Last updated: 2022-04-08

Source: https://support.freshservice.com/support/solutions/articles/232990-general-settings

General Settings

Service Desk Rebranding

You can completely customize your service desk for requesters logging into your self-service portal as well as your agents.

Under this section, you can customize the following parameters of the self service portal:

  • Portal Name \- The portal name of your service desk
  • Service Desk Portal URL \- You can change your self service portal URL to a domain of your choice. For example, if your service desk portal URL is yourcompany.freshservice.com and if you wish to change it to helpdesk.yourcompany.com, you can do it from this section.
  • Languages \- You can choose the primary language of your service desk. Apart from choosing the primary language, you can also choose a list of supporting languages. Adding languages to this list will enable you to translate email notifications in the respective languages to support your customers.

  • Date Format \- Choose the date format for your service desk
  • Time Format \- You can either choose the 24-hours or 12-hour time format for your service desk.
  • Currency \- Choose the base currency for your service desk
  • Time Zone \- Choose the time zone in which your service desk will function.
  • Next Ticket ID \- The next ticket ID counter will start with this number (Should be greater than the last ticket ID created). This affects tickets created henceforth.
  • Logo & Favicon \- You can upload your company’s logo and favicon
  • Linkback URL \- The user will be directed to the linkback URL when he/she clicks on the header logo.
  • Service Desk colors \- You can select the colors that match/compliment your brand.
  • Service Desk Phone \- Add your service desk phone number
  • Portal Customization \- By clicking on the Customize Portal button, you will be taken to a page where you can completely customize the color, look, feel and layout of your self service portal. You can even add custom HTML/CSS codes to customize your portal.

    • Service Desk Security

    When you’re setting up your service desk for the first time, it is also essential to make sure that the portal is secure from external and internal threats. The Service Desk Security section allows you to set up some key security elements for your service desk. They are:

  • Single Sign On \-  If your users already have login credentials with you, such as through Active Directory or your own web applications, you can allow them to login to your support portal with these credentials using Single Sign On.
  • Secure Connection using SSL \- You can enable this option to secure your self service portal using SSL encryption.
  • IP Whitelisting \- This option will allow you to restrict access to your support portal to only trusted locations and networks by defining the range of allowed IP addresses. When you enable the option, you will be asked to enter the IP range which you wish to be whitelisted.
  • Session Timeout \- Choose the duration post which the session will be timed out.
  • Admin Notifications \- You can set email notifications to be sent to a specific email address when when an agent is added or remove, or when a whitelisted IP is been modified.
  • Password Policy \- Set password policies for agents and contacts

    • Email Notifications

    You can configure Freshservice to send out automatic email notifications to agents and requesters when specific events occur in your service desk. For example, you can notify users when an agent adds comment to their requests or notify an agent when his problem gets linked to a change.

    You can send out email notifications instantly for activities that take place on all tickets, problems, changes and releases in Freshservice. In addition, you can also configure reminders for your tasks in each of these sections. You can enable or disable any of the notifications from this page except for important system alerts.

    You can also customize the email template for agent replies and even add dynamic content in replies using placeholders.

    Form Fields

    Every ticket, problem, change or release in Freshservice consists of a set of fields that hold necessary information about it. These fields are collectively called a template and can be customized to include anything you need. You can add additional fields to each template, such as text boxes, drop down lists or checkboxes depending on your requirements.

    The fields you configure across these tabs will show up whenever your agents create a new ticket, problem, change or release in your service desk. They can also be modified from the sidebar whenever your agents are working on a specific request anywhere in Freshservice. The forms offer an easy way to capture all the data you need from the requester, even as they submit a ticket. You can customize your templates to include the right fields for your service desk, and let your requesters and agents fill in the information you need in the format you want.

    Dependent Fields

    Dependent Fields give you an easy way to create deeper ticket categories and identify the biggest types of issues that clog your support. With Dependent Fields you can nest each ticket into a specific category, sub category and item. That way, when you pull out a report of all the requests that have come into your service desk at the end of the month, you get to see which categories bring up a majority of tickets, and what specific items within are causing them.

    For example, in an IT Helpdesk, Dependent Fields let you organize support queries into first level categories like Hardware, Software and Network. You could then have sub-categories under Hardware like Desktops, Laptops and Printers, and finally have the individual assets as items.

    Quick guide to adding Dependent Fields in your Ticket Forms:

    ● Click on Admin → Form Fields to start customizing the Ticket Form

    ● Drag the custom field type called Dependent Fields from the top, onto the ticket form

    ● In the " Field Properties" lightbox choose the visibility and editing permissions for Agents and for Customers

    ● Create the Label names for the 3 levels of hierarchy in your dependent field. For example, you could call it Category >> Subcategory >> Item or Problem >>Asset >> Type etc.

    ● Click on Edit under the Dropdown items to start editing the field values

    ● Type the values for each level of hierarchy. Start the value with one tabbed space for the second level hierarchy, and with 2 tabbed spaces for the third level

    ● Click on Done when you have finished editing

    ● Click " Save" in the ticket form to save the new field

    If you have a big list of dependent fields you can organize them with the tabbed hierarchies in any text editor and copy-paste them into the dependent fields editor.

    SLA Policies

    A service level agreement (SLA) policy lets you set standards of performance for your support team. Under SLA policies, you can set the time within which you want your agents should respond to, and resolve tickets based on ticket priorities.

    You can choose whether you want each SLA rule to be calculated over calendar hours or your business hours. Your SLA Policies will be used in Freshservice to determine the “Due By” time for each ticket.

