On a schedule

Post new Zoho Desk tickets to Slack

Every new ticket shows up in Slack with its subject, contact and priority.

Runs: On a schedule
Apps: Zoho Desk
AI: Not needed
Access: Desk.tickets.READ

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 5 minutes, post new Zoho Desk tickets to #desk in Slack with the subject, contact name and priority.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A customer submits a ticket through your Zoho Desk help center and then waits. The support team has no pings because the agents are working in other tabs, and the first someone sees it is during the next queue check, an hour later. Customers judge a support team by the first response time, and an hour of silence feels like an eternity to someone with a problem.

At each check, tickets are listed from Zoho Desk sorted by creation time, and any whose ID has not been seen are posted to Slack. The message shows the subject, requester and priority along with a link to the ticket. IDs are remembered so a ticket is announced exactly once.

A straightforward choice for small support teams that live in Slack. The post links straight to the ticket.

What you get out of it

First response gets faster
A Slack message prompts someone to pick up the ticket within minutes. Fast first responses are the most visible part of good support, and customers judge you on how soon someone replies.
Everyone sees the same queue
Posting in a channel avoids the situation where one agent knows about a ticket and the others do not. Pickup becomes a visible choice, and two people stop opening the same case.
The Desk tab can stay closed
Agents who work in other tools still hear about new tickets. Interruptions are limited to genuine arrivals, so the Desk tab can stay closed while deep work happens elsewhere. Those tickets are seen quickly.
Customers with urgent words get seen
A subject line like site down or payment failed is visible right in the post. Experienced agents can jump on those immediately, and the rest of the queue waits its turn.
Response time can be measured
Comparing the Slack timestamp with the first reply in Zoho Desk gives you a real number for first response time. You can improve what you can measure, and you can show it to leadership.
Fewer tickets sitting unseen
The most common failure in a shared queue is a ticket nobody noticed. A message in a channel makes it hard for any ticket to arrive silently. Teams grow into the habit quickly.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every 5 minutes ClickRuntime checks Zoho Desk for the latest tickets.
It skips any ticket it has already posted.
Each new ticket is posted to your #desk Slack channel, oldest first, with the ticket number, subject, contact name, priority and a link.

Before it runs live

Connect Zoho Desk

What you get

RunsOn a schedule

Post new Zoho Desk tickets to Slacktoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #desk#20431 Order arrived damaged Dana Lee · High

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Zoho Desk steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

new_ticket_alert.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify, report_fetched

ORG_ID = "712345678"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    h = {"Authorization": f"Zoho-oauthtoken {credentials.connection('zoho', 'work')}", "orgId": ORG_ID}
    tickets = http.get("https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/tickets",
                       params={"sortBy": "-createdTime", "limit": 50, "include": "contacts"}, headers=h).json()["data"]
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    new = [t for t in tickets if t["id"] not in seen]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    for t in reversed(new):
        contact = t.get("contact") or {}
        name = f"{contact.get('firstName') or ''} {contact.get('lastName') or ''}".strip()
        notify.slack(f"#{t['ticketNumber']} {t['subject']}\n{name} · {t.get('priority') or 'No priority'}\n{t['webUrl']}",
                     channel="#desk")
    state.set("seen", list(seen | {t["id"] for t in new})[-1000:])
    return {"posted": len(new)}

FAQ

Common questions

Will tickets created by email also be announced?

Yes. The check lists tickets from all channels, including email, web form, chat and phone entries, as long as they appear in the Zoho Desk ticket list. The channel can be shown in the message. Every channel that creates tickets appears in the ticket list.

How often does it look for new tickets?

At the polling interval you choose. Short intervals bring alerts closer to ticket creation but make more API calls. A few minutes is a common balance for support teams. The poll interval sets how long an alert may take.

Can I alert only for tickets in one department?

Yes. The ticket list can be restricted to a department, so each team's channel receives only its own tickets. Running one version per department is also possible. Departments can have their own channels. Both the interval and the filter are easy to adjust.

What permissions does it need?

Desk.tickets.READ. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Hourly