Creating and Managing Schedules in Zoho Desk

Creating and Managing Schedules in Zoho Desk



Schedules are automated user-defined actions, which can be executed through custom functions either at a particular time or on a recurring basis. For example, using schedules, you can create a new ticket/task on a recurring basis or send reminders about a weekly meeting to agents.

Scheduling also allows you to:
  1. Assign unassigned tickets at the end of the day to specific agents.
  2. Alert agents on reaching a preconceived threshold of tickets assigned to them.
  3. Reassign tickets from offline agents to available agents periodically.

Note:
  1. You can create a maximum of 250 active schedules in your account.
  2. Only users with Helpdesk Automation permission can access this feature.

Creating Schedules
You can create a schedule in four simple steps, as follows:
  1. Enter the schedule name
  2. Choose the execution date and time
  3. Choose the schedule frequency
  4. Associate or create a new custom function

To create a new schedule:
  1. Click the Setup icon (   ) in the top bar.
  2. On the Setup Landing page, click Schedules under Automation.
  3. On the Schedules page, click New Schedule in the upper-right corner.
  4. In the Add Schedule page, do the following:
    1. Click the Execute On field to specify the date and time at which the function should be executed.



    2. Set the schedule frequency from under the Repeat drop-down field.



      You can execute the schedule either once (select, Never) or on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.
    3. Select the Custom option to run the schedule either on any specific hour/day/week/month/year along with recurring frequency and end point.



    4. Click Associate Function to choose the function to be associated with the schedule.



      You can also click Create Function to write a new function using our Deluge Script Editor.
  5. Click Save.

Writing Custom Function
Every schedule must be associated with a custom function. Using our Deluge Script Editor, you can write your own custom function and schedule it to execute periodically.

Note:
  1. You can add custom help desk variables as an argument while creating custom functions for a schedule.

Running Schedules - Manually
You can manually run the scheduled function whenever required using the Run Now option. This option will execute the function associated with the schedule once immediately.

To run a schedule manually:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. On the Setup Landing page, click Schedules under Automation.
  3. On the Schedules page, click the More icon (  ) corresponding to the schedule you want to run manually.



  4. Select the Run Now option from the menu.
The schedule will be executed immediately.

Note:
  1. You are allowed to trigger the schedule manually only twice per day.
  2. Only active scheduled can be run manually.

Logs
Every schedule's execution details, whether it was a failure or successful, will be displayed under the Logs tab. You can also filter the logs to focus on the data you want to see. For example, you can filter the logs stream by a schedule, status, or a particular period.

To access the logs:
  1. Click the Setup icon (  ) in the top bar.
  2. On the Setup Landing page, click Schedules under Automation.
  3. On the Schedules page, click the Logs tab.



  4. Log entries for all schedules that were run for the last seven days, irrespective of their status, will be listed by default.
  5. Click the Filter icon (  ) in the upper-right corner to open the filter options.
    You can choose to filter the logs stream by a schedule, status, or a particular period.
  6. Click Search to filter the logs.

Note:
  1. Click the More icon (  ) corresponding to a schedule and then click View Logs to see logs specific to a schedule.
  2. Clicking Close will reset the filters to the default values.

Important
  1. More than one schedule cannot have the same name.
  2. The start date of a schedule should not exceed one year from the current date.
  3. Functions should not exceed ten thousand lines of execution.
  4. Functions should run within a span of 5 mins.

    • Related Articles

    • Creating Functions in Zoho Desk

      Functions are pluggable workarounds that let you accomplish tasks that is not doable out-of-the-box. For example, let' s assume that you want to prioritize customer tickets based on their sales probability in Zoho CRM. However, this option cannot be ...

    • Gallery Functions

      Zoho Desk offers you the following ready to deploy custom functions in Gallery: Create a task due in 3 days for every new ticket Update new and modified accounts from Desk to CRM Create CRM contacts for new tickets in Desk Create CRM accounts for new ...

    • Programming New Custom Functions

      Deluge, an abbreviation formed from - Data Enriched Language for the Universal Grid Environment is an online scripting language integrated with Zoho services. With this script, you can add different types of business logic to the custom functions. ...

    • Using Custom Function in Zoho Desk

      Custom functions are easy to program scripts, which helps you to update the data in related help desk modules or other third-party applications. When a record matches the workflow criteria, workflow engine automatically triggers the custom function ...

    • Encrypting Custom Help Desk Fields

      Just as we lock our money and restrict access to our property in the physical world, we must secure our personal information that is held by businesses and government agencies. We need a virtual lock that prevents identity thieves from stealing our ...