Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition

Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition


​
Hello Everyone,
This week’s edition focuses on configuring a custom function within Zoho Desk to streamline time tracking within the Blueprint. In this case, we create a custom field, and request the agent to enter the spending time within the single line field and then move to the next status within the blueprint. This entry updates under the Time Entry tab within the ticket.
Businesses rely on automated time entry to track time, but certain workflows require manual input. For example, ZylkerTechFix, a company specializing in hardware servicing and repairs, needed a precise way to log time spent on servicing devices across departments.
After an initial assessment, the support team transfers the ticket to the Engineering team. The time taken for servicing varied based on the complexity of the issue. To ensure accurate tracking, agents were required to manually log the time spent at this stage. A custom single line field was added to capture this information, and the organization flow was integrated into a Blueprint, making it seamless for agents and transparent for customers.
Let's go through setting up a Blueprint with a custom function that allows agents to manually log the time spent in a specific status once they've completed the process. This helps track time at each stage, improving efficiency and customer communication.

Prerequisites

Create a connection

  1.1 Go to Setup(S) and choose Connections under Developer Space.
  1.2 Click Create Connection.
  1.3 Select Zoho OAuth under Default Connection.
  1.4 Set the connection name as desk_connection.
  1.5 Under Choose Scopes, choose the below scope values:
Desk.tickets.READ
Desk.tickets.UPDATE
  1.6 Click Create and Connect.
  1.7 Click Connect.
  1.8 Choose the Zoho Desk's organization to connect with Deluge, and click Submit.
  1.9 Click Accept.
Connection is created successfully.

Create a custom single line field

a. Navigate to Setup >> Customization >> Layouts and Fields.
b. Select Tickets module and the Department in which you will configure the Blueprint.
c. Click on the layout. Add single line field which has the field value length of 255. Give the Name – Spending Time.
This single line field is  for the agent to manually enter the time taken to handle this ticket. Enter the time in this format HH:MM:SS (eg: 02:15:30)  .

Configure Custom Function within the Blueprint

Create a Blueprint with the required transitions for your process.
1. To create a Blueprint, go to Setup >> Automation >> Blueprint. 
2. Choose the department (the same department where you created the custom field) and click on Create Blueprint.
3. Give a desired name under Blueprint Name and description.
4. Choose Tickets under the module and let the Field be Status.
5. Add Criteria as Specific records/All records as required.
6. Add Advanced configuration as required.
7. Click Next.
8. Drag and drop the required States for your organization flow. Connect the different states  
9. Click on the + icon between the states to add a transition. Give a Name and Description for the transition.
10. Click Add transition

