Episode III : Powering Automation: Custom Functions in Action

Episode III : Powering Automation: Custom Functions in Action

Hello Everyone,

In our previous episodes, we explored custom functions and the Deluge programming language. If you’ve been wondering why the Episode series have been quiet, here’s the reveal!
On our community, we've been showcasing custom functions integrated with various automation tools on the Automation Series – to perform specific operations. Over the past few weeks, we’ve introduced how custom functions work within different automation types.


In this episode, we’ll explore the five key automations in Zoho Desk that support custom functions:
  • Workflows
  • Macros
  • Schedules
  • Blueprint
  • Guided Conversation
Do you remember how we closed Episode II with this line:
Quote
"To make a custom function work, it must be integrated with Automation"?
The automation tools within Zoho Desk shape your processes to fit your business needs. Now, let’s dive in and explore how they can work your way.

Workflow Rules : Automate with Ease

Workflow rules in Zoho Desk are simple yet powerful tools that trigger actions based on specific execution points like ticket create, edit, customer reply and criteria. With a steady stream of queries from both new and existing customers, automation is key. Depending on customer needs and ticket volume, you may want to:
  • Auto-assign tickets
  • Update fields
  • Add tags
  • Send instant replies
Workflow rules help streamline these routine tasks, boosting both efficiency and response times.
For more complex automation, you can enhance workflows using custom functions, enabling tailored operations that go beyond standard actions.
Here's an example of how custom functions can elevate your workflows and make your support process smarter and more efficient. Automation #4 - Auto Delete Tickets based on Rules  

Blueprint : Define your process

Every organization operates with defined processes and department structures to be consistent, efficient, and offer customers a fulfilling experience. While much of this is documented and shared through verbal training, there can be gaps, especially while onboarding new agents.
That’s where Zoho Desk's Blueprint comes in. It lets you build a structured flow, guiding agents through every step of ticket handling: assigning, resolving, seeking approvals, or escalating, ensuring consistency without overwhelming them.
This workflow framework supports:
  • Clear status transitions
  • Better customer communication
  • Efficient hand-offs between teams
  • Time tracking and compliance
The intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows you to set conditions, actions, and transitions. You can also enhance the process using Custom Functions to automate approvals, share tickets, and perform advanced operations tailored to your needs.
The "After Transition" section in Blueprint helps you trigger tasks, alerts, updates, or custom functions.
Let’s explore how to use Custom Functions with Blueprint in Zoho Desk here: Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition  

Macros :Perform Single Action

When you need to update a field, send bulk emails, or create tasks for multiple tickets with a single click, Macros are the go-to solution.
In cases where a group of customers is affected by the same issue or waiting for an update, following up individually can be time-consuming. Macros help you handle these repetitive actions efficiently, saving time and effort.
You can also enhance Macros with custom functions, enabling more advanced, tailored operations beyond the standard actions:

Schedule actions : Schedules in Zoho desk

Schedules let you automate actions at a specific date and time, with the option to repeat them as needed. They are ideal for time-based automation and work seamlessly with custom functions.
You can either link existing custom functions from the gallery or create new ones directly within Schedules to handle tailored tasks.
To learn how to configure schedules, refer Creating and Managing Schedules in Zoho Desk.
To learn to configure custom function with Schedules, try this out: Automation#28 Notify Agents on Article Expiry  

Guided Conversations : Formatter

Self-service empowers customers, and Zoho Desk’s Guided Conversation (GC) feature makes it easy to create interactive, kiosk-style support flows. You can embed these conversations across messaging platforms like WhatsApp, LINE, Messenger, the Help Center, and ASAP, allowing users to find answers from your Knowledge Base.
GC includes blocks to:
  • Connect with an agent
  • Create tickets
  • Integrate with Zoho products
Guided Conversations support Custom Functions within the Webhook block, enabling advanced automation and personalized responses.
Here’s an example of how to configure a Custom Function within a Guided Conversation: Automation#23: Automate Guided Conversations in Zoho Desk with Business Hours  

Let’s wrap things up!

We hope this gave you a clear view of how to configure custom functions within Zoho Desk's automation tools. Whether it's Workflows, Macros, Schedules, Blueprint, or Guided Conversations—each one opens new possibilities for making your support process smarter and smoother.
If there’s a topic you’re curious about or would love to see us cover next on the community, drop your ideas in the comments below. We’d love to hear you speak and write to us.

​
Happy automating!
See you in 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

    • Run workflow on data import in Creator 6

      How to run a workflow on data import in Creator 6?

    • Multi Day booking for resources

      I have following business-case: Rental for Tablets. Customer should be able to select how many device for how many days he'd like to rent. Same as a car rental for multiple days. Is this possible with Bookings on the current version?

