Automation#23: Automate Guided Conversations in Zoho Desk with Business Hours

Automation#23: Automate Guided Conversations in Zoho Desk with Business Hours


Hello Everyone, 
This week's edition introduces a custom function designed to automate Guided Conversations in Zoho Desk, based on your business hours. With this feature, you can align the bot's behavior with your business schedule, ensuring a smooth and professional customer experience.

Self-service platforms are now a cornerstone of effective customer service, improving productivity for both customers and support agents. With the evolving nature of customer support, self-
service has become indispensable. It saves time and provides quick access to solutions, empowering customers to address their concerns efficiently.

Zoho Desk's Guided Conversations serves as a robust self-service tool, offering Tier-1 solutions to customers through an intuitive interface. For more complex or escalated queries, the bot seamlessly connects customers to a live agent, ensuring both self-service and human assistance for effective issue resolution.
However, businesses often have non-working hours, such as weekends or holidays, when agents are unavailable. In such cases, configuring your Guided Conversations based on your business hours is essential. During non-working hours, the bot can:
  1. Notify customers that your business is currently closed, along with your operating hours.
  2. Provide an option for customers to submit a ticket, ensuring their query is addressed promptly during working hours.Configure your Guided Conversations today and streamline your customer support process!

How to incorporate this custom function within your GC flow?
1. Go to Setup (S) >> Self-Service >> Guided Conversation. 
2. Choose the Department and click on Create Flow
(If you would like to add this to your existing flow, click on the ellipsis icon under Published Flows and click on the Edit button.)
3. Select the channels, give a Name and Description, and click Next. 
4. Click on the + icon, add the Webhook block, under Action Blocks
5. Enter the Block name as Business Hours, Choose Get under Method
NotesNote: In the Business Hours URL, replace .com with .in/.eu/.ca/.sa based on your DC

How to fetch the Business Hour Id? 
6.1 To fetch the Business Id, Go to Setup (S) >> Organization >> Business Hours.  
6.2 Click on the Business Hours configured within your Zoho Desk Account. Go to the URL of the specific Business Hours, and you can fetch the business Id from the URL.


7. After entering the URL, do not make changes to the Query Params and Headers. 
8. Under Connections, click on Add
To Create a connection
      8.1 Click Create Connection.
      8.2 Select Zoho OAuth under Default Connection.
      8.3 Give a connection name (let's say configureBusiness Hours).
      8.4 Disable the toggle for User Credentials of Login User.
      8.5 Under Scope, choose the below scope values:
               Desk.settings.READ
      8.6 Click Create and Connect.
      8.7 Click Connect and click Accept.
Connection is created successfully.



 9. After creating the connection, click on Refresh and then click on the drop down arrow and select the connection (configureBusiness Hours) created.
10. Click on the gear icon in the Formatter option and paste the below code in the Deluge window: 
  1. dayMAp = {"SUNDAY","MONDAY","TUESDAY","WEDNESDAY","THURSDAY","FRIDAY","SATURDAY"};
  2. businessTimes = response.get("businessTimes");
  3. timez = response.get("timeZone").get("id");
  4. response = Collection();
  5. createdTime = zoho.currenttime.toString("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss",timez).toDateTime();
  6. createdDay = createdTime.getDay();
  7. //get this from above created time
  8. createdHour = createdTime.getHour();
  9. //get this from above created time
  10. createdMinute = createdTime.getMinutes();
  11. //get this from above created time
  12. createdWeekDay = createdTime.getDayOfWeek();
  13. //get this from above created time
  14. createdWeekDay = dayMAp.get(createdWeekDay - 1);
  15. for each  businessTime in businessTimes
  16. {
  17. if(businessTime.get("day") == createdWeekDay)
  18. {
  19. businessTimeStartHour = businessTime.get("startTime").getPrefix(":").toLong();
  20. businessTimeEndHour = businessTime.get("endTime").getPrefix(":").toLong();
  21. businessTimeStartMinute = businessTime.get("startTime").getSuffix(":").toLong();
  22. businessTimeEndMinute = businessTime.get("endTime").getSuffix(":").toLong();
  23. if((createdHour > businessTimeStartHour || createdHour == businessTimeStartHour && createdMinute >= businessTimeStartMinute) && (createdHour < businessTimeEndHour || createdHour == businessTimeEndHour && createdMinute <= businessTimeEndMinute))
  24. {
  25. response.insert({"status":"true"});
  26. }
  27. else
  28. {
  29. response.insert({"status":"false"});
  30. }
  31. }
  32. }
  33. return response.get(0).get("status");

11. Click Save after pasting the code. 
12. Click on the gear icon in the Response icon
12.1 Click on the gear icon on the Status Code
12.2 Give Status Code as 200, Flow Variables as status, Response Value as /
12.3 Let the Type be single element and the Data Type be String. Click Save. Click Save for the Response List with the updated status. 
13. Disable the toggle for the Multi Path
14. Choose a Request timeout if required. This sets a response waiting time from the server. 
15. Set the Error message if required to display in case waiting time exceeds the response time. 
16. Click Save

This is the configuration for setting the business hours through a custom function. 

