Administrators and agents in custom roles 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 and custom fields to your tickets and support request forms.
Creating custom organization fields
Administrators and agents in custom roles with permission can create any custom field type for an organization, except credit card.
The following video gives you an overview of how to create custom fields for organizations:
Creating custom fields for organizations [1:40]
- In Admin Center, click
People in the sidebar, then select Configuration > Organization fields.
- Click Add field.
- Select a field type, then enter a Display name.
- Verify that the field key is the value you want it to be.
This field is populated by the field name, but you can edit it. You can't change the field key after the custom field is created. The field key can be used to reference the custom field in placeholders and the API.
Avoid field keys that overlap with system fields, such as id, name, tags, details, and notes.
- (Optional) Enter a Description for the custom field. This is visible to admins only.
- Set any other options for your field, depending on the type.
-
Field option (checkbox fields only, optional):
Enter a tag to apply to a ticket when the checkbox is selected.
-
Field validation (regex fields only):
Enter a regular expression to create an input mask to validate entry.
-
Field values (drop-down and multi-select fields):
- Enter Field options to include in the list. Click the X to remove a
value.
You can bulk import field values if you have a large number to add.
- Click Sort ascending or use the drag-and-drop icon
(
) to manually reorder the field values.
- To create a nested drop-down list, separate categories and values with a double colon (::). See Organizing drop-down lists.
- Enter Field options to include in the list. Click the X to remove a
value.
-
Related object and Set a filter (lookup relationship fields
only)
Select the type of object to relate, and optionally define filters that restrict possible values for the field. See Adding lookup relationship fields.
-
Field option (checkbox fields only, optional):
- Click Save or, to create another custom field, click the drop-down icon and
select Save and add another.
New fields are active by default and are added to all organizations.
- If needed, you can reorder your custom organization fields.
Cloning custom organization fields
Administrators and agents in custom roles with permission can create new custom fields from scratch or clone existing organization fields and modify them as needed.
- In Admin Center, click
People in the sidebar, then select Configuration > Organization fields.
- Hover over the row of the organization field you want to clone, then click the
option menu icon (
) and select Clone.
A detailed view of the organization field's settings is displayed.
- Edit the Display name and Field key so that they are unique.
The field key is populated by the field name, but you can edit it when creating the custom field. You can't change the field key after the custom field is created. The field key can be used to reference the custom field in placeholders and the API.
- Set any other options for your field, depending on the type.
- Click Save.
New org fields are active by default and are added to all organizations.
- If needed, you can reorder your custom organization fields.
28 comments
Yuli Zingerman
Hi, I'd like to set up different brand layouts on the ticket level (ticket fields) so that each brand will have its own dedicated fields. How can this be done? Thanks!
0
Dan Ross
Hey @...
You can do this using the Ticket Forms feature of Zendesk, if your plan supports it. It allows you to assign ticket fields to forms, and then a form to a specific brand or brands.
ex: you could make a form for Product 1, with its own fields, and only make that form available to tickets that use the Brand for product 1
0
Yuli Zingerman
Thank you, Dan!
So potentially I can have fields defined for a general view (not form related, e.g. via email), and some of these fields and additional ones can be presented based on a specific form it was submitted from?
0
Dan Ross
Hey Yuli,
Each ticket form has its own set of fields, though a ticket field can be used across multiple ticket forms. For example, we have a field called 'Case Reason' that we apply on all our Support ticket forms, but then we have some fields that are unique to a specific form.
We then use Zendesk Triggers to route incoming email tickets to set them to a specific ticket form, based on the email we received the ticket at.
Let's say you have two products that have different support requirements.
For these products, let's suppose there's two emails for the different product support teams
And now some ticket fields. Some of them are general purpose (ex: Priority, Total Spend $ etc.) and some will be product specific (issue categories unique to each product features, for example)
Sample Ticket Fields you'd create:
To do what you're describing, you'd want to make two Ticket Forms. One for Product A and one for Product B. One these forms, you'd add the fields you want to show to agents.
FORM A
FORM B
The Product B field is not shown when Product A's form is selected and vice versa.
