Automation#21: Track Ticket Transfers Across Departments

Automation#21: Track Ticket Transfers Across Departments


Hello Everyone!
With Halloween just around the corner, we'd like to let you know the Zoho Desk team is always there to sweep away your customer service troubles!
This week, we’re excited to introduce a custom function that tracks tickets moved between departments.
While Zoho Desk has simplified customer service, keeping your support team stress-free and your customers happy often requires thoughtful adjustments. Zylker Techfix found a great solution with this feature. They handle services for different gadget types under specific departments, but sometimes tickets accidentally end up in the wrong department. Agents moved them to the correct one, but needed a way to track these transfers. By using the Time Entry feature and a custom function, they generated reports of all moved tickets effortlessly.

Here’s the custom function that utilizes the Time Entry feature to track tickets transferred between departments.
Prerequisites
1. Create Custom Fields
To track tickets moved from one Department (call it Dep A) to the other Department (call it Dep B) or vice versa, 
1.1 Go to Setup (S) >> Customization >> Layouts and Fields. Select Time Entry under Layouts and the Department (let's say Dep B) to which you would like to move the ticket. 
1.2 Create three custom single line fields in the Time Entry layout of the respective department (Dep B) . Click on the layout, 
1.2.1 Add a single line field with a label From department.
1.2.2 Add another single line field with a label To Department.
1.2.3  Add the third single line field with the label Agent Name.
1.3 Note the API names for the the single line fields to insert into the custom function. 
To find the API name, Click on the Gear wheel icon of the single line field. Click on Edit Properties, you will find the API Name under the Edit Field. Refer to Create Custom Fields. 
NotesIf you would like move the ticket from Dep B to Dep A, create the similar fields in the time entry layout for Dep A.
2. Create a connection
      2.1 Go to Setup(S) and choose Connections under Developer Space.
      2.2 Click Create Connection.
      2.3 Select Zoho OAuth under Default Connection.
      2.4 Set the connection name as ticket_time_entry_add.
      2.5 Under Scope, choose the below scope values:
             Desk.tickets.READ
             Desk.tickets.UPDATE
      2.6 Click Create and Connect.
      2.7 Click Connect and click Accept.
Connection is created successfully.