17. After the Webhook, click on the + icon and add the Fork block under the Action block



18. Give the Block Name  as Check, Enter Path list : name it as Check. 
Under Criteria 1, click on the drop-down arrow, and enter choose Status under Block variables, from the drop-down menu.  Choose operation: contains and give the value : True

19. Do not add an else path. 
20. Click Save

In the Fork block, under Check, you can add the Transfer to agent block from the Zoho Desk Blocks. Under Else, you can add a text icon/ info card stating you are out of business hours. 

Notes
Note: This custom function does not include the Holiday Lists configured within Zoho Desk. 
You can seamlessly integrate this Guided Conversation flow into your self-service platform to ensure you never miss a customer, even during non-working hours. Keep your customer support running smoothly!

See you next week!
Regards,
Lydia | Zoho Desk

    Zoho Desk Resources

    • Desk Community Learning Series


    • Digest


    • Functions


    • Meetups


    • Kbase


    • Resources


    • Glossary


    • Desk Marketplace


    • MVP Corner


    • Word of the Day


      • Sticky Posts

      • Zoho Desk Virtual Meetup: US Central, October 5 - 7, 2021

        After the interactive Virtual Meetups in the other regions, we are starting with the US Central and Midwest regions from October 5 to October 7, 2021. The dates for other regions will be announced soon.  At this event, we will explore the topics which
      • 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
      • Ask the Experts 10: A 5-hour online Q&A on Zoho Desk Best Practices

        Welcome to Zoho Desk's Ask the Experts session! This is a monthly discussion on our  forums; wherein a panel of experts will take on questions  specific to topics related to Zoho Desk. The panel will be available for a 5-hour period and will answer any questions posted here.   Let's begin the year learning some best practices from our experts. In this month's ATE we are opening the floor to questions on how to use Zoho Desk the best way.  If you have a business use case but not sure if Workflow is
      • 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. 
      • Ask the Experts 7: A 5-hour online Q&A on Telephony and Call Module

        Welcome to Ask the Experts session! This is a monthly discussion in forums; each session, a panel of experts will take questions on specific topics related to Zoho Desk. The panel will be available for a 5-hour period and answer any questions posted here. In this month's Ask the Experts, we will take questions on everything related to Telephony and the Call Module in Zoho Desk. We will discuss the following aspects:  Integration with different Telephony vendors Routing calls to agents Converting

      Zoho CRM Plus Resources

        Zoho Books Resources


          Zoho Subscriptions Resources

            Zoho Projects Resources


              Zoho Sprints Resources


                Zoho Orchestly Resources


                  Zoho Creator Resources


                    Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                      Zoho Campaigns Resources

                        Zoho CRM Resources

                        • CRM Community Learning Series

                          CRM Community Learning Series


                        • Tips

                          Tips

                        • Functions

                          Functions

                        • Meetups

                          Meetups

                        • Kbase

                          Kbase

                        • Resources

                          Resources

                        • Digest

                          Digest

                        • CRM Marketplace

                          CRM Marketplace

                        • MVP Corner

                          MVP Corner




                          Zoho Writer Writer

                          Get Started. Write Away!

                          Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                            Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                              ご検討中の方

                                • Recent Topics

                                • Backstage / Zoho Books integration

                                  Hello. We have Zoho One and have slowly started using Backstage. Loving it. Problem is, we have ZERO accounting control over what is sold through this product. When will we be able to connect it to our existing Zoho Books tenant? Thank you very much!
                                • Getting list of calendar events over api for zoho mail calendar

                                  Hi, I am using just Zoho mail without using Zoho CRM. I wanted to get all events booked in my zoho mail calendar through an api at regular intervals. I could find such API support for Zoho CRM calendar but not for zoho mail calendar. Can you kindly let
                                • Allocate emails to user in a shared mailbox

                                  Hi, This might be obvious, but I cannot find the answer. I have 3 shared mailboxes so any team member can see the emails. Is there a way of allocating a specific email to a user so that it is their responsibility to deal with it? Thanks in advance.
                                • Introducing Zoho Campaigns' own gateway for SMS campaigns

