Configuring the Service Catalog [Agent Guide]

The Service Catalog is a centralized list of IT services offered by an organization. It provides users with information on costs, availability, and how to request services. Using the Service Catalog feature, you can streamline service management and facilitate easy access to IT offerings.

Creating an effective IT service catalog involves understanding user needs, assembling the right team, designing a user-friendly catalog, testing and publishing, and continuous improvement. The catalog may include categories, such as email and calendar, permissions and access, hardware, apps and software, support resources, training, and business and finance.

Add service category

Service categories in Freshservice offer a way to organize and group related service items together. It helps to classify and categorize services based on their nature or purpose. By creating service categories, you can provide a structured and organized service catalog for your users, making it easier to navigate and find the services you need.

Every workspace can maintain its own list of service items. The order of workspace service categories displayed in the support portal follows the order in which workspaces are created. The order of service categories and items within a workspace can be configured at the workspace level. 

To add a service category:

2. From the Add New dropdown, select Service Category.

3. Enter the category name and description, and click Create.

Add service item to the service catalog

To add a service item:

1. Go to Admin > Service Management > Service Request Management > Service Catalog. If your account has more than one workspace, go to Admin > {Worskpace Name} >  Service Management > Service Request Management > Service Catalog.

2. From the Add New dropdown, select Service Item.

1. Enter a name in the Item Name field.
2. Select a relevant category from the Service Category dropdown.
3. Enter a short description and detailed description in the respective fields. 
4. Enter the cost in USD in the Cost field. If required, select the Visible in portal checkbox.
5. Enter the estimated delivery in hours in the Estimated Delivery field. If required, select the Visible in portal checkbox.
6. Select a relevant option from the Requested for dropdown.

   
   

   
   

4. In the Custom Fields section, you can find a range of custom fields, such as text, paragraph text, checkbox, and so on.

1. Drag and drop the required custom fields on the Drag and drop fields here section. For example, select a text field and define the relevant field properties.
2. Select the access and behavior for custom fields.
3. Add lookup fields that will populate appropriate field properties and create relevant hierarchical relationships when your end-users fill out their forms. They can use dropdowns to navigate through the data and select different options you’ve configured. See Add a Lookup Field to a Service Item Form for more information.
4. Add content fields to all your incident and service item forms in Freshservice. See Setting up rich-text sections with content fields for more information. You can create sections in your forms with content headers, and you can also add relevant links.
   
   

5. In the Additional Items section:

1. Search and include related service items that can be requested alongside the main service. This enhances the efficiency of service requests by providing the ability to select and request supplementary items. It also eliminates the need for your customers to create multiple requests for different service items. However, additional items must be added individually in the service catalog. This option is not available for loaner service items.

2. Mark certain additional items as mandatory.

3. Delete any item.

4. Select the Create Child Requests for each of the items above checkbox if you want individual child tickets to be created for each additional item. Enabling this option will link the added child tickets to the parent ticket. The child tickets will then be handled by agents in the respective departments, and the items must be delivered within the timeframe under the corresponding SLAs. If this checkbox is not selected, all the items fall under a single service request that can be assigned to just one agent. See Service Requests with Additional Items for more information.
   
   

6. In the Service Item settings section, select the fulfilment options based on the service item.

1. Select the asset type and product from the respective dropdowns to enable agents to fulfil hardware, consumable, and software service requests seamlessly.
2. Set up visibility options to restrict the visibility to specific requester groups.
3. Customize the subject of the service request raised for this item.

7. Click Save & Publish to save the service item or Save as Draft to revisit later.

Here's a video demo of the Freshservice Service Catalog:

Frequently asked questions

1. How can a requester view the time information while raising ticket for a service request?

You may face an issue if the "Request time information" option is not selected in the Catalog Item field. This configuration cannot be modified in the existing Catalog Item field, so you will have to create a new Date field.

Go to the respective Workspace Admin if you have more than one workspace > Select the Catalog Item > Create a new Date field with the "Request time information" option selected to make it visible to users.

2. Why is the Content field not visible in the Requested Item section after a ticket is created?

By default, the Content field is visible only while submitting a request, and not in the Requested Item section of the ticket.

3. How do I export Service Catalog for all the Workspaces?

The option to export Service Catalog items directly from the Service Catalog is not available. As a workaround, you can make an API call to retrieve the items. See the Service Catalog API documentation for more information.