Within Transitions

11. Under Before, add the Agents whom you would like to give access to the Blueprint.
12. Add Transition Owner from a Different Department, Choose Department and Criteria if required.
13. Under During, click on Add Operations >> Fields >> choose Spending Time.  This will be marked validation and Mandatory.
14. Under After, click on New next to custom functions.
15. Under Configure Custom Function, enter Name and Description.
16. In the script window, insert the Custom Function given below:
  1. // ----<<<< User Inputs >>>>----
  2. // --- Replace ".com" with appropriate domain extension based on customer's location/DC ---
  3. deskURL = "https://desk.zoho.com";
  4. customFieldAPIName = "cf_"; // Replace the custom field API Name
  5. orgId = "";// Replace the org ID
  6. // ----<<<< Initial Configs >>>>----
  7. logs = Map();
  8. logs.insert("ticketId":ticketId,"timeEntryValue":timeEntryValue);
  9. //---------------------------
  10. try
  11. {
  12. // --- Perform the time calculation tasks ---
  13. executedTime = toText(now,"yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'","GMT");
  14. timeEntryValueList = timeEntryValue.toList(":");
  15. logs.insert("timeEntryValueList":timeEntryValueList);
  16. secondsSpent = timeEntryValueList.get(0).toNumber() * 3600 + timeEntryValueList.get(1).toNumber() * 60 + timeEntryValueList.get(2).toNumber();
  17. logs.insert("secondsSpent":secondsSpent);
  18. getHistory = invokeurl
  19. [
  20. url :deskURL + "/api/v1/tickets/" + ticketId + "/history?operationName=Blueprints_History"
  21. type :GET
  22. connection:"desk_connection"
  23. ];
  24. agentId = getHistory.get(0).get("agentId");
  25. logs.insert("getHistory":getHistory);
  26. createTimeEntry = invokeurl
  27. [
  28. url :deskURL + "/api/v1/tickets/" + ticketId + "/timeEntry"
  29. type :POST
  30. parameters:{"executedTime":executedTime,"secondsSpent":secondsSpent,"ownerId":agentId} + ""
  31. connection:"desk_connection"
  32. ];
  33. logs.insert("createTimeEntryApiResponse":createTimeEntry);
  34. update = zoho.desk.update(orgId,"tickets",ticketId,{"cf":{customFieldAPIName:""}});
  35.     logs.insert("Update":update);
  36. }
  37. catch (errorInfo)
  38. {
  39. logs.insert("errorInfo":errorInfo);
  40. }
  41. info "logs: \n" + logs;
  42. if(logs.containKey("errorInfo"))
  43. {
  44. throws "Error happen in the CF execution";
  45. }
17. Click on the Edit Arguments in the script editer window, give a desired Method Name. Map the arguments as below:
       17.1 In the Argument Name field, type ticketId and select Ticket Id in the Tickets Section.
       17.2 In the Argument Name field, type timeEntryValue and select Spending Time in the Tickets Section. Click Done.
Notes

NOTE

a. In Line 3, replace .com in the address with .in/.eu/.ca based on your DC.
b. In Line 4, enter the API name of the custom field.
To fetch the API name, go to Setup (S) → Customization → Layouts and Fields. Select the department for which you've configured this blueprint under Tickets module. Select the layout, click on the gear icon(Field settings) of the custom field and select Edit properties. Copy the API name under Edit field and paste it in line 4 of the code.   
​
Notes
​
c. In Line 5, enter the Org ID. Go to Setup >> Developer Space >> APIs. Under API Plan Details, you will fine the metric Org ID and its Values. Copy the value and paste it in line 3.  
18. Click on Save & Complete Blueprint.
19. Click Yes, Proceed. 
Your configuration is complete.

In the ticket, when the agent chooses to move to the next transition, the spending time values has to be entered by the agent in the format HH:MM:SS. Once the value is entered, the ticket proceeds to the next transition.
Info
You can utilize the custom field "Spending Time" across multiple transitions too. Each time a transition occurs, the field resets, allowing users to input the time spent during subsequent transitions.
Please share your thoughts and understanding of how the Blueprint feature has helped your business. If you need help with Blueprints, our mailbox is open to hear you: support@zohodesk.com. 
Until the next post,
Lydia | Zoho Desk 



      • 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

        • 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

        • Zoho Projects Plus’ 2025- the year we launched

          We’ve been building project management tools for the past 19 years, and a question we often hear is: Different teams in our organization prefer different project management methods; while the development team prefers agile, the marketing and sales teams

        • Why can't we change the Account type from an Expense to an Asset?

          Like the question. Why in QuickBooks for example if I mistakenly created an account as an expenses and I already captured information in those accounts, I can just change the account type from expense to asset

        • 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

        • Zoho Books emails suddenly going to Spam since 11 Nov 2025 (Gmail + now Outlook) — anyone else?

          Hi everyone, We migrated to Zoho Books in July 2025 and everything worked fine until 11 Nov 2025. Since then, Zoho Books system emails are landing in customers’ Spam (first Gmail, and now we’re seeing Outlook/Office 365 also starting to spam them). Impacted

        • How do you print a refund check to customer?

          Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does anyone print a refund check to a customer? We cant find anywhere to either just print a check and pick a customer, or where to do so from a credit note.

