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.
https://zylker.com/agent/learningminds/learningminds/setup#setup/general/businesshours/edit/1380***********062 


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

    • 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

    • Recent Topics

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Tips on collaboration control in Writer

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for the month of October 2023: Tips on collaboration control in Writer. This webinar will help you understand the various features available in Writer to control collaboration. We'll

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Working with tables in Zoho Writer

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for the month of September 2023: Working with tables. This webinar will help you understand the various ways you can use tables to meet your specific needs. The webinar will take

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Customize Writer to suit your business process

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for the month of August 2023: Customize Writer to suit your business process. This webinar will cover the various ways to customize Writer to streamline business processes and improve

    • Is there a way to print the dashboard?

      I would like the capability of printing the dashboard - is that possible?

    • Workflows for Timesheet

      Good day, Any way to have timesheet as triggers? I looked into Zoho Flow and into Zoho Project automation but no where can I have timesheet as a trigger. Basically, I would like to trigger something upon timesheet approval. Right now, the only way to

    • Linkedin - Recruiter System Connect

      Hi there! Does anyone here know how to connect Zoho Recruit to Linkedin Recruiter via Recruiter System Connect?

    • [Webinar] A recap of Zoho Writer in 2024

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce Zoho Writer's webinar for December 2024: A recap of Zoho Writer in 2024. This webinar will provide a recap of the features, enhancements, and integrations released in 2024 to enhance your productivity. There

    • Learn how to automate IT asset and incident management with Zoho Writer

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for November 2024: Learn how to use Zoho Writer's fillable forms for IT asset and incident management. This webinar will focus on how Zoho Writer can help you automate your organization's

    • [Webinar] Learn how Zoho Writer can streamline your finance and admin operations

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for October 2024: Streamlining finance and admin operations with Zoho Writer. This webinar will focus on how Zoho Writer can help you generate payslips and automate claim processes.

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Learn how Zoho Writer can enhance the productivity of sales teams

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for August 2024: Streamlining sales operations with Zoho Writer. This webinar will focus on how Zoho Writer can help you create sales documents and automate sales routines. There

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Learn how to simplify your HR operations: Part 2

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for July 2024: Learn how Zoho Writer can simplify your HR operations: Part 2. This webinar will focus on how Zoho Writer can help HR teams streamline and automate their entire hiring

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Learn how to simplify your day-to-day HR operations

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for June 2024: Learn how Zoho Writer can simplify your day-to-day HR operations. This webinar will focus on how to automate your entire hiring process and generate various types of

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Use formulas and conditions in Zoho Writer's document automation

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for May 2024: Learn how to use formulas and conditions in Zoho Writer. This webinar will focus on how to use formulas and conditions when automating document generation in Zoho Writer.

    • [Zoho Writer Webinar] Personalize Zoho Writer to suit your needs

      Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for April 2024: Learn how to personalize Zoho Writer to suit your needs. This webinar will focus on how to easily customize Writer's features at the user and organization level for

    • How to refresh/update module fields in

      Hi, I created a Workspace for CRM years ago. Since that time I've updated the layouts in several modules in CRM but Zoho Analytics displays the previous state fields only. How to refresh the module fields to reflect the actual state in Analytics? BR

    • Data update/pull from a specific field or module

      Hi Team, Currently, if I need a data from a newly added field on a product like Zoho CRM, I need to refresh the whole module to get the new field. This is taking much time for the data to be visible. If the data pull/refresh can be granularized to fetch

    • Lookup field in User module cannot look up to custom modules!

      Hi there, Expense has been great so far but it's sad to see that a simple thing such as allowing a lookup to custom modules from the Users module is not yet implemented. Hope to see this in the next release. Do you have any plan for that?

    • Trigger Zoho Cliq Channel Workflows for API Messages

      Dear Zoho Cliq Team, I hope this message finds you well. We have noticed that reminders or messages posted to Zoho Cliq channels via the API do not trigger channel-based workflows. This limitation means that any bot configured with a participation handler

    • Webhook Trigger for New Messages in Cliq Channels

      Hello, I would like to request a feature to enable webhook triggers when a new message is added to a Cliq channel. This functionality would allow us to seamlessly send important information from Cliq to other relevant systems. This webhook trigger can

    • Ability to Edit the "Current Job Title" dropdown field

      Current experience/Issue: When a user (candidate) uploads resume to Zoho Recruit candidate portal, some fields are prefilled with the info from the resume/cv correctly. However, we've observed that; 1. the "Current Job Title" dropdown field is usually

    • I'm getting an "Invalid_scope" error, even though I used an access token generated with the correct scope.

      I'm getting an "Invalid_scope" error, even though I used an access token generated with the correct scope. Here’s what I did in Postman: Generated the code to create an access token using the following URL: https://accounts.zoho.eu/oauth/v2/auth?scope=ZohoCampaigns.contact.UPDATE&client_id=<client_id>&response_type=code&access_type=offline&redirect_uri=https://1882-2-26-193-161.ngrok-free.app

    • Problem viewing document imported from google drive.

