release notes

Freshservice Release Notes - Oct 2022

Related products: Freshservice
Freshservice Release Notes - Oct 2022

Important update: We have updated the release timelines of “Service Health Monitoring in Public Beta” on 31st Oct 2022. This enhancement will be available by Nov 15th instead of Oct 31st.

Note: All the features/enhancements below will be available on Starter and Growth plans on Oct 18th. For Pro and Enterprise plans will be available on Oct 31st.

Product version: 2022.R10L.01

 

New Features and Enhancements

 

 

Introducing Redesigned, New Tickets Experience

Category: IT Service Management

We have redesigned the tickets experience that gives you faster performance, improved readability, and better accessibility.

Ticket:

  • Reply to and forward private notes

  • View the details and description of the ticket in tab format

  • Quickly move to the next activity using the app pane

  • Determine at a glance if a ticket pertains to an incident, a problem, or a change from the icon next to the ticket title

Incident Create Form:

  • Experience consistency with the Save, Cancel buttons moved to the bottom

  • Drag and drop attachments and attach multiple files to an incident

Service Request:

  • Improved search experience with the revamped search tab

  • Search across categories using the new All Items option

More details here.

2HM997GpcYWHlMp-CjhP11on-DU1Hrms7x_s47ePOUdMQa-0FuZKLujFR1Pbo0MWKa-hjYl_iWELVXbt27z9FXxn4lNlLarqjZhPbBgFlS2FJ_eUpyUl3Ce_o098ZQybVKdEssfhz6VE41FhDSoK8DYumQ_1zSZaTxKMDe2kNaoJKKHY_s0903wRkQ

8HrcgXIC2rTUmqlqhUovKBrgcVdOj-56ciRgRPxUxB_9E1nCIuQoQAtSG-7shtnXf5dGRLT3ijL_3ibaYSlWrx_HjSUxZiflAVDTvUpblzoWwDKfaJhNWwocQXx5XuEfbDTcKRf_eC54lenYCEiVGJhgWv-rJNWv4mQRHnxq8jbo_wD_Fl4_ddgvgg

M4TcioiTefuw0bSiXl3Na3ydAJeIWoILl8BOWtcPLYblUuvrgJ-Y1djTPqgwTKCzhkqUANjsG5DqcCLkENYcmQcW3ygg-EHRb3CbWwP1u6CPRfX7OXdIfuBv95kJRd726fqsXNAnp8heXMQGFb6L71VNDQbZm9_HLMuk2wVzc4Myrg0qG3hj7np7ig

 

Sharing Tickets and Changes with other Requesters

Category: IT Service Management

Requesters can now share service requests and tickets with their subordinates. The current CC option only gives them incremental updates but does not give the complete view of the ticket. With this, they can add them as a co-requester of the ticket. If email notifications are enabled, they can also receive notifications based on the ticket status updates.

They can also share Changes associated with their Department (if they have access to it) from the Requester portal.

More details here.

Xz0Iw00uOr0LjpnwGyjBYM0kEfgnrz9TcYyXIFFrBI1hAPwY6vLPOhA-ITj-mDKAYNDqYyX7HSNBZdQwQ6Uv0UUF3n2byAm-CJlCYZ-DAfk3MnNRy2pqyVepUjWz1qstqj1Ly_58HV-an30HwCqwunB8MaoJVZohTdPdm3kY8W__R6HVktcvFffXYQ

Z-Z_EUs5gIHxj7wsK3mJYO57PN84SUsSjfDz1PtMNmmSc4tQ38pNPFyKDTJCl13LE0zip_uZiK7GJXzjviqp6RpwfFNx2-_LsaEOsqnmXYRa_8QIGPdMLa_uLi2n8kWDGlXK2LROimkQmBelENoWnU_TTCqyLpA5nsYSa6Y3GqMl0H1xdL5R0mG8CA

Note: To ensure the option is enabled do check “Allow requesters to share tickets with others” and select “Yes”.

byP-Cil1EWfM6q2ze0-nZIuEgxHdFF27lIub3ERVN-5cEp2Bt8OD0fSv8wVAGUy66JwHwpKMi4-SsC6reb-_Pt3uzwh_xWaTf3BPjbZJmhR81x_RYFaFBR-F9SaWK_ypwevycg--oUmci9BM8mthYp9Triv2-EnLl5wQbvFlXW5BOFpaaDgWE7Qh8w

 

Ticket Custom Field Limit Increase

Category: IT Service Management

We have increased the total number of Ticket fields that can be configured in the form. Here's the split up.

