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Looking for help with time based automations

  • April 2, 2021
  • 8 replies
  • 0 views
Marc23

Our business model is as such:

Lead converts to an order and order is placed.

Once order is placed, we want to send status emails at 2 weeks and 4 weeks.

Once product is delivered, we want to send a follow up email asking for pics, 12 weeks after order was placed.

Where I'm having issues is with ticket statuses changing when clients contact us. Is my only option to leave the ticket open and basing the automation timing off the date when the order status was changed? This order status changes with a macro when we confirm the order. Then I suppose the 12 week automation will also solve the ticket thus closing it.

I don't think pending status will work as that moves to open anytime they respond.

    8 replies

    A
    • Andrew42
    • April 2, 2021

    Every status changes to open if the requester responds.
    Can you make your automations not status dependant?
    I presume when a client responds, you will want to be able to interact with them?
    You can use the timing based on 'hours since ticket created'. Automations cannot directly add messages to the client, but you could create a http target to make the comment.
    This method is not officially supported due to the potential to create race conditions, but it can be useful for automations when used judiciously.

    Marc23
    • Marc23
    • Author
    • April 2, 2021

    Interesting, ticket opened doesn't work as they are sometimes leads for weeks before converted to an order.

    But we do have our automations send emails, and when they reply we do like to respond to them. We just don't want that reply to affect the timing.

    So maybe we leave it pending, but time it based on when the ticket status changes to ordered.

    Marc23
    • Marc23
    • Author
    • April 2, 2021

    And never mind, you can't set time to ticket status. Can the macro that we apply when an order is taken that sets the due date for that days date, then set the timing off that?

    A
    • Andrew42
    • April 2, 2021

    I see, you can send email to the requester with automations, but it doesn't show as a comment on the ticket. Oversight on me there 🙂.

    There are some options around due dates when you make the ticket a task type which can be useful. You could automate emails based on that, set the ticket to a task when they become an order, set due date the complete cycle length and automate based on 60 days to due date, 30 days, 10 days etc.

    A
    • Andrew42
    • April 2, 2021

    Not sure if these can all be set with a macro, but worth a try. Failing that, and if it cannot be manually set, you could do this using http target I think.

    Marc23
    • Marc23
    • Author
    • April 2, 2021

    I'll check this out, we don't currently have tasks but it appears they are just inactive views.

    A
    • Andrew42
    • April 2, 2021

    In a ticket, do you not have the option to change the type from incident to task? This maybe an option you have to turn on, but I think it's on by default.

    Marc23
    • Marc23
    • Author
    • April 2, 2021

    I couldn't find it in a ticket, but I could find it within a macro to change ticket type.

     

    I also just found this: https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/macro-date/

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