Create canned responses that personalize themselves. Build reports that show all your tickets about a specific item. With ChannelReply custom fields in Onsite Support, you can do all this and more! Follow this guide to unlock the time-saving potential of your Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, Shopify, Back Market and Newegg data.
Table of Contents
How to Get ChannelReply Custom Fields in Onsite Support
First, you’ll need to have integrated Onsite with ChannelReply.
Once the integration is up and running, go to your ChannelReply dashboard and click either “Helpdesk Settings” button.
Click on the “CUSTOM FIELDS” dropdown to open it.
Keep reading to learn how to generate all custom fields at once. Or, skip ahead to Option B to learn how to create only the fields you want.
Option A: Generate All Custom Fields at Once
Hit “Generate Custom Fields in One Click.” This will generate every single ChannelReply custom field, with default names for each one.
It may seem like nothing is happening for a couple minutes as your custom fields generate. Just hang in there! When they’re finished generating, all fields will populate, and you’ll see a success notification in the upper right.
Now that you’ve generated your custom fields, you can skip ahead to “How to Use Custom Fields in Onsite Support.”
Option B: Generate Only the Fields You Want
Don’t want to clutter Onsite Support with fields you’ll never use? No worries—you can just create the ones you want by manually typing in each field’s name instead.
Hit “Enter” or click anywhere outside the box to save your custom field. All details and options in the row will populate, and a success notification will appear in the upper right.
Repeat this process for all other custom fields you want in Onsite Support.
Want to learn more about your custom fields before deciding which ones to use? Check out “Answers to Common Questions about Custom Fields.”
How to Use Custom Fields in Onsite Support
Custom fields can be used in Onsite’s canned responses, triggers, and autoresponders.
Canned Responses
Canned Responses can be found at the bottom of the left-hand menu in Onsite. If you don’t see it right away, first click on the stack of three lines in the upper-left corner.
Hit “Canned Responses” once you see it.
You can create a canned response by clicking the “New Canned Response” button. Alternatively, you can edit any existing canned response by hitting the pencil icon on the right.
To enter a custom field as a placeholder, click on the exact spot in your canned response where you’d like the placeholder to appear.
Then find your custom field under “Variables” in Onsite. Custom fields have the same names here as in ChannelReply, just with "Ticket: " in front of them.
When you click on the variable, the placeholder will appear exactly where you had last clicked in your canned response.
If you prefer, you can copy the placeholder from ChannelReply instead. Simply click on the value in the “Copy Placeholder” field to copy it.
Then paste it into your canned response in Onsite.
Once you’ve finished writing out your canned response, hit “Submit” to save it.
The next time you use your canned response on a ChannelReply ticket, your placeholders will transform into order info!
Triggers
Click “APPLICATIONS” at the bottom of the left-hand menu. (If you don’t see it right away, just click the stack of three lines in the upper-left corner of the screen to reach the main menu. You’ll then see the “APPLICATIONS” button.)
Then, choose “Automation & Notifications” from the left-hand menu.
You’ll now see all your existing triggers. You can use custom fields as the conditions for any Onsite Support trigger except those that start with “Chat” or “User.”
Click the pencil icon next to any trigger you’d like to edit, or click “New Trigger” to make one from scratch.
Under “Event,” make sure that whatever event you select does not start with “User” or “Chat.” Custom fields are not available when these events are selected.
Using Custom Fields in Trigger Conditions
Under “Conditions,” click “Add Condition.”
Click on the first dropdown and scroll down until you start seeing conditions starting with “Ticket.” All your custom fields will be available here.
Once you’ve selected a custom field, you can select any of the following operators: is, is not, has, has not, starts with, or ends with.
The last dropdown is the condition’s value. You can leave it set to “Any” if you want to build a condition based on whether or not the field has any data. For example, if you use “Ticket: SKU | Is | Any” as a condition, the trigger will fire if there’s a SKU available for the ticket and will not fire if the SKU field is blank.
If you want to match to more specific data, click “Any.” A Value field will appear.
Enter a value. This could, for example, be the listing title of a specific item if you’re building an Item Title condition.
Once you’re finished, click “Submit.”
Get creative with how you use custom fields in conditions! You can base your trigger on just about anything imaginable:
- Use “Ticket: Buyer’s Note | is | Any” to get notified whenever an eBay or Etsy customer includes a note with their order.
- Combine “Ticket: Delivery Level | is | Prime” and “Ticket: Amazon Fulfillment Channel | is | MFN” to raise the priority of merchant-fulfilled Prime tickets.
- Try “Item Title | has | [specific brand name]” to single out tickets related to a specific brand you sell.
Using Custom Fields in Trigger Actions
Custom fields are mostly used in trigger conditions, but you can also target them in actions. Choose “Set: Object - Custom Field” as your action, and you’ll then be able to select any of your custom fields. Then type in the data you want to enter in the field.
Note that this will overwrite any data that would normally appear in that custom field. Be careful with how you use this!
Autoresponders
Our ecommerce autoresponder for Onsite Support is built on triggers. You can use custom fields in your autoresponder trigger's conditions and actions exactly as described above.
It also uses the Custom Template option of the Notify action. This lets you enter your custom fields as variables in your autoreplies. Personalize your messages with details like the customer's order ID, the status of their order, the item(s) they purchased and more.
All your custom fields are available right beside the message field in Onsite and can be entered in one click. No knowledge of code required!
