A quick guide to customize the look and feel of your support portal:

You can customize your portal to reflect your theme and give your users a memorable customer experience with Freshdesk. You can put up your logo and favicon and paint your self-service portal in your brand colors. If you're on the Pro plan or higher, you can also perform CSS customizations and the Enterprise plan lets you customize every inch of your support portal.


Configuring the branding of your portal: 





Under the Branding tab, you can customize the following for your portal:

  1. Logo: To stay on brand and make your portal recognizable for customers, you can upload your company’s logo. The logo of your support portal appears on the top fold near your portal's name and will be the first thing that is visible to your customers. We recommend a resolution of at least 60X60 and a 1:1 aspect ratio for your logo so that it is displayed correctly. 
  2. Favicon: Favicon is the image that will be displayed on your user’s browser tab. By uploading your desired favicon, you can make it easy for customers to recognize your webpage. We recommend a resolution of at least 60X60 and a 1:1 aspect ratio for your favicon so that it is displayed correctly. 
  3. Home page URL: This is the email address on which customers can reach out to you for any help. The email address provided will be displayed at the bottom of your portal. 
  4. Helpdesk Phone: You can enter the phone number of your company’s support helpline here to make it easy for customers to contact you. This number will be displayed at the bottom of your portal.

You can customize the look and feel of your portals to fit your brand guidelines for different products. 

Hover over the portal you would like to customize and click on the customize button:




Freshdesk provides an out-of-the-box WCAG compliant theme that you can use to improve the accessibility and usability of your portal. You can import up to 10 custom themes and choose from them for each of your portals. 


On the right side, you can preview how your selected theme looks on the Portal in real time. The preview changes dynamically based on your settings.




 

The following actions can be performed on themes:

  • View on portal: On clicking ‘View on portal’, you can preview your chosen theme on a new tab.
  • Download: You have the option of downloading a particular theme. The theme file will be sent in a .zip format to your email address. 
  • Rename: Change the name of a particular theme. 
  • Clone: You can clone a theme and customize it further.
  • Delete theme: Selecting this option will permanently remove the chosen theme.


Importing a theme: You can import a theme of your choice onto Freshdesk. To do so, click on the ‘Import Theme’ button. Please note that only .zip files can be uploaded. 


You can click on the ‘edit theme’ button if you wish to make changes to your themes. You can change your portal’s theme color and font here to ensure that it is in line with your brand’s guidelines:




For complete access to your portal’s theme, Freshdesk provides a source code editor that you can use to make granular-level changes. 


The source code editor is developer-friendly with the following:

  • Pre-defined placeholders for an error-free and quicker coding experience. 
  • Choice of editor themes to suit your personal preferences.


 

Here's a quick guide to the different placeholders you can use on the code editor. 


