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 Perform Actions. 
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 Desk under Default Services.
      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 Perform Actions. 



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

    • 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

    • Recording Shopify/Amazon fees in Zoho Books - Zoho Inventory

      We are currently flushing out the connections between Shopify/Amazon and Zoho Inventory. For other users of Zoho Books - Zoho Inventory, where and at what point do you record the merchant fees associated with theses channels? I have gotten mixed responses

    • Pre-fill webforms in Recruit

      I don't want to use the career site portal (as I have my own already), but I would like to direct users to the application forms for each role, from my website job pages. Is there a way to pre-fill fields in Recruit application forms, so that I only have

    • Taxes Payable Adjustment

      I am from Canada and I need to make an adjustment to my Taxes Payable (HST) account.  Basically I need to take a portion of the amount within Taxes Payable and expense that portion to another account.  The adjusting entry would like like the following:

    • ASAP Widget Not showing "My Tickets"ed

      Hello Team, I have created a ZOHO ASAP Widget and embedded to my portal app.clearvuiq.com , widget renders ok and I can open tickets from widget. However I want my opened tickets to be visible in the widget. How can I achieve that?

    • Bug Causing Major Sync & SO Access Failures in Zoho POS

      We are experiencing critical and recurring issues in Zoho POS that all trace back to role-permission handling defects in the latest POS app version. These issues directly affect syncing, login ability, and Sales Order access for role-restricted users

    • How to view CRM Sales Orders in Desk

      What's the usual way to view all CRM sales orders linked to a contact, when viewing a ticket in Desk? I don't want to have to open a new tab to see the order in CRM. And the Desk CRM sidebar doesn't seem to be configurable. Would I have to use an extension

    • Kaizen #219: Actions API - Webhooks APIs - Part 1

      Hello all!! Welcome back to a fresh Kaizen week. In the previous weeks, we covered Workflow Rules APIs, Actions APIs - Email Notification APIs, Tasks Update API, and Field Update API. This week, we will continue with another Actions API - Webhooks API

    • Pricing Strategies: #3 Services never Stop with just Plans

      "Hey, while you're here, could you also take a look at the vegetable patch?" Aaron hears that line almost every week. He runs a small gardening service, the kind where customers subscribe to a simple monthly plan that includes basic maintenance, mowing,

    • Cropping Photos for Zoho Sites

      Hi, I'm wondering if there is a built in crop tool for zoho sites for my photos so I can crop them and see what the crop looks like on the site?

    • bulk edit records and run internal logic

      hi there is few logics in manner "it this than that" logics work well when i edit entry openning it one by one (via workflow "on add/edit - on success" , for custom field "on update/on user input") but when i try bulk edit records - logic does not work.  how can i turn on logic to work as programmed - for mass editing records via bulk edit?

    • Possible for first Signer of Sign Form to specify the next signer in the sequence

      We have many use cases where multiple signers need sign the same document. We'd love to be able to use sign forms, where the a signer who uses the Sign Form link can specify the name and email address for the next person in the sequence.

    • BUG: Can't copy-paste data outside Sheet

      Currently I can't paste data copied from inside any of my Zoho Sheet files to any other app. Copy-paste works inside the sheet It does NOT work between two different sheets These sheets are built from automation templates Everything works fine if I create

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - November 2025 | Part 1

      Hello Everyone! Here’s what came through in the first half of November: new updates and a few helpful community discussions with real, notable solutions. Product Updates: Android App Update: Inctroducing Swipe Actions You can now swipe left or right on

    • Upload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9

      Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. Where

    • Truesync for Linux

      Is Truesync available on linux ?

    • Hidding/excluding specific picklist options from filter

      Hi. Is it possible to hide/exclude specific picklist options from this filter? I don't want them to be shown when someone tries to filter in the leads module

    • Subforms to Capture Multi-Row Data in Job Sheets

      Subforms transform your job sheets from simple checklists to powerful, data-rich forms. In field service work — whether maintenance, inspection, installation, or repair — a single job can involve multiple repeatable entries: readings, parts used, activities

    • Add "Fetch Composite Item" Action for Inventory

      I want to make a Flow that uses information returned in the GET call for Composite Items, and it's not currently available in Zoho Flow. Please consider adding this functionality.

    • Adress Labels for sending of the oder und barcode

      We want to print with my address labels to stick on the order of the ware can. there are these options?

    • printing individual labels - Dymo LabelWriter

      I am trying to print individual labels to my Dymo LabelWriter - has anyone done this? Latest Update (December 2025): The Canvas Print View is now available! We encourage you all to try it out and share your feedback with us. Learn more here: Zoho CRM

    • Zoho Creator for Agriculture

      Greetings, I am starting to work on  Zoho Creator specifically for the agricultural field, any recommendations, tips or ideas that might be helpful ? Also, if you are interested by any means in working on such project, kindly contact me. The project is

    • Custom Print Layout

      I would like to create a custom print layout of a Lead or Contact. Is there a way to do that? What I mean is that if I'm viewing a specific lead or contact I'd like to be able to print or export that lead/contact and only print and/or export certain information.