                                  We are excited to announce the launch of our SMS Gateway to send SMS through Zoho Campaigns. We have also made a few other changes in our current SMS Campaign model to improve your over all user experience. These updates are planned with an aim to expand
                                • Update a lookup field in CRM from Creator using deluge

                                  I have a Creator form that creates a new account. When it creates the new account in the Accounts Module, I need it to also populate the Parent Account, which is a lookup field coming from the Module Parent Accounts, field Parent Account Name. I have
                                • SMS Keyword Tracking in Zoho CRM From Zoho Campaigns

                                  Is there a way to track SMS leads in campaigns by associating them with specific keywords or codes? Additionally, can these leads be pushed to the CRM while retaining the keyword for tracking and reporting purposes?
                                • Projects Multiselect API

                                  Having troubles setting a mutli select field via API. updateMap = map(); updateMap.put("UDF_MULTI1","picklist_id1,picklist_id2"); updateProjectRes = invokeurl [ url :"https://projects.zoho.com/restapi/portal/XXXX/projects/" + projectID + "/" type :POST
                                • Bill quantity received / PO quantity

                                  PO's are raised & often the quantity received is greater than the PO quantity, so when we receive the bill & adjust the quantity on the bill we get.... Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered. This necessitates the adjustment of the PO
                                • ZOHO BOOKS - RECEIVING MORE ITEMS THAN ORDERED

                                  Hello, When trying to enter a vendor's bill that contains items with bigger quantity than ordered in the PO (it happens quite often) - The system would not let us save the bill and show this error: "Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered." 
                                • Unused items should not count into the available number of custom fields

                                  Hey, I realized that unused Items reduce the number of available custom fields. I can't see a case where that makes sense. Especially in our case where we have two different layouts in Deals with a lot of different fields, this causes problems.
                                • Introducing Bot Filtering for Accurate Email Campaign Analytics

                                  Dear Marketers, We're excited to announce a new feature designed to enhance the accuracy of your email campaign analytics: bot filtering. This feature helps you filter out bot-generated opens and clicks, ensuring your campaign reports reflect genuine
                                • Tip 37: Time Log Restriction in Zoho Projects

                                  Timesheet in Zoho Projects helps you big time in entering log hours for the tasks and issues and approving them. Now, with the new Time Log Restriction option, you can set daily and weekly log hour limits. You can restrict users from entering extra log hours than the permissible limit. The limits are restricted to 24 hours per day and 168 hours per week by default based on business hours. To customize, navigate to Task & Timesheet settings under Portal Configuration in Zoho Projects setup and enable
                                • Chart showing schedule

                                  I want to be able to create a chart for everyday to check and which of which driver is available on the timeframe. Here's my table Name City Day Start Time End Time Driver1 Medicine Hat Monday 11:45 AM 4:45 PM Driver 2 Medicine Hat Tuesday 11:00 AM 7:00
                                • 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 Payroll in France

                                  When will Zoho Payroll be available in France ?
                                • Blueprint - 'On hold' state with an automatic transition?

                                  I think I'm missing something here so I'm hoping if I explain what I'm trying to achieve someone might be able to give me a way around it. We sometimes get request far in advance but we don't want to action them unless it is 7 days from when they are
                                • HOW TO VIEW INDIVIDUAL COST OF NEWLY PURCHASED GOODS AFTER ALLOCATING LANDED COSTS

                                  Hello, I have been able to allocate landed costs to the purchase cost of the new products. however, what i need to see now is the actual cost price (original cost plus landed cost), of only my newly purchased products to enable me set a selling price
                                • Calculate months and years between 2 dates on subform

                                  I am looking for a function syntax for an employment candidate to calculate the number of years and months (decimal format. eg 1.2 years) they are employed. I have their start date entered, but if the end date is blank, that tells me they are still employed
                                • Combine related grouping values into categories in CRM analytical components

                                  Hello everyone, Analyzing large datasets can be challenging when dealing with numerous individual data points. It's often difficult to extract meaningful insights when information is scattered and ungrouped. To address this, we're adding options to create
                                • How Kiosk Studio can simplify sales for bank employees | Kiosk Studio Session #4

                                  Hello everyone, Banks can boost revenue by cross-selling to their current customers. For example, they can sell credit cards, personal loans, and more to existing account holders. To do this, bank employees move all around the CRM, open and close records,
                                • Tip #19 - Create checkbox tracker in your spreadsheet

                                  Hello Sheet users! We are here with yet another tip to help you get the most out of Zoho Sheet. Spreadsheets can be used to handle a variety of tasks, but ever tried using checkboxes to track the progress of your action items dynamically? Here's a sample
                                • Integrate Oracle with ZOHO CRM

