Manage Contact and Company Fields

Modified on: Mon, 1 Dec, 2025 at 11:44 AM

Signup Date: After June 2022

You can store and manage Contact and Company information along with communication history across multiple channels.

Before you begin

This article is the first in a series about Managing your Customers.

Manage Contact and Company Fields—understand contacts, companies, and their respective fields.
Manage Contact and Company Data—understand how to create, edit, delete, and manage contacts and companies.
Add filters to segment Contact and Company Data—filter and group customers and create automations and self service for them.

About Contacts and Companies

In Freshdesk Omni, your customers are represented as Contacts and Companies.

A Contact is a single person, identified by their email address. Contacts in Freshdesk are of two types:
- Identified Contact: An identified contact is a user with a valid contactable identity, such as an email address, phone number, Instagram username, or Twitter handle. Freshdesk Omni automatically creates a contact for every new user with a contactable identity when they send an email or submit a ticket through any supported channel.
- Visitor Contact: A Visitor is someone who chats via Web Chat on your website/app without logging in. Freshdesk Omni assigns them a unique ID so agents can track their history across sessions. Visitors appear as Contacts with a Visitor tag on them and are tracked at a device level. You can convert Visitors to Contacts when you add their email or any other contactable identity details.

Note: You can also use Contact Type (Identified Contact or Visitor) as a condition in SLA policies and Automation rules to customize how tickets are prioritized and routed.

A Company is a group of contacts from the same organization. Freshdesk Omni automatically associates contacts with a company based on their registered domain name.

For both, Freshdesk Omni provides a list of default fields. If you're on paid plans, you can also create custom fields.

Manage Contact and Company fields

Customer information is captured in a number of fields in both contacts and companies. If you're on the Growth plan or above, you can also create custom fields to capture specific information relevant to your business.

Default Contact and Company fields

To view the contact fields, go to Admin > Support Operations > Contact Fields.
Similarly, to view Company fields, go to Admin > Support Operations > Company Fields.

Each default field is described below:

Tab	Field	Description
Contacts	Full name	Single-line text. The primary name field for the contact.
	Title	Single-line text. Use for a position or role.
	Email	Single-line text with validation. The primary email address for the contact
	Mobile phone	Number with validation. 1 of 2 phone fields for the contact. You can disable uniqueness for this field if you want to allow multiple contacts to share the same mobile number. Once disabled, no validation error will be shown when agents add duplicate numbers, which can be useful for shared numbers (e.g., family contacts or office reception lines). We recommend storing shared numbers in the Work phone field.
	Work phone	Number with validation. 1 of 2 phone fields for the contact. This is a non-unique field.
	Other phone numbers	Dropdown field for additional phone numbers. Modify it to add labels for phone number type (such as "US Office" and "India Office"). When this field is marked as unique, agents will see a validation error if they try to create or update a contact with a duplicate number. This helps maintain clean data when you track multiple phone numbers (e.g., work and personal) for each contact.
	Social handle ID	Stores the unique identifier of a contact’s social media profile (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). It’s automatically populated when a contact interacts via a social channel (like Facebook Messenger or Instagram). This field helps map all conversations from the same social profile to a single contact record to maintain context.
	External ID	A single-line text field to store an ID from another system (e.g., CRM account number) for easy reference and integration.
	Company	Dropdown field to hold a Company added to your Freshdesk. By default, this field accepts multiple companies. Modify to change this behavior.
	Address	Multi-line text. The primary address for the contact.
	Time zone	Dropdown. The time zone of the contact. Only modifiable on paid plans.
	Language	Dropdown. The language of the contact. Only modifiable on paid plans.
	Tags	Dropdown with validation. Tags you've added to your account. Learn more.
	About	Multi-line text. A description of the contact.
Companies	Company Name	Single-line text. This is the primary name field for the company. By default, it is a unique field.
	Description	Multi-line text. A description of the company.
	Notes	Multi-line text. You can add additional details for the company.
	Domains for this company	A special multi-input field to hold email domains for the company.
	Health score	Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the customer relationship.
	Account tier	Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the contract tier.
	Renewal date	Paid plans only. A date field to serve as a reminder for contract renewal.
	Industry	Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the customer industry.
	External ID	A unique field to prevent duplicate records. For example, Account Number or Business ID or GSTIN ID. This field is optional by default and cannot be marked as non-unique.

