Custom fields and tags

Custom fields store extra facts on conversations, contacts and organizations. Tags group them. Fields need the Manage settings permission (Admins and Owners). Tags need Manage tags (Supervisors and above).

Add a custom field

1. Open Settings → Conversations → Custom fields.
2. Pick Conversations, Contacts or Organizations, then select Add field.
3. Enter the Label and choose the Type, for example Text, Long text, Whole number, Decimal number, Money, Date, Date and time, Yes / no, Choice, Several choices, Nested choice, Web address, Text with a pattern, File or Linked record.
4. Set the options of the type, such as Lowest value and Highest value, Currency (a code such as EUR), Pattern with its message, or Allow several values.
5. Select Save field.

For a choice field, select Options to add, order and nest options. Import options from CSV builds a nested choice of up to three levels. An option can add a tag: Cliedesk adds the tag when the option is chosen and removes it when it is no longer chosen.

Field settings

• Required to resolve a conversation: nobody can resolve the conversation while the field is empty. This applies to agents, rules and the API alike. The message names the field, for example “Order number is required to resolve.” Through the API, the rule can apply only to one type, one status or a condition.
• Customers can see it and Customers can change it, with the Name customers see: the portal shows these fields under Details. Customers can change them until the request is resolved.
• Sensitive: masked in lists and exports: the app and the API show only the last 4 characters. The value never reaches the portal and is left out of exports.
• Show and require conditions: a field can depend on another field, the priority, the type or the status. Every form that uses the field follows the same conditions. A hidden field takes no value, and customers never see hidden values.

A Linked record field points to a contact, a conversation, a user or a WooCommerce order. The value is read live, so a new order status shows at once. The picker lists only the orders of the conversation’s customer.

Developers can map a contact field to a WordPress user meta key, such as billing_company. Cliedesk then reads and writes the user meta directly. Security keys are refused.

Archive instead of delete

Archive hides a field from pickers and lists but keeps its values. It also lists the rules, views and saved replies that use the field. Restore brings it back. You cannot delete a field that still has values or is still used. Built-in fields can never be archived or deleted.

When two people edit fields at the same time, the newer value wins and the side panel tells you which field was overwritten. Two people adding tags at the same time both keep their tags.

Tags

Everyone with Create tags (Agents and above) can add new tags while tagging. Others can only pick existing tags. You can tag conversations, contacts, organizations, messages and help articles.

Open Settings → Conversations → Tags to manage the tag list. Each tag has a Name, Colour, Description, Uses and Last used.

• Rename: select Edit. Rules, saved replies and views keep working, because they store the tag, not its name.
• Merge: tick several tags and select Merge selected…. Every use moves to the tag you keep. Select Undo within 30 days to get the original tags back.
• Delete: if the tag is in use, Cliedesk lists where, including live rules, views and saved replies. Select Delete anyway to go on.
• Tags nobody used for 90 days are marked Unused. A rule that still uses such a tag is listed at the top of the page, because it may never match. Change the days, and how long a merge can be undone, under Unused tags and merges.

A tag can also be on a single message (set through the API). Search tag:name finds the conversation, and reports can break down by message tag.

Tag inheritance

Under Tag inheritance, pick the Tags new conversations inherit and select Save inheritance. A new conversation gets those tags from its customer, and from the customer’s organization. Apply to open conversations adds them to open conversations too.