Help Topics are tenant-defined classifications that the create form uses to pre-fill ticket properties. Selecting a topic on Create Ticket auto-fills the priority, queue, assignee, and computed due date, so common request types can be opened with a single click.
- Route:
/service-desk/admin/help-topics
- Menu path: Service Desk → Settings → Help Topics
- Primary audience: Admins (
service-desk.admin).
| Field | Required | Type | Description |
|---|
| Name | Yes | Text | Display name shown in the create-form dropdown |
| Code | Yes | Text | Short identifier; referenced by integrations |
| Description | No | Text | Author-facing notes about when to pick this topic |
| Default priority | No | Select | low, medium, high, urgent |
| Default queue | No | Queue selector | Overrides routing rules — tickets with this topic always land in this queue |
| Default assignee | No | User selector | Forces direct assignment to a specific agent |
| Default due offset (hours) | No | Number | Number of hours from create time used to compute due_at |
| Active | No | Toggle | Inactive topics hide from the create-form selector but keep their existing tickets |
| Filter | Type | Description |
|---|
| Search | Free text | Matches name and code |
| Show inactive | Toggle | Includes deactivated topics in the list |
| Action | Permission | Description |
|---|
| New Topic | service-desk.admin | Opens the create dialog |
| Edit | service-desk.admin | Edit any field; changes are not retroactively applied to existing tickets |
| Delete | service-desk.admin | The ticket’s help_topic_id is set to NULL (ON DELETE SET NULL) — existing tickets keep their other field values |
- Help-topic defaults apply only at create time. Editing a topic afterwards does not retroactively change tickets already created against it.
- A topic’s
default_queue_id overrides the queue selected by routing rules — a routing rule with assign_to_queue will still run, but the help topic wins the final queue. Use this when a topic always belongs to a specific specialist group.
- Inactive topics remain attached to their historical tickets (the
help_topic_id foreign key is preserved). They simply disappear from the create-form selector.
- The default due offset is in hours; for SLA targets in days, multiply (e.g. 48 = two business days, but note SLA math is wall-clock, not business hours).
- Create Ticket — the form that consumes these defaults.
- Queues — the queue routed to when no topic-level queue override is set.
- Settings — tenant-wide default priority and SLA target hours used when a topic does not override.