Enabling Include fields not displayed to agents on the top will display all the fields including the ones hidden for agents.

Field properties

Edit fields

To edit a field, click on it. This opens the field properties in a dialog as displayed below. Make the required changes and click Save field.

When editing a field, you have the following options:

Label for agents: The name of the field on the agent portal.
Label for customers: The name of the field on the customer portal.
Behavior for agents: Field properties that you can define for the agent:
1. Display to agents: Display to agents: Controls whether a field is visible in the agent interface (such as contact creation forms, the contact details page, or the edit contact form). If turned off, agents won’t see the field anywhere in the UI.

Note:

Fields hidden from agents can still be used by admins in workflows, contact/company segments, and other backend configurations.
Hidden fields remain available through exports and APIs.
To manage such fields, admins can use the dedicated toggle under Contact Fields or Company Fields.

Agents can edit: If this is enabled, agents can change the value of this field. If disabled (read-only), agents can only view the field but can’t modify it.
Agents can view this as a quick-add field: Some fields are deemed frequently used; these can be marked “Quick-Add” so that they appear in a simpler or shorter version of the form (so agents don’t have to scroll through all fields).
Required when submitting the form: When agents fill out a form (new contact, edit contact, etc.), this field must be filled in before saving. If left empty by the agent, the form will not submit.

Note: Required fields will automatically be added as a quick-add field.

Behavior for customers: Field properties that you can define for the customer:
1. Display to customer: Whether this field is visible to customers in any customer-facing form (e.g. sign-up, profile page). If off, customers won’t see this field at all.
2. Customer can edit: If the field is visible, this determines if the customer can change its value (edit it), or only view it (if not editable).
3. Customer can see this when they Sign up: Whether the field is shown in the initial sign-up or registration form. If yes, they’ll see it when creating their account; if no, it shows up later (in Profile Settings).
4. Required when submitting the form: If displayed in a form (sign-up or otherwise), this field must be filled by the customer before the form can be submitted. If left empty or skipped, they won’t be able to proceed.

Note: Unlike Contact fields, the properties of Company fields are not visible to customers.

Delete fields

When you click on a customer or contact field, you can delete the field by clicking the bin icon.
Note: You can only delete custom fields, not default fields.

Custom Contact and Company fields

Note: Custom fields are available from the Growth plan onwards.

If you need additional customer information, you can create custom fields for both Contacts and Companies. You can create the following types of fields:

Field Type	Description
Single-line Text	A text field. If you enable “Unique,” agents won’t be able to create or update a contact/company with a duplicate value. You can add a maximum of two custom unique fields for both the contact and company modules.
Multi-line Text	Accept long text. Suitable for addresses, background information, and other descriptions.
Checkbox	Accept a true or false value. Suitable for getting permissions.
Dropdown	Accept a value from a predefined list. Suitable for many different types of inputs.
Date	Accept a date value. Suitable for date of birth, scheduling, etc.
Number	Accept a numeric value. Suitable for zip codes, costs or prices, etc.
Radio button	Allows selecting one option from a small set of predefined choices.
Multi-select	Allows selecting multiple values from a predefined list.
Decimal	Accepts numeric values with decimals. Suitable for costs, prices, and percentages.
Encrypted text	Stores sensitive text in encrypted form (secure fields).
Phone number	Accepts phone numbers. Supports country codes.
URL (Available as a Company field)	Accept a link. Suitable for website links, LinkedIn profiles, etc.

To create a new field:

Go to Admin > Support Operations > Contact Fields > Contacts. To create a custom Company field, go to Admin > Support Operations > Company Fields
Drag and drop a field icon to the list.
Modify the field's properties and click Done.
Reposition your field as required and click Save in the top-right. Your fields are now ready for use.
- Agents can view these fields in the Contact Details widget on a ticket and in the Contacts and Companies pages.
- If the fields are visible to customers, customers can see them in the Customer portal when they signup and when they edit their profile.

Customize requester widget

When agents view a ticket, they can see the requester's details in the Contact Details widget.

