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Freshservice is a user-friendly IT help desk application packed with AI-powered features. Set up Freshservice to reach your employees with powerful ticketing and asset management capabilities while maintaining an overview of your IT operations.


The core functionalities offered by Freshservice help you keep track and act upon incidents and problems while creating and managing changes and releases. With the Workspaces feature, you can set up and manage distinct service departments and handle requests for the same. Additionally, asset management helps you discover, manage, and track all assets under your organization’s ownership. Freshservice also lets you put your Knowledge Base on the cloud.


Freshservice offers a plug-and-play ITIL solution for organizations looking to align themselves with best practices without getting any expert implementation help. 


Use this guide to set up Freshservice features.


Create a Freshservice account

  1. Sign up for a trial account at freshworks.com/freshservice.



  2. Enter required details, such as your first name, last name, company name, and work email and sign up for a 14-day free trial.

    Note: The company name entered during sign-up forms the domain URL for the service desk. For example, if you enter example.freshservice.com as your service desk name, it will be the standard URL for others to access your service desk.


  3. Provide details, such as your primary use for Freshservice, the number of agents that will be using the account, and the industry segment. These details help us provide you with a Freshservice instance tailor-made to your business needs.


  4. After filling all the details, click Start Setup. This takes you to your brand new Freshservice account. You can now proceed with setting up your service desk to match your business needs.


Note: When signing up for Freshservice, you are offered a 14-day free trial with all features. Post-trial, you will have to select one of 4 plans: Starter, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise. During your trial, switch between the available plans to identify the most suited for your business. To learn more about each plan, see Freshservice Service Management Features.


Configure your service desk


After sign-up is complete, the next step is to set up your service desk. There are 3 key aspects for configuring your service desk:



Set up primary helpdesk email


Your helpdesk email address is your employees’ default reply-to address that can be used to raise requests or ask queries. The company name you fill in while signing up will be used to create the helpdesk email address. For example, if your company name is Acmey, your helpdesk email address will be it@acmey.freshservice.com. Once added, validate the email address. This becomes the email address to which all your IT requests will be forwarded to.



To cater to requests from other business functions, for example HR, add another helpdesk email address. Validate the same, and assign it to the relevant group.


Set up service portal


The second step is to set up your service desk in line with your company’s branding. Here’s how you can set this up:

  1. Use Service Desk Rebranding under Global Settings, to align the service desk with your brand. 

  2. Add your company’s logo, name for the service desk, and modify the color scheme of your helpdesk. 

  3. Fine-tune the branding of your service desk using the dropdown to access other pages of the service desk. Access settings such as color, font, and more. To learn about this, refer to Service Desk Rebranding.


Add agents


The next and final step is to add agents to your service desk. Enter the email addresses of the employees you wish to add as agents. If you’re adding multiple email addresses, add them using a comma and click Send Invite. An email will be sent, through which they can gain access to the service desk.


This completes your basic service desk setup.


Know your way around Freshservice


Before exploring individual modules, learn about the key components of the Freshservice UI. This helps you navigate the application effectively.




Left Navigation Bar: Access all key modules such as Tickets, Problems, Changes, Releases, Tasks, Assets, and Admin Settings, and more. from the sidebar. 


Dashboard: View all tickets and their statuses on your service desk. Get a quick check on key information, such as the number of overdue tickets, unassigned tickets, tickets on hold, and tickets due today.


Global Search: Find information you want using the Global search. To learn more, see how search works in Freshservice.


Quick Create: The icon next to global search helps you quickly create an incident, request, problem, change, or release.

Recent Activity: Click Recent Activities( ) to get an overview of the recent activities in your service desk.


Calendar: Use the Calendar () icon to access the work calendar that lays out all tasks assigned to you and your teams. You may also access the on-call calendar to get details of your shift time.


Announcements: Click Announcements () to view the recent service desk announcements. If you’re an admin, you may post an organization-wide announcement—all agents who are part of the service desk will receive the announcement on their dashboard.


Now, that your setup and navigation are complete, head to Admin Settings. Learn about the various modules in Freshservice and understand the service desk configurations based on your specific requirements.