Understanding how custom fields work

First, every Custom Field belongs to a Group, which you use to organize related Fields and control the location in GFI HelpDesk they are displayed.

For each Group, you add a Title and select a Location:

• User profile – Store additional customer details on their user profiles. Users are prompted to fill in these Fields when registering on your support center, and staff can fill them when inserting or managing users from the staff control panel.
• User organization profile – Capture information about user organizations. These Fields are visible and editable by users when they fill in their organization details on their support center profile. Staff can also edit these Fields under the Organizations section in the staff control panel.
• Live chat (before chat) – Ask for specific details before letting customers start a chat conversation.
• Live chat (after chat) – Add questions to display in the live chat window when a conversation is completed. Use them to solicit specific ratings, feedback, etc.
• Staff ticket creation – Create custom Fields on the form for staff for using it on creating a new ticket from the staff control panel. These Fields are not visible to your customers.
• User ticket submission – Prompt your users for specific information when they're creating a new support ticket on the support center.
• Staff and end user ticket creation – Select this location to create a Group of Fields that appears to both your staff and your end users, when they're creating new support tickets.
• Ticket time tracking / billing entry – Track detailed billing information by adding custom Fields to the Billing ticket tab in the staff control panel.

When you have created a field Group or two, you can start to add the Fields themselves. GFI HelpDesk supports a variety of different field types:

• Text – Small, single-line text box that allows users to enter a short string of text.
• Text area – Larger text area, spanning multiple-lines, that allows users to enter larger blocks of text.
• Password – Text box that masks any values entered, for security.
• Checkbox (multiple choices) – List of options with checkboxes next to them. Users can select multiple options.
• Radio Buttons (single choice) – List of options with radio button selectors. Users can select one option.
• Drop-down select (single choice) – List of options in a dropdown menu. Users can select one option.
• Multi-selection menu (multiple choices) – List of options in a menu. Users can select multiple options.
• Linked select (multiple choices) – Drill down menu that takes users through nested options, where they can make multiple selections.
• Date – Pop-up calendar that users can select a date from.
• File – Field where users can upload individual files.
• Custom – Blank field container that allows you to supply your own HTML for a form field.

After you have selected a Field type, you can define the field's options and also configure its behavior in the following ways:

• You can control whether it's editable by users or just by staff.
• You can make it required.
• You can restrict the values it accepts by matching them to a regular expressionEnables to define a sequence of characters that specify a search pattern..