The ticket form includes a bunch of fields like Requester, Subject, Type, and Description, by default. However, you can customize the ticket form to contain different fields specific to the type of your business or your support process. You can collect customer information that is unique to your business by creating custom fields for these details. 


Note: You can read more about the different types of custom ticket fields here. 


There are different actions that you can do to modify your custom ticket fields: 

  • Creating a custom ticket field 
  • Archiving a custom ticket field 
  • Deleting a custom ticket field 
  • Modifying dynamic sections 


Creating a custom ticket field:

Freshdesk has different kinds of ticket fields that let you capture various types and levels of information. For example, you could use a single-line text field to collect one-line details and you could add drop-down fields to give your customers a list of options to choose from.


     

Custom field type Example use-cases
Single line text Ticket ID, Customer ID
Multiline text Additional descriptions, addresses, notes.
Checkbox Subscriptions, Agreements.
Number Order ID, Phone number, etc.
Dropdown Quantity, Size, etc.
Date Purchase date, complaint date, etc.
Decimal Percentage values
Dependent Fields Country - State - City


Dependent fields are extremely helpful when you need to offer customers up to three levels of options to choose from. You can learn more about it in our solution article here. 


You can also create dynamic sections for your custom dropdown fields so that different sets of fields can appear based on the option a user chooses within the dropdown. You can know more about dynamic sections here.


Understanding ticket field properties:

In addition to adding new fields and rearranging them, you can also define the properties of each field in your ticket form. You can use field properties to control what your agents and your customers see in the ticket form and to manage your workflows better in your helpdesk. 



Here are a bunch of things you can do with your fields:


Behavior What it means
For Agents
Field label Displays name of the field shown to your agents
Required when submitting the form The agent should fill the field before submitting the form
Required when closing the ticket*

The agent should fill the field before closing the ticket
For Customers
Field label Display name of the field shown to your customers
Displayed to customer The customer will be able to see the field but won't be allowed to edit
Customer can edit The customer will be able to see this field and edit the value
Required when submitting the form The customer should fill the field before submitting the form


Field properties work the same way for all your ticket fields and can be easily customized in such a way that your agents get to keep track of information, and customers get to see only what's necessary to them. The lock symbol displayed next to ticket fields indicates that these fields are only visible to the agents and are not visible to the customers.


*When an agent attempts to close tickets without filling in the required fields, they will be prompted to update these fields. Here is how agents can update fields and close tickets in bulk.


Archiving a custom ticket field:

You can archive a ticket field that you created by clicking on Admin > Workflows > Ticket Fields > hover over the respective ticket field that you created and click on the archive icon.



By archiving a ticket field, the ticket field is removed but not permanently deleted from your account. Archiving a ticket field will impact tickets, automation, and reports. You can restore the archived fields later whenever required.

  

A quick guide to archiving ticket fields: 

  1. You will be able to view archived ticket fields under Admin > Workflows > Ticket fields. 
  2. You will not be able to archive a ticket field that is under a section. 

  3. To archive a field associated with a section, you have to remove the related ticket field from the section.


Archiving ticket fields will impact the following:

  • Automation rules: When a ticket field is archived, the automation rules that are using this field will no longer work as expected. The condition containing the ticket field will be skipped from the automation. However, you can restore the field and add it back to the automation if you want to perform the automation.
  • Reports: The archived fields will not appear in filters. However, you will be able to restore them and access historical data when you restore them.
  • Ticket views: You will no longer be able to view archived ticket fields or related historical information in the search filters until you restore them.  


Deleting a custom ticket field: 

To delete a ticket field that you created, hover over the custom ticket field and click on the trash icon.



However, deleting a custom ticket field is an irreversible action where you will not be able to retrieve them. We recommend you to use the archive option if you are not sure about whether the field will be needed later.


Deleting your ticket fields will impact: 


Note: The default ticket fields (with the label 'Default') in Freshdesk can not be deleted/removed since they are a part of every ticket in Freshdesk, and will be used by your agents extensively as they try to resolve issues. However, you will be able to hide these default ticket fields. Read more about Default ticket fields here. 


Modifying ticket fields in dynamic sections: 

Modifying custom ticket fields will display the same behavior as custom ticket fields. In this section, we will discuss the different ways to modify a dynamic section. 

  • You can delete or archive a section by clicking on the trash/archive icon next to its name. Please note that you won't be able to delete a section unless you delete the fields under each section.
  • You cannot create a new field with an existing field name. If you want to create a field that has already been created under a section, you have to copy/move it to your new section.
  • You can move or copy fields from one section to another by dragging and dropping them in the target section.
    • Moving a field from the source section to the target section will remove the occurrence of that field in the source section and will move it to the target section. 
    • Copying a ticket field from the source section into the target section will retain the occurrence of that field in the source and will merely add a copy of it into the target section. Copying will not create a new instance of the field. You can copy a field when you want to use the same field in multiple sections. 
  • Once you have customized the form, your agents and customers will see the new dynamic form when they create a ticket.