      Hello, When I add a document via my google drive, it is impossible to preview it. I get the error “Files without extensions cannot be previewed. Download to view this file”. Could you please help me? Also, and this is more of a question: is there a way

    • Problem configuring/customizing sales pipeline steps

      Hello, I have created several sales pipelines with different stages in them. Unfortunately I forgot to properly configure these steps (conversion probability, forecast category). How can I modify and customize all these steps? Thnak you by advance M

    • workflow for bounced email gets triggered, but email is status = opened

      Hello, I have a workflow that sends me an email if outgoing email are bounced. Now I got some kind of this emails, but the corrosponding contacts have status = open at the email. Why this bounce-workflow is triggered? Reports > Email Reports > Bounce

    • Power of Automation :: Automatically start / pause / stop timer on task status update.

      Hello Everyone, A Custom function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:-

    • Website Access Blocked (from one pc only) when attempting unattended access to any device

      Hello From one of my laptops I cannot access any remote device using unattended access. A Zoho Assist error page didplays 'Website Access Blocked. See attached.

    • Zoho sheets to crm and mapping

      i want to know more about mapping the contacts that i upload from the spreadsheet also couldnt able to understand flow

    • Zoho Analytics to Zoho Sheets - automatic update?

      Hi all, If I create a zoho sheet from an Analytics Report or Analytics Data, is there a way for the zoho sheet to automatically update as the Report / Data in analytics updates?

    • Update Zoho Flow on Sprint Work Item Status Change

      Hello, I've contacted Zoho One support but have been unable to help in a timely manner, so I'm asking the community. I want to start using sprints, but I'm having an issue. I need to post updates to Slack when a Work Item has a status change. My understanding

    • Fixed Assets Register

      Thank you Zoho Books for adding fixed assets register. BUT there are certian tweeks that needs to be implemented. I found the following issues and seek improvements. 1) Fixed Asset Register Report in the Report Section has columns which are so much confusing.

    • Why can't I sync my Zoho Mail tasks and notes with my mobile device, and is there a way to fix this issue?

      I'm having trouble syncing my Zoho Mail tasks and notes with my mobile device. Despite following the usual steps, the tasks and notes don't appear on my phone. Is there a way to fix this issue? Regards, Adamjes, Tekskills India Pvt Limited, India.

    • Link to Desk tickets

      Hello, We are using Analytics to analyze data in Desk. Is there a way to embed a link to a ticket in reports? We'd love to be able to see the drill down data, and click a value in a result row that would launch the Desk Ticket in another window/tab. Thanks

    • Announcing new features in Trident for macOS (v.1.11.0)

      Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v.1.11.0) is here with interesting features and enhancements to elevate your workplace communication and productivity. Let's take a quick look at them. Export emails. You can now export emails in the .eml file format

    • Zoho Sign Product updates - H2 2024

      Hello! We have almost come to the end of 2024! Here's a list of features and enhancements that went live in the later half of the year. NOM 151 certification Witness signing Formula, conditional, and custom fields Zoho Sign's extension for Bigin by Zoho

    • Build custom AI solutions with Catalyst’s QuickML capabilities in CRM

      Hello everyone, We’re thrilled to announce an improvement for our Zoho CRM Enterprise users: the ability to create custom AI solutions using Catalyst’s QuickML directly from Zoho CRM. As you may already know, Zia, Zoho CRM’s AI-powered assistant, offers

    • 【Zoho CRM】Webフォームに関するアップデート

      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。 「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中からWebフォームに関するアップデートについて紹介します。 今回、以下２点のアップデートがありました。 ダブルオプトイン（2段階の同意確認）後の確認メッセージのカスタマイズ 登録から確認まで一貫したユーザーエクスペリエンスを顧客に提供するために、カスタマイズされた確認メッセージを作成できるようになりました。 ダブルオプトイン認証メールのカスタマイズ 顧客に最初から興味を持ってもらえるよう、パーソナライズされたメールを作成できるようになりました。ユーザーのブランドに合った本文を作成し、パーソナライズすることで、様々な顧客に対応することができます。

    • Converting Time and Time Zones

      Hi Everyone I am trying to convert a time Zone to the local time of the user. I am fetching some data from an API, and it is coming back in this format: 2024-12-09T16:49:23Z This is in UTC/GMTZulu time. I am looking to convert it to the user time. In

    • Tip of the week 34 - 5 ways to maintain your email list

      A proper email list often reflects the reach of an institution. This reach is coveted by all but achieved by some. We often forget about drawbacks and incline towards numbers. Success is often reflected by quality and not quantity. This simple message reverberates in maintaining a hygienic email list. Here are five tips which will help you maintain a proper email list.    Organic email lists   Non-stop competition can make us susceptible to shortcuts like buying and renting lists from third party

    • 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

    • Can not send campaign

      Hi, I'm trying to send a newsletter to my subscribers, but seems is not working - or maybe I did some wrong steps re. upgrades. I'm the admin for this account, no other person is using Zoho for my campaigns and I did not access the platform during last

    • Next Page