    • Print View

      Nothing happens when I'm in a module , ie; Contacts, and I hit the Print View Button. Even when it does come up and say "loading", nothing loads

    • Get Holiday ready with Zoho Mail's Offline mode

      With the holiday season right around the corner, this is the perfect time to get ready to unplug, relax, and enjoy a well-deserved break. In addition to preparing yourself, you can also make sure your organization members are set for their time away from

    • Solution to Import PST File into Office 365.

      MailsDaddy OST to Office 365 Migration Tool is an outstanding solution to recover OST files and migrate them into Office 365 without any hassle. Using this software users can multiple OST files into Office 365 with complete data security. It offers users

    • Zoho CRM Kiosk issues

      Firstly this is for a system on the AU servers if that makes a difference. Issues are as follows (For Kiosk): 1. Re-ordering fields in the screen builder is broken. The fields seem to be re-ordering themselves, unless you order everything by moving the

    • Email Template Edits Not Saving

      I can make an edit, click save, and see the blue bar annimation at the top, but the edits don't actually save. Important, because my email templates are now broken and clients are receiving bad emails. Tried on Chrome, Firefox and IE.

    • Default Ticket View - Table?

      Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JV

    • Can I have different users see different pick list values for Potential Stage?

      We have some users focusing on new business and others focusing on existing business, and they follow different sales processes/cycles, so we would like them to see different pick list values for Stage (eventually leading up to Closed Won/Lost in both cases).   And just to keep it interesting - some of these users will of course do a combination, so would need to see one pick list for their New business potentials and a different pick list for their Existing business ones.   Salesforce does this

    • Tracking Snippet not working in Zoho Marketing Automation!

      First off, the fact that you have to wait about 12-24 hours for every response is terrible. How are we supposed to conduct business? Second, we have been trying for several days to get the Tracking Code Snippet in marketing automation to work, to no avail.

    • Is there any way to send an Excel received by email to Dataprep?

      Every day I receive an email alert with an Excel file that I want to process through a Dataprep pipeline. To do this, I need to: -Save the file to disk -Open the pipeline -Run the pipeline -Update the source -Several clicks to select and open the saved

    • Read webpage - MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP

      I have the following VBA script, put together from various sources (mainly zoho forum/help/support, so it once worked, I guess): private Sub GetListOfSheets() Dim url As String Dim xmlhttp As Object Dim parameters As String Dim html As String range("B1").value

    • Zoho Creator Form Search

      I'm new to Zoho Creator and so far i do like it but im shocked there seems to be no easy way to add a search function and/or navigation to there forms as this readily available in every platform i have used in the past. Anyway i have a form which i have

    • How to setup DKIM / SPF in Zoho Mail

      Hello there! I'm having a hard time understanding how to setup the TXT records for SPF and DKIM with Zoho Mail. I'm following the instructions here: https://www.zoho.com/campaigns/help/setup-spf-dkim.html Specifically, when it comes to the value for the

    • Mass update cant trigger a workflow?

      Hello there, Is this a normal Creator behaviour? In a report, if I manually edit each data row, it will pass those changes to all other reports. However, if I perform a Mass Update on a few data rows at once, the new data is not pushed to other reports.

    • search and Smart Bar both missing in Mail

      One of the users on my account does not have the search bar at the top right or the Smart Bar at the bottom left of the desktop Mail app. Any ideas how to get those back?

    • Let us add Lookup fields in the Blueprint Transitions

      We are unable to add Lookup Fields in the blueprint transitions in Zoho Desk, we wanted to make it a requirement for our workflow but since it's not available in the transition we cannot. The lookup field exists in the Layout: But it cannot be added/selected

    • Zoho Projects API Scope for Issue Attachments

      I try to download issue attachments via the API, unfortunately I always get the following error code when trying to download the file from the supplied URL: {"ERROR_MESSAGE":"INVALID_OAUTHSCOPE","ERROR_CODE":401} indicating an auth scope error. I've tried

    • How to fetch custom fields for time entries in Zoho Project API v3

      In the previous Zoho Projects REST API, we were able to retrieve custom field details for time entries, including picklist options, using the endpoint: GET /restapi/portal/[PORTAL_ID]/timesheetcustomfields In the new Zoho Projects API v3, we tried using

    • Zoho Survey Enhancements

      We love Survey. We use it a ton. It needs some enhancements. Maybe some of these are already on the roadmap? API - this is crucial. We have some complex surveys that take place and need to update records, trigger other functions/automations, etc. I would

    • Next Page