Zoho Support: Automate your way to Productivity using Time based Actions

Zoho Support: Automate your way to Productivity using Time based Actions

To avoid pitfalls in customer support leading to lower customer satisfaction, longer response cycles, increased support cost, automation and productivity improvements become a must have. In this endeavor we at Zoho Support have bolstered the existing automation options with Time bases Actions and Macros.

Time based actions are used to monitor your help-desk for pre-defined actions every one hour. So the next time when you see a massive pile-up of tickets in your help-desk queue, don't fret. Setup Time based Actions to trigger alerts when a new ticket remains unassigned for extended number of hours or close a ticket in x hours when you didn't hear back from your customer. These options and many more would help you to decrease your support load and provide support on time.  Besides sending notifications, you can assign tasks and update fields as well.

You can setup a time based rule under Setup >> Automation >> Time based Actions. Remember, you can setup a maximum of 10 time based rules/department in Professional and 15 in Enterprise edition. To learn more about setting up a time based rule, click here.

Besides Time based Actions, we have released Macros. Macros, unlike regular workflows are predefined rules that can be invoked manually by support agents. They can be used to define rules and actions that automatically modify a request besides notifying users and creating tasks. Initially we did have this as one of the option while setting up a workflow. However for more clarity in configuring & managing automation, Macros are now provided as a separate setting under Automation. To learn more about setting up a macro, click here.

Indeed there is more to be happier with this move.  Before Macros were made available the workflows were limited to 5 in Professional & 20 in Enterprise which includes setting up one for manual application. However now you can setup 10/20 Macros per department based upon the edition you're in.

Before we close here is the last one. We hate spam as much as you do. So, we built spam filtering right into Zoho Support to keep spam away from genuine support tickets. Click on the check box next to a ticket and select Mark Spam. It’s that simple.

So, what are you waiting for? Head over to automation and setup your first time-based rule or a macro. If you need any assistance while setup, do not hesitate to write to us at support@zohosupport.com. Also take a moment to share with us your feedback about these features. 












    • Sticky Posts

    • Using Agent Email Address as From Address

      Currently, while replying to a ticket, it is possible for agents to choose their own email addresses as 'from' addresses. Although we built this just for that little extra flexibility, in hindsight, it hasn't figured much in conventional usage.  Almost all businesses prefer that responses to their customers' tickets be sent from the common support/service email address and NOT from those of individual agents. During personal interactions at events, some of you have even made passing mentions about
    • Edit and Delete options in Comments

      A lot of teams have been using ticket comments extensively to collaborate everyday. Notification Center further improved this experience by bringing real-time updates. As we continue to build more improvements to this experience, we've shipped a small-yet-important
    • Webinar 2: Supercharged customer support for growing business

      Join us for this webinar and learn how to step up your support game using a real-time communication platform to generate happier, more successful customers. In this live webinar, we will will discuss the importance of SalesIQ for your support team and how it can help you:  Understand your customers better and their journeys to proactively support and engage them even before they ask for help.  Integrating real time conversations into Zoho Desk’s Support, providing a conversational customer service
    • Customize Colors of your Customer Self Service Portal

      You asked for it. We heard you. We're happy to roll out the most sought after feature request, Customizing the Colors of your Customer Self-service Portal. Now you can set the color of your customer portal to mimic your company's web site, so that your customers visiting the portal will not feel alienated by the default theme.  Go ahead and configure the color of the header, tabs, fonts and background according to your needs. You can either choose between default color themes like Blue, Grey, Green
    • 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

      In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email
    • Recent Topics

    • Enhancements to Custom Connectors in Zoho Creator

      Hello everyone, At Zoho Creator, we believe in providing you with the necessary tools to achieve a well connected ecosystem of apps. Our Custom Connectors feature is a testament to this, enabling you to integrate with a wide range of external services
    • AutoScan Not Working Since April -Support says it with engineering

      Hi there, Autoscan has not been working on my account since April. Without this feature, completing expenses reports is laborious and error-prone. I keep asking for updates seeing as this is a critical feature, but told that it's being looked into and
    • Is there a way to request a password?

      We add customers info into the vaults and I wanted to see if we could do some sort of "file request" like how dropbox offers with files. It would be awesome if a customer could go to a link and input a "title, username, password, url" all securely and it then shows up in our team vault or something. Not sure if that is safe, but it's the best I can think of to be semi scalable and obviously better than sending emails. I am open to another idea, just thought this would be a great feature.  Thanks,
    • Clone a Module??

