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Note: All the features/enhancements below will be available on Starter and Growth plans on Apr 17th 2023. For Pro and Enterprise plans will be available on Apr 27th 2023.

Product version: 2023.R04L.01

 

New Features and Enhancements

 

Virtual Agent is now available on Slack Public Channels

Category: IT Service Management

With Servicebot’s Virtual Agent on public channels, employees do not need to invoke the bot to get their questions answered - when Servicebot is available on a channel, it will automatically understand employee queries that can be answered and provide quick resolution with relevant help articles and service requests.

More details here.

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Contextful Service Requests in the Servicebot

Category: IT Service Management

With the latest enhancements to Servicebot in Slack, we bring better context for service requests and incidents into your collaboration tools to:

  • Get complete context about requested items, ticket status, priority, and any other custom details needed for the service request. 

  • View and access files attached to your service request right within your collaboration platform.

More details here.

 

Time Log for Timesheet Entries

Category: IT Service Management

Agents can now log the exact time they start working on a ticket alongside the date to track the time spent resolving the ticket.

Note: ‘Hours’ and ‘On’ labels are changed to ‘Time spent’ and ‘Started at.’

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Audit Logging for Agent Profile Changes

Category: IT Service Management

Audit logs will now additionally capture values specified or modified for all agent profile fields, such as title, work phone, mobile phone etc., when creating or modifying an agent.

 

Share Reports with Key Stakeholders 

Category: IT Service Management

With the new report-sharing enhancement, agents will now be able to share reports with specific stakeholders and choose from a host of access permissions (like view, edit, or manage) for the selected agents.

More details here.

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Additional Support for Syncing Changes from Sandbox 

Category: IT Service Management

Users can now sync service catalog images and referenced assets in admin configurations to allow for seamless transfer of configurations from sandbox to production. 

 

Extension of Workflow Timer Branch Limit 

Category: IT Service Management

Agents can now configure up to 5 timer nodes per connected branch of a workflow instead of the earlier limit of 5 timer nodes for the entire workflow to support cases where a single ticket entity needs several wait times in an execution workflow. 

 

Easy Access to Critical Workload Metrics

Category: IT Service Management

Agents and managers can now seamlessly view the count of delayed work items upfront and manage them. In addition to this, each metric (planned, unplanned, and delayed) has been made clickable to access the relevant items easily.

Agent availability in hours or % hours (wrt a working day) provides managers the necessary overview and foresight to plan, manage & balance team workload further.

More details here.

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Classic Ticket View to be Replaced by the Modern Ticket View

Category: IT service management

Note: This is only applicable for accounts that were created between December 12th, 2022 and March 14th, 2023.

To enable the best ticketing experience, we have redesigned the tickets view to a more modern and scalable experience.

We will continue to build on top of this new experience, and we want to ensure that you get these enhancements promptly.

Therefore, the redesigned experience will be enabled by default. You will no longer be able to switch back to the older version.

Deprecation dates:

April 15th - Starter, Growth

April 30th - Pro, Enterprise

More details here.

 

Terminology Change from Helpdesk to Service Desk

Category: Freshservice for Business Teams

With the terminology change from helpdesk to service desk, we can effectively represent the comprehensive nature of the support services that Freshservice enables customers to deliver. This will rename settings like helpdesk branding, helpdesk security and references to the term ‘helpdesk’ while keeping the functionality unchanged.

Note: This change will begin in the 1st week of May 2023.

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Provide Coverage from Shift List Page

Category: IT Operations Management

Users can now update an agent’s shift without entering the ‘edit shift’ mode. Clicking on the agent’s name on the calendar on the shift list page for an on-call schedule reveals the shift details. It also offers options for providing coverage, modifying an override, or deleting an override.

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Create On-Call Shifts using Business Hours

Category: IT Operations Management

Users can now use business hours associated with an agent group to create on-call shifts. The shifts’ timings will be synced with those configured in the Admin >> Business Hours section. Users can also create off-hours’ support shifts by selecting the Non-Business Hours option under customize shift interval. The system will automatically create an off-hours’ support shift based on the business hours associated with the agent group.

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More OOTB Monitoring Tool Integrations

Category: IT Operations Management

Users now have the option of two new out-of-the-box integrations in the Alert Management module: Splunk and Auvik. With these additions, the total number of OOTB integrations is now 25. In addition to these options, users can continue to employ email as a channel for alerts and continue to create custom integrations via webhooks.

More details here.
 

