Adding custom fields to organizations

Fastpath: Admin icon () > Manage > Organization Fields.

Similar to adding custom fields to tickets, you can add custom fields to organizations to store additional details. Any custom org fields you create apply to all organizations. You can use custom organization fields in triggers, automations, placeholders, search, SLAs, and reporting.

Administrators and Enterprise agents with permission can create and edit custom fields for organizations. Custom org fields are visible to agents, but not end-users.

You can also add custom fields to users (see Adding custom fields to users) and tickets (see Adding custom fields to your tickets and support request forms).

This article contains the following sections:

• Adding custom organization fields
• Managing custom organization fields

Adding custom organization fields

Administrators and Enterprise agents with permission can create the following types of custom organization fields:

• Drop-down list
• Text
• Multi-line text
• Numeric
• Decimal
• Checkbox
• Regular expression
• Date

You can also watch this short video.

Creating Organization Fields (01:22)

Tip: Be sure to check out the custom fields recipes in our Best practices and recipes and our  Customer-centric cookbook.

To add a custom organization field

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Organization Fields.
2. Select a custom field type on the right, then drag it to the active fields area and place it where you want it to appear. Alternatively, click the Plus sign (+) beside the field type you want to add.

   The order of your active custom fields here is the same order they will appear in each organization profile.

   For more information about the field types, see About custom field types.

   

   When you add the field type, the properties panel opens.

3. Enter a Field title shown to agents and a Field key in the properties panel on the right.

   

   When you enter data in one of these fields, the other field automatically populates. You can edit either field, however, if you want them to be different.

   You cannot change the field key after you create the custom org field. The field key is used by the API and Liquid placeholders, and it is the only field setting that is not editable after it is set.

4. Set other properties for your field.

   Options vary depending on the type of field you are adding.

   If you are adding a drop-down list, you can have up to six levels of organization (see Organizing drop-down list options).

5. Click Create field.

   New organization fields are active by default and are added to all organizations.

Once created, you can use custom org fields in the following ways:

• Triggers and automations (see Automatically tagging tickets from specific users and organizations)
• Placeholders in macros, ticket comments, and notification messages (see Placeholders for custom fields)
• Search (see Zendesk Support search reference)
• (Professional and Enterprise) Reporting (see Reporting with custom fields for Explore or Reporting on custom fields in Insights for Insights).

Managing custom organization fields

You can manage your custom organization fields in the Organization Fields admin page. You can edit, delete, activate, deactivate, and clone custom organization fields as needed.

To edit a custom organization field

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Organization Fields.
2. Click the name of the custom org field you want to edit.
3. Edit settings in the properties panel on the right.
4. Click Update field.

To delete a custom organization field

1. lick the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Organization Fields.
2. Click the name of the custom org field you want to delete.
3. Click Delete in the properties panel on the right.

   When you delete a custom organization field, that field and any associated data is removed from all organizations. The data is preserved only if the custom field also adds a tag to the organization. The two custom fields that add tags are the drop-down list and the checkbox. If you delete one of these custom fields, then the data in organizations persist as tags.

4. Click OK to confirm that you want to delete the custom organization field.

   The custom org field and any associated data is removed from all organizations.

To activate or deactivate a custom organization field

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Organization Fields.
2. Hover over the custom org field you want to clone, then select Activate or Deactivate.

   

   The field moves to the active or inactive section depending on the action you selected.

To clone a custom organization field

1. Click the Admin icon () in the sidebar, then select Manage > Organization Fields.
2. Hover over the custom org field you want to clone, then select Clone.

   A duplicate organization field is created, and the properties panel opens on the right so that you can edit the settings.