with Writer and Workdrive

        Hi team, I’m the super admin for our Zoho One org. WorkDrive is active, and Zoho Docs is deprecated for our org. However, Zoho Writer cannot connect to WorkDrive at all — we’ve cleared cache, tried incognito, and restarted several times. I was able to
      • Lite plan attachment said 250mb but actually 25mb ?

        Lite plan attachment said 250mb but actually 25mb ? I can't attach over 25mb files, and can't receive mails has attached files over 25mb too
      • How to change a BAS that has been filed

        I have discovered that a group of expense transactions were accidentally placed in a asset account rather than an expense account. As a result I need to adjust the transaction and consequently most of my BAS to correct the error. Because the BAS have
      • Zoho Books | Product updates | August 2025

        Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From the right sidebar where you can manage all your widgets, to integrating Zoho Payments feeds in Zoho Books, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience.
      • Closing Accounting Periods - Invoice/Posting dates

        Hi, I have seen in another thread but I'm unsure on how the 'transaction locking' works with regards to new and old transactions. When producing monthly accounts if I close December 24 accounts on 8th Jan 25 will transaction locking prevent me from posting
      • Next Page