      I am giong to repurpose the Vendors module but would like to have a separate but very similar module for another group of contacts called Buyers. I have already repurposed Contacts to Sellers. Is it possible to clone (make a duplicate) module of Vendors
    • Zoho books bulk update for invoices

      Hi Zoho team, Why only 25 invoices can be bulk update at a time. I am booking 800 to 900 invoices in a month. Please increase this limit? Please dont tell that you dont have enough request for this task. 25 limit for bulk update is too much low
    • Querying CloudSQL using NodeJS?

      How can I query CloudSQL over nodejs? Are there any rest apis from which I perform Select Queries in the data of a Workspace? In the v1 we had C#, Python, Java for CloudSQL Now I only see Java? I am confused about the overall API of Analytics, there any
    • How can I move a ticket from Department A to Department B?

      Hi there, how do I move ticket from Department A to Department B? I went in the ticket and tried to scroll down the menu under the "department" but it won't let me, I am a support admin. Did I do anything wrong? or am I doing it in the wrong place?
    • Sending Email with Attachment (PDF, Excel file)

      Hi, I'm new to Zoho CRM and I'm setting up a flow to send an Email with Attachment when user reaching a certain stage of a Deal. In detail, I've created a Blueprint which requires user to attach a PDF file when reaching a certain point of the stage and
    • Departments in Zoho

      I'm trying to set up a department. It looks like Departments have been removed from Zoho One. Is there another option? We have our main account setup, but want to set up a separate small department that can't see our tabs.
    • How to Integrate Zoho CRM with Traffic Rider Mod APK Unlimited Money?

      Hello, I am exploring the possibilities of integrating Zoho CRM with a mobile game app. I am working on a Traffic Rider Mod APK Unlimited Money version where we want to store user engagement data like session time, high scores, and in-app interactions.
    • Rename Record Templates in Zoho Creator

      Hi Team, I need to rename the Record Templates based on the name of the employee which i have configured in Zoho Creator Deluge Script. How to do this one? // Attachments :template:PDF_ECF:Exit_Clearance_Form input.ID as PDF
    • Les Zoholics 2025 sont de retour

      Bonjour à tous, Préparez-vous pour deux jours exceptionnels au cœur de l’écosystème Zoho ! Nous avons le plaisir de vous convier à Zoholics France 2025, un événement dédié à l’innovation, à l’expertise et à la communauté Zoho. Au programme : • Présentations
    • Sesión "Ask me anything" Zoho en Español - 26 de junio de 2025, de 14:00 a 17:00 (en español)

      ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Quieres entender mejor Zoho CRM o Zoho Desk? Nuestros expertos estarán disponibles para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra sesión "Ask me anything". Puedes comentar este artículo y durante tres horas, nuestro equipo estará
    • Not receiving instagram verfication emails

      Hi- I'm not receiving Not receiving instagram verfication emails.  I have seen other users having the same issue and your answer was to contact instagram.  But instagram no longer has a support email.  
    • CRM Feature Request

      When enabling Translation in Zoho CRM I would like to see the ability to remove the language "English (US)". I have encountered a user experience issue with a client recently. The client uses English (UK) but they are based in Spain, so they have activated
    • Change work hours per day for employees

      Hello, Is there a way to modify the work hours per day for employees in Zoho projects? This would be helpful for resource allocation to more accurately see when an employee who works 35 hours a week vs 40 hours has a full schedule. Thanks.
    • Is there a way to set Document Owner/Sender via the API

      When sending requests for zoho sign, it would seem zoho uses the id of the person that created the zoho api cred to determine the owner_id, is there a way to set a default for this?
    • Zoho Commerce

      Hi, I have zoho one and use Zoho Books. I am very interested in Zoho Commerce , especially with how all is integrated but have a question. I do not want my store to show prices for customers that are not log in. Is there a way to hide the prices if not
    • Name Change and Delete Email ID and Alias

      Hello please i require urgent assistance, 1.) I would also like to change the name that appears when people receive my emails. I have an info@spacetraiders.com but when people receive my email its say Ronma Adedeji instead of either Info or Space Traiders..
    • PROBLEMA AL CONECTAR EL DOMINIO

      hola buenas tardes hoy estoy tratando de crear mi registro y no me deja conectar el dominio  me dice que el dominio ya está vinculado a una cuenta y la verdad no tiene conectado el dominio a ninguna cuenta  tengo acceso al hosting y cpanel que se compro pero al revisar los dns estan apuntando al mismo hosting del panel  del proveedor del domini ... como hago para poder crear la cuenta con ese dominio, incluso cree un registro pero no  me deja vincularlo el dominio es integrasoft.co agradezco me ayuden  
    • Delay in delivery of emails

      I'm experiencing random delays for emails sent from Zoho account. Headers show that the message reached mx.zohomail.com almost instantly, followed by a delay of anywhere from 3-15 minutes (and counting). Please confirm whether this is a system-wide
    • SMTP Email Sending Not Working for My Domains and Apps

