We’re introducing an upgraded contact and company experience powered by the Neo platform, designed to improve data consistency and streamline customer interactions. This upgrade to contact and company management in your account is relevant if you use Freshdesk or Omnichannel and signed up before August 2022. Your account will be automatically upgraded to the new experience in phases starting September 2025. Further intimation will be shared on the exact date.

What you need to do first

If you use integrations that sync contact or company data (especially Work Phone or Mobile Phone), review and fix them before September 2025 to avoid disruptions.

  • Ensure your integrations sync contacts with valid phone numbers. The following guidelines apply to phone number fields (work phone and mobile phone):

    • Only numbers and ‘+’ is allowed

    • No letters or special characters

    • Length must be 5–30 characters

Note: Phone numbers for contacts can be left blank, but if they are filled, they should be in the valid format mentioned above.

  • If you’ve used phone fields to store other data (e.g., addresses), you can either create a new custom field or use one of the default fields to start storing/syncing that data.

  • To create a contact, one of the following fields is mandatory:

    • Email

    • Work Phone

    • Mobile Phone

    • Contact’s X (formerly Twitter) handle

    • Unique external ID

Ensure that the integrations you use fill at least one of the fields mentioned above while creating contacts.

Learn more about managing contacts. 

Why this matters:
If your integrations send invalid data after the upgrade, any attempt to create or update contacts through them will fail or be rejected.

Key Timeline and Actions

Before September 2025 – Update integrations

  • Check and update any native or custom integrations that populate contact phone fields with invalid formats or unrelated data.

After September 2025 – Update contacts with invalid phone numbers

  • We’ll automatically clean up some phone number data where possible (e.g., remove spaces, hyphens, brackets and dots).

  • All remaining invalid contacts will move into a separate Contacts with Invalid phone number filter.

  • These contacts won’t be visible in the main contact list and also can’t be filtered.

  • You’ll need to manually correct these records to restore visibility and usability.

What’s changing in the product

Once your account is upgraded, here’s what you’ll see:




  • Enhanced Contact and Company Forms

With the new form or slider for contacts or companies, you can fill in mandatory fields or all the fields related to the contact or company. Learn more about creating contacts and companies. Learn more about managing customer data.

  • Editable contact widgets on the ticket details page, with an overlay to edit full contact info.



  • New field: Other Phone Numbers – lets you store up to 10 additional valid phone numbers.

  • Phone number validation:

    • Only digits and ‘+’ allowed

    • Length must be 5–30 characters

    • Letters, special characters (except ‘+’), and dashes/spaces will be removed or rejected

  • Custom field changes:

    • You can no longer create new custom phone-type fields

    • Existing ones will remain as string fields

  • Duplicate dropdown values in contact/company fields will be automatically renamed (_copy) to prevent conflicts

  • Custom object lookups: You can now connect contacts and companies to custom objects. Learn more about custom objects.

Why is this update important?

This upgrade standardizes contact and company data across Freshworks products, improves accuracy, and enables faster, more personalized support experiences. It also unlocks compatibility with new channels like web chat and improves scalability for growing teams.

Need help?

If you have questions or want to review your account’s readiness, contact your Customer Success Manager or write to support@freshdesk.com.