Response timer triggers

[AlexOnTheHill]

Hello,

I have a team who would like to mark the response timer based on when an email is sent to the user.

In principal this is quite easy and I built the workflow with a suspend node, stage checkpoint and response timer set when an email is sent.

In practice this isn't quite so easy because not 100% of their emails require an email to be sent and any request that doesn't have an email sent will not get a response timer.

I cannot set two suspend nodes in series as that will require both a response and an assignment, I cannot set the suspend nodes in parallel as parallel nodes require all conditions to be met.

How am I able to suspend pending email or assignment, whichever is first?

[AlexOnTheHill]

Any recommendations would be appreciated, thank you.

[Steve Giller]

How do you decide whether an email is required?

[AlexOnTheHill]

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you, I will find out what the decider is here, perhaps you're thinking that I can factor that decider into a decision node in the workflow which is a good idea.

I will see if that is something I can do with the team.

I think the team most likely need me to look at the possibility of having a suspend node with multiple conditions - ie suspend pending email, phone call or email not suspend pending email, phone call and email. I would imagine having that facility would greatly help users mark a response.

[AlexOnTheHill]

Would it be possible to advise whether what I have proposed is possible?

Could it be considered as an enhancement request or is there a way to achieve this with the system as it is?

I have asked about the reason for email/call response and it is very much on a case by case basis, I could make a custom button perhaps but the ability to say mark first response if a phonecall or email is sent would make more sense, I feel.

[AlexOnTheHill]

Would it be possible to propose this as an enhancement request please?

[AlexOnTheHill]

Is this proposal possible? I think this is something that many workflows could benefit from.

[AlexOnTheHill]

Any advice would be helpful

[AlexOnTheHill]

Just checking in, could someone advise whether what I am looking for is possible?

[Steve Giller]

On 12/02/2024 at 10:53, AlexOnTheHill said:

I have a team who would like to mark the response timer based on when an email is sent to the user

This is possible.

On 12/02/2024 at 10:53, AlexOnTheHill said:

How am I able to suspend pending email or assignment, whichever is first?

This is not possible.

If you can identify whether an email is required or not within the Workflow, you can branch on that and have two separate (unconnected) Suspend nodes, but you cannot wait for "whichever comes first"

This is really about the Team requesting this defining how they decide whether an email is required and ensuring this is measurable by the Workflow. If they can't do that, they can't have the feature, unfortunately.

[AlexOnTheHill]

Thank you Steve. I'm glad I understand things correctly.

While a workflow can dictate what counts as a first response I think agents will always consider that any response is a first response, be it email, call or simply the notification that the request is assigned to an agent. I am aware that colleagues have fashioned a workaround where they have set either an activity or custom button to define a value which marks a first response so I may explore that option. I would still like it considered as an enhancement request that the system allow any first response to mark the first response timer.

[Steve Giller]

On 17/04/2024 at 09:33, AlexOnTheHill said:

I think agents will always consider that any response is a first response

Being pedantic - this is a policy decision for each Organisation to make and agree with their stakeholders.

In my previous life, we determined that a "meaningful" response was required, and defined that as being a human interaction - phone call, face-to-face, or email but excluding any automated "Your request has been accepted/assigned" etc. interactions.
If I remember correctly we stipulated that any non-email first response had to be followed up with an email summarising the interaction so we had a concrete record (for other reasons than progressing the Request) but that meant we never faced the "whichever comes first" scenario.

Based on your last reply, a Human Task with an "I responded via email/phone/visit/other" option would work, but I appreciate that might be viewed as an extra click by the analysts.

[AlexOnTheHill]

I don't think it's pedantic to point that out at all, I probably oversimplified the point I was trying to make.

You're absolutely right that stakeholders would need to agree what counts as a first response.

I think what I'm trying to highlight is that it would be helpful if we could have a suspend node which allows for the inclusion of any/all of the first interactions rather than the current mechanism which only allows for one method. A human task seems the workaround for that. My challenge with human tasks is agents familiarity with that workflow and the volume of activities that would generate as they would necessarily be generated for all requests.

I think a suspend node which would wait for an event to trigger the response timer must allow for any type of response unless stakeholders agreed x type of request will only be dealt with by email or y request is only dealt with by phone call and that doesn't really match with my experience with dealing with requests.

I will propose we look at human tasks and ask that the option to select multiple conditions be considered for an enhancement.