First Insight - Find your Fields

First Insight - Find your Fields

The Wheels of Ticketing - Desk Stories

Find your Fields

What are fields?

Fields are crucial in ticketing modules that capture information about Tickets, Customers, Organizations, Products, and more. Depending on the kind of data being stored, users can choose from various types of fields, including Date, Date/Time, Picklist, Single-line, and Multiline. 
 
Desk offers standard fields that cater to everyday business needs, such as Company name and Email address. It also allows the addition of custom fields based on specific business requirements. A layout is comprised of both standard and custom fields.

Types of fields

Standard Fields

Organizations can display or hide standard fields within each module according to their needs. Notably, mandatory fields defined by the system, such as Departments and Contact Name, cannot be modified or removed. Any alterations made to the standard fields within a layout will apply organization-wide.

Custom Fields

Alongside the standard fields, Desk provides the opportunity to add custom fields tailored to specific industry needs, including types like string, decimal, integer, currency, and checkbox. For instance, a custom field titled "Referred By" can be created to track customer referrals. However, it's worth mentioning that these custom fields will only be available within the department where they were made. Custom fields can be added to various modules, including Contracts, Time Entry, Agents, Tickets, Contacts, Accounts, Products, Calls, Tasks, and Events.

A story for better comprehension of using fields

The Ticketing Turnaround at Crazy Fitness

Crazy Fitness, a popular fitness studio chain, was struggling to keep up with its rapidly growing customer base. The support team was inundated with tickets, and response times were suffering.

Rachel, the support team lead, knew they needed a better system. She implemented a new ticketing system by choosing the right fields and creating the necessary custom fields, focusing on:
  • Multi-channel support: Rachel configured the system to manage requests from multiple channels, such as email, social media, and live chat.
  • Knowledge base: She developed a thorough knowledge base, enabling customers to find solutions to their queries independently.
  • SLA management: Rachel set up well-defined service level agreements (SLAs) to guarantee prompt responses and resolutions.

With the new ticketing system, Crazy Fitness:

  • Reduced ticket volume: By 20%, as customers found answers in the knowledge base.
  • Improved response times: By 50%, thanks to automated routing and SLA management.
  • Increased customer satisfaction: By 30%, as customers received timely and personalized support.
As Crazy Fitness continued to expand, Rachel's team used the ticketing system to identify trends and optimize their support process. They even launched a customer feedback program, using ticket data to inform product development and improve the overall customer experience.

Crazy Fitness's commitment to customer support helped the company maintain its reputation as a leader in the fitness industry.

Overview of fields

In the newly set Crazy Fitness ticketing help desk system, fields typically refer to the different pieces of information that can be captured or displayed for each support ticket. Here are some standard fields you might encounter:

Ticket Fields

  • Ticket ID/Number: A unique identifier is assigned to each ticket
  • Subject: A summary of the issue or request
  • Description: A detailed account of the problem or question being addressed
  • Category: The type of issue (e.g., technical support, billing questions, general inquiries)
  • Priority: The urgency level of the ticket
  • Status: The current state of the ticket (e.g., open, in progress, resolved)
  • Assignee: The agent or team designated to handle the ticket
  • Requester: The individual who submitted the ticket

Contact Fields

  • Name: Customer's full name
  • Email: Customer's email address
  • Phone: Customer's phone number
  • Organization: Customer's company or organization

Custom Fields

  • Age - Age of the fitness enthusiast
  • Height - Height of the fitness enthusiast in centimetres
  • Weight -Weight of the fitness enthusiast in kilograms
  • Diet Plan - A balanced diet plan prescribed to the fitness enthusiast  for a healthy lifestyle

Additional Fields

  • Tags: Keywords or labels to categorize and filter tickets
  • Attachments: Files or screenshots added to the ticket for context
  • Conversation History: Record of all interactions related to the ticket
  • Custom Fields: User-defined fields to capture specific information relevant to a business

Reporting and Analytics Fields

  • Created Date: Timestamp when the ticket was created
  • Resolved Date: Timestamp when the ticket was resolved
  • Resolution Time: Time taken to resolve each ticket
  • Agent Performance: Metrics to evaluate agent efficiency and effectiveness

Takeaway

These fields help you manage, track, and analyze customer support requests efficiently, ensuring timely resolutions and improved customer satisfaction. 

These fields can vary depending on the help desk software being used, and some systems offer customizable fields to suit specific organizational needs better.

Please stay tuned for more Desk Module stories.

Cheers,
 
Kavya Rao
The Zoho Desk Team
    • Recent Topics

    • In place field editing for candidates

      Wondering about any insight/best practices for efficiently updating candidate records while reviewing them in a Job Opening pipeline. We can do in-field editing (e.g. update job title or City) only when we have the full candidate record open, however
    • Default tax type for mileage?