  • Dropdowns including multi-level nested drop-downs: 150

  • Single line text fields: 150

  • Date Fields: 25

  • Paragraph fields: 50 by default (There will be a character limitation of 3000 chars)

hFeij5cSu9S8DBFOiEDAHjKGHT7inbEIr4EUubhC_5uP2Sw4DuILUmu0rsB4Eq3KkEUqdheKRwQ-6M-u6UKirfAc9yuMZJUWD_bRm_5BBypXXI5I6RUM9a_5EpXAdATlhxL5AwVKZ9iw0V102aaaRartZEJqrrSWMuDhv9IiNuCsEiNK05Ep5X54jg
 

Service Request and Change Approval via Email

Category: IT Service Management

With this enhancement change and service request approvers can respond to the requests directly from their inboxes. Freshservice will send an email to approval recipients where they can just reply with certain keywords in order to approve/reject the request.

This will remove additional steps for approvers to navigate across multiple screens to login into the product for approval/rejection of the requests.

More details here.

p87q5Gu0R63GPwp1uieYf9VH3EVqsHgUE-LWyiDyMrKAC0Mx_z6wV6fKRtEYxqJc11VwPBwmj2t3B8fP89H1kQjTGLcIpOoHqz9Ir4vVwDj0X1YWe-hA2CguQ_LjDiLEA3GwIunttYElOJEBcCjdT8W7ZCq7TJYxNTQWbE0FvUyEDxNzMTrwk8xdfg

hQdJTVMzx42jPEE-yWCHOG9uFTs00k3W0pGLwHVCLTY1dLW2UXe1XxH5Mybi7BugPlBMCXvG8Sim5gUlFpTHO77D_G4Sjz3WrLZVjZNFaaxSzGPF1dn-IoI7AJRGP-pFc11_eIWWzq5g9jxkjIxTxLKp6fe5GnWqj9LJL7eDTsNLGpo8SCqAnxvdRg

 

Service Request Creation Enhancement

Category: IT Service Management

Agents can now copy the field values while creating service requests for checkbox and dynamic sections from the parent form to additional items. 

 

Support for paragraph fields in Problem, Release and Time Entries

Category: IT Service Management

Users can now view and export paragraph field values of Problems, Releases and Time Entries modules in Analytics.

 

Virtual Agent now supports Hybrid responses and Feedback controls on Slack

Category: IT Service Management

Reduce the number of times your employees resort to ticket creation by giving them more control over Virtual Agent’s responses to their queries. This is now supported on Slack in addition to Microsoft Teams.

Note: This was released on September 20th 2022 for all Enterprise accounts.

More details here.

HRAMUlil4laFHVaC7ipxM8yGxNa1r3X7CPvLhTwWtwwAQNUM0Y8V6_WdieQaGMfkYeQ2-fU78-UM687PKNI41l47leHGqjiICstqlT710qyxJXKDC5OtTAKPflwuBlzfu0fUU0bN2X0f8QByUzfcPsW1COCNHXBTUEBuUJz-qqvSn8rsG5dujVSMbg

 

Virtual Agent search no longer supports tag-based search

Category: IT Service Management

The virtual agent algorithm will use semantic and context-based search going forward. It will rely more on visible content (i.e. document title and description) and less on tags and keywords for powering this new search.

Note: This was released on September 15th 2022 for all Enterprise accounts. 