Create a Workflow Rule
1. Go to Setup(S), choose Workflows under Automation. 
2. In Workflow Rules, select the Department (Dep B) to which you want to move the tickets. 
3. Under Workflows, click Rules >> Create Rule.
In the Basic Information section,
4. Select Tickets from the drop-down menu under Module.
5. Enter a Rule Name and Description for the rule.
6. If you want to activate the rule right away, select the Active checkbox. Else, create the rule and activate it later.
7. Click Next.
In the Execute on section, follow these steps:
8. Select Create.  
9. Click Next.
10. Leave the Criteria section blank and click Next. 
11. In the Actions section, click the + icon and select New next to Custom Functions.
12. Under Basic Information, enter a Name and Description for the custom function.         
13. Under Argument Mapping, give a desired Method Name. Map the argument mapping as below: 
       13.1 In the Argument Name field, type ticketId and from the Value drop-down list, select Ticket Id under the Tickets Section.                                         
14. In the script window, insert the Custom Function given below:
  1. //----------- User Input -------------
  3. fromDepartmentFieldAPIName = "cf_from_department";
  4. toDepartmentFieldAPIName = "cf_to_department";
  5. agentAPIName = "cf_agent_name";
  6. //----------- Configuration ------------------
  7. logs = Collection();
  8. timeEntryParam = Map();
  9. cf = Map();
  10. historyParam = Map();
  11. historyParam.put("from",0);
  12. historyParam.put("limit",1);
  13. historyParam.put("fieldName","departmentId");
  14. ticketHistory = invokeurl
  15. [
  16. url :deskURL + "/api/v1/tickets/" + ticketId + "/History"
  17. type :GET
  18. parameters:historyParam
  19. connection:"ticket_time_entry_add"
  20. ];
  21. logs.insert("ticketHistory":ticketHistory);
  22. if(ticketHistory != null && ticketHistory.get("data") != null)
  23. {
  24. historyDetails = ticketHistory.get("data").get("0");
  25. logs.insert("historyDetails":historyDetails);
  26. if(historyDetails.get("eventName") == "TicketUpdated" && historyDetails.get("eventInfo").get(0).get("propertyName") == "Department")
  27. {
  28.   departmentDetailsChanges = historyDetails.get("eventInfo").get("0").get("propertyValue");
  29.   previousDepartment = departmentDetailsChanges.get("previousValue").get("name");
  30.   currentDepartment = departmentDetailsChanges.get("updatedValue").get("name");
  31.   agent = historyDetails.get("actor").get("name");
  32.   departmentChangedTime = historyDetails.get("eventTime");
  33.   cf.put(fromDepartmentFieldAPIName,previousDepartment);
  34.   cf.put(toDepartmentFieldAPIName,currentDepartment);
  35.   cf.put(agentAPIName,agent);
  36.   timeEntryParam.put("executedTime",departmentChangedTime);
  37.   timeEntryParam.put("cf",cf);
  38.   logs.insert("timeEntryParam":timeEntryParam);
  39.   createTimeEntry = invokeurl
  40.   [
  41.   url :deskURL + "/api/v1/tickets/" + ticketId + "/timeEntry"
  42.   type :POST
  43.   parameters:timeEntryParam.toString()
  44.   connection:"ticket_time_entry_add"
  45.   ];
  46.   logs.insert("createTimeEntry":createTimeEntry);
  47. }
  48. }
  49. info logs;
NOTE
a. In Line 2, Replace ".com" with the domain extension based on your Data Center.
b. In Line 3, add the API name of the From Department created in the Time Entry Layout.
c. In Line 4, add the API name of the To Department created in the Time Entry Layout.
d. In Line 5, add the API name of the Agent Name created in the Time Entry Layout.
15. Click Save to save the custom function.
16. Click Save again to save the workflow.
If you would like to move the ticket from Dep B to Dep A, create  the workflow rule in Dep A as well. 
Creating Ticket Tracking Reports
To track the ticket moved from one department, you can generate Reports under Analytics. 
Go to the Analytics module >> Choose Reports >> Add Report >> Select Tickets module and Time Entry under Related modules. Refer to Create Custom Report.
This custom function will help you keep an eye on your ticket movements, ensuring that none of your important tickets go missing!
Wishing you a delightful Halloween filled with joy and treats, along with a wonderful fall season! 🎃🍂
Until next week,
Warm regards,
Lydia Kiruba | 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

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • How to add Connector in developer platform zoho?

        Hi, I am working on creating an Extension, and part of the development is to retrieve Email templates. In my CRM instance I can invokeURL by creating Zoho OAuth connection and get the template. But developer platform does not provide Zoho OAuth or any

      • How to archive Lost/Junk Leads so sales reps don’t see them, but keep them for reporting?

        Hi everyone, In our Zoho CRM we have two Lead Status values: Lost Lead and Junk Lead. What I want to achieve is: When a lead is marked as Lost or Junk, it should disappear from my sales reps’ Lead views (so they only see active leads). At the same time,

      • Zoho CRM Canvas Copy Original Layout

        Hello all, I want to use Canvas to make small changes to certain views, not to make huge changes. Is it possible to copy the original Zoho layout and set-up and start from there? I checked and all I can find are some templates which are far from the original

      • Revenue Management: #5 Revenue Recognition in SaaS

        If you're building or running a SaaS business, you've probably encountered this. You get paid upfront for a subscription and a one-time onboarding fee, but you end up with confusion about when to consider it revenue. Can I book all of it now? Should I

      • MS Teams for daily call operations

        Hello all, Our most anticipated and crucial update is finally here! Organizations using Microsoft Teams phone system can now integrate it effectively with Zoho CRM for tasks like dialling numbers and logging calls. We are enhancing our MS Teams functionality

      • Zoho Learn Course Access Issue

        One of the learners in a specific course can't see any lessons. They are registered as both a user and learner for this course in Zoo Learn. What could be the reason?

