Attributes are powerful tools that let you store specific pieces of information about your conversations and users in BeDesk. Think of them as custom fields that you can create to capture data unique to your workflow, like a customer's account ID, the product a conversation is about, or a priority level.
You can use this data to filter views, trigger automations, and provide more personalized support.
BeDesk offers three types of attributes. When creating a new attribute, you'll first need to decide what it relates to.
Conversation Attributes: These are tied to individual conversations (tickets or chats). They're perfect for storing contextual information that changes from one support request to another, such as the reason for contact, a specific order number, or the priority of the request.
User Attributes: These store information directly on the customer's profile. This data is persistent and applies to every conversation with that user. Examples include their subscription plan, language preference, or a unique user ID from your system.
AI Agent Attributes: These are used in AI agent flows and tools. They will usually be created automatically.
There are several built-in attributes that are required for BeDesk to function properly. They have varying levels of restrictions on which settings you can change for them and whether they can be deactivated.
Phone, email, name: primary attributes for all customers.
Language, country, timezone: will be auto-detected by BeDesk based on user geolocation, browser settings or content of their messages.
Category: primary category/folder for a conversation. Eg. "What do you need help with?" field on new ticket page would set category to user selection.
Department: Group conversation is attached to.
Subject: subject for ticket or chat. Will match email subject, if ticket was created via email.
Description: Initial user message for tickets. Eg. "Provide more details" field on new ticket page.
Rating: If ratings are enabled, user can rate their experience for a particular conversation as positive or negative after conversation is marked as closed/resolved.
Creating a new attribute is simple. Just follow these steps:
Navigate to Settings > Attributes from the sidebar.
Click the + Add attribute button in the top-right corner.
Fill out the "Create Attribute" form with the necessary details.
Here’s a breakdown of each field on the creation page:
Type: Choose whether this is a Conversation, User, or AI Agent attribute.
Format: Select the kind of data this attribute will hold. This ensures the data is entered correctly.
Text: A single line of text.
Multi-line text: A larger text area for detailed notes.
Toggle: A simple on/off switch (boolean).
Number: For numerical values.
Date: A date picker.
Choice list / Multiple choices: A list where one or multiple options can be selected.
Dropdown: A dropdown menu of options.
Phone: A field formatted for phone numbers.
Name: The internal name for the attribute. This is what your agents will see.
Description: An optional internal note explaining the purpose of the attribute.
Required attribute: Check this box if the attribute must have a value.
For conversation attributes, setting it to required will require both customers and agents to fill in the field to create a new conversation.
You can control who sees and interacts with each attribute.
Who can view and change this attribute:
Only agents: The attribute is completely internal and only visible to your team.
Customer can edit: The attribute is visible to customers, and they can change its value.
Customer can view: The attribute is visible to customers, but they cannot change it.
Name shown to customers / Description shown to customers: If an attribute is visible to customers, you can provide a more user-friendly name and description for them.
You can leave these empty to show internal name and description to customers instead.
Once you've configured everything, click Save to create your new attribute.
The Attributes page in admin area lists all your custom attributes. You can use the search bar to find a specific attribute quickly. To manage one, click the three-dot menu (...) at the end of its row to access these key actions:
Edit: Allows you to change the settings of an existing attribute.
Activate / Deactivate: This lets you toggle an attribute's visibility. It's the safest way to temporarily remove a field.
Deactivating an attribute hides it from the interface, but preserves all existing data.
Activating it makes it visible again, with all its data intact.
Delete: This is a permanent and irreversible action. Deleting an attribute removes it from the system and erases all data ever collected in that field. This data cannot be recovered.
Rule of thumb: When in doubt, always Deactivate an attribute instead of deleting it. This prevents accidental data loss while still cleaning up your workspace.