Welcome to Freshdesk! This advanced ticketing product empowers your support teams to deliver timely and consistent support at ANY scale.


To get the most out of Freshdesk, take some time to understand the following concepts:

Your BenefitHow Freshdesk Helps
Channels: Talk to your customers everywhere they are
Manage all your conversations in one placeEvery query from each channel you configure is converted into a ticket.
Let customers contact you however they wantSet up support emails, feedback forms, and more.
Integrate Facebook, WhatsApp, and more.
Let customers stay where they areReplies to tickets are seamlessly sent back through the channel they came from.
Collaboration: Distribute the workload among your team
Control access for each of your team membersAdd team members as Agents, sort them into Groups, give each a Role, and define their Scope.
Understand a customer's request easilyCustomize your Ticket Forms and Fields to standardize the request and add helpful metadata.
Set your company's standards for excellenceDefine your Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Business Hours.
Make mundane tasks easierCreate pre-defined replies with Canned Responses and run macros with Scenarios.
Seamlessly integrate with other tools and productsExplore the Apps in the Freshdesk Marketplace.
Automation: Reduce labor and maintenance
Intelligently assign tickets to agentsUse Automatic Ticket Assignment to distribute tickets equally or based on the agent's workload or skills.
Automate repetitive tasksDefine Automation Rules that run when tickets are created or updated, or at hourly intervals.
Freddy: Leverage the power of AI
Get personalized suggestions and optimizationsUse Freddy AI across Freshdesk to make your agents' lives easier.


Of course, Freshdesk can do a LOT more...

...but we recommend you take your time. Set up features as you need them.

Order of setup

Each step below is linked to a detailed step-by-step guide. If you're unsure, follow our recommendations in order. If you're confident, choose the steps that best suit your business.

Minimal setup—start like a small team

  1. Configure your support email.
    • When you sign up, Freshdesk creates a default support email for you. We recommend modifying it.
  2. Add your support team as Agents. You may want to review the following articles:
  3. Train your agents to handle tickets. These 3 articles will get them started:
  4. Start with an Overview of Automation Rules, and explore the three types to set up rules that work for your business. You can also explore Automatic Ticket Assignment.
Features mentioned in this sectionPlan availability
Support email, agents (up to 2), groups, automation rules, default rolesFree and above
Occasional agents, agents (more than 2), ticket scopeGrowth and above
Custom roles, Automatic ticket assignment
Pro and above


With this, your minimal setup is complete! You are now able to receive requests via email, have them automatically assigned to a team member, and respond to the request. Your agents understand how to navigate Freshdesk, manage ticket properties, collaborate on their assigned tickets, and respond to customers.

Intermediate setup—make Freshdesk your own

After you complete the minimal setup, you're ready to start being more professional and setting your standards. You're also ready to customize your Freshdesk portal.

  1. The first thing to do is set your Service Level Agreements. These are the standards of performance you set for your support team.
    1. You'll first want to understand Business Hours and then configure them.
    2. Once you have your business hours defined, start exploring SLAs.
  2. Have a lot of Customers? Import them.
  3. Understand Ticket Fields and modify your Ticket Forms. Forms allow you to add structure to the feedback you receive from customers.
  4. If you talk to customer in other ways, now is the time to set up those Channels.
  5. Ready to brand your support portal? Get started with Portal customization.
  6. At this point, you'll also want to make life easier for your support agents.
  7. You're also ready to start using Freshdesk Analytics. We recommend starting with Curated Reports.
Features mentioned in this sectionPlan availability
Default ticket fields and form, Facebook, Help widget, canned responses, Analytics (curated reports)
Free and above
Business hours, SLAs, Custom ticket fields, multiple forms, WhatsApp, Phone, Portal customization, Scenario automations, time tracking
Growth and above
Multiple business hours, Multiple ticket forms
Pro and above


As you get familiar with these features, remember to revisit the basic setup items and optimize them.


With this, your medium setup is complete! You are now able to talk to your customers in a variety of places, standardize their feedback into tickets, and have enabled your agents to handle those tickets efficiently and meet standards of success. You've also customized your support website to match your brand.

Advanced setup—scaling up, self-service, collaboration, and more

Once you've finished the Medium setup, you are now equipped for everything else. Feel free to explore our Knowledge Base and find features that work for you. We recommend starting with:

  1. Freshdesk Marketplace: explore integrations and expand your toolset.
  2. Create a data structure for anything with Custom Objects.
  3. Leverage Freddy AI to make things easier for your agents.
  4. Enable your customers to self-serve with a Knowledge Base and Community Forums.
  5. Need advanced ticketing support? Explore Collaboration features.
  6. Explore Freshdesk's Analytics suite.
  7. Create more powerful automations with webhooks.
Features mentioned in this sectionPlan availability
Knowledge base, Collaboration (threads)
Free and above
App integrations, webhooks in automation rules
Growth and above
Custom objects, Community forums, Collaboration (other features), Analytics (custom reports)
Pro and above
Freddy AI
Add-on


We won't say that your advanced setup is complete, because more optimization is always possible. However, you're now leveraging the power of Freshdesk to streamline your customer support operations and reducing the load on your support agents. For any other help, contact us any time at support@freshdesk.com!