As an admin, you can customize the fields that appear in the widget. To do so:

Go to Admin > Support Operations > Contact/Company Fields and click Customize Widget.
In the dialog, modify the fields visible.
1. The Full name, Title, and Company Name fields cannot be removed.
2. Click the minus icon next to a field to remove it.
3. Click the plus icon at the bottom to add an existing Contact or Company field.
4. Review your changes and click Save.

Note: Fields configured as hidden from the agent (when 'Display to agent' is turned off) will be indicated by an invisible icon and will not appear in the requester widget. This is currently not supported on the Mobile app.

Once you've updated your contact and company fields, you can create or import your data. See Manage Customer Data in Freshdesk and Import and Export Data in Freshdesk.

When Webchat is configured, the Requester Widget in the Ticket Details page displays rich contact and visitor details, helping agents understand the customer’s journey before replying.

Requester widget behavior in the Ticket Details page for webchat tickets:
Anonymous visitors reaching you via web chat are shown in the requester widget with a randomly generated guest image, visitor name, and a visitor tag for tracking. The external ID ensures continuity across multiple chats from the same device until the visitor is converted into a contact.

Activity Timeline for Web Chat & Mobile SDK Visitors

For visitors or contacts engaging through Web Chat or the Mobile SDK, Freshdesk Omni captures their activity in the Recent Timeline. This includes page views, article views, and any custom events you’ve configured through the web widget or APIs.

These events occur even before a visitor shares their contact details or is converted into a full contact, providing agents with valuable context about what the visitor has viewed or interacted with before initiating a conversation.

Click Device Information to view the visitor’s browser and version, operating system, current page or URL path, and IP address. It also shows the context of the message (for example, the page where they clicked “Ask a question”).

Session Info displays the page from which the first and last messages in the session were sent, helping agents understand the visitor’s journey before and during the conversation.

Associating a visitor with an existing contact
When a visitor provides information such as a phone number or email address, click Edit on the Requester widget to enter the details. If the contact already exists, click Associate contact to update the existing contact with the new information. The requester widget will then display the contact's information instead of the visitor's. This update happens in real time if shared during an active chat.

Updating a visitor as a new contact
If the details you enter are not in the existing list of Contacts, you can create a new contact directly from the Ticket details page. Click Edit, add the contact details, and then click Update contact to create a new contact. The requester widget will then display the contact's information instead of the visitor's.

Note: You can also click on the Visitor's name in the Requester widget to open the Visitor details page, which displays their past sessions, page views, and custom events. From there, you can associate or create a Contact. If the visitor is already a known contact before reaching chat, the Requester widget will directly display the contact details instead of the visitor placeholder.

Signup Date: Before June 2022

Customer fields in Freshdesk are highly customizable and can represent all your customer data in a bespoke, robust schema.

Applicable Plans

Before you begin

This article is the first in a series about Managing your Customers.

Manage your Customer Data Schema—understand contacts, companies, and their respective fields.
Manage Customer Data in Freshdesk—understand how to create, edit, delete, and manage contacts and companies.
Personalize support using Customer Segments—filter and group customers and create automations and self service for them.

About Contacts and Companies

In Freshdesk, your customers are represented as Contacts and Companies.

A Contact is a single person, identified by their email address. Freshdesk automatically creates a contact for every new user who sends an email or submits a ticket.
A Company is a group of contacts from the same organization. Freshdesk automatically associates contacts with a company based on their registered domain name.

For both, Freshdesk provides a list of default fields. If you're on paid plans, you can also create custom fields.

Manage your schema with customer fields

Customer information is captured in a number of fields in both contacts and companies. If you're on the Growth plan or above, you can also create custom fields to capture specific information relevant to your business.

Default contact and company fields

To view the contact fields, go to Admin > Support Operations > Contact Fields.
Similarly, to view Company fields, go to Admin > Support Operations > Company Fields.

