We use Freshdesk to support multiple products. Since products have different characteristics, we have created ticket fields that correspond to a particular product (but are not relevant for others). Freshdesk exposes ticket fields (default and custom) to both agents and requesters (portal) for ALL products. There needs to be a configuration option through the UI to associate fields to 1 or more products.
There are numerous posts on the Freshdesk discussions requesting this feature. It is difficult to correlate all of them since some people refer to this as ticket forms, but I assure you this is a necessary feature. I myself have opened tickets with support years ago and requested my issue be converted to a feature request.
The responses I have received and seen on the portal suggest 2 solutions (both of which are unacceptable)
1) use Javascript to specify which fields should be hidden
- This would need to be done at the Agent portal (which does not work with the new interface... we had this working and it broke with the new interface).
- This would also need to be done for each product's portal (each portal would need this done for the "New ticket" & "Ticket details" portal pages).
- If a new field is created, we must remember to revisit each of those pages and hide it or it will show (you specify what is to be hidden). Some of our fields are customer specific so this can expose information that should NOT be visible for other customers.
- Hiding fields with JS does not allow fields to be mandatory. If a field is configured as required/mandatory for an agent and is hidden for the agent with JS, the ticket cannot be closed. The field is required but is not visible to the agent.
2) Use the 3rd party "Custom Ticket Fields" app
- This will only hide fields for agents (not requestors through the portal). To hide from the portal we must hide with JS like the first solution (see above limitations).
- This app does not allow hiding dependent fields
- The same problem occurs as the first solution where if a field is mandatory/required (but hidden for a product) the agent cannot resolve the ticket. The agent will receive an error of "Please fill the mandatory fields to resolve/close the ticket", however, the field is not visible to the agent. This renders mandatory fields useless, thus resulting in missing information.
- The folks at Honeybadger (the creators of this app) have done a great job implementing the functionality that it does have. It is easy to use and works well (with the exception of the aforementioned limits). I do have security concerns about allowing any 3rd party full access to our freshdesk instance. If a 3rd party wanted to export our customer list, I presume they could do so through these apps as I was not told what APIs are being used to make this app work.
This is a major issue for us and has been plaguing our configuration for years. This functionality must be added to Freshdesk for editions that support multiple products. Relying on 3rd parties isn't an acceptable solution. My prior support interactions and forum posts gave me false hope that this functionality was coming soon, but it seems clear that this is not planned.
Anyone reading this that feels the same way, please login and upvote and comment. Or please educate me on a solution if I have missed something.