 

Notify On-Call Agents on WhatsApp

Category: IT Operations Management

On-call agents can now receive notifications and respond to them over WhatsApp. They will be able to acknowledge, escalate, or resolve incidents from within WhatsApp. This enhancement is especially useful for users who've been unable to use SMS for notifications because of regulatory restrictions.

jbpKRSyF4BWqhEgoOu5FrthdEPrvhROaTY0VRN-uWkjcfi_iQK-T09f0IpiYRfDD_6vgbzsJ_IzzImg2AFv0Jo3Bt1-mq2or3CDpz8dHf912twb4i8S1ZtEb6NHC-LjYKtIcmvGty2QKEs_vVR3aHqxpNFgBjuuEojfAv-JwIv4I4LkPG2aEttjbGA
 

g3QteuYdiXljCRUbZi25F9u5rU1hr3iPdKqdUs_ZZUsv5iSrTlblVadbdAhYupykmODhqAg7a0s0xtRziQZK9pKx4oJHAtPhsyMtlwGjy2ca8SU17wOmdgIV9VgyZpoEvZ6ipPr67cZSL1OZPOPvBVE643Ysuj2KXyN5I38Knze6rzgTe2cYWuaBbA

 

Service Health Monitoring in Public Beta

Category: IT Operations Management

Users can now define and monitor business and technical services by mapping assets and inter-dependencies for a service. By gaining clarity on ‘what’ powers a service, users can figure out ‘how’ to fix that service much more easily.

More details here.

Important update: We have updated the release timelines of this enhancement on 31st Oct 2022. This will be available by 15th Nov’22 instead of 31st Oct’22.

IxBg7FOKXr9a4NRTEuumtWZPxyXcawDBP5W4HK6s4Zx4Q2IZ3Oq-ttzfQMPfmDpjyPAMOmOFPMTWdXI4gdGXn7r7rnUeB9ogS8xst4ddTPJWvrGJBOPyMuXqmhO1cIH4R8vvzCPBCLxZphlIQtXqP95JXRfP0zltRScIDaxtb9OoF-U-saze0N8oEQ

 

Four New OOTB integrations in Alert Management

Category: IT Operations Management

Users now have the option of four new out of the box integrations in the Alert Management module, namely: 

  • AppDynamics

  • Logz.io

  • Sumologic

  • Loggly

With these additions, the total number of OOTB integrations now stands at 23. 

In addition to these options, users can continue to employ email as a channel for alerts, as well as create custom integrations via webhooks.

More details here.

 

On-Call Management now available in IND data center

Category: IT Operations Management

Customers associated with the India data center will now be able to access the On-Call Management module. They will be able to use modern channels of communication such as WhatsApp and the Freshservice mobile app to acknowledge, escalate, and resolve incidents.  
 

Probe Email Alerts 

Category: IT Asset Management

Admins can now stay updated and resolve probe issues effectively using probe email alerts.

  • Identify the number of devices and users scanned along with the scan errors attached in the scheduled sync summary report.

  • Notify agents with proactive emails if probe hasn’t communicated with Freshservice over a specified number of days using the inactivity report.

  • Stay informed when the probe encounters an error during scan due to invalid configurations and other unexpected issues using the error report. 

More details here.
Note: This feature will be available from Oct 31st 2022.

AfjedDpVfAJH8w1VKFg4PKpGg0J60Ur_aMeor11bcj5klBsvrLGpX2DgxC4-7fMA-rq7ERikoFp2egfDP5b_lo5_RAeN_57HHmSkuunbuqpB_gC1CNtgCswa-8qCDDhIh9Q8bmVssPLHWtPtKAUqFqhEM9RjsZsQYH8dBCcR4g-_1BTaDI963LrTkA

 

SCCM Integration Enhancements

Category: IT Asset Management

Map additional properties from up to 5 tables in SCCM rather than just the single table supported earlier.
More details here.
Note: This feature will be available from Oct 31st 2022.

