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Admin Guide
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  • Introducing Deskpro
    • Deskpro Features and Benefits
    • Deskpro basic concepts
    • Account Types
    • Deskpro Interfaces
  • Creating Your Helpdesk
    • Cloud vs. On-Premise
    • Cloud Sign-Up
    • Custom Domains
    • Setting Basic Details
    • Disabling the Helpdesk
  • Launching Your Helpdesk
    • Personalize your Helpdesk
    • Organize with Departments
    • Set up your Agents
    • Decide on User Channels
    • Triggers for Automation
    • Extra Customization options
    • Launch the Helpdesk!
  • Importing Data
    • Helpdesk Data Importer: Zendesk
    • Helpdesk Data Importer: Kayako
    • CSV User Import
    • Import/Export via API
  • Managing and Deleting Personal Data
    • How To: Delete Knowledgebase Articles
    • How to: Delete Chats
    • How to: Delete Tickets
    • How to: Delete Users
    • How to: Delete Agents
    • How to: Export User Data
    • How to: Delete Guide Topics
    • How to: Delete Downloads
    • How to: Delete News Posts
  • Agents
    • Creating Agents
    • Agent Permissions
    • Permission Groups
    • Agent Teams
    • Logging in as an Agent
    • Monitoring Agents
    • Satisfaction Survey
    • Managing Agent Passwords
    • Editing Agent Profiles
    • Deleting an Agent
    • IP Whitelisting
    • Admin Access Log
  • Departments
    • Departments Overview
    • Managing Ticket Departments
    • Using Departments
    • Department Permissions
  • Email Accounts
    • Adding Ticket Email Accounts
    • Email Accounts and Triggers
    • Department/Email Links
    • Email Handling Options
    • Running an email-only helpdesk
    • Monitoring email accounts
    • Dealing with spam
  • Ticket Fields
    • Categories
    • Priorities
    • Workflows
    • Products
    • Custom fields
    • Field validation and display
    • Ticket form layouts
    • Ticket ref codes
  • Automating the Helpdesk
    • Triggers
    • Trigger examples
    • SLAs
    • Macros
    • Escalations
    • Satisfaction survey request
    • Round robins
    • Setting urgency automatically
    • Incoming Webhooks
    • Displaying IDs for items
    • Actions guide
    • Sending SMS alerts
  • CRM and usergroups
    • Usergroup permissions
    • User registration
    • Managing user passwords
    • Custom CRM fields
  • Portal
    • Basic portal settings
    • Portal branding and design
    • Customizing portal content
    • Advanced portal editing
    • Enabling Guides
  • Multi-Branded Portals
    • Setting up a New Brand
    • Feedback in Multibrand
    • Multi-Brands
    • Tickets in Multi-Brands
    • Agent Permissions in Multi-Brands
    • Ticket Triggers in Multi-Brands
    • Escalations in Multi-Brands
    • SLA’s in Multi-Brands
    • Snippets in Multi-Brands
    • Snippet Variables in Multi-Brands
    • Reporting in Multi-Brands
  • Chat
    • Chat setup
    • Multi-language chat
    • Chat departments
    • Chat queues
    • Chat embed
  • Editing Templates
    • Introducing templates
    • Twig syntax basics
    • Email templates
    • Portal templates
    • Useful template variables
    • Variables in custom phrases
  • Localization
    • Date & time settings
    • Languages
  • Deskpro Apps
    • App permissions
    • Authentication apps
    • Gravatar
    • Share Widget
    • Resolve User Hostnames
    • Google Analytics
    • Highrise
    • HipChat
    • Microsoft Translator
    • JIRA
    • Salesforce
    • Twilio SMS
    • Clickatell SMS
    • SendGrid
    • Trello
    • Zapier
  • Authentication and SSO
    • Agent and user authentication
    • Understanding SSO options
    • Auto agent
    • Grant usergroup
    • Multiple usersources
    • Filtering a usersource
    • Importing user data
    • Active Directory setup
    • LDAP setup
    • JSON Web Token setup
    • SAML setup
    • Database auth setup
    • OneLogin setup
    • Okta setup
    • Google+ setup
    • Wiacts Nopassword setup
  • Integration
    • Using web hook actions
    • Using the Deskpro API
    • Creating widgets & apps
  • Labels
    • Introduction to Labels
    • Managing labels
    • Merging labels
    • Setting label colors
    • Label permissions
  • Agent Interface Options
    • Automatic ticket locking
    • Setting ticket defaults
    • Time log and billing
    • Problems & incidents
    • Custom filters
    • Ticket archiving
    • Ticket purging
  • Anti-Abuse Options
    • Login lockout
    • Portal rate limiting
    • Email rate limiting
    • CAPTCHA settings
  • Exporting Data
    • Exporting data via API
  • Billing and Licensing
    • Cloud licensing
    • On-Premise licensing
  • Appendix
    • Deskpro Terminology

Custom fields

23/03/2017 15/06/2018

Custom ticket fields are the most flexible way to add extra information to a ticket. You choose both the name of the field, and the type of values it can store.