        • Data Import | Zoho Analytics Custom Query Window Size

          Please increase the window size for the Custom Query Data Import. It's impossible to work with such a small query window.

        • Company Multiple Branch/ Location Accounting

          Hi All, anyone know whether company can maintain their multiple Branch Accounting in Zoho  Books. It will be chart of Accounts & Master Data will be same but different report available as per per Branch. Thanks & regards, Vivek +91 9766906737

        • Zoho Books Invoices Templates

          It would be really helpful to have more advanced features to customise the invoice templates in Zoho Books. Especially I´m thinking of the spacing of the different parts of the invoice (Address line etc.). If you have a sender and receiver address in

        • Support for Developing Zoho Recruit Extensions via Zoho Sigma

          Hi, I’m interested in building an extension for Zoho Recruit using Zoho Sigma. However, when I navigate to Sigma and attempt to create a new extension (via the "New Extension" option), Zoho Recruit does not appear as a listed service—only options like

        • Email Administrators! Join our tips & troubleshooting series

          Greetings to all the admins out there! This announcement is exclusively for you. As we step into the New Year, we’re excited to start a dedicated series of admin-specific tips curated to support you. These posts will help you overcome everyday challenges

        • Notes badge as a quick action in the list view

          Hello all, We are introducing the Notes badge in the list view of all modules as a quick action you can perform for each record, in addition to the existing Activity badge. With this enhancement, users will have quick visibility into the notes associated

        • Deprecation of the Zoho OAuth connector

          Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously evaluate our integrations to ensure they meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of these ongoing efforts, we've made the decision to deprecate the Zoho OAuth default connector

        • Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

          Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,

        • Free Webinar : Unlock AI driven business insights with Zoho Inventory + Zoho Analytics

          Are you tired of switching between apps and exporting data to build customized reports? Say hello to smarter & streamlined insights! Join us for this exclusive webinar where we explore the power of the Zoho Inventory–Zoho Analytics integration. Learn

        • No OR Filter for Views with a Related Modules Criteria

          We would like to create a Deal View where the User can see all their deals. For that, we would need an OR to connect the criteria. One of the Fields is a "multiselect User", these (Related Modules Criteria) can only be Filter with an AND. Even between

        • Import Function: ONLY update empty fields

          When setting up an import from a spreadsheet to CRM, there is a checkbox "Don't update empty values for existing contacts" (see screenshot below). While I see some limited benefit from this functionality, I think there should also be an "ONLY update empty

        • Sales IQ Chat Widget is Only Displaying Last Name

          Can anyone suggest why the widget is only displaying "last name"?! We have the latest version of the wordpress plugin installed. Thanks Thanks!

        • Free Webinar: Zoho Sign for Zoho Projects: Automate tasks and approvals with e-signatures

          Hi there! Handling multiple projects at once? Zoho Projects is your solution for automated and streamlined project management, and with the Zoho Sign extension, you can sign, send, and manage digital paperwork directly from your project workspace. Join

        • Begin the year with best practices in the Zoho Desk mobile app : Part 2

          In focus: Optimizing collaboration and supervision Let's begin 2026 with Part 2 of our tips series on driving your ticketing operations at your fingertips. In Part 1, we explored streamlining operations within tickets. This helped individuals at Omniserve

        • Process checklist in CRM

          Hi We've created a new sales process that I'm mapping into the CRM - issue I have is that some of the tasks / milestones I would like to capture require very simple tick box responses but there are quite a few under a variety of sub categories so I don't

        • Can we disable add to cart in Zoho Commerce?

