Administrators and above can add, edit, remove, or replace agents. Go to Admin > Team > Agents to manage your team.

Before you Begin

You may need to understand a few concepts:

• Is your agent going to log in every day or only sometimes? See Understanding Full-time vs Occasional Agents.
• What actions should your agent be able to perform? See Controlling agent access with roles and Creating a custom role.
• Which tickets should the agent be able to access? See Ticket Scope vs. Agent Role - what’s the difference? and Organizing Agents into Groups

Add an Agent

1. Click on New Agent in the top bar.
2. From the Agent type dropdown, select Support agent and choose whether they’re Full time or Occasional.
3. Under Agent details, provide the following information:
   1. (Required) Email address: Provide the agent’s email address.
      • If the provided email address is not in your contact book, you will be prompted to optionally provide a Name, Phone number, Mobile number, and Job Title for the user.
      • If the provided email address is already in your contact book, you’ll receive an error message. See below.
   2. Upload photo: Click to add a profile picture of the agent.
   3. Time zone: Choose your agent’s time zone.
   4. Language: Choose the agent’s portal language.
   5. Signature: Customize the agent’s email signature.
4. Under Roles, choose the roles to assign to the agent. You can choose from several default roles or any custom roles created in your Freshdesk account.
5. Under Scope, choose the appropriate option:
   • All tickets: The agent can access all tickets in the helpdesk.
   • Tickets in a group: The agent can only access tickets assigned to the groups they’re a part of.
   • Assigned tickets: The agent can only access their assigned tickets.
6. Under Groups, choose the groups to which the agent should be added.
   • If you select the "Tickets in a group" scope, you can add them to groups without granting edit access.
7. Click Create agent.

Important: If the provided email address is already in your contact book, you’ll see an error message stating “Email has already been taken. View User.” Click View User to go to the Contact Profile page. Click Convert to Agent to bring up a dialog, select the type of agent, and click Convert.

Agent activation email and password

Once you successfully create the agent in Freshdesk, they will receive an activation email. They can use that email to log in and set the password for their Freshdesk account. You cannot set a static password - agents must set their own passwords using the activation email.

Tip: Consider setting up Single Sign-On for your organization. Click the Freshworks Switcher icon in the bottom left corner of Freshdesk and click Security to explore.

In case they don’t receive their activation email in their inbox or spam folder, they can attempt to log in as an agent and click on the Forgot Password link to regenerate their activation email.

If you repeatedly attempt to log in using incorrect credentials, you will receive an error message stating, "Due to consecutive failed logins, your account has been blocked." Your account will be temporarily blocked, and an email will be sent to the agent attempting to log in. However, the account will automatically unlock after 2 hours. If the issue persists, please contact [email protected].

Purchasing agent licenses

Your plan limits the number of agents you can add to your Freshdesk account, starting with 2 agents on the Free plan (or no limit on the older Sprout plan).

As an Account Administrator, you can add more agents by upgrading to a higher plan or purchasing additional agent seats on your existing plan.

1. Navigate to Admin > Account > Plans and Billing.
2. Choose your plan, which displays the number of agent seats.
3. Choose the number of agent seats to add and select Proceed to Payment.
4. Check your order summary, account, and billing information, and provide your credit card details to complete the payment.
5. After the payment is authorized, the requested agent seats will be added to your account.

Note: If a new agent is added during a billing cycle, charges will be prorated accordingly.

• To add agents via the offline payment method (subscription via a retailer), contact [email protected].
• If the payment is completed but you cannot add agents, contact [email protected].

Edit an Agent

You may need to edit agents to change agents from Full Time to Occasional or vice versa, to change their access and scope, or to redefine their roles.

1. Find the agent to edit in your list of agents or use the search box.
2. Click the Pencil icon on the right side of their row to go to the Edit agent page.
3. Update any fields you wish to change and click Update agent below.

Note: It is not possible to bulk edit agents in Freshdesk.

To change an existing agent’s profile information and contact details, the agent must navigate to their profile instead. Admins cannot edit this information for agents.

1. In Freshdesk, go to Profile (top right corner) > Profile settings.
2. Click on Change your profile info or password.
   
3. Once the Freshworks account page opens, click Edit Profile.
   
4. Make your changes and click Save.

About email signatures

A configured email signature is automatically added to a ticket response when an agent clicks Reply. Email signatures support rich text and publicly hosted images via URL.

When an admin creates or edits an agent, they can provide that agent’s email signature in the Agent Details section.

Admins can also create a global signature (such as the company logo or banner image) for all agents to use:

• As an Admin, go to Admin > Workflows > Email Notifications.
• In the Templates tab, click Edit next to Agent Reply Template.
• Add the common signature to the template body and click Save.
• You can also switch to an HTML view to add HTML code.
• Signature elements added this way appear in the editor when an agent drafts a ticket reply.

Agents can change their own signatures in their profile:

• In Freshdesk, go to Profile (top right corner) > Profile settings.
  
• Create your signature in the Signature field and click Save.
  

Add a signature with HTML content

When Admins edit the Agent Reply Template as shown above, they can choose to add HTML code. However, agents cannot directly add HTML code to their signatures from Profile Settings. The Signature Management Plus app can help solve this.

Alternatively, agents can use this workaround using their browser's Console.

1. In Profile Settings, right-click inside the Signature box and click Inspect.
   
2. In the Console code view, you will see a div element with the redactor_editor class. Right-click it and click Edit as HTML.
   
3. The p element inside the div represents the body of the signature. Paste your HTML code here.
   
4. Click outside the section to exit the Edit as HTML option. Your HTML will be rendered in the Signature box.
   
5. Close the Console and click Save Changes to save your signature.