Zendesk Due Date Field

Due date is a system ticket field in Zendesk that appears when the ticket type is set to Task. It can be used to power triggers, automations, reporting and more within Zendesk. There is no time field in Zendesk, and the due date is set to 12pm in the timezone of the user who sets it. Next, we will summarize the main locations where due date can be used inside of Zendesk.

Views

Due date can be used in Zendesk views. To learn more about views, please refer to the Zendesk documentation here.

Conditions, with the following two calculations:

• Hours since due date
• Hours until due date

It is important to keep in mind that the timezone that was used when setting the due date will affect the amount of hours needed to meet the conditions in the view.  We recommend testing this out thoroughly to make sure that the calculations meet your expectations.

Due date can also be added as a column in the Formatting options section

Lastly, due date can be used in the Group by and Order By settings.

Macros

By default, due date is not a field available for use in Zendesk macros; however, you can use the Extended Macros app created by Eastern Logic on the Zendesk marketplace in order to set the due date field.

Dynamic Content

The due date placeholder can be used within dynamic content, which itself can be used in various locations around Zendesk, including macros, triggers, and automations.  See here for more information about dynamic content.

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Due date is not currently available as an option in SLAs.

Triggers

Due date can be used as a condition in triggers with the following options:

• Due date is Present
• Due date is not Present

Due date is not available as an action within triggers, with the exception of using it as a placeholder in appropriate actions.

Automations

Due date can be used as a condition in Automations with the options available listed below:

• Hours since due date
  
  • (calendar) Less than
  • (calendar) Greater than
  • (calendar) Is
  • (business) Less than
  • (business) Greater than
  • (business) Is
• Hours until due date
  • (calendar) Less than
  • (calendar) Greater than
  • (calendar) Is
  • (business) Less than
  • (business) Greater than
  • (business) Is

Support Placeholders

Due date can be used as a placeholder in macros, triggers, automations, and dynamic content.  See here for more information about Support Placeholders. The two placeholder options are:

• {{ticket.due_date}} - which displays a date such as May-18
• {{ticket.due_date_with_timestamp}} - which displays an iso8601 date/time string, such as 2013-12-12T05:35+0100

Omnichannel Routing

Due date can be used as a condition when creating a queue in Omnichannel Routing.  The options available are to check whether a due date is present or not.

Help Centre

Due date does not appear to be a field type that can be made end-user visible in the Help Centre.

Reporting

Due date can be used in Explore reporting in a variety of formats, including date, month, year and more.

Commonly Encountered Limitations

Considered by many Zendesk users to be missing important functionality, various workarounds have been devised to bridge the gap.  Some of the more common use cases and their solutions are provided below.

Set Due Date Automatically when Ticket is Submitted

As requested in this post, many users have noted that the options available for triggers and automations provide no way to automatically set the due date. For that reason, the following workarounds have been proposed.

1. Create a custom date field to replace the due date field.  This can then be used in many of the same situations as the due date field, with a few notable differences.  Please see here for a guide about using custom date fields instead of the due date field, and see here for a description of the main differences in the due date and custom date fields.
2. Use triggers or automations to fire a Zendesk Webhook to set the date field.  See here for a tutorial about setting up webhooks for this purpose.
3. Use a Zendesk app or integration. There are several third-party apps available to do this, and it is also possible to build a private app or integration to meet this need.  Please see this article for a brief overview of some of the available apps.