## Introduction
For customer support teams, meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is critical to maintaining customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Zendesk offers SLA Timers that automatically trigger escalations when a support ticket receives no reply within a specified timeframe. However, these SLA features contribute significantly to Zendesk’s cost, especially for startups and growing companies aiming to optimize expenses.
In this article, we’ll show how to build a robust, cost-effective SLA timer and escalation workflow using **n8n**, an open-source automation tool. This automation is designed for support teams, automation engineers, and operations specialists who want to monitor ticket reply times and trigger escalations without relying on paid SLA features in Zendesk.
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## What Problem Does This Solve?
Zendesk SLA Timers automatically track response times and escalate tickets that remain unattended beyond defined thresholds. For companies wanting SLA management but not the extra Zendesk fees, this automation:
– Automates tracking of reply times on tickets
– Triggers timely escalations via email, Slack, or other channels when a ticket is overdue
– Frees teams from manual monitoring and reduces risk of SLA breaches
– Integrates with existing Zendesk workflows using its Open API
**Beneficiaries:** Support managers, automation engineers, startup CTOs, and any tech teams looking to scale support operations affordably and reliably.
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## Tools and Services Integrated
– **Zendesk API:** To fetch ticket updates and post comments/escalations
– **n8n:** To orchestrate the workflow and perform the SLA timer logic
– **Slack / Email (optional):** To send escalation notifications
– **Cron Trigger:** To periodically check ticket statuses
## Workflow Overview
1. **Trigger:** A scheduled cron job runs every X minutes.
2. **Get Tickets:** Fetch open tickets from Zendesk via API.
3. **Filter Tickets:** Identify tickets with no agent reply or update past the SLA threshold.
4. **Notify/Escalate:** Post escalation comments in Zendesk and/or notify stakeholders via Slack or email.
5. **Update Ticket Fields (optional):** Mark tickets as escalated to avoid repeat alerts.
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## Step-by-step Technical Tutorial
### Prerequisites
– An n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
– Zendesk API credentials (API token or OAuth)
– Slack webhook URL or email SMTP configured in n8n (if you want notifications)
### Step 1: Setup n8n Cron Trigger
– Add a **Cron node** to run every 10 minutes (adjust your SLA urgency).
### Step 2: Fetch Open Tickets from Zendesk
– Add an **HTTP Request node** to call Zendesk’s List Tickets API:
– Method: GET
– URL: `https://your_subdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets.json?status=open`
– Authentication: Use your Zendesk API token (Basic Auth or headers)
– This retrieves all open tickets.
**Tip:** Use pagination if you expect many tickets.
### Step 3: Get Ticket Comments to Check Last Agent Reply
– Add a **Set node** to iterate ticket IDs from previous node.
– Add another HTTP Request node in **For Each** mode to fetch ticket comments:
– URL: `https://your_subdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ $json.id }}/comments.json`
– Parse comments to find the most recent agent reply timestamp.
### Step 4: Calculate SLA Breach
– Add a **Function node** to:
– Compare the timestamp of the last agent reply to current datetime.
– Check if elapsed time exceeds your SLA threshold (e.g., 30 minutes).
– Output tickets that are overdue.
### Sample Function Node Code:
“`javascript
const slaMinutes = 30;
const now = new Date();
const lastAgentReply = new Date($json.lastAgentReply); // from comments
const diffMinutes = (now – lastAgentReply) / (1000 * 60);
if (diffMinutes > slaMinutes) {
return [
{
json: {
ticketId: $json.id,
overdueBy: diffMinutes
}
}
];
} else {
return [];
}
“`
### Step 5: Escalate Overdue Tickets
– Use an **HTTP Request node** to add an internal comment on Zendesk ticket:
– POST to `https://your_subdomain.zendesk.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ $json.ticketId }}.json`
– Payload:
“`json
{
“ticket”: {
“comment”: {“body”: “⚠️ SLA breached: No reply for over {{ $json.overdueBy.toFixed(0) }} minutes. Escalating support.”, “public”: false}
}
}
“`
– Optionally, add a **Slack node** or **Email node** to alert your support team.
### Step 6: Mark Tickets as Escalated
– To prevent repetitive escalations, update or add a custom ticket field indicating escalation status.
– In Step 5, include this update in the ticket payload.
### Optional Improvements:
– Add error handling in HTTP Request nodes to retry or log failures.
– Store last processed timestamp in workflow metadata or external DB to optimize API calls.
– Add webhook triggers on ticket updates for near real-time SLA monitoring instead of polling.
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## Common Errors and Tips
– **Rate Limits:** Zendesk API has rate limits; paginate requests and add delays if necessary.
– **Time Zones:** All datetime comparisons should account for timezone differences—use UTC consistently.
– **API Authentication Failures:** Ensure your API token or credentials are valid and have correct permissions.
– **Avoid Duplicate Escalations:** Use ticket tags or custom fields to mark already escalated tickets.
– **Testing:** Start with a low frequency cron and test carefully on non-critical tickets.
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## Scaling and Adaptation
– **Add Multi-tier SLAs:** Create different escalation tiers (e.g., first notification at 30 mins, second at 60).
– **Integrate Multiple Channels:** Add escalation notifications in multiple places like SMS, Microsoft Teams, or PagerDuty.
– **Dashboarding:** Push ticket SLA statuses to a Google Sheet or BI tool for live monitoring.
– **Dynamic SLAs:** Pull SLA thresholds from ticket metadata (priority, customer type) for intelligent escalations.
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## Summary
Replacing Zendesk’s SLA timers with a custom n8n workflow empowers your team to retain fine-grained SLA management at a fraction of the cost. By periodically polling Zendesk tickets, checking last agent replies, and escalating overdue tickets systematically, this approach maintains strong operational oversight without vendor lock-in.
### Bonus Tip
Combine this SLA escalation system with n8n’s webhook nodes for Zendesk updates to further reduce API polling frequency and react instantly to ticket changes. This hybrid polling/webhook approach enhances efficiency and scalability.
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Feel free to clone and modify this workflow to suit your unique SLA policies and notification preferences, making your support team’s process both cost-effective and high quality.