 

Send External Emails using Placeholders in Workflows

Category: Workflows/Automation
Users now have an option to send out emails to external email addresses from workflow automator actions. For instance, during the onboarding process, send out automatic email notifications to the employee’s personal email address as and when the onboarding steps are completed.

sGI4ETDTrfuDCRbeXIvAxxjwgU-SPNDniHjLLc2Tvms2nuZXqVljvb0C6pK-r0TD44Ln_c0_k0RpiA9Iga_ZYOaS9oVKTQvow7AI8lp4oRQGCIFa_0iZwz1zmXWnHgxUDgLIAYIZYkcqUC3S7DAhgwr26E4kHvnaU5zE5CU9_ilqCzTzZBkLa8Aw4Q
 

Important updates

 

Follow-up to our “Get ready to get upgraded” communication sent in May 2022

Ensure that you’re prepared for the following changes which will be effected on your Freshservice account in November 2022:

  • Reports Module Deprecation & Upgrade to Analytics Module: If your account was created before 13th March, 2020, we’ve upgraded your legacy Reports module with the more powerful and robust Analytics module. All your older reports have already been migrated to Analytics. The legacy Reports module will be unavailable November 2022 onwards. More information here.

  • Deprecation of Password-Based Authentication for Google and Microsoft Mailbox Connectors: Google and Microsoft have deprecated support for password-based authentication for connecting their mailboxes to Freshservice. If you’re still using password-based authentication, switch to OAuth-based authentication to fix issues and prevent disruptions. More details here.

  • MSP Mode - Department and Requester Field Name Changes in Analytics: If your account has the MSP mode enabled, we will be renaming the ‘Department’ and ‘Requester’ fields in Analytics to ‘Company’ and ‘Contacts’ fields in November 2022. This is being done to ensure consistency with the rest of Freshservice. You will be impacted if you have any third party BI integrations built using data exports or schedules with ‘Department’ or ‘Requester’ fields. More information here.   

  • [Postponed] Deprecation of Freshservice API V1: We have postponed the API V1 deprecation date from November 2022 to May 2023. Ensure that you transition over to API V2 in your workflow automators, portal customizations, and custom applications before May 2023 to avoid disruptions.

Refer to this solution for additional information about these upgrades and deprecations.


 

Bug Fixes

 

These were the product defects detected, and they’ve now been fixed.

  • There was an irrelevant activity displayed on the ticket when an incident was assigned to an on-call group when there were no ongoing shifts at that time of assignment.

  • If the user accesses the ticket link or approval link via Freshservice mobile app, it was not redirected to the Freshservice app. Rather, it redirects to the browser.

  • If field values contained field names within them in the “query” clause of a “Filter Agents” API call, they caused an error.

  • Requester groups that included many VIP Requesters showed the VIP badge only for the first 20 VIP Requesters.

  • ​​Reports created in the Analytics module were not loading for a few customers.

  • Articles created from external URL, in the Freshservice knowledge base, were not appearing as suggested articles when agents respond to tickets.

This is an impressive month! Thank you!


Goodness! This is immense! It's going to take a while to get to grips with all this new functionality! 


Holy Smokes!!!! FEATURES FEATURES FEATURES!!! Looking forward to each of these enhancements. Also saw a number of serious bugs fixed which is always great to see!!! Great job everyone!


Really nice features, many of them were enhancements we were hoping for. I can’t wait to test it !


Sharing tickets among requesters is a highly requested feature in our org!


Sharing tickets??!?!?

I never thought I’d see the day.

To confirm this is sharing the ticket such that it shows up in the web portal view correct????


With the MSP mode change of switching Department to Company, are there any plans to be able to make departments under companies while in MSP mode? Because that would be radical.


The option to share ticket is tremendous. A lot of these are. You guys are doing great work!


Sharing tickets??!?!?

I never thought I’d see the day.

To confirm this is sharing the ticket such that it shows up in the web portal view correct????

Hi @sean.groomes yes. Check this solution article this has all the second order details, including FAQs: https://support.freshservice.com/en/support/solutions/articles/50000004954-sharing-tickets-and-changes-with-other-requesters


With the MSP mode change of switching Department to Company, are there any plans to be able to make departments under companies while in MSP mode? Because that would be radical.

@mithun.mohandas@rahul.prakash 


OMG! Im not yet done with the previous updates! and here we go. Another updates!!! 😂


What a great list of updates and Features coming, Looking forward to sinking our teeth into these!


