The SweetHawk Timers app supports swapping an active timer instead of starting a brand-new timer from zero. This is useful when ticket priorities change and you want the elapsed time to continue counting toward the new timer definition.
For example, if a ticket was originally using a “Low Priority” timer and later changes to “High Priority”, the new timer can continue from the existing elapsed time rather than restarting.
How It Works
To enable timer swapping, update the webhook action in your timer start trigger and add a new parameter called:
identifier
The value can be any label you choose, as long as the timers you want to swap between use the same identifier:
When another timer start trigger runs on the same ticket using the same identifier, the existing timer will be swapped to the new timer definition instead of creating an additional timer.
Recommended Setup
Your existing timer start triggers and conditions should remain the same. The only change required is adding the identifier parameter to the webhook action.
Adding the identifier now ensures the timer can be swapped later if needed. Timers that are started without an identifier cannot be switched to another timer definition later.
To automatically swap timers when priorities or workflows change, create an additional Zendesk trigger that:
- Detects the change (such as a priority update) within the trigger conditions
- Starts the new timer definition (copy the parameters from your start trigger such as timer_id and operation)
- Uses the same
identifiervalue
When the new timer starts with the same identifier on the same ticket, the existing timer will be switched instead of creating a separate timer.
Important Notes
- Timer swapping only occurs on the same ticket
- The
identifiervalue must match between the timers - If no matching identifier is found, a new timer will be created as usual
- You can use any identifier naming convention that makes sense for your workflow