Note: All the features/enhancements below will be available on Starter and Growth plans on June 18th, 2024 & on Pro and Enterprise plans on June 27th, 2024.
Product version: 2024.R06L.01
New Features and Enhancements
Change Management for DevOps - Azure DevOps, Github and Jira Connector apps
Category: IT Service Management
Introducing connector apps for DevOps tools like Azure DevOps, Github, and JIRA to track and align software development with Freshservice Change and Incident management.
IT Service desk and Operations teams can
- Integrate change management with the CI/CD ( Continuous integration and continuous delivery/continuous deployment) process by automatically creating change records whenever there is a production deployment.
- Integrate change management with the deployment schedule by creating immediate records of deployment initiations, and automating the creation of changes mimicking the deployment calendar.
- Gain complete context on the deployment by associating work items and pull requests that are ready for deployment to the change record in Freshservice.
- Automatically create and link development work items with incidents to streamline intake development backlog items through tickets and Incidents.
Note: This feature is supported for customers in Pro and Enterprise plans in all data centers. Customers have to purchase the connector app add-on to use this capability.
More details here.
Deflect email queries with Email Bot
Category: IT Service Management
When employees raise queries through email, waiting and resolution times are often prolonged. Though many issues could be instantly resolved with the right help articles, email channels lack integration with these resources, preventing self-service.
Introducing Email Bot, a Freddy Self Service feature that quickly deflects email queries by automatically suggesting relevant help articles. Using machine learning, Email Bot identifies and recommends articles that match the issue raised, helping employees resolve their issues faster and easing your IT team's workload.
Note: This feature is in beta and will now be a part of the Freddy Self Service category on the Enterprise plan.
More details here.
Enhanced Navigation for Problems
Category: IT Service Management
Users can now effortlessly move to the 'next' or 'previous' problem from the problem details page, allowing easy and quick navigation.
Adding Notes for Changes
Category: IT Service Management
Users can now only select agents to notify when adding public or private notes in changes, aligning with our ticket module. The requester of the change can be notified via public notes, while other requesters cannot, enhancing security and maintaining consistency across modules.
Note: To allow your requesters to raise a change, navigate to ‘Support portal settings’ and check ‘Allow requester groups to raise change requests’.
Support for email notifications in the new Sandbox
Category: IT Service Management
Admins can now configure and test email notifications in the new sandbox to ensure accuracy and reliability before deploying changes to the live environment.
Associations within user modules in Analytics
Category: IT Service Management
With additional associations between user modules and various other modules, reporting on users who take actions on modules can be improved with more granularity. Here are the details:
- When reporting on ‘Alerts’, attributes of the "Acknowledged by" agent can be leveraged within filters and group-by filters.
- When reporting on ‘Requestors’, attributes of the "Tickets created" by them can be leveraged within filters and group-by filters.
Customize Status Page look and feel
Category: IT Operations Management
Users can now fine-tune the look and feel of their Status Page with various customizations that could help with branding, support, SEO, and more. These include:
- Colors and fonts: Select as per brand guidelines.
- Support: Add Support portal URL and contact information. Also add ‘Report a Problem’ link.
- Headers: Set up top-level messaging and links.
- Footers: Add copyright disclaimer, links to privacy policy, website terms and similar links, home page and social media links, and RSS feed.
- Display: Set the default status page banner to be displayed when everything is ok.
- SEO: Instruct search engines to index your status page and optimize meta keywords for better SEO.
More details here.
Agent privileges for Scheduled Maintenance
Category: IT Operations Management
Admins will now be able to give agents permission to create and manage updates about scheduled maintenance on the Status Page. This privilege can be enabled under agent roles in Global Settings. With this enhancement, admins will not only be able to retain control over core admin tasks like configuring change lifecycle and setting up maintenance windows but also delegate the posting of scheduled maintenance updates to specific agents.
More details here.
Migration from alert rules to alert workflows
Category: IT Operations Management
Existing users of the Alert Management System will be migrated from Alert Rules to the more advanced Alert Workflows. This migration will happen in phases from June 2024 to August 2024. Users will be informed a week in advance before this migration via an in-product message. After the migration, Alert Rules will remain visible but not actionable for a finite period to help users gently transition.
To take full advantage of the simplified management capabilities of alert workflows, we recommend users review and consolidate their alert rules into optimized workflows before the migration begins by signing up for the beta program here.
More details here.
Alert Management enabled by default
Category: IT Operations Management
Users can get started with the Alert Management module faster with it being enabled by default for all Pro & Enterprise customers. Earlier, users had to go to an IT workspace, click on the Alert Management icon on the Admin page, and then enable Alert Management. But now they’ll straightaway see the Monitoring Tools icons on the Admin page and the Alert option on the left navigation bar, allowing for quicker setup and access. Users who have opted for the Freddy Copilot Add-on will also see the Automated Grouping icon.
Modify minimum value for alert reopen interval
Category: IT Operations Management
Users can now set the alert reopen interval up to 0. While earlier users were limited to setting this limit between 10 minutes - 24 hours, with this enhancement users will be able to choose an alert reopen interval between 1-10 minutes as well.
More importantly, users will now be able to disable the alert reopen functionality by setting the value to 0. This means that if an alert is closed out and a new alert is generated immediately with the setting as 0, it’ll be treated as a new alert.
