Typically, when end users submit support requests, they provide the subject and description of their question or support issue in standard ticket fields. They may also be prompted to provide additional data such as a product type or model number using custom ticket fields.
Collectively, a predefined set of ticket fields are a ticket form. Ticket fields on a ticket form are visible to end users in the contact form, in the help center or Web Widget (Classic) for example, and to agents in a ticket, as shown here.
Tickets contain other data that you can access using placeholders, Zendesk APIs, triggers, and automations. Ticket fields don't need to be on a ticket form to be used in these places.
There are two types of ticket fields:
- Standard ticket fields are the predefined fields that agents see in a ticket. Additional standard fields are added to the ticket page when you activate additional Zendesk Support features, such as ticket sharing. You can deactivate and reactivate some (but not all) of the standard fields.
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Custom ticket fields can be created in addition to standard ticket fields to
gather additional information from the person who is requesting support. For example, you
may add a custom field prompting them to select a product name or model number.
See the complete list of custom ticket field types.
Also, see the following articles:
- Optimizing your ticket form to understand ticket fields and do some planning to build an optimal ticket form.
- Adding custom fields to your tickets and support request form to create the custom ticket fields you need.
You can view and manage all of your ticket fields on the Fields admin page. See Viewing your ticket fields.
Standard ticket fields
The following fields are considered standard ticket fields and are part of tickets by default for all Zendesk Suite and Support accounts. Some standard fields can't be edited. See About system ticket rules.
| Standard field | Description |
|---|---|
| Requester | All tickets require a requester. The requester is the person who made the
support request. If a ticket is created by an agent and the requester field is left empty, then the agent will be the requester of the ticket. If needed, the ticket requester can be changed to someone else. See Updating the ticket requester. You can also create a ticket on someone else's behalf. See Creating a ticket on behalf of the requester. |
| Follower | Followers can be agents, light agents, or admins, but not end users. Similar to a persistent BCC, followers receive notifications when ticket updates occur, and they can view and create internal notes. Followers are invisible to end users, but CCs are not. See When to use CCs and followers. |
| Assignee | The assignee can be either a group or a specific agent. See Manually assigning a ticket to yourself, another agent, or a group. |
| CCs | If you have been configured to allow it, other people can be copied on tickets. Both the requester and agents can add CCs to a ticket. The requester does it by adding CC email addresses if they requested support via your support email address. Agents can add CCs using the CC field when updating the ticket. See Using CCs, followers, and @mentions. |
| Share | The Share field is only displayed if you have enabled ticket sharing, which means that tickets can be shared with other Zendesk Support accounts. See Sharing tickets. |
| Subject | The Subject field is required and can be up to 255 characters. It's typically included in the support request submitted by the requester. For example, when someone submits a support request through email, the subject line of the email is used as the ticket's subject. If the ticket title does not appear in the ticket subject, your Subject field might not be visible to end users. To correct this, see this Support Tech Note. |
| Description | The Description field is required. This is the text of the support request. When an end user submits a support request via email, the body of the email request is used as the description. The description becomes the first comment in the ticket. |
| Status | There are six standard ticket status values. A ticket's status can be set and
updated either manually by an agent or automatically via your business rules. If you've activated custom ticket statuses, your account may include additional ticket statuses. The standard ticket statuses listed below are the default ticket statuses of your ticket status categories. See Managing ticket statuses.
|
| Type | There are four values for type. Setting the type helps you to categorize your
tickets, which you can then use in your workflow. For example, you can create views
of tickets by their type. While the field can be blank initially (and through any
number of updates), once you change the field to a specified type, you can't change
it to blank again.
Note: If you deactivate the Type field, all your
tickets default to Incident, which is one of the most-common ticket types.
|
| Priority | There are four values for priority: Low, Normal, High, and
Urgent. By default, all of these four values are available, but you can allow only the Normal and High values to appear. To do so, edit the priority field, then change the setting under Field values. Priority is not a required field, so you do not always need to select a value. How you weigh the priority of your tickets is up to you. If you deactivate the Priority field, Zendesk SLA targets will not apply. See Setting up SLA policies. |
| Tags | Tags are used throughout to add additional information to tickets, which can
then be used in your ticket workflow. Tags can be added to tickets in the following ways:
Tags are enabled by default but can be disabled. See Enabling and disabling ticket tags. |
Additional ticket fields for employee services
Employee Service Suite plans include several additional ticket forms that are specialized for common HR and IT inquiries. To support those specialized ticket forms, the following ticket fields are predefined for Employee Service Suite plans.
All of these fields are labeled as [SAMPLE] on the Ticket fields page in Admin Center for clarity. However, [SAMPLE] is excluded from the titles shown to customers.
These fields are active by default, but can be deactivated or deleted if you don't need them. See Using the sample data for employee services.
| Field | Industry | Description | Ticket forms |
|---|---|---|---|
| [SAMPLE] New hire name | HR | A text field in the New hire onboarding ticket form that contains a new employee's name. | New hire onboarding |
| [SAMPLE] Expected start date | HR | A date field in the New hire onboarding ticket form that indicates a new employee's expected start date. | New hire onboarding |
| [SAMPLE] New hire office location | HR | A text field in the New hire onboarding ticket form that contains the new employee's office location. | New hire onboarding |
| [SAMPLE] Laptop requested | HR | A text field in the New hire onboarding ticket form that indicates whether a laptop has been requested for the new employee. | New hire onboarding |
| [SAMPLE] Software name | IT | A text field indicating the name of the software for which access is being requested. | Software access |
| [SAMPLE] Leave type | HR | A text field indicating the type of leave being requested or inquired about. For example, FMLA or parental leave. | Leave request, Parental leave |
| [SAMPLE] Expected leave duration | HR | A text field indicating how long the requested leave is expected to be. | Leave request |
| [SAMPLE] Expected leave start date | HR | A date field indicating the start date of the requested leave. | Leave request |
| [SAMPLE] Employee ID | HR | A text field indicating the employee's ID. | Payroll questions |
| [SAMPLE] Department | HR, IT | A text field indicating the employee's department within the
organization. In employee service accounts, brands are expected to be used to differentiate groups of agents within the account (HR, IT, Legal, etc.), while this custom field could be used to designate the employee's location within the organization, such as Engineering. |
New hire onboarding, Payroll question, New laptop request, Software access |
| [SAMPLE] Approval status | HR, IT | A text field, editable by agents and admins only, indicating whether a request made in the ticket is approved. | New hire onboarding, Payroll question, New laptop request, Software access |