    • Add Usage & Voting Analytics for Knowledge Base Articles in Zoho SalesIQ

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, We appreciate the current integration between Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ that allows knowledge base articles to be synced and displayed to users directly within the SalesIQ chat interface. One valuable feature already available

    • Real-Time Alert or Status Indicator for WhatsApp Connection Issues in SalesIQ

      Hi Zoho Team, We’d like to request a feature enhancement in Zoho SalesIQ related to WhatsApp integration stability and visibility. Recently, we encountered a critical issue where our WhatsApp bot stopped responding to messages without any warning or alert

    • Customization of Chat Transcript Emails in Zoho SalesIQ

      Hi Zoho SalesIQ Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to customize the email template that is sent to clients when they request a chat transcript from SalesIQ. Currently, when a client clicks the button to receive their

    • Import from Linkedin

      Please provide a way to enable importing contact information for Contacts and Companies from Linkedin? Thanks

    • The ability to format text fields, ie when data is number or currency

      Hello, I have spent some time trying to determine how to accomplish this but it appears to be impossible. I want to merge a currency field from CRM into a PDF document. The CRM data shows $1,234, but when zSign gets the data it shows 1234 in the text

    • Tip of the Week #64– Customize your sidebar for a more focused workflow.

      When your shared spaces start filling up with too many views, it gets a little harder to zoom in on what really matters. You find yourself scrolling more than working, and the things that need your attention? They’re often buried down below. Custom sidebar

    • Zoho Social - Queries about GST invoices and subscription

      Hi, I am going to purchase the Zoho Social tool with a yearly subscription. So, can you please help me with my below queries: 1. How I get the monthly GST Invoices? 2. What is the process of subscription? 2. How to cancel a subscription?

    • Add a Way to Duplicate Cards in the Same Canvas (Retain All Settings)

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, We would like to request a new feature in Zoho SalesIQ: the ability to duplicate an existing card within the same canvas while retaining all of its information and settings, including conditions, configurations, and display preferences.

    • Sales IQ needs to capture both first and last names

      Sales IQ chat only has one field for name. When this then syncs with Campaigns, the field populates the "last name" field in Campaigns. However most people fill in the "name" field of Sales IQ with either their full name or their Christian name. This

    • Multi-Card Selection and Cross-Zobot Copy-Paste Functionality

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, We’d like to suggest a productivity-enhancing feature for the Zobot builder in Zoho SalesIQ: the ability to select multiple cards (modules) at once using a selection area, and then copy-paste them either within the same canvas

    • Personal Link / Meeting ID

      with zoho meetings do I have my own personal link to my 'meeting space' ? I have an email template in Zoho CRM which confirms people's appointment with me, I would like to include the link to my Zoho Meetings so that they have it in advance. How do I

    • Ability to Initiate WhatsApp Template Messages in Zoho SalesIQ Without Preexisting Chat

      Hi Zoho SalesIQ Team, I hope you're doing well. I understand that with the WhatsApp integration in SalesIQ, clients can contact us via WhatsApp, and we can use WhatsApp templates to send messages outside of the 24-hour window by reopening an existing

    • Related Lists filter

      I have Contacts showing in our Accounts module. I customized the Contacts module with an Employment Status field, with the following picklist options: "Primary Contact", "Secondary Contact", "Active Staff(not a main contact)", and "No longer employed".

    • Adding Overlays to Live Stream

      Hello folks, The company I work for will host an online event through Zoho Webinar. I want to add an overlay (an image) at the bottom of the screen with all the sponsors' logos. Is it possible to add an image as an overlay during the live stream? If so,

    • Making money out of Zoho Sheets - How?

      Hello, Suppose I come up with a brilliant Zoho Sheet that I want to sell to other people, can I do this? How? Thanks.

    • How Do I Refund a Customer Directly to Their Credit Card?

      Hi, I use books to auto-charge my customers credit card. But when I create a credit note there doesn't seem to be a way to directly refund the amount back to their credit card. Is the only way to refund a credit note by doing it "offline" - or manually-

    • Mobile Display Issues on Zoho Sites After Recent Update

      Hello! I’m currently facing an issue with my Zoho website that I created for my small business. After the recent updates, I’ve noticed that my site is not displaying correctly on mobile devices. Specifically, the layout appears distorted, and some elements

    • Can i set per-client hourly rate in Zoho Desk and not to correct the calculation on invoice?

      We use Zoho Desk to run one ticket per client per month. All time entries go to the ticket, we have to enter hourly rate manually and then correct it when we do the invoicing at the end of the month. So, our workflow is as following: I worked for 30 minutes,

    • Unable to add Agents

      I am trying to add agents to my account. While filling the details and sending invitation, the system mentions that invitation is sent. But no email is received on the user side. I have tried this multiple times and have also checked Spam and other

    • How to add new widgets?