      • ZOHOLICS Japan 2025 開催のお知らせ（再投稿）

        【コミュニティユーザーの皆さまへお知らせ】 Zoho 最大のユーザーイベント「ZOHOLICS Japan 2025」を9月19日（金）に開催します。 AI活用に関する特別講演、ユーザー事例、Zoho 製品の活用例のご紹介など、Zoholicsならではのセッションをご用意しています。 Zoho コミュニティ開催のMeetupとはまた違った雰囲気のイベントです。 ご都合のつく方はお気軽にご参加ください✨ 詳細はこちら https://events.zoho.jp/zoholics2025#/?affl=forumpost2

      • Phone Number format for Bulk Upload via csv for Zoho Sign

        What is the phone number format that we need to use for a bulk recipient upload via csv in zoho sign, should the country code be included for ex if its US should it be +18889007865 ior 18889007865 or without country code 8889007865? the sample csv provided

      • Filter Page Elements By Selectable Date Range

        I have created a basic Page that will serve as a client dashboard with elements that will provide simple counts & sums of data in reports. There are no reports or forms added to the page, just elements. It currently functions as needed, but shows the

      • Can’t Enter my Notebook is Locked

        I’ve been using Notebook for taking notes at my college for a month and I never signed in and I never established a password. Today I tried to enter the app after the update and it asked me for a password. I need to access to my notes urgently and I can’t

      • Send Email Directly to Channel

        Hi, We are coming from Slack. In Slack each channel has a unique Email address that you can send emails too. I currently forward a specific type of email from my Gmail InBox directly do this channel for Verification Codes so my team doesn't have to ask

      • Secure your external sharing process with OTP Authentication

        For any business, it's crucial to share files externally in a way that is both secure and controlled. Let's say you want to share confidential data with your partners and vendors. You must ensure that only your intended recipients can access the shared

      • Items attribute questions

        Many of my items have attributes, such as size and color. How can I add new fields to the "New Items" screen to capture that in my Purchase Orders, Items, and Sales Order pages? I only see these attribute fields when adding an Item Group. Also, on the

      • Is there a way to search mail for items you haven't yet responded to?

        I'm trying to create a search to show emails that haven't been responded to and that have also been assigned a tag or label. Is there a way to search for the inverse of replied?

      • Zobot and Sales IQ

        What will happen to the Zoho Sales IQ being integrated to the website after creating the Zobot on the website too

      • Subtotals per Header

        Hey, we would like to display subtotals per header in our invoices:

      • upgrade storage

        how to upgrade my storage

      • Linking items from books and subscription

        Linking books and subscription It is a pity that it is not possible to associate with a product an article present in ZohoBooks This would make it possible to manage products composed of a nomenclature of articles of books

      • Add the ability to view number of hours planned for a workorder while in the Dispatch Console

        Hi Zoho, When dispatching a work order through the Dispatch Console, there's currently no way to view the number of planned hours for the service tasks associated with that specific work order. Having to click into the details each time to check planned

      • Uploading Files from uploads api

        I tried uploading the image from the API call but its giving me unauthorized error even i have given valid token in header. After uploading i need that id to pass in create ticket api uploads but its not uploading that file. Please help me out in th

      • Categorize Items with Item Headers

        Hello customers, Did you ever want to classify items based on specific categories to help your customers understand your invoice better? With the new Item Header feature, you can easily categorize items in your invoices and estimates and give them a common title.  Item Headers are available in the Invoices, the Recurring Invoices and the Estimates module. It can be carried forward from estimates to invoices at the time of converting the estimates.  To add an item header: Go to the Estimates, Invoices

      • URLs being masked despite disabling tracking

        Hey, We had disabled click tracking from an email update we are sharing with our users. Despite this, the URL the end user is receiving is masked, and looks like "https://qksyl-cmpzourl.maillist-manage.net/click/1d8e72714515cda6/1d8e72714515ca70" instead

      • Change format of quantity format

        Hi,  I would like to change the qunatity format from 1,00 to 1.  Is this possible?   thanks!

      • square up and Zoho books

        Since we set up the app connection between square up and Zoho books we have realised that when the amounts are getting transferred Zoho is adding VAT again making the numbers 20% more than they should be. We have checked our settings and they VAT/ Tax

      • How to provide Access rights to specific Bank accounts

        We have several bank accounts. I want to provide certain members access to only 2-3 accounts. It appears that when I give permissions, they are for ALL bank accounts. How do I do that?