PlaceholderWhat they mean
Portal Name Name or title of the portal
Portal Language Selected Portal language (English, French, etc.)
Portal LogourlDefault or custom logo from the portal
Portal Linkback_url Linkback URL from Freshdesk
Portal Contact info Phone number specified in Freshdesk
Portal Login URL Login URL of the support portal (also available to anonymous users)
Portal Logout URL
Portal Can Signup True or false based on whether signups are allowed or not
Portal Signup URL Signup URL of the support portal
Portal New ticket URLURL to the new ticket creation page
Portal New topic URLURL to create a new forum topic
Portal My topic URLURL to list the user's preferred topic
Portal Profile URLURL to the profile of a specific user
Portal Recent articles List of recently added articles across the portal
Language nameReturns the name of the current portal language
Language codeReturns the code (language ID) of the current portal language
Language listReturns the list of supported languages of the portal
User name Full name of the user using the support portal
User first nameFirst and last names of the user, respectively portal. user.email
User second namestring Returns the first and last names of the user respectively portal. user.email
Email Email address of the user
Phone Phone number of the user
Mobile Mobile number of the user
Job title Job title of the user
Time zone Time zone configured in the user’s profile
Twitter IDTwitter account that has been added to the user account
Profile URLURL pointing to the profile of the user
User IDUnique ID of the user
Company nameCompany name that has been specified in the user’s profile
Is agentTrue or false based on whether the user is an agent or not
User role
Category name Name of forum categories
Category descriptionDescription of forum categories
Category IDUnique ID of the forum category
Category URLURL pointing to a forum category
Category forums Forums in the category based on the visibility
Category forums countForums count in the category based on the visibility
Forum nameName of the forum
Forum descriptionDescription of the forum
Forum URL URL pointing to the forum
Forum ID
Unique ID of the forum
Type NameType of the forum (announcement, ideas, problems, questions)
Filter list
Current topic filterCurrently selected forum filter. This will work only on the respective filters page.
Allowed filtersFilter name (translated label of filter) and a filter URL link to the filter
CategoryCategory in which the forum is present
Topics List of topics in the forum
Topics count Count of all topics in the forum
Planned topicsPlanned topics that are available only for the "ideas" forum
Popular topicsList of popular topics
Answered/UnansweredList of answered/unanswered topics
Solved/UnsolvedList of solved/unsolved topics
Implemented topicsImplemented topics that are available only for the "ideas" forum
Not taken topics Not taken topics that are available only for the "ideas" forum
In-progress topicsIn-progress topics that are available only for the "ideas" forum
Deferred topics Deferred topics that are available only for a "ideas" forum
Topic title Title of the forum topic
Topic ID Unique ID of the forum topic
Topic stamp Stamp of the forum (planned, in progress, deferred, implemented, not taken) comes only for forum type as "ideas"
Topic author User who created the topic
Created onTimestamp denoting when the topic was created
Topic votesNumber of votes on a forum topic 
Topic viewsReturns the number of views on a forum topic
Merge
Is topic lockedTrue or false based on whether the topic is locked or not
Is topic stickyTrue or false based on whether the topic is a sticky (that will appear on the top)
Is topic answeredTrue or false based on whether the topic has been answered or not
THas commentsTrue or false used to check if the topic has any comments or not
Posts in topicList of posts inside the topic
Comments count in topicNumber of comments that have been created under a topic
First post in topicFirst post on the topic, created by the original creator
Last post in topicLast reply on the topic, which is the latest on the list
Topic URLURL to a particular topic in the forum
Topic forumForum in which a topic is contained
Topic attachmentsAttachments that have been made to a topic
Topic last post URLURL to the last reply made to the forum topic
Voted by current userForum topics in which users have voted (can be “I like this idea,” “I have this question,” or “I have this problem”)
Topic like URLURL used to like a particular topic. Use a data-method=”put” attribute in the link to work.
Topic unlike URLURL used to unlike a particular topic. Use a data-method=”put” attribute in the link to work.
My topicsList of topics that have been created or are currently being followed by the user
My topics countNumber of topics that have been created or are currently being followed by the user
Post IDUnique ID of the post
Post bodyPlain text version of the post
Post body HTMLHTML version of the post
Created onTimestamp referring to when the post was created
Post userInformation about the user who created the post
Post topicTopic in which the post is contained
AnswerTrue or false based on whether there can be answers on the post or not
AttachmentsAttachment(s) that are available in the post
Post URLUnique URL of the post
Attachment URLURL to the attachment
Attachment thumbnailPreview image of the attachment file
Attachment typeFile extension of the attachment (.doc, .jpg etc)
Attachment nameFile name of the attachment without the extension
Attachment sizeFile size of the attachment
Attachment is imageTrue or false based on whether the attachment is an image or not
Category nameName of the solution category
Category descriptionDescription of the solution category
Category IDUnique ID of the solution category
Category URLURL pointing to the solution category
Category foldersFolders in the category based on visibility
Category folders countFolders count in the category based on visibility
Folder nameName of the solution folder
Folder descriptionDescription of the solution folder
Folder ID
Unique ID of the solution folder
Folder URLURL pointing to the solution folder
Folder categoryCategory in which the solution folder is contained
Folder articlesArticles inside the solution folder
Folder articles countCount of articles inside the solution folder
Folder visibilityVisibility of the folder 
Article titleTitle of the solution article
Article thumbs upNumber of thumbs-ups for a solution article
Article thumbs downNumber of thumbs down for a solution article
Article descriptionBody of the solution article, including any formatting and images
Article plain descriptionBody of the solution article in plain text
Article modified onTimestamp pointing to when the solution article was last modified
Article created onTimestamp pointing to when the solution article was created
Article IDUnique ID of the solution article
Article URLURL pointing to the article
Article tagsSearch tags that have been added to the solution article
Article attachmentsAttachment(s) that are present in the solution article
Article cloud filesCloud file attachment(s) that are present in the solution article
Article typeType of the article (Permanent or Workaround)
Article folderFolder in which the article is contained
Article categoryCategory in which the solution article is contained
Article thumbs up URLURL, which will increase the thumbs up of the article by one. Use a data-method=”put” attribute in the link to work.
Article thumbs down URLURL, which will increase the thumbs down of the article by one. Use a data-method=”put” attribute in the link to work.
Recent articlesList of recently added articles from across the portal
Related articleList of related articles with the same title

 

If you are not done yet, you can save your work and continue later. You can always click on reset to return to the default colors if things become messy.