You can add numerous types of custom fields to ticket forms and make them visible to agents only or to both agents and end users.
After you create your custom ticket field, you can use it in triggers, automations, macros, and views. On Suite Professional and above, you can report on custom ticket fields in Explore.
You must be an administrator to create custom ticket fields and add them to ticket forms.
Topics covered in this article:
- How custom ticket fields work
- Adding a custom ticket field for agents and end users
- Understanding the persistence of custom field data
Related articles:
How custom ticket fields work
Drop-down list, multi-select, and checkbox custom fields generate tags that can also be used in automations, macros, triggers, reports, and views (see Understanding custom ticket fields, tags, and business rules). Lookup relationship fields can be used in triggers and views (see Using lookup relationship fields in triggers and views. All custom fields can be referenced as placeholders (see Placeholders for custom fields).
Creating custom ticket fields
You can add custom fields to tickets to gather more information about the customer or issue. Fields can be visible to agents only or to both agents and end users.
You can permit end users to view the custom field in their ticket by making the field visible, or you can add the custom field to the Support Request form by making the field both visible and editable.
Before you begin, see Optimizing your ticket form to understand ticket fields and do some planning to build an optimal ticket form.
You must be an administrator to create custom ticket fields.
The following video gives you an overview of how to create custom ticket fields:
Creating custom ticket fields [1:41]
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Fields.
- Click Add field.
- Select a field type, then enter a Display name.
- (Optional) Enter a Description for the custom field. This is visible to admins only.
- Under Permissions, select an option:
- Agents can edit: Only agents can view and edit the field. It appears in tickets.
- Customers can edit: Agents and end users can view and edit the field. It appears in tickets and in the support request form in the help center.
- Customers can view: Agents can view and edit the field. End users can only view the field. It appears in tickets and on end users' requests, but isn't included in the support request form in the help center.
For a single ticket form, the new field automatically appears in your ticket form. If you use multiple ticket forms, you'll have to manually add the field to any ticket forms you'd like to include it in.
- If the field is visible to customers, enter a Title shown to customers and
Description shown to customers.
The customer title and description options aren't available if the field is only visible to agents. Descriptions appear in plain text, with no line breaks.
- If the agent must complete the field to solve the ticket, select Required to solve
a ticket.Note: Required fields for solving a ticket can be bypassed by triggers and automations . These fields are also bypassed when an agent merges a ticket.
- If the end user must complete this field to submit the ticket, select Required to submit a request.
- Enter an optional Description shown to end users.
- Configure any additional options, depending on your field 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):
- (Optional) Specify a Default value for the custom field.
In a drop-down list, the default value applies only to new tickets created by agents through the Support interface or created by users wherever the ticket form is displayed. If you change an existing ticket form to one with a drop-down list with a default option, the default option is not displayed and is shown as blank.
- Click Save or, to create another custom field, click the drop-down icon and
select Save and add another.
If you have a single ticket form, the new field automatically appears in your ticket form.
(Enterprise only) If you have multiple ticket forms, edit the ticket forms where you want the field to appear, drag the field from the right onto the ticket form, then click Save. Repeat for additional ticket forms.
- If needed, you can reorder your custom ticket fields.
The custom field appears on new tickets. It also appears on less-than-closed, closed, and archived tickets with a null '-' or empty value.
If the field does not appear on a new ticket, you might need to restart your browser.
Not all custom field types are available across business rules and views. For a list of which custom fields apply, see Using custom ticket fields in business rules and views.
On Suite Professional and above, you can report on custom fields in Explore.
Cloning custom ticket fields
Administrators and agents in custom roles with permission can create new custom fields from scratch or clone existing ticket fields and modify them as needed.
- In Admin Center, click
Objects and rules in the sidebar, then select Tickets > Fields.
- Hover over the row of the user field you want to clone, then click the option menu
icon (
) and select Clone.
A detailed view of the ticket field's settings is displayed.
- Edit the Display name so that it is unique.
- Set any other options for your field, depending on the type.
- Click Save.
If you have a single ticket form, the new field automatically appears in your ticket form.
(Enterprise only) If you have multiple ticket forms, edit the ticket forms where you want the field to appear, drag the field from the right onto the ticket form, then click Save. Repeat for additional ticket forms.
- If needed, you can reorder your ticket fields.
