Automation #11 - Auto Update Custom Fields with Values from Emails

This is a monthly series designed to help you get the best out of Desk. We take our cue from what's being discussed or asked about the most in our community. Then we find the right use cases that specifically highlight solutions, ideas and tips to optimize your customer support with the automation capabilities of Zoho Desk.

With the help of Custom fields in Zoho Desk you can extract context that is specific to your business. For example, a travel company might want their customers to enter PNR numbers while submitting their tickets. Or, a product manufacturing company may have a mandatory field for serial numbers in the add ticket form.

 

But when your customers send in emails with vital information like Order numbers and PNR numbers listed in the email content, extracting it to add it to the custom fields can be a challenge. Here's an automation designed to help you sidestep this challenge. It extracts specific context from the email content and updates the custom fields automatically.

 

Let's take the example of "Order Number" to understand how we can achieve this automation.

 

You may recall how we replaced Auth-tokens with Connections for all the existing custom functions. So the first step to making the most of ZohoDesk's automation capabilities is to create a connection to be used in the custom function later.

 

To create a  connection, carry out the following steps: 

1. Click on Setup > Developer Space > Connections 
   
2. Click Create Connection
   
3. In the Pick Your Service section, under Pre-Defined Services find and select Zoho OAuth
   
4. In the Connection Details section, add zohodesk as the Connection Name and Connection LinkName
   
5. In the Choose Scopes list, select all values that start with 'Desk.' and ending with '.ALL' and then include Desk.search.READ, Desk.products.READ
   
6. Click Create and Connect
   
7. In the page that appears, click Connect
   
8. If you have more than one portal associated, select the Portal to which this connection should be added and click Accept. 
   

Say you receive an email with the content: 

Order Number: 4345312

Contact Name: Sundar

To extract the value of the Order Number from the above email, proceed with these 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, carry out 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 Create checkbox to execute this rule every time a new ticket is created. 
   
8. Click Next.
   In the Criteria section, do not select any criteria and move to the next section.
   In the Actions section, carry out the following steps:
9. Click the + icon and select Custom Functions > New
   
10. Click Edit Arguments
    
11. In the Name field type TicketID, and from the Value drop-down list select Ticket Id under Ticket Information.
    
12. In the script window, input the Custom Function you find below:
    orgId = "paste orgId here";
    fromWord = "Order Number:";
    toWord = "Contact Name:";
    lenfromWord = fromWord.length();
    T_Info = invokeurl
    [
    url :"https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/tickets/" + TicketID + "/latestThread?include=plainText"
    type :GET
    connection:"zohodesk"
    ];
    plainText = T_Info.getJSON("plainText");
    orderNumber = plainText.subText(plainText.indexOf(fromWord) + lenfromWord ,plainText.indexOf(toWord));
    updateTicket = zoho.desk.update(orgId,"tickets",TicketID,{"cf":{"cf_order_number":orderNumber}});
    info updateTicket;

Once the steps are completed, the value will be updated in a custom field named Order Number and the API name of the field that is cf_order_number. For other business scenarios, you can replace "Order Number" with other keywords that describe the specific values you need to extract.

 

 

 

 

 

• Topic Participants

• Chinmayee Mishra

  

• matt.jantzi

• Ash | Zoho Desk

  

• Robert Darrow

• Nicole

• 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 - Calendar Cards View - Let Users Decide What Is Displayed On Calendar Entries

  Imagine planning your week of face-to-face meetings across three counties. You’re trying to group appointments by location to make the best use of your time, but Zoho CRM’s calendar doesn’t show where each meeting is happening. You’re left trying to remember

• Zoho Inventory - How to pay a supplier up front then receive multiple deliveries

  How do we manage situations where we pay a supplier up front, then the receive the products in increments? Example Workflow: Create Purchase Order > Receive Bill for full amount > Receive Items 2 or more deliveries. Currently, once a Bill is created against

• How can I add or change the active customer in Zoho Projects?

  I'm trying to change the customer in an active Zoho project. Is it possible to add or change the customer?

