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Hourly

Get warned about overdue Freshdesk tickets

Every hour you see which tickets have passed their due-by time.

Runs
Hourly
Apps
Freshdesk
AI
Not needed
Access
read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, send me a Slack message listing Freshdesk tickets past their due date, with subject, agent and priority.

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

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

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Freshdesk gives every ticket a due-by time based on your service level policy, and a ticket that passes it counts as a breach. Breaches hurt more than numbers on a report: a customer on a premium plan was promised a four-hour first response, and nobody answered. Agents are busy with the current queue, and the ticket that quietly turned overdue at 2 p.m. is noticed on Friday when the weekly SLA report arrives.

Every hour, ClickRuntime lists the tickets that are overdue, using Freshdesk's overdue filter or by comparing each ticket's due-by time with the current time, and posts them to your team channel with the subject, the assigned agent and how late each one is.

It helps support managers who are accountable for response targets and need a chance to intervene before another breach occurs.

What you get out of it

  • Rescue tickets that are already late

    An overdue ticket is still fixable. A manager seeing it within the hour can reassign it or answer it directly, and the customer's wait ends sooner than it otherwise would.

  • Protect contractual commitments

    Some customers have response times written into their contracts, with credits for breaches. Catching late tickets quickly reduces the number of breaches that cost you money or renewals. Credits and lost renewals are avoidable.

  • See who is overloaded

    If overdue tickets cluster on one agent, the alert shows it. A manager can rebalance the queue the same day rather than waiting for the weekly review. Fair distribution helps the whole team.

  • Reduce the end-of-week surprise

    Weekly reports tell you what went wrong after it is too late to fix. An hourly list moves the discovery to the day it happens, so reports show fewer breaches.

  • Build a habit of clearing the late list

    A visible channel list makes lateness a shared problem. Teams that see it every hour tend to clear it faster than teams that see it once a week. Shared visibility creates healthy pressure.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every hour ClickRuntime checks your open Freshdesk tickets against their due-by time.

  2. It picks out the ones that are now past due and skips any it has already warned you about.

  3. For each overdue ticket it looks up the assigned agent and the priority.

  4. You get a Slack direct message listing the ticket number, subject, agent and priority.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Freshdesk

What you get

RunsHourly
Get warned about overdue Freshdesk ticketstoday, 9:00Succeeded
Slack · Direct messagePast due: #5790 Refund not received · Maya · 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 Freshdesk 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.
sla_overdue_alert.pyexample
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify, report_fetched

DOMAIN = "acme"
PRIORITY = {1: "Low", 2: "Medium", 3: "High", 4: "Urgent"}

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    key = credentials.secret("FRESHDESK_API_KEY")
    base = f"https://{DOMAIN}.freshdesk.com/api/v2"
    tickets = http.get(f"{base}/tickets", params={"filter": "new_and_my_open", "per_page": 100},
                       auth=(key, "X")).json()
    now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    alerted = set(state.get("alerted") or [])
    overdue = [t for t in tickets if t["id"] not in alerted
               and datetime.fromisoformat(t["due_by"].replace("Z", "+00:00")) < now]
    report_fetched(len(overdue))
    if not overdue:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    agents = {a["id"]: a["contact"]["name"] for a in http.get(f"{base}/agents", auth=(key, "X")).json()}
    lines = [f"#{t['id']} {t['subject']} · {agents.get(t['responder_id'], 'unassigned')} · {PRIORITY[t['priority']]}"
             for t in overdue]
    notify.slack("Past due:\n" + "\n".join(lines), channel="@me")
    state.set("alerted", list(alerted | {t["id"] for t in overdue})[-1000:])
    return {"overdue": len(overdue)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it use Freshdesk's own SLA settings?
Yes. The due-by time on each ticket comes from the SLA policy you set in Freshdesk, so the alert matches the lateness Freshdesk itself reports. Changing the policy changes which tickets are considered overdue. Policy changes apply right away.
Will it alert again for the same ticket every hour?
By default it can list the ticket on each run until it is resolved. To avoid repeats, the flow can remember tickets it has already posted and mention each one only once, or again after a set number of hours.
Can I include only certain groups or priorities?
Yes. Add a filter, for example priority high or urgent, or a group such as Premium Support. Others stay out of the channel, so the alert is about the tickets you are accountable for. Narrow filters keep the channel useful.
What permissions does it need?
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.

Set up “Get warned about overdue Freshdesk tickets” from your assistant

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