Alerts Tab now under Details Section

Category: IT Operations Management

Users will now be able to access the Alerts tab under the “details” section on the Incident detail page.

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Approver Visibility in Purchase Order PDF  

Category: IT Asset Management

Purchase order PDF now supports additional information like approval history, list of approvers, comments, status, and approval time. This ensures that all stakeholders involved in the procurement process have complete context about the purchase order, including the approval history.

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Added group-by filter options in Kanban Board

Category: Project Management

Users (individual as well as cross-project) can now customize their views on the Kanban board with additional group-by filter options that support custom fields. This is available on the All Project Tasks board, Tasks board, and Sprint board. Besides three default fields (Assignee, Priority & Type), all single select attributes are introduced as group-by filters.

With this enhancement, users get greater visibility on tasks & projects with detailed/deep split views as per new filter attributes.

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Important updates

Follow-up to our “Notices for new upgrades/migration activities” communication sent in Nov 2022

Ensure that you’re prepared for the following changes which will be effected on your Freshservice account in May 2023:

  • Deprecation of password-based authentication for API V2: We are deprecating the username and password-based authentication for Freshservice APIs in favor of API key-based authentication by May 31st, 2023. This deprecation will impact features where you may be using Freshservice APIs. After the deprecation date, all API requests using password-based authentication will fail. More details here.

  • Removal of Deprecated Attributes from User Management APIs: All deprecated attributes from the Agent and Agent Group APIs will be removed by May 31st, 2023. After the deprecation date, API requests that use these attributes will not be accepted and these attributes will not be included in any of the API responses. More details here. 

  • Strengthening TLS 1.2 Cipher Suites: We will be changing our transport layer security controls to allow only TLS 1.2 Strong cipher suites from May 31st, 2023. If you’ve built custom integrations with Freshservice, please ensure your API Clients are compatible with the TLS 1.2 Strong cipher suites. More details here.

  • Deprecation of Amazon Web Services Marketplace App: You will be upgraded to the AWS Cloud discovery application and as a part of this new upgrade, we will deprecate the Amazon Web Services ( Native AWS app) application from our marketplace on May 31st, 2023. More details here.

  • Deprecation of Freshservice API V1: The API V1 deprecation will happen in 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. More details here.

 

Bug Fixes

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

  • Email notifications in project management were not being triggered. 

  • Links in the Gantt bar in Workload management could not be clicked.

  • List view filters in the Change module were not showing accurate results.

  • Business Rules set up for Service Items were not working in the requester portal. 

  • SLA policy not applied when field value with & symbol is included in the conditions.

  • SLA was not updated after changing the ticket type from Incident to Service Request and after adding the requested item.

Awesome updates as always!

Regarding the upcoming Removal of Deprecated Attributes from User Management APIs by May 31st:

Will Web Request nodes in Workflow Automation still be authenticated with FS API Key by using Basic Authentication, and entering the API key into the Username, with any password? It’s still listed in the Web Request Node solution article to do this, so I would guess it will still be the case.

Thanks!

Awesome updates as always!

Regarding the upcoming Removal of Deprecated Attributes from User Management APIs by May 31st:

Will Web Request nodes in Workflow Automation still be authenticated with FS API Key by using Basic Authentication, and entering the API key into the Username, with any password? It’s still listed in the Web Request Node solution article to do this, so I would guess it will still be the case.

Thanks!


They really should support he bearer authorization header. It’s silly to say basic authentication is deprecated when they mean, “Using username and passwords is deprecated”

I like that there is finally a tiny improvement on Time Tracking. Being an MSP using Freshservice in MSP mode this has been a major pain point for us.  However what does the Time Log for Timesheet Entries get us? We can now add when the work started but how does a tech/agent look at their day to see all the work they’ve done? How does a manager view how busy a tech has been? 

I’m guessing and hoping this is just a change for future improvements? Otherwise setting the start time but having zero visibility on it and no way to report on it, then it’s data that gets entered but immediately lost.

Hopeful this gets improved but I fear it might be too little too late for us as we’re evaluating other tools that do this well already. 

I like that there is finally a tiny improvement on Time Tracking. Being an MSP using Freshservice in MSP mode this has been a major pain point for us.  However what does the Time Log for Timesheet Entries get us? We can now add when the work started but how does a tech/agent look at their day to see all the work they’ve done? How does a manager view how busy a tech has been? 

I’m guessing and hoping this is just a change for future improvements? Otherwise setting the start time but having zero visibility on it and no way to report on it, then it’s data that gets entered but immediately lost.