Next, you'd want to look at making a Trigger to make sure each Brand's tickets go to the right place. Here's an example for what it could look like for Product A
Sample Trigger
Conditions
Ticket is created
Ticket is received at "Product-Asupport@yuli-store.com"
Action
Ticket Form: Product A
After that, you'd just some ticket views that are filtered by Ticket Form or by Ticket Group and you'd be good to go!
Hope that helps!
0
Jonathan Greco
Hey, My company need to have a custom dropdown organization field that accept multiple values (same field already available for ticket) the documentation mentions it here : https://support.zendesk.com/hc/fr/articles/203661876 it's possible apparently ? but I can't find out how to do that.
0
Fred Ferrari
Is anyone aware of a way to have an organization field show up as a column on the view tickets overview screen? Really looking for a way to configure things like account plan and use this as a way to quickly identify which tickets should be prioritized over others.
1
Gary Donoghue
Hi Fred,
If only! I've been asking for this for a while now - to me it seems obvious, based on relational database principles, to be able to utilise the supposedly tight connections that exist between organisation/customer->user(ticket requester)->ticket - yet it seems ZD does not provide any way of achieving this at present.
My perspective on this, as a worked example, is that we support a number of organisations that use our products and, if it were possible, when creating a ticket, I'd be able to map the product (and its release level) to the ticket based on that 1-< relationship. Yet frustratingly (and incredulously - I'll be honest) I cannot do this. Instead I have to duplicate that same data into the ticket each time (via its own 'product' field) and then check/assess the current release level of the product by verifying the organisation to establish that.
I do really love ZD but I find this lack of integration across the 3 (there are only 3) key object types (Organisation/User/Ticket) one of its main and significant weaknesses.
Alas, I do still find the ZD enhancement process somewhat opaque too so I have no idea if this is even or ever going to be considered but I do wonder if other ZD customers find this incredibly limiting and frustrating as me.
Just my 'two penneth'...
Take care
Gary Donoghue
0
Gary Donoghue
For the record here is a link to another thread on the forum that relates to this topic...
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/204625618-Add-custom-Organisation-Fields-to-Tickets
Many Thanks
Gary
0
Dana B
HI
The link for "Placeholders in macros, ticket comments, and notification messages (see Placeholders for custom fields)" is missing again.
Thanks!
0
Kharlo Reboja
Hello!
Thanks for bringing this up. We have raised this with our documentation team. The correct link is https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203662116-Using-placeholders#topic_nfp_nja_vb.
Best,
Kharlo | Customer Advocate
support@zendesk.com
0
Ad Astra Support
Can you make a custom organization field read-only? I have created one specifically to sync from Salesforce and since the SF configuration is only one-way sync (SF to ZD), we do not want agents changing the value in Zendesk.
2
Dan Ross
Hey @...
We have the same scenario, unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be an option. To protect the org fields, we disabled permissions for non-admin or non-integration users from being able to create or edit organizations
2
Noe Landaverde
Hello! I've been reading a lot of documentation related to organization fields, but I haven't found where or how those fields are actually populated, i.e. their data source. Where can I see that information?
For instance, the Chargeback ID in the example above, how do you know where the ID that the field will be populated with is coming from, and how can you change it?
0
Gary Donoghue
Hi Noe,
It's not obvious as the ZD dashboard doesn't offer a standard way of viewing organisations - you have to firstly Add a new Organisation and then fill in the fields that way. Of course the Organisation itself isn't directly connected to a Ticket (don't ask! I've been asking the same question for years without any response) but IS implicitly connected by virtue of a User (Requester) and the fact that you CAN connect such a user to an Organisation.
Why there isn't more of this relational ability between Ticket, User and Organisation is something that only ZD can answer. Or in ZD's case: not answer it. I've even attended Webex Product updates and asked this question and been ignored.
Such a pity as I really like ZD but this aspect is a huge weakness and I just don't understand why other customers don't raise it as an issue.
Anyway, I hope this helps.
Cheers
Gary
1
Gary Donoghue
Once an organisation is set up the only way of viewing on data related to it is to search on the organisation name. There is NO tab for simply selecting organisations or users from a dashboard list. Don't ask me why? Again I've asked and sadly been met with silence.