          Hello, Our sales happen on the phone. During the call the customer is directed to our website to inspect the products together with the sales rep. So we need a way to present our inventory. I figured Zoho Commerce is a good fit for this use case. However we would have to disable the possibility to purchase products in the shop. Is that possible? Sunny regards, Artjom

        • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

          Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan

        • Zoho DataPrep and File Pattern configuration

          I'm using Zoho data prep to ingest data from One Drive into Zoho Analytics... The pipeline is super simple but I can't any way to get all the files that I need. Basically I need to bring all the files with a certain pattern and for that I'm using a regex

        • JWT Token authentication problem that sometimes generates infinite redirect loops

          Description : Nous proposons un bouton sur notre plateforme permettant de rediriger l'utilisateur vers le portail ZohoDesk via un jeton JWT pour une authentification transparente. Cependant, il arrive que certains utilisateurs soient pris dans une boucle

        • Zoho desk desktop application

          does zoho desk has a destop applicaion?

        • How do I bulk archive my projects in ZOHO projects

          Hi, I want to archive 50 Projects in one go. Can you please help me out , How can I do this? Thanks kapil

        • ZOHO Work Drive Back Up

          I am looking for a ZOHO Work Drive backup solution. Something that is cloud based. There's lots of these kinds of options for Google Drive and other providers, but I have not seen anything for WorkDrive. Any suggestions?

        • ZOHO Reports - Filter Logic?

          Hi, I need a way to apply filter logics such as ((1 AND 2) OR 3). All I can see as of now is a way to enter different AND filters in the respective filter column. But how can I add an OR filter? Any advice would be highly appreciated. Mark

        • Scanned Doc - selecting Item overwrites Rate

          I have a Vendor Invoice which was uploaded to Documents. I select Add To > New Bill. The OCR is actually quite good, but it is reading an Item Description instead of an Item Number. I remove the description and select the correct Item Number... and it

        • Recruit API search

          Hi all, Attempting to call the search api endpoint from Postman using the word element as mentioned in api docs Search Records - APIs | Online Help - Zoho Recruit When making the call to /v2/Candidates/search?word=Saudi receive response of { "code": "MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND",

        • Manage control over Microsoft Office 365 integrations with profile-based sync permissions

          Greetings all, Previously, all users in Zoho CRM had access to enable Microsoft integrations (Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks) in their accounts, regardless of their profile type. Users with administrator profiles can now manage profile-based permissions

        • Saving reading position + Keep screen on

          While Zoho Notebook is excellent for saving and annotating articles, its utility is severely limited by the lack of reading progress synchronization. On the Android app, if a user exits a long note after reading 50%, the app fails to save the position.

        • Multiple Vendor SKUs

          One of the big concerns we have with ZOHO Inventory is lack of Vendor Skus like many other inventory software packages offer. Being able to have multiple vendor skus for the same product would be HUGE! It would populate the appropriate vendor Sku for

        • Zoho LandingPage is integrated with Zoho One!

          Greetings to the Zoho One users out there! We're delighted to let you know that Zoho LandingPage is available in Zoho One too! With Zoho LandingPage, you can host custom-made landing pages, and persuade the visitors to dive deeper by making further clicks,

        • Android app sync problem - multiple devices have same problem

          Hello, I am having a problem with synchronization in the Android app. When I create a drawing, the data does not sync correctly—only a blank note is created without the drawing. I tested this on multiple devices, including phones and tablets, and the

        • How can i resend a campaign to only one of the recipients on the original campaign

          How can i resend a campaign to only one of the recipients on the original campaign ? Sincererly, Mike

        • How to show branch instead of org name on invoice template?

          Not sure why invoices are showing the org name not the branch name? I can insert the branch name using the ${ORGANIZATION.BRANCHNAME} placeholder, but then it isn't bold text anymore. Any other ideas?

        • Create CRM Deal from Books Quote and Auto Update Deal Stage

          I want to set up an automation where, whenever a Quote is created in Zoho Books, a Deal is automatically created in Zoho CRM with the Quote amount, customer details, and some custom fields from Zoho Books. Additionally, when the Sales Order is converted

        • Marketing Automation Requirements Questions

          I would like to set up a multi-email drip campaign- please see the structure below and confirm if I can achieve this set up in Zoho marketing automation. Where applicable, highlight gaps and workarounds. Thanks Drip email campaign- Can I create one drip

        • Next Page