Why did an automation stop firing for some of the tickets?

Question

I am using an automation with the Hours since | is condition. Why did it stop firing for some of the tickets?

Answer

This problem arises because the Hours since | Is condition is very restrictive. Automations run every hour but not necessarily top-of-the-hour or at the same time each hour. For example, you can have a condition in which tickets were assigned 5 hours ago. If you assign the ticket at 10:03, and the automation fires at 15:01, then the ticket was only assigned 4 hours and 58 minutes ago and the automation isn't yet true. If the next time the automation fires is 16:06, then the ticket was assigned 6 hours and 3 minutes ago, and the condition fails again.

To avoid this issue, we recommend using Hours since | Greater than because it offers a bigger time window in which the condition is valid.

However, you must also define a nullifying condition or action to ensure Greater than conditions are true only once for a ticket.

For more information, see these articles:

Using "Hours since...is" conditions

Understanding when automation actions fire