      Searched and searched and cannot find anywhere. Why is everything so hidden in zoho! Why is there not a button right here that allows me to create a new one, why is it buried somewhere else! Zoho's UI is so infuriating

    • Submit Ticket from Custom Form on Website

      Hi I would like to create new tickets from our custom form on our website including some custom fields like serial number. I would prefer PHP to create the ticket. I know there is the Zoho webform but we would like to create our own. I have now read into the API and with AuthToken this would work with PHP but it is deprecated  and will not be supported any more in the future, so this not an option. OauthToken on the other hand needs an interaction from the ticket creator (customer) which we would

    • Customising Sign Up Page in Zoho Help Centre Sandbox

      Hi, I would like to customise the Sign Up page in my Help Centre Sandbox Environment but when I try to access it I get this message: What setting or permission do I need to achieve this? Many thanks, Kunal

    • Sort data in Pivot Table

      Is it possible to sort by a data field. I can gruop and filter, but I culdn't find how to sort the results. Tank You.

    • How to interact webhooks with Creator?

      How can I interact webhooks from external websites with Zoho Creator?  I'd like to get notifications from external websites (Stripe, Zoho Subscription, etc.) These notifications are coming as HTTP POST request from those servers, on maybe daily, monthly or based on any events.  How should I prepare my app in creator to receive these requests? Where and how to should I program in Deluge if I'd like to add some part of the JSON/XML data to my form?  Thank you BR, Balazs

    • No Experiment Visitors

      I have an experiment running for five days. PageSense web analytics data shows the page is getting visitors, but the experiment data itself says zero visitors. I am in trial mode, not sure if that's related. A week ago, I contacted support through chat

    • How do I get at the data in "Partially Saved Entries"?

      Hi, Zoho Newbie here - I'm helping to support an existing Zoho installation, so this is all a bit new to me. I have to say, I'm liking what I've seen so far! We've just spotted that we have a number of respondents to our forms who don't end up submitting

    • SOLVED: Stopping Multiple Invitations when sync with Google Calendar

      I wanted to share this solution as I wasn't able to find it when searching through the Zoho community and via web search. The issue: When requestor books a meeting through Zoho Bookings, the requestor receives a confirmation email from both Bookings and

    • Help Needed with Creating Close % Reporting

      Now that our company has a good data set to work with we want to use ZCRM reports ways to track the performance metrics we have established. Specifically, I want to be able to calculate closing % for individual salespeople and individual support people.

    • Restricting Calendar View to Working Hours

      Hi: I'm trying to implement a calendar which displays all of my customer appointments.  Currently, the calendar shows all 24 hours of the day.  Is there a way to restrict the hours to simply the times my business is open? Thanks!

    • Static Prefill URLs Functionality in the App

      Hi, It would be great to be able to use the same functionality within the App, so create the Static Prefill URL as today and be able to use online as today, and then have an area within the App showing these Entries that can be pressed and opens the form

    • Outbound Gateway

      Hi, Is it possible to configure the Outbound Gateway to route external domains only and keep inter-domain emails locally delivered? When one of my users sends an email to another user within our own domain, I want user1@mydomain.com to user2@mydomain.com not to exit. However, if anyone within our domain sends to an external address, I want that email to be routed using the Outbound Gateway. Thanks. P.

    • 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

    • Delivery Note Delivered item must be reduce in inventory stock

      When I create any Delivery note with product like mobile In our stock if it was 10 Unit I sold thru invoice, 4 unit And thru Delivery note, 2 Unit and I also change Delivery note status as delivered So in my stock it should display remaining 4 unit But write now it display 6 unit only. Please help me for that Because when I creating new invoice it display 6 unit in stock but actually in my physical stock its only 4. So I miss guide with stock display

    • Adding bills from docs *** Internal Error ***

      Same internal errors in Chrome & Edge !

    • Response time when adding customers to the database is increasing over time.

      Response time when adding customers to the ZoHo books database is increasing over time. The response time to retrieve a newly added customer is now 1.5 to 2 minutes. The database has approximately 2,000 customers. I think you need to reorganise the

    • Excluded transactions in Banking

      Why are the payees not checked when 2 payments are for the same amount to avoid exclusion? If there are 2 ( or more ) payment amounts which are the same then they are automatically excluded, this should not happen unless the payee names are the same

    • Introducing Zia AI in Zoho Show

      AI is no longer a distant concept. It’s one of our everyday tools, from answering casual questions to generating critical business documents. And presentations are one area where AI can be especially helpful. At Zoho Show, we’ve been deliberate in how

    • Plug Sample #10 - Simplify Ticket Management (Zoho Desk) with Chatbots

      Hi everyone! We're here with another simple yet effective plug for your chatbot to integrate with Zoho Desk. When a customer reports an issue/request during chat, it's logged as a ticket on Desk. When they return for updates, you end up searching through

    • Next Page