Understanding the persistence of custom field data
If you delete a custom field, the data from the custom field is not preserved in existing tickets, including closed tickets. The data is preserved only if the custom field also adds a tag to a ticket. The three custom fields that add tags are the drop-down list, the checkbox, and multi-select fields. If you delete one of these custom fields, then the data in tickets persist as tags.
For example, suppose you have a drop-down list in your ticket form to associate tickets with different product names. After a while, a decision is made to stop providing support for one of the products. If you remove the product from the drop-down list, the product name persists in existing tickets as a tag. If however you use a text field to record a product ID and you delete the text field, the product ID is not preserved in your tickets.
91 comments
Kenny Rohan
Hi, in regard to the submit a request form. The CCs field only is visible when you are logged into Zendesk. For anonymous, the CC's field does not show up. Is there a way to enable it for anonymous users completing the form?
1
Gabriel Manlapig
As of the moment, only signed-in users will see a CC field appear in your ticket form. This is an added security to prevent those anonymous people that aren't signed in to include a whole bunch of other addresses when sending a request -- to avoid any potential abuse from spammers.
For more information, kindly visit this article: Adding a CC field to the ticket forms used in my Help Center.
I hope that helps! Thank you!
1
Gerald J
Is there a way to add a custom field capturing international format telephone number for different countries. Exactly like this plug-in https://intl-tel-input.com/
1
Gerald J
Andre Lee
1
Anne Ronalter
in this case, you might want to create a custom field of the "Regex" type.
Here you can find out more about custom field types.
1
Jeff Radovan
I have a custom ticket field that is required to solve a ticket, however, this setting is ignored by an Automation that closes tickets that have been open and pending for a period of time.
How can I require the custom field to be required to update a ticket, or is there another solution to this issue?
1
Beto
Hello Jeff, thank you for your question!
The rule of a ticket field being "required to solve a ticket" is bypassed by Business Rules (like Triggers and Automations) as you can see on this article above:
Depending on your custom file type and its options, you might be able to make this required by adding some conditions that use the ticket field in question. Then the Automation would not run until the conditions are met.
I hope this was helpful!
1
Maring
Is there a character limit on the custom field title and description (for both agents and end-users)? I have a field that needs some instruction for users, but I get an error every time I shorten things. It would be nice to know my limit vs continuing to guess. Hopefully this is a simply one, but I have tried searching for this 10 different ways and can't find an answer! Thank you!
1
Hayley Johnson
Is it possible to have a custom field which allows customers to upload an attachment? We need customers to provide a screenshot and it would be great to use a custom field in the bot flow to do this
1
Gabriel Manlapig
Right now, there is no option to add an attachment field in the flow builder. However, your customer will always have an option to attach a file in the messaging conversation by using the attachment button beside the composer. Here's a quick demo:
I hope that helps. Thank you!
1
Leticia
HI!! I would like to know if is possible to create a field on the contact form to attach documents and mandatory. I know there is a field for attaching documents, but I'd like to have one more of this mandatory at the moment to send.
Please, help me!
Thank you
1
Nikki Goodson
Leticia - not a perfect solution but the way I handled this was to put a checkbox above the attachment field that is required for them to check and is a confirmation that they did upload an attachment. It doesn't always work ;)
1
Permanently deleted user
I wanted to create a custom field ticket (type: look up).
Is it possible to filter the look up field based on the ticket requester?
1
Gabriel Manlapig
I'm afraid we don't have a native solution here. Because the look-up or conditional fields functionality doesn't allow for dynamic population based on the requester or other ticket attributes.
Thank you!
1
Andres
"You can add numerous types of custom fields to tickets and they can be visible to agents only or to both agents and end users. You can include custom fields to your support request form by adding them as editable and visible."
It seems like we can only use custom TICKET fields, but not USER fields. How does customer to provide information about themselves, rather than the specific ticket (Address, phone, birthday, model purchase, etc.) - thigs that will always be true to for the customer and we can reference no matter how many tickets they put in.
1
Brandon Tidd
Hi Andres,
You are correct - the user can only inform ticket fields, as the assumption is that the user data is already known (a fairly broad assumption, given the myriad of use cases that Zendesk allows for).
That said, you can inform user fields based on ticket field content via a web hook.
Ahmed Zaid provided a good tutorial here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4657897244442-Updating-a-User-Field-with-Zendesk-Api
Hope this helps!