      Hello Zoho Support Team, I am experiencing a critical issue with sending emails via Zoho SMTP for my domain humanhup.com. Both of my applications, HumanHup and CheapUI, are unable to send emails using Zoho SMTP, even though the same setup was working
    • Company Name not pre-populating when using Quick Create: Contact

      Hi Devs, This has bugged me for a long time, and it's a simple UX design change to solve it. Problem: Users creating Contacts not linked to Companies/Accounts Cause: When a user creates an Opportunity where after browsing the Contacts they realise they
    • Zoho Mail not working. Constant OTP

      Firstly, my emails have been playing up for over a year. They are struggling to send and I have to press Send a few time to make them going. They mostly hover with a loading note saying Sending. I emailed Zoho and they got it working, but now it is doing
    • Zoho Mail Storage Usage Discrepancy – Incorrect Storage Reporting

      Dear Zoho Support Team and Community, I previously raised a concern about inaccurate storage usage reporting in Zoho Mail but did not receive a clear or satisfactory response. To investigate further, I meticulously calculated the storage used by all folders
    • Announcing 12 new connectors in Zoho DataPrep

      We’ve just made data management even easier - Zoho DataPrep now supports 12 new external connectors to help you build more robust, scalable ETL pipelines. Why it matters: ✅ Broader data access ✅ More automation, less manual work ✅ Smarter pipelines, better
    • Zoho Notifications - Received two notifications for one message and none for the other

      We had a client reply to a ticket twice in one minute. The ticket owner received two emails for the second message but none for the first (which was crucial content and unfortunately was therefore missed). I'm assuming this created a race condition -
    • How to work with getFieldNames formdata functions ,Any Examples

      I don't find any example showing usage of getFieldNames. Where do i find .is there any Help documents available
    • Zoho Books | Product updates | June 2025

      Hello Users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books, from the option to record advances for purchase orders to dynamic lookup fields, all designed to help you stay on top of your finances with ease. Introducing Change Comparators
    • Zoho Books API Creating Invoice and Address API

      I'm trying to create an invoice with zoho books api and i get the following error: Error creating invoice in Zoho Books: { message: 'Request failed with status code 400', details: { code: 15, message: 'Please ensure that the "billing_address" has less
    • Missing Payload Details

      Hi All, Does anyone know how to fix missing webhook payload data in the next step of the flow? Payload comes into the webhook -- All details here When i go to use the webhook data in the next step -- the majority of the payload data is missing
    • Numeric options in Decision

      Zoho really needs to add options for numeric comparisons in the Decision action. These are the ones that should be implemented: Greater than Less than Greater than or equal to Less than or equal to Equal to (although this is actually handled already)
    • Supercharge your VoC analyses with data from anywhere: Modules are now sources for VoC

      Dear customers, We hope you're well! Your customers talk about your brand, praise your service, criticize your offerings, or promote your business—literally from anywhere on the internet—and it has become strategically necessary to factor in all possible
    • Populate drop down field from another form's subform

      Hello, I found how to do that, but not in case of a subform. I have a Product form that has a subform for unit and prices. A product might have more than one unit. For example, the product "Brocoli" can be sold in unit at 3$ or in box of 10 at 25 $. Both
    • Better Security, Better User Experience | Help Center Update | June'25

      As part of our commitment to enhancing user experience and security, we are happy to announce updates to our authentication mechanism. This update introduces several key enhancements designed to improve the password recovery process and streamline the
    • Anyone Building AI-Based SEO Dashboards in Zoho Analytics?

      Hey everyone, I’m currently working on an SEO reporting dashboard in Zoho Analytics and looking to enhance it with AI-based insights—especially around AI visibility, keyword trends, and traffic sources. The goal is to track not just traditional metrics
    • Nouveautés Zoho Flow - Intégration SAP S/4HANA et SAP HANA

      Bonne nouvelle! Deux applications très attendues dans la galerie d’intégrations de Zoho Flow sont désormais disponibles : ✨ SAP S/4HANA ✨ SAP HANA Que vous gériez des opérations d’entreprise ou des systèmes de données, ces intégrations vous permettent
    • How to get NSE/BSE Stock Prices in Zoho sheets?

      I've been looking for a function that provides me with the NSE/BSE listed stocks price in Zoho Sheets like GOOGLEFINANCE in Google sheets, but I found none. Please help if there is any way to het stock prices?
    • How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

      Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan
    • Zoho Project API search?

      Good day, i would like to search our entire portal for a task using the API. We have over 20k tasks so I dont to search for all tasks and then do a for each as it would take way to long and also would need to go over the limit of 200 records per query.
    • Next Page