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Understanding placeholders in Desk365

Author: Anand Raju

In the fast-paced world of customer service, delivering relevant and personalized information is crucial to meet the diverse needs of users. This is where dynamic content and placeholders come into play.

Placeholders are a useful feature that allows you to customize your responses and save even more time. Understanding placeholders empowers support agents to deliver tailored responses, ensuring customers feel heard and valued.

In this help center article, we’ll delve into the process of creating and implementing placeholders in Desk365.

What are placeholders?

Placeholders, also known as variables or dynamic fields, are snippets of text that can be customized to display specific information when used in communication templates. They allow support agents to personalize responses, making them more relevant and empathetic. 

When you use a placeholder, Desk365 will automatically replace it with the corresponding value when you send the response.

For example, you can use the placeholder {{customer_name}} to insert the customer’s name into your response. You can even use multiple placeholders in a single response.

How placeholders work?

Imagine an agent who has just received a support ticket. By using placeholders, you can smoothly incorporate context-specific information like the customer’s name, the agent’s name, ticket URLs, and additional details into your notification and response templates.

As the ticket undergoes processing, these placeholders get dynamically substituted with real data, resulting in responses that are not only efficient but also highly relevant.

Custom fields in placeholders: An added advantage

With Desk365, adding placeholders to your canned responses and notifications are even more flexible. You now have the ability to incorporate your preferred custom ticket fields as placeholders within the canned response or notification intended for your end users as well as the agents.

For instance, let’s say you’ve included a ‘location’ ticket field and wish to present the end user’s location to your agent in the notification they receive.

In this scenario, you can effortlessly insert the ‘location’ placeholder into your Agent Notifications template. This placeholder dynamically populates with the relevant information from the ticket.

insert-location-placeholder-desk365

A Complete list of placeholders in Desk365

Here is the complete list of placeholders available in Desk365. Now, let us look into the different placeholders and what they represent in detail below.

Ticket Placeholders:

Placeholders

Functions

{{ticket.agentEmail}}

{{ticket.agentName}}

{{ticket.category}}

{{ticket.createdOn}}

{{ticket.desc}}

{{ticket.group}} 

{{ticket.lastUpdatedOn}}

{{ticket.myEmail}}

{{ticket.myName}}

{{ticket.priority}}

{{ticket.repliedContent}}

{{ticket.source}} 

{{ticket.status}} 

{{ticket.subcategory}} 

{{ticket.subject}}

{{ticket.number}} 

{{ticket.agentUrl}}

{{ticket.supportUrl}}

{{ticket.timeSinceLastUpdate}}

{{ticket.timeSinceCreation}}

{{ticket.type}}

{{ticket.c_custom_field}}

Email address of the assigned agent

Name of the assigned agent

Category of the ticket

Date and time when the ticket was created

Description of the ticket

Group which the tickets belong to

Date and time when the ticket was last updated

Logged in Agent’s email address

Logged in Agent’s name

Priority of the ticket

Replied content of the ticket 

Displays the source of the ticket (Microsoft Teams, Email, Support Portal, Web Form etc.) 

Status of the ticket 

Subcategory of the ticket 

Subject of the ticket

The unique ticket number generated for each ticket 

URL of the ticket for agents in the Agent Portal

URL of the ticket for end-users in the Support Portal

Time since the ticket was last updated

Time since the ticket was created

Type of the ticket (Question/Issue/Incidence/Request)

Custom Ticket Fields

Company Placeholders:

Placeholders

Functions

{{company.domains}} 

{{company.name}} 

Domains associated with the ticket requester’s company 

The company to which the contacts belong 

Contact Placeholders:

Placeholders

Functions

{{contact.email}} 

{{contact.name}} 

Email address of the contact 

Name of the contact 

Helpdesk Placeholders:

Placeholders

Functions

{{helpdesk.name}}

{{helpdesk.supportUrl}}

Name of the helpdesk

URL of the support portal

Additional Placeholders:
Contact Notifications:

Placeholders

Location

Functions

{{ticket.repliedContent}} 

{{note_content}} 

{{password_reset_link}} 

{{activation_url}} 

Agent replies to ticket  

Agent adds public note to ticket 

Contact requests password reset 

Contact signs up for Support Portal account 

Reply content of the agent

Public Note content of the agent 

URL for password reset 

URL for account activation 

Agent Notifications:

Placeholders

Location

Functions

{{ticket.repliedContent}} 

{{note_content}} 

Contact Replied To Ticket 

Note Added To Ticket 

Reply content of the contact 

Public/Private Note content of the agent 

SLA Notifications:

Placeholders

Functions

{{ticket.timeSinceCreation}} 

{{ticket.timeUntilResponseDue}} 

{{ticket.timeUntilResolveDue}} 

{{ticket.resolutionDueTime}}

{{ticket.responseDueTime}}

Time since the ticket is created 

Time left for the agent to respond back to the contact 

Time left for the agent to resolve the ticket 

Time left for the agent to resolve the ticket

Time left for the agent to respond to the contact

Approval Notifications:

Placeholders

Functions

{{approval.actionPerformedByEmail}}

{{approval.actionPerformedByName}}

{{approval.description}}

{{approval.status}}

{{approval.subject}}

{{approval.type}}

{{approver.note}}

{{requestor.email}}

{{requestor.name}}

Email of the user who performed the approval action

Name of the user who performed the approval action

Description of the approval process

Status of the approval (e.g., approved, rejected)

Subject related to the approval process

Type of approval action

Notes added by the approver

Email address of the person who requested the approval

Name of the person who requested the approval

Automation:
Create new rule > Do action > Trigger Webhooks

Placeholders

Functions

{{event.type}} 

{{event.time}} 

Type of the event (Ticket create / Ticket Update)

Current time of the event

Where and how to use placeholders in Desk365?

You can utilize placeholders in Desk365 at multiple places. Let’s take a look at them in detail below:

Canned Responses:

  1. Go to Settings > Productivity > Canned Responses. 

  2. Select any canned response that you’ve created already.

  3. Click on the ‘Insert Placeholders’ button.

This will open a list of Placeholders in Desk365 that are available to be use with Canned Responses which can be manually inserted into ticket replies.

insert-placeholders-in-canned-response

Notifications:

  1.  In the Agent Portal, Go to Settings > Productivity > Notifications.

  2. Choose any of the notifications under Contact Notifications or Agent Notifications.

  3. Click on ‘Insert Placeholders’ button. 

This will open a list of Placeholders in Desk365 that are available to be use with Notifications.

placeholders in notifications

Automation:

1. Navigate to Settings > Productivity > Automation.

2. Click to create a new rule  for Ticket Creation, Ticket Updates, or Time Based Triggers.

3. Enter the rule name, provide a description of the rule, and outline the condition. Proceed to the ‘Do Action’ section, and within that, select the option for sending an email.

4. Choose the email address and, as you compose the email, click the ‘Insert Placeholders’ button to include placeholders in your email.

send email do action placeholders

Likewise, you can employ placeholders when utilizing the ‘trigger webhook’ choice within automation rules.

placeholders-in-automation

In the dynamic landscape of customer support, placeholders in Desk365 stand as a powerful tool to streamline interactions, personalize responses, and ensure consistent communication. Balancing automation with a human touch is the key to leveraging placeholders effectively, ultimately fostering stronger customer relationships and driving business success.

Require additional assistance? Please reach out to us at help@desk365.io

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