Can I notify an agent if more than "n" hours passed since the client made an update?

Question

How can I notify an agent if more than "n" hours passed since the client made an update on the ticket?

Answer

To notify an agent if more than a specific number of hours passed since the client made an update on the ticket, you need to create an automation. In the use case of this article, we need to email the ticket assignee if it passed more than six hours since the requester made an update. Additionally, we don't want to email the ticket assignee if the ticket was created by the agent on behalf of the requester.

To create this workflow

1. Create a trigger that tags tickets with agent_created tag when a ticket is created by an agent on behalf of a customer.
2. Add the following conditions under Meet all of the following conditions:
   
   • Ticket Is Created
   • Current user Is (agent)
     
3. Add the following condition under Actions:
   
   • Add tags agent_created
     
     
4. Create an automation by going to Admin > Business Rules > Automations > Add automation.
5. Add the following conditions under Meet all of the following conditions:
   • Ticket: Hours since requester update > Greater than > 6
   • Ticket: Tags > Contains none of the following > agent_created 6hr
   • Ticket: Status > Less than > Closed
     
6. Add the following conditions under Perform these actions:
   
   • Ticket: Add tags 6hr 6hr_reminder
     The first time this automation fires, the tag 6hr is added to the ticket. This way we prevent the automation from firing again each following hour. The tag 6hr_reminder can be leveraged in reporting to see how often this happened.
     
   • Notifications: Email user (assignee)
     Fill in the Email subject and Email body accordingly.
     
7. Create another trigger to remove the agent_created and 6hr tags from a ticket when the requester makes an update. This trigger resets the clock if the requester updates the ticket, so the agent gets notified after six hours pass.
8. Add the following conditions under Meet all of the following conditions:
   • Ticket > Is > Updated
   • Status > Changed to > Open
   • Current user > Is not > (agent)
     
     
9. Add the following conditions under Actions:
   
   • Remove tags agent_created 6hr
     

 For more workflows with automations, see Workflow recipe: Sending automated ticket reminders to customers.