    Using Multiple SLA Policies

    You can have multiple SLA policies, triggered by specific conditions like the user who requested the ticket, the group it is assigned to and/or its source. For example, you can have set a special SLA policy for tickets coming in through Phone and assigned to the Major Incident team. You can create an additional SLA policy by clicking on the New SLA Policy button present on the top right corner.

    The order of your SLA policies is important.The first SLA Policy that matches all conditions for a ticket will be applied to it, so remember to order your important rules closer to the top.

    Enforcing Escalation Rules

    You can optionally set escalation hierarchies for each policy to notify specific agents when an SLA rule is violated.

    Business Hours

    Business Hours give you more control over SLAs in your helpdesk, and when a ticket is due. For example, if your service desk works between 9am to 6pm Mon-Fri and a customer logs a ticket at 7pm on Tuesday, the "Due by" timers do not start ticking till Wednesday morning at 9.

    Holidays

    Holidays work exactly like business hours. If your service desk works between 9am to 6pm Mon - Fri, and a customer sends a medium priority ticket at 8pm on Friday with a resolution time of 24 hours, then the ticket Due By time is set to 9am on Tuesday (not 8pm on Sat).

    Business Hours

    You can also create multiple sets of business hours and holidays, and apply them for specific groups. If you have one support team working on PST and another on GMT, you can let each group have its own set of business hours and holidays.

    Tags

    Freshservice allows you to add tags to tickets so that you can easily find them when needed. The use of tags is not just restricted to tickets, and is also used in contacts and solution articles. This section under Admin settings gives you a complete list of all the tags used in the service desk along with usage count for every tag, including the number of linked tickets or solution articles. You can delete tags and also filter them based on usage, name, and in ascending or descending order.

    Service Catalog

    Service catalog is part of the self service portal from where your employees (requesters) request for new hardware, software, and other service items. You can add multiple service categories (like Audio and Video softwares, Apple hardware, etc.) and add service items (a product or service that employees are eligible to request) under each category.

    Creating a New Service Category

    To create a new service category,

  • Go to Admin > Service Catalog and click on the Add New dropdown.
  • Choose Service Category
  • Enter the category name and description and click Save.

    • Creating a New Service Item

    To create a new service item,

  • Go to Admin > Service Catalog and click on the Add New dropdown.
  • Choose Service Item
  • Enter the name for your service item and the choose the service category under which you wish to add it
  • Fill in other details such as the asset type, product, description, etc. and once done, click Save.

    • Audit Log

    Audit log keeps track of all the changes that take place under the Admin section of your service desk. On the other hand, all events related to individual ITIL modules such as Tickets, Problems, Change, etc. will be tracked under the Activities section.

    Audit log comes handy when you're performing external/internal audits. They can be very helpful in case of a service desk incident as it helps you in identifying the person who is responsible for the incident.

    As of now, Audit log keeps track of changes that take place in the following modules:

  • Accounts (plans and billings)
  • Agents
  • Groups
  • Change (Change Lifecycle & Change Form Fields)

    • Applying filters

    You can filter audit log based on a specific date range or by object type (Account, Plan & Billing, Group and Agent).

    To apply filters,

  • Click on the funnel icon on the top right corner.
  • Choose the date range for which you wish to view the audit log.
  • Choose the Object type ( Accounts, Plans & Billing, Group, Agent or Change)
  • Once done, click Apply.

    • Support Channels

    Email Settings

    Your default support email address is helpdesk@yourcompany.freshservice.com. Any email sent here gets automatically converted into a ticket that you can get working on.

    You can configure your Freshservice account to use a support email from your own domain, like helpdesk@yourcompany.com by forwarding emails from this address to helpdesk@yourcompany.freshservice.com.

    To create a new support email box, click “ Edit” under global email settings.

    Quick tip: Using Multiple Mailboxes

    You can add unlimited incoming and outgoing mailboxes (like info@yourcompany.com,

    sales@yourcompany.com, etc.) in your service desk by clicking on the New Service Desk Email button. You can even set up Freshservice to automatically assign emails from each mailbox to a specific group.

    Reply emails from Freshservice will automatically use your respective support email IDs as the From email address. Creating an SPF record in your DNS zone file will ensure proper delivery of emails.

    Support Portals

    You can create multiple end user support portals for different customers. These portals can be customized so users see just what they need to see. You can also configure separate URLs for these portals and provide access to just the relevant Knowledge Base solutions in each of these portals. Agents can still access the tickets created from each of these portals as a consolidated list in the Tickets tab of Freshservice.

    Creating a new support portal

    To create a new support portal,

  • Go to Admin > Support Portals and click on New Portal
  • Provide a portal name for the new portal and select the company. A company can define a different department for which you wish to create the portal. For example, you’re already having a self service portal for all the employees and wish to create a separate one for all the marketing teams in the company. In that case, you can choose Marketing from the dropdown or create a new company titled “Marketing.”
  • Enter a portal URL and choose the portal language.
  • Choose solution category which you want to be associated with this portal. You can add one or more solution categories to a portal.
  • You also have option to customize the look and feel of the new portal by changing its logo, favicon, etc.
  • Once done, enter the linkback URL and service desk phone number.
  • In the end, you will also have options to enable Single Sign On and SSL encryption.
  • After filling in all the details, click Save.

    • To set up user permissions, click on the ' Settings' tab. Settings cannot be configured for individual portals and will be common for all portals that have been created.

    Feedback Widget

    The feedback widget lets you embed a ticket form directly into your website or product. You can customize the look and feel, and also placement of the widget on your website.

    You can use the section to customize the pop up/embedded widget using HTML/CSS. Once done, copy-paste the generated embed code in your website or app, to start using the Feedback Widget.

    Phone

    The phone channel is enabled by a Freshcaller integration with Freshservice. To know more about Freshcaller integration click here.