      Where we are, mileage includes a government tax. Is there any way to set a default tax for the Personal Car Mileage category of expense? (Or any other way?)
    • Analytics Portal

      I have the "standard plan" and want to explore the portal option; I activated the 15-day trial but do not see the pricing for the add-on. How can I get the price under "Upgrade add-ons." Thanks Rudy
    • Show price book list price

      When using price books, once you add products to the price book in the Products related list you can display the Unit price which is the default list price; however, there is no option to show the price book list price. To see the price book list price
    • Cliq File Upload

      While uploading large file like 500MB, it takes time, that fines. But if you resize window or move window in other screen, that uploading disappears. After upload complete & sent it will be visible
    • Zia Actions: AI-powered Workflow Automation for Faster and Smarter Execution

      Hello everyone, Workflows got a notch better with AI-based actions. Actions such as field extraction, prediction, auto reply, and content generation facilitate quick execution with improved speed and accuracy. Zia can intercept useful details in newly
    • Constant color of a legend value

      It would be nice if we can set a constant color/pattern to a value when creating a chart. We would often use the same value in different graph options and I always have to copy the color that we've set to a certain value from a previous graph to make
    • What's New in Zoho POS - October 2025

      Hello everyone, Welcome to Zoho POS's monthly updates, where we share our latest feature updates, releases, changes, and more. Let’s take a look at how October went. Process returns for refunds, exchanges, or offer store credit Returns and exchanges can
    • Loan and purchase

      My husband is lending me mobey to buy a vehicle intersst free ... I need to know how to record the cash receipt and how I pay it back... the money is for a vehicle do I just post the invoice for that as I normally would usung the loan money to pay for
    • Zoho Connect Module in Zoho Trident

      Hi I really like where Zoho Trident is going. Having Mail and Cliq in one place is especially powerful. However, Zoho Connect really needs to be included to make this a true communication and collaboration hub. I would like to request that Zoho Connect
    • Zoho FSM API Delete Record

      Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,
    • File Field Validation

      Hello all, We are tracking our customer NDA agreements in our CRM and have created 2 fields to do so, an execution date field and a file upload field. I want to create a validation rule to ensure that when the execution date field is populated that the
    • 100 record view limitation

      I have just migrated from another CRM and am starting in ZOHOcrm with over 5000 contacts. It seems that my searches and sorts are limited to 100 live records....or am I missing something. This seems to be very limiting...in a lot of scenarios (mass email,
    • ZUG Meet-ups are back - Across India (December 2025)

      The Zoho User Group (ZUG) meet-ups are back, and this time, we’re travelling across India to reconnect with our amazing community! From Chennai to Delhi, Bengaluru to Mumbai, we can’t wait to meet you all in person and talk everything Zoho SalesIQ, automation,
    • Categorise Attachments

      We take ID, proof of address, right to work documentation and more.  I can upload a single file in to field, but we often receive multiple files for each category e.g. someone may send a separate file for the front and back of their national ID card.  My team don't have time to manipulate the files in order to upload them as a single file. The options, as far as I can tell, would be to create additional fields on attachments in order to categorise what the file is, or to be able to upload single
    • Scheduling a meeting for just a 1:1 phone call

      My business is B2C and many of my customer's don't want to engage in an online meeting for what can be handled in a regular phone call. I am trying to create a new meeting invitation, but there is no venue optoin for "phone call". How are other's handling
    • Need more details on API Usage Dashboard

      Hi Team, We have implemented Zoho Expense for a client and has done some integrations with well known third party ERP via api. Recently we have noticed a huge spike in the API consumption. But we couldn't get the root cause for the same. I accept there
    • Power of Automation:: Automating SLA Timelines for First Response & Resolution for Issues module.

      Hello Everyone, Ever wished SLAs could update automatically based on issue severity i.e no manual tracking, no missed timelines? That is exactly what one of our customers, Alex, wanted to achieve in the Issues module. So, we have setup a simple automation
    • Finding missing records

      I have a challenge and I am not really sure where to start with it. I can't find any similar threads on here, can anyone help: I have two forms, FormA and FormB. Both forms have records that contain a field called Job_Number. What I am trying to achieve
    • Power of Automation :: Quick way to associate your Projects with Zoho CRM

      A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate complex tasks and
    • Free webinar! Build smarter apps with Zoho Sign and Zoho Creator

      Hello, Bring the power of digital signatures to the apps you build in Zoho Creator! Connect Zoho Sign as a microservice and enable seamless e-signature workflows in your applications. This integration allows you to automate signing tasks using Deluge.
    • Move orders scan ISBN

      Hi We have ISBN setup to be searched in items zoho but move orders dissent recognize the ISBN is there q missing configuration? regards, JS
    • What's New - October 2025 | Zoho Backstage