Each field is described below:

Tab	Field	Description
Contacts	Full name	Single-line text. The primary name field for the contact.
	Title	Single-line text. Use for a position or role.
	Email	Single-line text with validation. The primary email address for the contact
	Work phone	Number with validation. 1 of 2 phone fields for the contact.
	Mobile phone	Number with validation. 1 of 2 phone fields for the contact.
	Other phone numbers	Dropdown field for additional phone numbers. Modify it to add labels for phone number type (such as "US Office" and "India Office").
	Twitter	Single-line text. The Twitter ID of the contact.
	Company	Dropdown field to hold a Company added to your Freshdesk. By default, this field accepts multiple companies. Modify to change this behavior.
	Address	Multi-line text. The primary address for the contact.
	Time zone	Dropdown. The time zone of the contact. Only modifiable on paid plans.
	Language	Dropdown. The language of the contact. Only modifiable on paid plans.
	Tags	Dropdown with validation. Tags you've added to your account. Learn more.
	About	Multi-line text. A description of the contact.
	Unique external ID	Single-line text. If you use an ID convention in other tools (such as account numbers), you can represent that same ID here.
Companies	Company Name	Single-line text. The primary name field for the company.
	Description	Multi-line text. A description of the company.
	Notes	Multi-line text. Any additional details for the company.
	Domains for this company	A special multi-input field to hold email domains for the company.
	Health score	Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the customer relationship.
	Account tier	Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the contract tier.
	Renewal date	Paid plans only. A date field to serve as a reminder for contract renewal.
	Industry	Paid plans only. A dropdown field to represent the customer industry.

Field properties

When you hover over a customer or contact field, you can delete the field by clicking the trashcan icon.
Note: You can only delete custom fields, not default fields.

Delete and Edit icons for customer fields.

To edit a field, click on it. This opens the field properties in a dialog as displayed below. Make the required changes and click Save field.

Contact Field	Description
(Behavior for agents) Required when submitting the form	Make a field mandatory for agents.
(Behavior for Customers) Display to customer	Customers can see this field in their profile. Fields that are not visible to customers have a lock icon next to them in the list of fields.
(Behavior for Customers) Customer can edit	Customers can update this field in their profile.
(Behavior for Customers) Customer can see this when they Sign up	Customers can see this field in the signup form.
((Behavior for Customers) Required when submitting the form	Make a field mandatory for customers during signup and while editing their profile.
Label	The name of the field on the agent portal and the customer portal.
(Dropdown choices) Dropdown Items	The choices for a dropdown field.

Note: Unlike Contact fields, the properties of Company fields are not visible to customers.

Custom contact and company fields

Custom fields are available from the Growth plan onwards.

If you need additional customer information, you can create custom fields for both Contacts and Companies. You can create the following types of fields:

Field Type	Description
Single-line Text	Accept a single line of text. Suitable for first names, last names, and other phrases.
Multi-line Text	Accept long text. Suitable for addresses, background information, and other descriptions.
Checkbox	Accept a true or false value. Suitable for getting permissions.
Number	Accept a numeric value. Suitable for zip codes, costs or prices, etc.
Dropdown	Accept a value from a predefined list. Suitable for many different types of inputs.
Phone number	Accept a phone number.
URL	Accept a link. Suitable for website links, Linkedin profiles, etc.
Date	Accept a date value. Suitable for date of birth, scheduling, etc.

To create a new field:

Go to Admin > Support Operations > Contact Fields and select Contacts. To create a custom Company field, go to Admin > Support Operations > Company Fields.
Drag and drop a field icon to the list.
Modify the field's properties and click Done.
Reposition your field as required and click Save in the top-right. Your fields are now ready for use.
- Agents can view these fields in the Contact Details widget on a ticket and in the Contacts and Companies pages.
- If the fields are visible to customers, customers can see them in the Customer portal when they signup and when they edit their profile.

Customize Requester Widget

When agents view a ticket, they can see the requester's details in the Contact Details widget. See Understand the Ticket Details View.

As an admin, you can customize the fields that appear in the widget. To do so:

Go to Admin > Support Operations > Contact/Company Fields and click Customize Requester widget.
In the dialog, modify the fields visible.
1. The Full name, Title, and Company Name fields cannot be removed.
2. Click the minus icon next to a field to remove it.
3. Click the plus icon at the bottom to add an existing Contact or Company field.
4. Review your changes and click Save.

Once you've updated your customer data schema, you can create or import your data. See Manage Customer Data in Freshdesk and Import and Export Data in Freshdesk.