Signup Date: After December 2025

You can create an automation rule that runs on ticket creation or ticket updates to make API calls. The two actions below allow this 

1. Trigger Webhook- Use this when API response is not needed for further automations. eg) Update an external CRM with details on a ticket
2. Trigger API- Use this when the API response is needed for subsequent actions or if you need to run JavaScript functions on ticket fields. eg) GET details of the customer’s subscription plan from a CRM. eg2) Dynamically calculate the distance between a ticket field and the present date. 

About the Trigger Webhook Action 

.You can use Webhooks to 

• Update external systems when a ticket is created ( using rules on ticket create) or when a ticket is updated ( using rules on ticket update) 
• Update properties that aren't available as standard options within automation rules. For example, you can update the ticket subject or the contact property.

Here are some examples where you can use webhooks:

Read more about webhook examples here.

About the Trigger API action

Use the Trigger API action when you get data from an external system and apply that information to triage or update ticket properties in Freshdesk. 

With  the JavaScript editor, you can transform and act on the API response before it updates the ticket. Common examples- 

• Parse and extract values from JSON API responses.
  
  
• Date math (calculate days between dates, deadlines, time windows).
  
  
• Conditional logic (if/else) to set priority, status, tags, or custom fields.
  
  
• Field mapping and formatting (concatenate names, format phone numbers, normalize values).
  
  
• Simple calculations (scores, weights, thresholds) to drive triage rules.
  
  
• Validation and fallback handling (check for missing fields and set defaults).
  
  
• Text parsing/regex for extracting identifiers from strings.
  
  
• Build the ticket update object with only the fields you want to change.

Both the Trigger APi action and the Trigger Webhook action use the Agent API, so they are treated as an agent performing an update

Set up “Trigger webhook” action in an automation rule

1. Navigate to Admin > Workflows > Automations
2. Choose the Ticket Creation or Ticket Updates tab and click New Rule.
3. Name your rule and set up your triggers and conditions. See Automation Examples: Using Webhooks.
4. Under Action, select the Trigger Webhook or Trigger API option.
   
5. Choose the Callback Request Type. Most applications typically follow these standard methods:
   • GET . If you make a GET call with a webhook, your automation rules won't be able to use the response. Use “Trigger API” action if you would like to use the response. 
   • POST - create new resources. Adding a note is a POST request.
   • PUT and PATCH - update a resource.
   • DELETE - delete a resource.
6. Specify your callback URL configured for webhook. You can make the URLs dynamic using placeholders.
   • For example, to add a note to a ticket, you must specify the ticket. Your callback URL would be https://acme.freshdesk.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ticket.id}}/notes with the placeholder {{ticket.id}}.
7. Toggle Requires authentication and provide your API key.
8. Toggle Add custom headers to convey additional information such as security details, API version details, etc.
   • A custom header has to be entered as a header-value pair following the specified format X-Sample-CustomHeader1: VALUE.
   • A header containing more than one value should be separated by delimiters (other than commas and colons).
   • To add a second header, enter the custom header and value pair in the next line.
   • The trigger will not be executed if there are spaces in between. If a space is entered at the end of the header, it will be skipped.
   • Header names are not case-sensitive. They will be handled as such regardless of the custom header name provided. The custom header values will be preserved as is.
9. Create your webhook body in the Content section.
   • Pick the Encoding of your request that the resource application supports (JSON, XML, or XML-Encoded). The example below is JSON.
   • Select the Simple Content option to send a list of ticket properties that you want in this webhook.
   • Select Advanced to write a custom API request. You can make dynamic API requests using placeholders. See Freshdesk API Reference.
   • You can use requestb.in or postman - REST client (a Google Chrome extension) to test our APIs.
   • The {{Triggered event}} placeholder is available only in webhooks and returns the name of the event that triggered the rule.

You can use the response in your API and map it to attributes to the ticket, contact and company object. Please refer this document for details on public APIs available. 

Freshdesk uses V8 JS

Here’s an example of using the JS editor to fetch a contact’s unique ID in an external CRM, and using the ID to retrieve the contact’s subscription tier. 

Prerequisites

1. Create two ticket custom fields in Freshdesk 
   • cf_single_line_text_field (single-line or number) — to store the CRM contact ID.
   • cf_subscription_tier (single-line text) — to store the subscription tier returned from the CRM.
     
     
2. Have a CRM API credential (API key / bearer token) and the CRM endpoints:
   
   
   • Contact search by email: GET https://crm.example.com/api/contacts?email={email}
     
     
   • Contact subscription by ID: GET https://crm.example.com/api/contacts/{id}/subscription
     
     

Automation Rule 1 — Find CRM contact ID by email and save it on the ticket

When to run: On ticket creation (or when contact email is added/changed).
Purpose: Query the CRM for the contact with email amy@example.com, extract the CRM id, and store it in cf_contact_crm_id.

Trigger API configuration (example)

• Method: GET
  
  
• URL: https://crm.example.com/api/contacts?email={{ticket.requester.email}}
  (replace template with your automation variable for requester email; for Amy this becomes ...?email=amy@example.com)
  
  
• Headers:
  
  
  • Authorization: Bearer <CRM_API_TOKEN>
    
    
  • Accept: application/json
    
    

Example API response (simplified)

{
  "data": [
    { "id": "12345", "email": "amy@example.com", "name": "Amy" }
  ]
}

var result = {
ticket:{
  tags: ["fsales api success"],
custom_fields: {
  cf_single_line_text_field: response[0].id
}

{
  "subscription": {
    "tier": "enterprise",
    "expires_at": "2026-01-15"
  }
}

var result = {
ticket:{
custom_fields: {
  cf_subscription_tier: response.contact.custom_field.cf_subscription_tier
}

// Safely read the travel date
var dateValue = null;


if (response &&
    response.contact &&
    response.contact.custom_field &&
    response.contact.custom_field.cf_travel_date) {
  dateValue = response.contact.custom_field.cf_travel_date;
}


var targetDate = dateValue ? new Date(dateValue) : null;
var now = new Date();


var diffDays = null;


if (targetDate) {
  diffDays = (targetDate - now) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24); // ms → days
}


var priority = 1; // default: low


if (diffDays !== null && !isNaN(diffDays)) {
  if (diffDays < 1) {
    priority = 4; // urgent
  } else if (diffDays < 3) {
    priority = 3; // high
  } else if (diffDays < 7) {
    priority = 2; // medium
  } else {
    priority = 1; // low
  }
}


// Build final JSON object
var result = {
  ticket: {
    priority: priority
  }
};


result;