• What happens when someone clicks 'unsubscribe' in a zoho CRM email

  Hello, As per, i am going round in circles trying to find an answer to these 2 question. I have an email template that has an unsubscribe link in the footer in zoho CRM. First, what happens when someone clicks it - where does the contact get unsubscribed

• Zoho CRM - Scheduled Reports Which Contain Chart

  Hi Zoho CRM Team, I'm requesting that the Report Export and Scheduling feature be enhanced to include a chart, if one has been created on a report. At the moment I have a report which shows Sales This Week by Deal Owner and a pie chart at the top of the

• Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

  Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter

• Cadences

  I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't

• Canvas View in Zoho Recruit

  Is it possible or would it be possible to have the new 'Canvas View' in Zoho Recruit?

• Zoho Inventory - Move Orders

  Quick question about Move Orders... Why is there no status to say something like "Draft", "In Progress" and "Completed", similar to Transfer Orders? I'm assuming that when something needs to be moved it should be planned in Inventory, executed and then

• Kaizen #215 - Workflow APIs - Part 3 - Create and Update Workflow Rules

  Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve joined Zylker Cloud Services as they review and improve their workflows. In Part 1, we discovered and audited their sprawling workflow landscape. In Part 2, we learned how to

• DataPrep Bigquery Connection failed

  Hello everybody, I want to create a connnection beetwen Bigquery and Dataprep but when I try to connect my project I got this error Loading tables has failed. Table list fetched from the data source expired.

• Utilisation de Zoho en conformité avec l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI)

  Cher(e) client(e), Conformément à l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI) impose aux entreprises assujetties à la TVA d’utiliser des systèmes de caisse ou de gestion commerciale certifiés lorsqu’elles enregistrent des ventes à des particuliers.

• Issue in Zoho People Regularization – Incorrect Hour Calculation

  I have noticed that when applying attendance regularization in Zoho People for previous dates, the total working hours are not calculated correctly. For example, even if the check-in is 10:00 AM and check-out is 6:00 PM, the system shows an incorrect

• 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

• Allow Multiple usage units to items while adding them to sales/purchase transactions

  The usage unit of items added in zoho books are static right now and can not be changed. But certain items are received or sold in multiple usage units. One example is fabric. It can be bought in Meters, inches, kgs or other units. Another example would

• PO receive quantities

  At last, Zoho has finally got around to allowing us to receive a larger qty than recorded in the PO :-) Saves us all from editing the PO's before receiving larger quantities ( usual for us ) ! It's still in "beta" but available upon request, I've tested

• Analytics : How to share to an external client ?

  We have a use case where a client wants a portal so that several of his users can view dashboards that we have created for them in Zoho Analytics. They are not part of our company or Zoho One account. The clients want the ability to have user specific,

• Reference Deal Categories in Deluge

  Hello, Is there a way to reference Deal Category in deluge functions? So for our Deals, we have several different WON stages in a pipeline.  Rather than type each stage into our functions, we'd like to be able to reference the Deal Category.  Similar

• Payroll In Canada

  Hi, When can we expect to have payroll in Canada with books 

• Users Name & Email in Reports

  Hi, I would like to show the Users Name from their Zoho Acount in All Entries/Reports as well as the current Account Email. Thanks Dan

• Presenting ABM for Zoho CRM: Expand and retain your customers with precision

  Picture this scenario: You're a growing SaaS company ready to launch a powerful business suite, and are looking to gain traction and momentum. But as a business with a tight budget, you know acquiring new customers is slow, expensive, and often delivers

• Whatsapp Limitation Questions

  Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based

• Empowered Custom Views: Cross-Module Criteria Now Supported in Zoho CRM

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce cross-module criteria support in custom views! Custom views provide personalized perspectives on your data and that you can save for future use. You can share these views with all users or specific individuals

• Workflow Creation with Zia gets stuck

  It gets stuck here:

• 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

• Unable to Add Asset to Work Order Due to Different Contact and Company

  Hello Zoho Team, I’m facing an issue in our environment related to asset linking in Work Orders. Here’s the situation: When our engineers go for field activities, they initially create the Work Order using the salesperson’s contact details. After completing

• I NEED MORE CUSTOM FIELDS!!!