      • Errors Getting a Bank Transaction

        Using Postman(for testing), I am receiving errors when attempting to get a single bank transaction. I am able to receive the list of bank transactions with https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3/banktransactions/?organization_id={org_id} but when I try to

      • Subscriptions Plans and CRM Products Integration?

        Is there any way to set up plans and pricing in Zoho Subscriptions and have those available as Products in the CRM? We are trying to set up the CRM and the Products seem to be more geared toward selling products that are not subscription based.  So if we sell annual or monthly contracts which are $10/seat/month, I can set this up as a plan in Subscriptions, but how can I set the same thing up in the CRM for the salespeople to sell/quote? What is the best practice for setting up the CRM Products to

      • Mapping Zoho Subscription Plans and Products to CRM and Books

        We have products that are one time products and subscription products.   1) We would like to have the ability to create an opportunity in CRM that includes both one-time charge products and subscription products.  Currently the only way of creating a subscription product is by defining a "Product->Plan" hierarchy in Zoho Subscription.  It appears that the only SYNC between Subscription and CRM is around contacts and the Product->Plan hierarchy doesn't sync to CRM, thus, you would need a duplicate

      • Zoho People Attendance Module - Split Shifts

        Hello, Our business employs a number of college students who often split their workdays between work hours and class schedules, resulting in split shifts. For example: Employee 1 works 9am to 11:30am and then leaves for class, returning to work at 3pm

      • Bulk update fields based on date

        Hi! I need all the quotes with "Quote Stage" set to "Next Year" to update to "Draft" every January 8 (every year). Can you help?

      • Target for a campaign

        Hi, Hope you can help me. I need to create a report (for a marketing campaign) that combines Deals and Contacts to export all the contacts with closed deals. I can easily do that, what I cannot do is to remove from the target the contacts that have more

      • Zoho Desk + Jira integration - Email notifications and comments posted by administrator instead of real user

        Dear All, I set up the integration under my admin account, and now when users leave comments in Jira (to created tickets in Zoho Desk), the email notifications show that the ‘Administrator’ left a comment, not a real user. The same happens in the ticket

      • Celebrating the power of visuals

        On World Photography Day, we would like to highlight the power of visuals in customer service. Visuals promote learning and understanding in less time. A photograph can rekindle a memory, convey more than words, and give a fresh perspective. How does

      • Customer address in Zoho Bookings

        Hello,  Is it possible to add customer address information to the Zoho bookings appointment screen? Or have it pull that information automatically from the CRM? We are wanting to use this as a field management software but it is difficult to pull the address from multiple sources when it would be ideal to have a clickable address on the appointment screen that opens up the user's maps.  It would also be advantageous for the "list view" to show appointment times instead of just duration and booking

      • Blocking / black listing customers

        Hi, We have a situation, we observed that certain customers are blocking multiple appointments with our advsiors but not showing up. Some of these are repeat offenders. This leads to those service hours getting blocked and not available for genuine customers.

      • Option to block bookings from specific email address or ip adresss in zoho booking

        Sometime few of our client keep booking irrelevant booking service just to resolve their queries and they keep booking it again and again whenever they have queries. Currently its disturbing our current communication process and hierarchy which we have

      • Feature Request: Email Templates for notifications accross all services

        Currently in Zoho Bookings, email notifications (such as booking confirmations, reminders, and cancellations) must be customized individually for each service. This becomes time-consuming and error-prone when managing multiple services that require consistent

      • Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

        My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these

      • Approval-based booking with Zoho Creator and Zoho Bookings

        Hi community members, We have developed a workaround for approval-based booking using Zoho Creator and Zoho Bookings! This provides a temporary solution as we work on the native feature, and it's useful for anyone needing an approval workflow when confirming

      • Member Accounts in Related List

        Hi Team, Currently, when a parent account is associated with an account in FSM, there is no related list displaying the associated member accounts under the parent account’s related list section. To view member accounts, I have to manually search using

      • Next Page