Hopeful this gets improved but I fear it might be too little too late for us as we’re evaluating other tools that do this well already. 

@anupama.phal@ShashankD 

Hi,

Regarding “Deprecation of password-based authentication for API V2”.
As far as I understand we are today not able to use the “API key” from external systems such as “Postman” where we are still depending on using basic auth following the “apikey:x” syntax. How will this be affected by this change?

Some great enhancements this month! I have to add my voice to what is already mentioned about the confusion on how we authenticate to make calls to the freshservice API. My assumption is that we simply will not be able to pass an agent username and password as a way to authenticate the API request. Currently we are instructed to use basic authentication using an agent API_KEY in the username field, and pass a single character in the PASSWORD field. Will there be any changes to this method once the password-based authentication is deprecated?

Here some more info Deprecation of basic authentication (username/password-based) for Freshservice API v2 - Happening / Announcements - Freshworks Developer Community

 

You need to base64encode your API key with like Base64 Encode - Online Tool

Key: Authorization

Value: basic <encoded key>

 

 

 

To make it clear, <> should not be used in the value field. 

I think the enhancements deployed are great, but I can’t help wondering how the development priority is established.

There are basic functionality enhancements in the backlog, e.g. being able to sort and filter tickets more effectively, a loop/iteration/goto function in workflows.  Fortunately, we as a community have managed to find workarounds and share our solutions for some situations, but I would prefer that the product I subscribe to (aka pay for) has these features rather than filling my workflow list with mini-1-line hacks (being able to sort, filter and report on workflows would be nice too).

When will we see functional updates to the GUI?

 

Here some more info Deprecation of basic authentication (username/password-based) for Freshservice API v2 - Happening / Announcements - Freshworks Developer Community

 

You need to base64encode your API key with like Base64 Encode - Online Tool

Key: Authorization

Value: basic <encoded key>

 

 

 

 

Please FreshWorks, make sure to document proper and official instructions for this asap or point us to it if already existing. Not professional at all to let your customers figure these things out by them self. 

Please FreshWorks, make sure to document proper and official instructions for this asap or point us to it if already existing. Not professional at all to let your customers figure these things out by them self. 

 

haha you are right there, thanks for point that out to FW.

I’m not even sure if that is how they intended it to work.  

I like that there is finally a tiny improvement on Time Tracking. Being an MSP using Freshservice in MSP mode this has been a major pain point for us.  However what does the Time Log for Timesheet Entries get us? We can now add when the work started but how does a tech/agent look at their day to see all the work they’ve done? How does a manager view how busy a tech has been? 

I’m guessing and hoping this is just a change for future improvements? Otherwise setting the start time but having zero visibility on it and no way to report on it, then it’s data that gets entered but immediately lost.

Hopeful this gets improved but I fear it might be too little too late for us as we’re evaluating other tools that do this well already. 

Hi,
Freshservice Workload Management would be a good solution for you. With this, agents can plan the work assigned to them and view their workload easily. Managers can also view and manage their team's workload and get visibility into the availability/utilization of their team members. This is available on the Pro and Enterprise plans. You can learn more here: https://support.freshservice.com/en/support/solutions/folders/50000000787

Here some more info Deprecation of basic authentication (username/password-based) for Freshservice API v2 - Happening / Announcements - Freshworks Developer Community

 

You need to base64encode your API key with like Base64 Encode - Online Tool

Key: Authorization

Value: basic <encoded key>

 

 

 

 

Please FreshWorks, make sure to document proper and official instructions for this asap or point us to it if already existing. Not professional at all to let your customers figure these things out by them self. 

 

I am not finding *anything* in the announcements that refers to base-64… how did you know it was required?

 

I am not finding *anything* in the announcements that refers to base-64… how did you know it was required?

Good question, when I reading it again, it doesn’t say anything about base-64, could been our DEVs got it from a meeting/support ticket. 

@Vishal Nema As author of this release note, can you please followup on our questions/comments related to the API change and any other unanswered comment?

Awesome updates as always!

Regarding the upcoming Removal of Deprecated Attributes from User Management APIs by May 31st:

Will Web Request nodes in Workflow Automation still be authenticated with FS API Key by using Basic Authentication, and entering the API key into the Username, with any password? It’s still listed in the Web Request Node solution article to do this, so I would guess it will still be the case.

Thanks!

@cody.pieper Yes, that’s right. We’re deprecating the support for using email address and password for API authentication using the basic authentication method. We’ll continue to support API Key as user name and any text as password using basic authentication as the authentication method. 

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