  Why can I only have 60 custom fields! It's not enough. I want another 100 extra custom fields to do what's necessary for my business! I'm sure I can't be the only one with this problem!!! How hard would it be to fix this? Just fix it for me please at

• Zoho Webinar et Zapier : de la prise de rendez-vous aux relances — une automatisation performante

  Organiser un webinaire réussi et gérer efficacement les participants peut être un véritable défi. Avec Zoho Webinar et Zapier, vous pouvez rendre vos processus plus simples. Vous gagnez du temps en automatisant les tâches répétitives. Résultat : une expérience

• Ticket Stages Report

  From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports Ticket stages refer to the series of transitions from the moment a support ticket is created until it is closed. It moves through various stages based on the actions taken at each preceding

• 【参加無料】今年最後のZoho ユーザー交流会｜東京・大阪・名古屋で開催！ 活用事例＆ユーザー同士の情報交換

  ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 11月に東京、大阪、名古屋の3都市でZoho ユーザー交流会を開催します！ 毎回ご好評いただいている本イベントでは、実際の Zohoユーザーによるリアルな活用事例の共有や 参加者同士でノウハウを交換し合うグループワークを予定しています。 「他社の活用を参考にしたい」「Zoho をもっと使いこなしたい」方にぴったりの場です。 初参加の方もぜひお気軽にご参加ください！ ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

• Slow Performance on desk.zoho.com. 11/3/2025

  I’m not seeing any active service alerts for desk.zoho.com, but everyone on our account is currently experiencing very slow load times when opening or navigating tickets. We’ve already tried the standard troubleshooting steps — clearing cache and cookies,

• Create View to See Tickets Closed within the last 3 days

  I'm trying to create a view in Zoho Desk that shows me "recently closed ticket," which I will define as tickets closed in the last 3 days. I want this view to update so that whenever I click to view it is recalculates and shows me tickets closed within

• Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

  We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring

• Send Whatsapp message from Whatsapp template with custom variables

  Hi, I'm trying to do some basic integration for sending WhatsApp messages from Zoho CRM using Zoho Desk whatsapp templates. When creating new whatsapp template in Zoho Desk we can choose ticket related fields as variables but it's not clear how to use

• Recurring Events Not Appearing in "My Events" and therefore not syncing with Google Apps

  We use the Google Sync functionality for our events, and it appears to have been working fine except: I've created a set of recurring events that I noticed were missing from my Google Apps calendar. Upon further research, it appears this is occurring

• Dissociate account from contact

  Hello, When I make the call through the API to "Dissociate account from contact" using, /api/v1/contacts/**integer**/accounts/**integer**/dissociate I get this response back, 422Unprocessable Entity (WebDAV) (RFC 4918) { "errorCode": "INVALID_DATA", "message":

• Zoho Desk and Zoho People Integration - is it possible in order to alert whether an agent is available

  Hi, We use Zoho People for our employees to log absence (Paid Time Off etc). I was wondering if it was possible that this information can be shared in to Zoho Desk, so that when allocating a ticket to an agent, if they are on leave there is an onscreen

• Add Save button to Expense form

  A save button would be very helpful on the expense form. Currently there is a Save and Close button. When we want to itemize an expense, this option would be very helpful. For example, if we have a hotel expense that also has room service, which is a

• Call transcrition working for ringcentral?

  I don't see anything about what telephony providers can be used. The Zoho support person A said that RingCentral isn't supported. Zoho support person B said that it works, just make sure the call recording link works. Excellent instructions here: Call

• Issue with Booking Confirmation Page Not Displaying, Leading to Customer Anxiety and Unnecessary Support Calls

  I am writing to express my growing concern regarding the confirmation process in Zoho Bookings, particularly the inconsistent display of the confirmation page after a successful payment. As a mobile service provider, I rely on Zoho Bookings platform for

• Next Page