      Hey everyone! We’ve been busy rolling out a host of upgrades for Zoho Backstage. While some major features are still going through final rounds of testing to make your event experience smooth as butter, here’s what was new and improved in October 2025.
    • Zoho Analytics - Feature Request For Time Based Data Source Fetch

      Hi Analytics Team, I have a client using Zoho CRM and they want a weekly report at 4:30pm every Friday, emailed to the sales team showing a pie chart of Closed Won Deals for that week. This is easy to achieve in Analytics but not so easy to ensure the
    • Zoho People Attendance Regularization – Wrong Total Hours Displayed

      While using Zoho People, I observed that the attendance regularization is showing wrong total hours when applied to past dates. For example, if a check-in is added at 10:00 AM and check-out at 6:00 PM for a previous date, the system sometimes calculates
    • Add Flexible Recurrence Options for Meeting Scheduling in Zoho Cliq (e.g., Every 2 Weeks)

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, when scheduling a meeting inside Zoho Cliq, the recurrence options are limited to Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. There is no ability to set a meeting to occur every X weeks — for example,
    • AI generated meeting notes associated to Account or Deal

      As our organization works to improve efficiency we are looking for a solution to leverage AI to generate meeting notes and then add those notes to a CRM record such as an Account or Deal. I see Zoho has a Notebook AI offering that talks about the ability
    • Subform Disabled Fields Should Remain Disabled on Edit/View

      Currently, when we disable a subform field using on user input or on add new row, it works perfectly during the initial data entry. However, when the record is saved and reopened for viewing or editing, these disabled fields become editable again. This
    • How do you print a refund check to customer?

      Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does anyone print a refund check to a customer? We cant find anywhere to either just print a check and pick a customer, or where to do so from a credit note.
    • What is Resolution Time in Business Hours

      HI, What is the formula used to find the total time spent by an agent on a particular ticket? How is Resolution Time in Business Hours calculated in Zohodesk? As we need to find out the time spent on the ticket's solution by an agent we seek your assistance
    • Is it possible to turn off all capabilities for a customer to schedule, reschedule or cancel an appointment?

      Is it possible to turn off all capabilities for a customer to schedule, reschedule or cancel an appointment? I would like to set it up so only staff can schedule appointments. Is this possible?
    • Hide "Section" headers when using a form as a subform in "List view"

      When using a form as a subform and setting the "View Type" to "List View" it is not possible to hide the section headers. This can become an issue if I have a section which is not applicable to this subform and I hide the fields within that section and
    • Add additional field to quick search results

      IN the advanced search, we can add any field to the columns. In the regular search results (before you press enter, there is no option to modify the results. It would be super useful to include a custom field where it currently displays the pipleine
    • Books API Receiving an Error that Doesn't Make Sense when Creating Credit Note - trying to use 'ignore_auto_number_generation' argument

      Hello, I'm working on a newly created routine and I'm getting an error that doesn't make sense when trying to create a new Credit Note. Here is my POST request. Endpoint: https://www.zohoapis.com/books/v3/creditnotes?organization_id=########## Body:     {
    • Bug Report and Suggestions for Improvement in Zoho Applications

      Hi Zoho Team, I’d like to report a few bugs and improvement suggestions I’ve noticed while using Zoho products: Zoho Cliq Video Call: The camera sometimes turns off automatically during video calls. This seems to be a bug — please check and fix it. Zoho
    • Need Help: Updating Related Records via Subform Entries in Zoho Creator

      Hi everyone, I’m trying to set up a workflow in Zoho Creator where each row in a subform updates related records in another form automatically. Here’s the situation: My main form (e.g., “Receipts”) contains a subform where each row selects a related record
    • Zoho Desk - Community - Customer Portal - Description Field UX Improvement

      Hi Zoho Desk Team, As a prolific user of Zoho Cares Community, I find it very frustrating that I cannot increase the size of the Description box (this one which I am typing this message). Many apps with multi line text fields have a small handle in the
    • Add the same FROM email to multiple department

      Hi, We have several agents who work with multiple departments and we'd like to be able to select their names on the FROM field (sender), but apparently it's not possible to add a FROM address to multiple departments. Is there any way around this? Thanks.
    • Can I change the format of the buttons in the email templates?

      Hi all! We have been working hard trying to brand our email templates, and have some way to go yet. One of the things we can't seem to edit is the green ${Cases.CUSTOMER_PORTAL_BUTTON} button and the font of the View Ticket text. Is there any way of doing
    • Introducing parent-child ticketing in Zoho Desk [Early access]

      Hello Zoho Desk users! We have introduced the parent-child ticketing system to help customer service teams ensure efficient resolution of issues involving multiple, related tickets. You can now combine repetitive and interconnected tickets into parent-child
    • Next Page