Recipe: Scheduling a ticket to reopen at a specific time

What's my plan?

You can schedule a ticket to automatically reopen by combining several Zendesk features. This workflow allows your agents to put a ticket into the On-hold status and utilize the Due date field on the ticket to specify when it should be reopened.

Workflow overview

1. Agent applies a macro that adds a tag, sets the ticket status to On-hold, and changes ticket type to Task
2. Agent selects the date that they want the ticket to reopen from the Due date field
3. Agent submits ticket
4. Automation runs on the selected date and changes the ticket status back to Open

To achieve this workflow, set up the following:

• Step 1: Add an On-hold status
• Step 2: Create a macro for your agents
• Step 3: Create the automation

Step 1: Add an On-hold status

By default, the On-hold status is not active on your account. If you have not done so already, navigate to Admin Center to add an On-hold ticket status.

Step 2: Create a macro for your agents

A macro helps your agents adhere to the workflow and ensure that ticket properties are set accurately. The most important aspect of the macro will be adding a tag that the automation will use to identify the tickets it needs to run on. This differentiates it from other Task tickets in your account where you do not need the automation to run. You can use whatever tag makes sense for your business. In this example, we use the tag schedule_reopen.

To create the macro

1. Navigate to Admin Center, and add a macro
2. Add a Macro name and Description
3. Under Actions, select:
   • Type | Task
   • Ticket status | On-hold
   • Add tags | enter a custom tag
4. Click Create

Step 3: Create the automation

The final step in achieving this workflow is to create an automation. It uses the Due date field, tag, and ticket status created in the previous steps to identify the tickets it needs to run on.

To create the automation

1. Navigate to Admin Center, and add an automation
2. Add an Automation title
3. Under Meet all the following conditions, select:
   • Ticket: Status category | Is | On-hold
   • Ticket: Type | Is | Task
   • Ticket: Tags | Contains at least one of the following | enter the tag you used in step 2
   • Ticket: Hours since due date | (calendar) Great than | 0 
4. Click Create automation 

Contributed by community member Ahmed Zaid.
For the original conversation, see this post: How to snooze a ticket.