                                                       Please let me know if its possible to Integrate Oracle with ZOHO CRM. If yes then help me in doing it. 
                                • UUIDs

                                  Has anyone coded a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) generator in Deluge?
                                • Introducing signer groups in Zoho Sign: Streamline signature collection and make it even faster

                                  Hello everyone, We're excited to introduce signer groups, a feature designed to make your signing process quicker, more efficient, and collaborative. With signer groups, you can send an envelope to a group of people, and any member of the group can open
                                • Calendar - Recurring Event - End of Month and Last Weekday of Month

                                  How do I set a calendar event to recur on the last day of every month? How do I set a calendar event to recur on the last weekday of the month?
                                • Duplicate Zoho Invoices and Sales Receipts

                                  We have been running into an issue where upon saving an invoice or a sales receipt, we get a duplicate: same information saved twice but with a different invoice id/number and sales receipt id/number. I have logged a ticket but so far no response. It
                                • Introducing revamped Zoho Creator Developer Console—a powerful platform for developing and distributing apps

                                  Hello everyone! We're thrilled to announce the launch of the revamped Zoho Creator Developer Console—a dedicated platform designed specifically for Creator developers and Partners to build, test, and distribute apps to your clients. Developer Console
                                • Phone App of CRM doesn't find contacts

                                  I open the crm to and do a contact search but nothing comes up. If I do a full zia search it will find an old note that is attached to a contact and I can open the contact. BUT I still can't enter notes of calls, set appointments, etc. It requests I go
                                • [Product Update] Deprecation of 'Inbound Transport Details' module in Zoho Analytics - Amazon Seller Central integration

                                  Dear Customers, Please be informed that the Amazon Seller Central will be deprecating the 'Inbound Transport Details' module APIs effective December 20, 2024. As a result, this module will no longer be supported in the Amazon Seller Central - Zoho Analytics
                                • Is there any support for Drivers license and other forms of ID scanning capabilities?

                                  When scanning a drivers license barcode for data input to a Form, the scanning tool receives all the raw data but there doesnt seem to be a function to limit or remove the unnecessary fragmrnts, like a prefix. Is there any support or info in the help
                                • Exciting Update: Multi WhatsApp Business Account (WABA) Support Now Available in SalesIQ!

                                  We’re pleased to share an important update that will enhance the way you manage your WhatsApp Business accounts (WABAs) within SalesIQ. With the launch of Multi WABA support, you can now connect and manage multiple brands more effectively, each under
                                • Gravity Forms plugin not passing some fields

                                  I use the gravity form zoho plugin to push data from my lead form into my lead page in Zoho CRM. Everything was working file for about 6 months. Suddenly on Oct 1st, some of the fields are no longer getting passed to Zoho. The fields with the problem
                                • Can't delete bank transactions (i changed from 14 days trail to free just now)

                                  Hi, I manually added one bank transaction When i try to delete it, it say below: What should I do?
                                • Feature Request: Search in the PC client. Some thoughts about the search.

                                  Hi all. I'm really excited to start using Zoho Notebook, but I'm missing some of the search capabilities on my desktop. There are also some thoughts on improving search in general. Search is very important to me, without it it is difficult for me to use
                                • Leave Policy for Brazil

                                  Hi, Brazil asked us to configure Zoho People to apply the following policy: · To block starting vacations 2 business days before holidays or weekends; Employees cannot start their vacations 2 days before holidays or weekends. Example: If December 25th
                                • Adding date field to each individual Items when creating Invoices?

                                  When adding items into an invoice I need to be able to have a date for each item. Example below: Date Item Description Qty Rate Discount(%) Tax Amount 31/07/13 Brown Sugar Performance 1.00 3,000.00 0.00 10% $3300 Is this possible or will it be in the
                                • Auto-Create OneDrive Folder Structure Upon Lead Creation

                                  Hello, New to Zoho and looking for help on a critical process automation I'm looking to implement. My company currently utilizes OneDrive for file management and the folder structure is Proposals -> Client Name -> Address (where I need to initially create
                                • Profile Page View Customization

                                  I need to change the fields, sections from the profile view of an emplyoyee.
                                • What do the Image Sizes mean in Zoho CRM Email Templates?

                                  Below you can see the image options in email templates: Banner, Fit, Small, Medium, Original, Custom. Can someone from Zoho please share with me: What each is/means? How each will look on desktop AND mobile? How to edit "custom"?  If I choose "Custom"
                                • Translate any published presentation to the language of your choice

                                  As part of our constant effort to enrich your presentation experience, Zoho Show has rolled out a new feature for translating published presentations. Consider the following scenario: Zylker IT services, a multinational corporation, has announced product
                                • Next Page