Search on-call schedules using keywords
Category: IT Operations Management
Users will now see a dedicated search bar at the top of the On-Call Schedules page, labeled ‘Search on-call schedules using schedule or group name’. The search functionality is designed to be quick, responsive, and accurate, ensuring that users can find the relevant schedules without the need to press enter or navigate through multiple pages.
This search can also be accessed via Freshservice Public APIs.
Export all fields/columns of the software user’s table for all SaaS products
Category: IT Asset Management
Agents can now export all the fields/columns of the software user’s table for all SaaS products, expanding insights and reporting options. This enhancement enables comprehensive data export, empowering them to make informed decisions and optimize software usage efficiently.
Enhancements in Employee Onboarding/Offboarding
Category: Freshservice for Business Teams
HR agents and supervisors can now gain deeper insights into onboarding and offboarding requests with new dashboard filters for child ticket discovery and details on predecessor and successor tickets. The newly added ‘quantity’ field for service items in onboarding kits provides IT agents with accurate demand data.
Enhanced Business Rules Limit for Service Catalog Items
Category: Automation
We are updating the Business Rule (BR) limits to support extensive Service Catalogs better. Admins can now create up to 25 Business Rules per service item, providing greater flexibility and scalability for service request forms.
More details here.
Freddy Copilot Ticket Summary for Mobile
Category: Mobile
Agents can now view and create ticket summaries on the go using the Freshservice mobile app, enabling them to get quick context and resolve tickets faster.
Note: This capability will be available before the end of June 2024. Ensure the mobile app is updated to the latest version for access.
On-Call Shift Delegation on Mobile
Category: Mobile
Agents can now delegate their on-call shift to another agent within the group if they are unavailable using the Freshservice mobile app, ensuring continuous agent availability.
Note: This capability will be available before the end of June 2024. Ensure the mobile app is updated to the latest version for access.
Integrate Genesys CTI with Freshservice
Category: Apps/Integration
The Freshservice - Genesys Cloud CTI integration is designed to bridge the capabilities of Genesys' robust calling functionality with Freshservice's enterprise-grade service management. With this integration, agents can effortlessly manage inbound and outbound calls, create new tickets or update existing tickets based on the calls, and easily access each ticket's call history.
More details here.
Important Updates
Notices for new changes/upgrades/deprecation activities
The following changes will be made effective by Nov 5th, 2024. Ensure that you’re prepared for it.
- Fair Usage Policy (FUP) for Freshservice Analytics
To ensure that all our customers have an uninterrupted, performant, and smooth reporting experience, we are implementing safeguards in some of our analytics capabilities starting Nov 5th, 2024. Please note that there is no immediate impact to your existing reports. You can continue to create and edit reports without any restrictions.
Who will be impacted?
If you have created reports, data exports, or schedules in Freshservice Analytics that violate the Fair Usage Policy, you will be impacted by this change.
What do you need to do?
Ensure all your reports adhere to the FUP before Nov 5th, 2024. Follow in-product instructions displayed starting May 16th, 2024, and resolve FUP violations.
More details here.
- Discontinuation of Legacy Versions of Marketplace Apps
We will discontinue legacy versions of a few Marketplace apps to ensure that you get enhanced and consistent app experiences. To ensure that these apps work as expected without disruptions, you will need to upgrade them by Nov 5th, 2024.
Who will be impacted?
You will be impacted if you are using any of the older versions of these apps.
What do you need to do?
Upgrade to the latest versions of these apps.
More details here.
- Discontinuation of AWS Orchestration App
To ensure that you get both Cloud Discovery and Orchestration capabilities in a single Cloud Management app, the AWS EC2 - Orchestration app will be discontinued on Nov 5th, 2024.
Who will be impacted?
If you use the AWS EC2 - Orchestration app (for cloud asset actions and custom workflows), you will be impacted by this discontinuation.
What do you need to do?
You can install the new AWS Cloud Management app and uninstall the AWS EC2 - Orchestration app.
If you have workflows that use nodes from the Orchestration app, replace them with new nodes from the AWS Cloud Management app.
More details here.
- Deprecation of the current Sandbox version
To ensure you experience the enhanced capabilities of the revamped Sandbox in Freshservice, we will be deprecating the current version of Sandbox by Nov 5th, 2024.
Who will be impacted?
You will be impacted if you have an active Sandbox created using the current version on or before Nov 5th, 2024.
What do you need to do?
If you have an active Sandbox that belongs to the current version, you can destroy or sync it to enable the revamped Sandbox version in your account.
For example, If your account has Sandboxes across three workspaces (Global, IT, and HR), destroy or sync all of them to access the revamped version.
More details here.
Bug Fixes
These were the product defects detected, and they have now been fixed.
- When a custom object was referenced in a field in the service catalog and another custom object was referenced in a conditional field within the previous field - there were issues in the values that were getting filtered.
- In the support portal’s solutions page, when the window is resized and maximized, the page was misaligned.
- Service request was not working when a business rule was configured with the date field section.
- Resolution Notes placeholder in email was not picking up rich text content from the field.
- The project management module was not loading in the Chrome browser when third-party cookies were disabled.