Rousewell: setup and user guide

What Rousewell does

Rousewell brings tickets back to you at the right time. From the ticket sidebar you can set a reminder on a ticket, snooze a ticket until a date, or schedule a follow-up ticket. When something comes due you get a pop-up in Zendesk, it shows in the Rousewell inbox in the top bar, and, if you chose to, the ticket reopens and its assignee gets an email.

Install

1. In the Zendesk Marketplace, open Rousewell and choose Install. Choose the Standard plan; the 14-day trial starts and Zendesk asks for a card. Billing starts when the trial ends unless you uninstall.
2. Reload Zendesk once as an admin. Rousewell creates four automations named "Rousewell: due follow-ups (...)" in your account. They are what fires follow-ups when nobody is signed in. If the Rousewell top-bar panel says "Unattended firing is not set up yet", click Finish setup there (admins only).
3. Recommended: turn on the On-hold status (Admin Center > Objects and rules > Ticket statuses). Snoozed tickets and waiting follow-up tickets then sit On-hold. Without it they wait as Pending.
4. Optional: restrict the app to roles or groups (Admin Center > Apps and integrations > Zendesk Support apps > Rousewell > Role restrictions).
5. Optional settings (same page):
   • Start of the working day (default 09:00): the time used by quick picks such as "Tomorrow 9:00" and "Monday 9:00", in each agent's own time zone.
   • Email the assignee by default: pre-ticks the email option on new follow-ups.
   • Note on the original ticket when a follow-up ticket is scheduled.
   • Copy tags to follow-up tickets by default.

What Rousewell adds to your account:

Rousewell hides its two fields in the ticket. Leave them off your ticket forms and do not edit them by hand; use the sidebar.

Set a reminder

1. Open the ticket. In the Rousewell sidebar, click Remind me.
2. Pick a time: In 1 hour, In 3 hours, Tomorrow 9:00, Monday 9:00, In 1 week, In 2 weeks, In 1 month, or Pick a date for any date and time. Times are in your Zendesk time zone. The line under the picker says exactly when it comes back, and the latest time Zendesk itself acts on it if nobody is signed in.
3. Optional: a note (what to do), who it is for (you or the ticket's assignee), Set the ticket to Open when it is due, Cancel it if the customer replies first, and Email the ticket's assignee when it is due.
4. Click Set reminder. A ticket can hold up to 20 follow-ups.

Snooze a ticket

1. Click Snooze, pick when the ticket should come back, and add a note if you like.
2. Choose how it waits: On-hold (recommended) or Pending (waiting on the customer).
3. Click Snooze. The ticket's status changes now; at the time you picked it is set to Open and, if ticked, the assignee is emailed.

A snooze ends early, and the ticket will not reopen later, when the customer replies (the ticket opens at once) or when an agent changes the status to Open or Solved. To end it yourself, click Wake now.

Schedule a follow-up ticket

1. Click Schedule a follow-up ticket. This works on any ticket, including solved and closed ones.
2. Pick the date, check the subject, assignee and group, write the internal note the new ticket opens with, and choose whether it copies this ticket's tags.
3. Click Create follow-up ticket. The new ticket is created now, On-hold (or Pending), with the same requester, and an internal note, so nobody is emailed. The original ticket gets an internal note with the new number (if that setting is on).
4. On its date the follow-up ticket is set to Open, and the assignee is emailed if ticked. Click Release now on it to open it early.

Follow-up tickets carry the tags rousewell_followup and rousewell_from_<original number>. The view "Rousewell: scheduled follow-up tickets" lists the ones still waiting. Because they exist from the moment you schedule them, Zendesk counts them as created on that day in reports.

When a follow-up comes due

• The Rousewell inbox (the circular-arrow icon in the top bar) lists your follow-ups across all tickets, due ones first. Done removes one; 1 hour later and Tomorrow move it.
• A pop-up appears in Zendesk when one of yours comes due while you are signed in.
• In the ticket sidebar, due follow-ups are highlighted with the same Done, 1 hour later and Tomorrow buttons.
• The shared view Rousewell: follow-ups due lists every ticket with a due follow-up that nobody has marked done.

How firing works (and its timing)

Rousewell has no server. Two things fire follow-ups, and they agree with each other, so a follow-up never fires twice:

1. While someone is signed in. An invisible part of Rousewell runs in every agent's Zendesk tab. The agent a follow-up is for fires it at the minute it is due; if they are not signed in, anyone else with Rousewell open fires it about 10 minutes later.
2. When nobody is signed in. The four Rousewell automations run in your Zendesk every hour. Zendesk compares date fields by calendar day in UTC, so Rousewell gives each follow-up the first UTC midnight at or after its due time. An unattended follow-up therefore fires during the first hour after that midnight: never early, and at most about a day late. In the Americas that is the early evening; in Europe the small hours. The sidebar shows this time before you save.

Follow-ups on the same ticket that fall on later days are re-armed by the next agent session after the first one fires. Zendesk automations act on at most 1,000 tickets an hour and do not run on closed tickets.

Limits

• Up to 20 follow-ups per ticket; notes up to 500 characters; up to a year ahead.
• One snooze per ticket at a time.
• A closed ticket cannot be changed, so it cannot hold reminders or snoozes. Schedule a follow-up ticket instead.
• Light agents and roles that cannot edit tickets cannot set follow-ups.

Uninstalling

Uninstall in Admin Center. Zendesk removes the two fields (with every follow-up stored in them), the four triggers and the two views. Then delete the four "Rousewell: due follow-ups (...)" automations (Admin Center > Objects and rules > Automations); they only act on tickets that still carry the app's tags, but they are yours to remove. Follow-up tickets already created stay, like any ticket, and the rousewell_ tags stay on tickets until you remove them.

Data

Rousewell runs in your browser inside Zendesk, calls only your Zendesk account as you, and keeps nothing outside Zendesk. Each follow-up is stored on its own ticket. See the privacy policy: https://greatwork.company/apps/rousewell/privacy.

Help

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