You can also add custom fields to users, organizations, and chats. These are all separate systems; even if you have a custom ticket field and a custom user field with the same name, you’ll need to set their properties separately.

You can add custom fields you create to the ticket form that users see on the portal or embedded in your website, as well as the agent form. Your layouts can include different fields for each department. See Ticket form layouts for details.

To create a custom field, go to Tickets > Fields, then click the + Add button in the Custom Field section.

Select the type of field you want. There are a number of different types you can use, depending on the kind of data you want to store.

Enter a Title and Description. Both of these can be displayed if the field is included in a form: make sure they explain the purpose of the field in a way that will make sense to the people who will be using it.

Remember that a custom field must be added to a form layout under Tickets > Departments for it be visible to users/agents.

Custom field types

The types of custom fields available are the following:

  • Single-line Text Box
  • Multi-line Text Box
  • Predefined Choices
  • Toggle
  • Date
  • Date/Time
  • Display
  • Hidden
  • Url
  • Currency
  • File

Single-line Text Box: a single-line text input box that users/agents can type into; accepts up to 136 characters

../_images/custom-field-text.png

Multi-line Text Box: a larger multi-line text input area that users/agents can type into../_images/custom-field-textarea.png

Predefined choices: a set of options you define for users/agents to pick from, with the option to set pre-selected default(s). Can be nested (using Custom fields) into a hierarchy, as many layers deep as you like. There are four types of predefined choices available:

  • Select box

../_images/custom-field-select1.png

Only one can be selected at a time.

  • Multiple-select box

../_images/custom-field-multiple1.png

Allows multiple selections

  • Radio buttons

../_images/custom-field-radio1.png

Only one can be selected at a time

  • Checkboxes

../_images/custom-field-checkboxes1.png

Allows multiple selections

Toggle: a simple checkbox; can either be on or off by default; can require user or agent to check it (for example, to confirm they accept your terms and conditions) ../_images/custom-field-toggle.png

Date: stores a calendar date; users/agents can select from a calendar, or enter a date in text in YYYY-MM-DD format.

../_images/custom-field-date.png

Date/Time: stores a calendar date and a time of day; users can select from a calendar or enter the date and time manually.

Display: this type of field is just used to display HTML, and cannot take input; you could use it for warnings or disclaimers or design customization.

../_images/custom-field-display.png

Hidden: a special field that’s never visible to users, which can take information from cookies or parameters in the URL; you can use this to capture information about the user’s browsing session which agents can then see as part of the ticket.

Url: this field lets users enter any url links.

Currency: this field lets users enter any money values.

File: this field allows users to attach any files to a ticket or.

Custom field defaults

When you create a custom field, you can (optionally) enter a default value. This is shown as the default option if a ticket is being created via a web interface (agent interface or portal). If the field is not shown on the form, or the ticket is created by email or API, this value will not be set - instead, you should use a trigger.

Custom field validation

When you create a custom field, you can set validation rules which control what sort of values are accepted.

The validation options vary with the type of field.

See the section on Field validation and display for details.

Nested choice fields

The options in a custom predefined choice field can be nested into sub-options, and those sub-options can have sub-options in turn. Nesting can go as deep as you like.

To create a nested option, select an existing option as the parent (i.e. it will contain the new option) before you click Add.

../_images/custom-nested.png

In the image above, the ‘Apartment’ option will be created nested under the Residence option.

../_images/custom-nested-after.png

The line shows that Apartment is a sub-option.

Use the handles at the left to re-order the options, and the X button at right to delete an option.

While category and product fields can be nested one layer deep (so you can have sub-categories and sub-products), you can nest custom choice fields as deep as you like. For example, you can go on to create sub-options under Apartment.

../_images/custom-nested-multi.png

This is how a nested select box choice field is displayed on the portal and agent interface:

../_images/custom-nested-interfaces.png

Note that only the options at the bottom of the hierarchy (ie with no child options below them) can be submitted. In the example above, you couldn’t submit ‘Kitchen’ as a value because it contains ‘Refrigerator’ and ‘Oven’. You could submit ‘Refrigerator’, ‘Bedroom’ or ‘Hotel’ because they don’t have any options below them.

Converting built-in Category

The built-in Category field can only be nested one level deep. If you find that you want deeper nested categories, you can convert your Category field to a custom choice field.

In Tickets > Fields > Categories, use the gear icon at the upper right to select Convert field to custom field.

When you use this control:

A new custom field called “Category” will be created and all of the options you have defined for the built-in category field will be copied to the new custom field.

All tickets with selections for the Category field will retain that value in the new custom field.

All ticket layouts, filters and triggers that refer to the Category field will be updated to use the new custom field.

Warning

After all data has been moved over to the new custom field, the built-in category field will be disabled.

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