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Feedback from channels such as email and social media tends to be unstructured. However, the feedback form on your support portal allows you to structure the way you receive queries from your customers and agents, potentially making ticket resolution easier.
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About ticket forms and fields
A "ticket form" is a structured feedback channel that consists of a collection of "ticket fields" and an intuitive flow to adding information. A well-constructed ticket form helps a customer or support agent understand exactly what they're looking for, and explain their query well.
A "ticket field" is a piece of metadata that tells you more about a request. For example, the Requester, the Subject, the Source, the Status, and the Priority of a ticket are all ticket fields.
You should review your ticket fields before you construct or modify a ticket form.
Default ticket fields in Freshdesk
Freshdesk comes with a set of default fields. Go to Admin > Workflows > Ticket Fields to view them. You can drag and drop fields to rearrange them and change the order in which they appear on your ticket forms.
| Field Name | Field Type | Field Description |
|---|---|---|
| Search a requester | Single-line text | This is the email address of the requester and is mandatory.
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| Subject | Single-line text | This is the subject line. It provides quick context on the request. |
| Type | Dropdown | Based on your business needs, you can define types of issues that the user must select. For example, you might set up Billing, Error, and Feature Request as types of issues. |
| Source | Dropdown | This field captures where the request came from. See below. |
| Status | Dropdown | This field captures the current state of the ticket. See below. |
| Priority | Dropdown | This field defines the importance of the ticket. |
| Group | Dropdown | This is the agent group to whom the ticket is assigned. |
| Agent | Dropdown | This is the support agent to whom the ticket is assigned. |
| Product | Dropdown | If you have multiple products configured, this field captures which product the ticket is about. |
| Description | Multi-line text | The actual body of the request. |
| Company | Dropdown | This is the respective company to whom the requester is mapped. |
Modify a ticket field
As an admin, you can modify the properties of your ticket fields. Click on a default field to review its properties. Each option is explained below:
| Ticket Field Property | Explanation |
|---|---|
| "Required when submitting the ticket" | Make a field mandatory when submitting a ticket. This can be configured for agents, customers, or both. |
| "Required when closing the ticket" | Make a field mandatory before an agent can close the ticket. Useful to ensure agents add data that is required for analytics and retrospectives. |
| "Can view" | Choose whether a field is visible to a customer in the ticket form. If this property is unchecked, you'll see a crossed-out eye symbol on the field. |
| "Can edit" | Choose whether a customer can provide a value for the field. |
| "Can filter" | (Dropdowns and Dependent fields only) Choose whether a customer can filter by this field's value in their tickets view on your portal. |
| Label for agents | The name of the field in the agent portal (backend). Cannot be modified for default fields. |
| Label for customers | The name of the field in the customer portal (frontend). |
| Choices | (Dropdowns and Dependent fields only) Provide the list of valid options for the field. Be careful while deleting choices, as it affects related tickets, automations, and analytics. |
Default fields cannot be deleted. However, you can hide them from your customers using the "Can view" property. Changes to field properties are reflected on all your portals and forms. To hide fields from your agents, use the Hide/Disable Ticket Fields app.
About the Priority field
The Priority field has 4 values—Low, Medium, High, and Urgent. This field cannot be edited and is hard-coded into our systems because it is directly tied to the SLA Policies functionality.
If the field has the "Can view" and "Can edit" properties enabled, customers will be able to set the priority while submitting a ticket.
If you need to represent other priorities, we suggest creating a custom field and running automations on those values. See Do more with ticket forms.
About the Source field
The Source field contains 13 default choices that cannot be edited or deleted but can be rearranged. The source field is automatically populated based on the channel used to create the ticket.
Additionally, you can add your own custom sources to reflect how your customers contact you. For each field, you can also choose from a selection of icons.
About the Status field
The Status field is the most important one because it is used to manage the lifecycle of the ticket in your helpdesk. By default, this field has 4 values which cannot be deleted:
- Open: The ticket requires an action by an agent or admin. New tickets are marked Open by default. Any time a customer responds to a ticket, it is automatically moved back to Open status.
- Pending: The ticket is paused while the agent gathers additional information. This is useful to halt your SLA timers.
- Resolved: The ticket is completed according to the agent, i.e. a solution has been provided.
- Closed: The ticket is completed according to the customer i.e. a solution has been accepted. If a customer doesn't close a ticket themselves, the standard practice is to automatically close the ticket after 72 hours.
Additionally, if you're on the Growth plan or higher, you can add custom choices that represent your support process. You can also define customer-facing labels for any of your choices, including default ones.
About your default ticket form
Your support portal has a pre-configured ticket form called "Report an issue". It contains all the ticket fields visible to the customer. You can review it by going to Admin > Workflows > Ticket Forms. Since we haven't added custom fields yet, it'll only contain the 11 default ticket fields.
This form is visible on your support portal, and your customers can use it to submit a ticket. Your agents can also use this form to submit a ticket from the agent portal by clicking New > New ticket.
 The "Submit a ticket" buttons on the support portal home |  The ticket form as seen on the support portal |
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The New ticket button in the agent portalDo more with ticket forms
This basic guide only addresses default ticket fields and modifying the default ticket form.
See Advanced Guide for Ticket Forms and Fields to learn about:
- Custom ticket fields
- Dependent fields
- Dynamic sections
- Creating multiple ticket forms
See Use your Ticket Forms to learn about:
- Using your form in your support portals and help widgets
- Running automations on tickets created via specific forms
- Configuring SLAs based on your ticket fields