With the MSP mode change of switching Department to Company, are there any plans to be able to make departments under companies while in MSP mode? Because that would be radical.

@jg8675309 MSP Mode has always switched Departments to Companies, but this change wasn’t being reflected in Analytics until now. We’re extending this behavior to Analytics as well in the upcoming release.

We don’t have immediate plans to enable the creation of departments within companies, but we’ll consider this as an input for our roadmap.


Our company is currently beta testing the new ticket UI and I’m very surprised you’re aiming to launch this new design with so many bugs still present. We’ve reported nearly 20 issues and only about half of them have been addressed.

I’m hoping the option to switch back to the classic ticket UI will remain, because our teams depend on it, thank you.

Sharing tickets and the possibility to approve with just a reply are indeed nice additions though, nice to see it.


Can you confirm that the option to share tickets with other Requesters definitely applies to both Incidents and Service Requests?


Will sharing tickets be something the agent can do or JUST the requestor? Example, the agent wants to share the ticket with a legal team member for review.


Can you confirm that the option to share tickets with other Requesters definitely applies to both Incidents and Service Requests?

Yes, @Dave Longman applies to both. cc @mrudraraju 


Our company is currently beta testing the new ticket UI and I’m very surprised you’re aiming to launch this new design with so many bugs still present. We’ve reported nearly 20 issues and only about half of them have been addressed.

I’m hoping the option to switch back to the classic ticket UI will remain, because our teams depend on it, thank you.

Sharing tickets and the possibility to approve with just a reply are indeed nice additions though, nice to see it.

@AwantikaJha@bharath.karunamurthy 


Can you confirm that the option to share tickets with other Requesters definitely applies to both Incidents and Service Requests?

Yes, @Dave Longman applies to both. cc @mrudraraju 

 

Fantastic news - thanks!


Will sharing tickets be something the agent can do or JUST the requestor? Example, the agent wants to share the ticket with a legal team member for review.

@mrudraraju 


Will sharing tickets be something the agent can do or JUST the requestor? Example, the agent wants to share the ticket with a legal team member for review.

@mrudraraju

@zach.schmidt only requestor can share the tickets with others in the organization.

A case when agents can share is:

Suppose you are an agent from HR department with only departmental scope, create a ticket with legal team then, can share the ticket as you will not be an agent for that ticket.

Hope that clarifies!!


Will sharing tickets be something the agent can do or JUST the requestor? Example, the agent wants to share the ticket with a legal team member for review.

@mrudraraju

@zach.schmidt only requestor can share the tickets with others in the organization.

A case when agents can share is:

Suppose you are an agent from HR department with only departmental scope, create a ticket with legal team then, can share the ticket as you will not be an agent for that ticket.

Hope that clarifies!!

I would love to see this on the agent side, as many ITSM tools allow agents to provide additional visibility in which don’t depend on the end user to take those actions. Hope we can see that in the near future, or a API ability to do this so we can make our own share app for agents. 


This huge change is a bit much to take it at once and somewhat irrelevant to my usage of FreshService. How can I switch back to the old look? I appreciate the work to provide additional functionality, but all of this extra margin/padding around comments is a waste of screen space. PLEASE GIVE ME BACK FULL WINDOW WIDTH COMMENTS! Or at least reduce the magins/padding. Screencaps do not fit well with this new look, and we rely upon screencaps in tickets.


How do we automatically have each comment expand instead of being forced to click “view more” on every single comment? I can’t find a way to set this. That’s a nightmare!


I thought a couple of months back there was talk (and even some screenshots) of time based triggers in automation workflows? 

For example, on X day and time do X

We are wanting to use this to re-open tickets later with certain statuses. For example, we have staff added to security groups temporarily (remote/overseas access). In our old system, we would set the ticket to re-open the day after they no longer require access. Ticket would re-open and notes would be added then closed. As far as we can tell there isn’t anyway to follow up on tickets later, except to create a “task” but then you have open tasks, and open tickets assigned to that task (can’t close a ticket with an open task)