Brandon
1
Andres
Thanks Brandon,
Unfortunatly I'm not a developer and don't have clue as to how to implement what Ahmed Zaid suggested. Are there any articles that can help me get started with how to update customer fields from customer inputs?
Thanks
1
Brandon Tidd
Hey Andres,
This article provides a good primer on creating web hooks. https://help.successcx.com/hc/en-au/articles/900002080763-How-do-I-add-a-Zendesk-internal-note-to-a-ticket-via-a-business-rule-
Combined with Ahmed's notes in the comments of the previous article, this should nudge you in the right direction. Unfortunately, there's not an 'out of the box' solution on this issue.
I'd also like to share that if more Zendesk-related help is needed, 729 Solutions and other Premier Partners offer professional services that allow you to take your Zendesk instance to the next level
Cheers,
Brandon
1
Michi Moskovitz
It seems that I can't change a relationship lookup custom field permissions from "Agent can edit" to "Customers can edit" - is that by design or am I doing something wrong?
1
Elaine
Lookup relationship fields help you connect different pieces of information. For example, you can use them in triggers to set conditions or actions based on related records and this is expected that only agents have the permission to access this kind of custom field.
I hope that clears that up! Cheers!
1
Adem
Hello,
I want to add sub questions under the ones in help page. Like when the user choose
- I have a question about my account
I want them choose sub category under this.
Is there any chance you can tell me how I can do this?
1
Caren Mae Pagalaran
How can we add a pop up or alert message about any rule or info before the user submits his ticket through Zendesk. For e.g. what I want is if we select a certain category, there should be a pop up message or alert message to notify the user.![](/hc/user_images/01HW80V4N4BEVBAKD2C45266YX.png)
1
Zaffar Sayed
I created custom field to collect contact number from customer but I can't see that field while creating bot (messaging). Please suggest.
I want to create a Bot, but having trouble in viewing the field.
I have followed the steps shown above and created my custom field, I am using Enterprise version.
1
Jakub
If you don't see a custom field you created for your bot, it is most likely due to two reasons:
2
Stephany
Hello!
How do I make the custom fields change language when the help center is in a different one? EX, my custom fields are created in English, but if the help center language is in French, they will show in English and the default fields will show in French (see below)
0
Paolo
You can use dynamic content to translate your ticket fields. For more information, kindly refer to this article: Translating ticket fields using dynamic content.
Best,
Paolo | Technical Support Engineer | Zendesk
0
Judith Ilagan
Is there a limit on the number of custom fields that we can ask the customers to fill out? I tried creating a form with 4 custom fields. For some reason 1 of the custom fields is not showing. At first, I thought there may be an issue with the field so I created a new field but the issue is the same. I tried to remove 1 of the fields that is showing so now I have 3 custom fields and the field that is not showing earlier is now showing. Is there a way we can change the limit of custom fields on an end user form?
0
Brandon Tidd
Hey Judith Ilagan -
There is a limit, but it's wayyyy more than 4. This sounds like more of an issue with the design of your help center, or maybe something with your field & form configuration. I'd recommend opening a trouble ticket with Zendesk so that they can investigate further. If they can't figure it out - I'd welcome the chance to drop into your instance and help. You can find me at 729Solutions.com. That said, it defintely sounds like a configuration error that Zendesk should be able to help you sort out.
Cheers,
Brandon Tidd
0
LD SB
Hello Brandon Tidd
Looks like you know a lot of things so I'm asking you directly.
We have some custom fields that agents are required to select before closing a ticket (called “ Contact Reason”. I'd need to add new value to that list and when I 'm using the same format of the ones that are currently in place, it seems not working and the new value does not shows up in the ticket. When adding a new value in there, are we also required to create somewhere else the related value to make it work (maybye it require some database permission or something like that) ? Thank you
0
Brandon Tidd
Hey LD SB -
Thanks for reaching out! I can see that you are using dynamic content as placeholders inside of your dropdown. This would require you to first define the dynamic content in the admin center (under the aptly named Dynamic Content section) before adding it to your dropdown field. Once this is completed, there may be a slight delay (~15 mins) before the value is visible in the help center to end-users, but it should be available to agents internally with a simple refresh of your browser. More info is available here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/6595856382618-Dynamic-content-in-custom-fields
Hope this helps!
Brandon
0