We strongly recommend using custom fields in all autoreplies. They make your autoreplies much more likely to count toward things like Amazon's 24-hour SLA and much less likely to get caught in spam filters.
Reports (Views)
Onsite Support reports (similar to views in other helpdesks) allow you to sort and filter tickets by custom fields. You can use custom fields in any of your default reports like “My Assignments” or create fresh reports built around them from the start. You can also save your custom reports to use as working environments for your agents.
To edit an existing report or create a new one, navigate to your Inbox if you are not there already.
To create a report, just hit “New Report.”
To edit an existing report, select it from the left-hand menu. Then click the gear icon in the upper right and choose “Edit.”
Adding Custom Fields to Reports
Scroll down to “Table Columns” and you’ll see all your custom fields (starting with “Ticket:” each time). Check the box next to any custom field to add it as a column in your report. Then hit “Submit” to create a report you can access anytime, or “Run” to create a report that will be erased as soon as you leave the page.
You cannot have more than five fields in one report. If you want to report on more than one custom field, you’ll need to uncheck some of the default columns first.
After hitting “Submit” or “Run,” you’ll see your new report with custom field data immediately.
Sorting Reports by Custom Fields
After you’ve added a custom field as a column, you can use it to sort your report. Click on the custom field at the head of its column to sort from A to Z (numbers appear before A).
Click it a second time to sort from Z to A.
Filtering Reports by Custom Fields*
You can use custom fields in your report’s conditions to see only tickets that match your criteria. For example:
- “Item Title | is | Any” will only show tickets that have a value in the Item Title field.
- “Item Title | is not | Any” will only show tickets that do not have a value in the Item Title field.
- “Item Title | is | Green Widget” will only show tickets with the Item Title “Green Widget.”
- “Item Title | has | Widget” will show all tickets that have the word “Widget” somewhere in their Item Title.
*At the time this article was published, there was a known bug in Onsite preventing these conditions from working properly. The Onsite development team is working on solving this so the conditions will work as described above.
Accessing Saved Reports
If you saved your report using the “Submit” button, it will remain available under Inbox so you can easily access it in the future.
Answers to Common Questions about Custom Fields
The better you understand custom fields, the more you can get out of ChannelReply and Onsite. Here are the answers to the biggest questions our customers have about custom fields:
What Info Appears in Each Custom Field?
You can learn what kind of data appears in each field in “Custom Fields FAQ and Definitions.”
What Does “Duplicate to Message Body” Do?
“Duplicate to Message Body” is an option found in Helpdesk Settings > Custom Fields in your ChannelReply account. It is available on any custom field you have generated.
Enabling “Duplicate to Message Body” will cause the contents of the custom field to appear in the customer’s first message in each new ticket.
This is helpful if you want a permanent record of the order data related to each ticket as it appeared at the time the ticket was created. Data in the ChannelReply app and custom fields can change or be lost over time. Data duplicated to the message body will be available as long as the ticket exists in Onsite Support.
How Do I Delete a Custom Field?
First, we recommend copying the field’s Property ID in ChannelReply. Simply clicking on the Property ID will copy it.
You may want to save the property ID to your computer in case you accidentally copy something else to your clipboard during this process.
Next, click the trash can icon next to the field in Helpdesk Settings.
The trash can will turn a lighter grey and the field’s title, placeholder and property ID will be erased. ChannelReply will no longer send data about this field to Onsite.
However, the field will still exist and will simply appear blank on all new tickets. You’ll need to delete it in Onsite if you want to declutter your sidebar.
Deleting a custom field from Onsite will remove it from all existing tickets.
In Onsite, click Applications in the bottom left. (If you don’t see it right away, click the three-lines icon in the upper-left corner of your screen to return to the Onsite main menu first.) Then, select Custom Fields in the upper left.
In the Properties menu at the top of the screen, choose “Tickets.” Then look for the field you want to delete. If you copied the Property ID earlier, you can find the exact field with a quick Ctrl + F search now.
Once you find the field, hit the X button on the right.
The field will then disappear for good!
How Do I Add Back a Deleted Field?
In ChannelReply, simply type in a new title for the deleted field.
Hit “Enter” or click anywhere outside the box to save your changes, then wait for the confirmation message to appear.
If you have not deleted the custom field from Onsite, ChannelReply will reconnect to the old field. The old placeholder will work again, so you won’t even have to update your canned responses!
If you deleted the field in Onsite, ChannelReply will create a new field with a new placeholder and property ID instead.
Where Can I See Custom Fields on Onsite Support Tickets?
When you open a ChannelReply ticket in Onsite, you’ll see the ChannelReply app in your right-hand sidebar. Just click “Custom Fields” above our app to switch your view.
You’ll see your usual Onsite sidebar with custom fields at the bottom.
When Do ChannelReply Custom Fields Populate/Update in Onsite Support?
Custom fields populate at the time the ticket is created. You can therefore use them freely in triggers!
Custom fields update every time a new message is received. They also update every time the ChannelReply app loads and displays data in the right-hand sidebar.
If custom fields are the first things visible when you open a ticket, it's a good idea to switch to viewing the ChannelReply app. That way you'll refresh the custom fields with the latest data.
Can I Search for Tickets by Custom Field Contents?
We are currently working with the Onsite team to make it possible to find ChannelReply custom fields in Onsite ticket searches.
How to Get Help
Custom fields can be a bit tricky, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you ever need help. We’re always happy to assist you!
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