Cheers!
1
Heather Rommel
Hi Gary,
I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but if you know what field you want to search on you can do so. For example, we have a field on Organizations for Subscription Type and using the org field key, I can search for silver like so:
0
Gary Donoghue
Hi Heather,
Thank you. That is a useful tip and does allow a degree of filtering within organisation data for a specific field - so definitely helpful. However, my frustration, is two fold:
1. The lack of any ability to, from the dashboard, simply list out a list of organisations and customers in the same way that tickets can be listed. Lack of dashboard customisation remains, for me, a strange limitation within ZD. It's the standard DB or nothing.
2. The inability to, in effect, embed organisation data within a ticket. So if I have a field for an organisation (say in our case something called ency_type). Each organisation will have a value of HE, CSE or Both associated to it. When I raise a ticket it'd be good to be able to simply have that value embedded within it as the 'starting point' (so that, normally, I can just go with the 'default' value for that organisation - the ticket will be associated to this ticket implicitly by virtue of the requester being connected to the organisation in question. At present I have to have a separate 'ticket' field that indicates the ency_type as there is no way of inheriting this information from the 'parent' organisation via the relationship Ticket>-Users>-Organisations so that a ticket can be raised by one user/customer who is associated only to one organisation (essentially stadard relationship database concepts).
At present we have to duplicate such information in our ticketing and it is very frustrating and error prone - as we know the data is, in essence, connected to either a user or the organisation in which that user resides but we cannot simply place that information directly in the ticket itself. Very odd.
Anyway, thanks for your time. Appreciated!
Gary Donoghue
0
Heather Rommel
Hi @...,
1. I agree search can be better - I'd love to have configurable columns that show when I search for Organizations (or tickets for that matter). There are Org fields that are super important to us that we have to click through to see when searching...
2. I'm wondering if I'm misunderstanding your ask here because I'm pretty sure you can do this today - for dropdown fields! Admittedly it's a little wonky but get this:
I have an Org Field, as mentioned before, named "Subscription Type". It's a dropdown field. The "silver" option has the associated tag "silver".
I can then put in a Ticket Field for Subscription Type. I can add exactly the same options as the Org dropdown -- the trick is to use the same tags as the Org Field options.
Now every time a customer creates a ticket (assuming they're mapped to the right org), the Subscription Type field on the Ticket level will auto-fill after the ticket is created. Why? Because the tag carried over from the Org to the Ticket and Zendesk effectively back-fills the field.
Cool, huh?
0
Erik Cerbulis
Is there a way to search on an org field? I need to validate if the region/state field is populated on all org records as I have triggers enabled based on the value of this field. I just need to validate that there are none that are blank.
0
Dan Ross
Hey Erik,
try doing a search in Zendesk using your API field name for the org field, using 'none' as the search term.
Ex: if your field API name is 'region' then your search would be
region:none
Does that find what you need?
1
Erik Cerbulis
Thanks Dan!
0
nicole yeom
Hi,
What about sortable column set up? We have a end customer who sends us query that want to have different sortable column rather than Last activity.
Can you please advise where I can adjust this set up?
0
Jacquelyn Redington
We are using zendesk as an internal HR ticketing system and having the guide for resources, policies, and job aids. Some of the job aids and documents are for our managers only to view. The managers are end users and I want to know how I could utilize this function so managers can view articles that employees would not have access to. Is this possible?
0
Gabriel Manlapig
I think using User Segment will achieve your use case. A user segment is a collection of end-users/agents, defined by a specific set of attributes, used to determine access to help center content.
To learn more, please see article below:
Creating user segments for Guide user permissions
I hope that helps.
0
Scott D
Is there a limit to the number of Organization fields that can be added?
0
Gabriel Manlapig
There is no official limit, but you might see performance issues if you created around 160-200 custom organizational fields.
I hope that helps!
0
Stacey Levine
As an agent, I should absolutely be able to have a view that shows organizational fields. Especially custom fields. As has been brought up in other examples, support level is a pretty common thing. The right place for that is on an organization. That means in my view, I should be able to see this.
0
Sue Sumner
How many custom organisation fields can be added?
0