How attributes work
Regular are tied to the forms they’re added to, so a ticket only carries a field’s value if it was created through a form that includes it.Promoting a field to an attribute removes that scope. The field renders on every ticket in the workspace and agents can set or update its value from the ticket detail sidebar, whether the ticket came from a form, a Slack message, an email, or anywhere else.Example: Turn a Root cause select field into an attribute so agents can categorize any ticket after the fact, including tickets created by email that never touched a form.
Custom fields are workspace-specific, so an attribute exists in exactly one workspace.
Eligible field types
Only field types that render meaningfully outside of a form context can be attributes:- Text Input
- Text Area
- Date
- Date & Time
- Boolean
- Select
- Multi-Select
- User Select
- User Multi-Select
User attributes
User Select and User Multi-Select attributes render a real people picker everywhere an attribute is editable: the ticket sidebar, the compact attribute bar, table cells, the create-ticket dialog, and workflow ticket actions. If the field defines a user allowlist, the picker only shows that subset of workspace users. Otherwise it shows every workspace user.Create an attribute
You can promote an existing custom field, promote a field straight from a ticket, or create a new attribute from scratch.Promote an existing custom field
Promote an existing custom field
1
Open Fields
Go to Settings > Workspace > Fields and stay on the Fields tab.
2
Add as attribute
Find the field you want to promote, open its menu, and choose Add as attribute. If the option is disabled, the field’s type is not eligible.
3
Confirm
Ravenna adds the field to the Attributes tab and starts showing it on every ticket in the workspace.
Promote a field from a ticket
Promote a field from a ticket
Open any ticket and click the plus button on the Attributes section. The Add a field as an attribute menu lists every eligible field that isn’t an attribute yet. Pick one and it becomes a workspace attribute immediately, without a trip to settings.If the menu shows No eligible fields, every eligible field is already an attribute. Create a new one from settings instead.
Create a new attribute
Create a new attribute
1
Open the Attributes tab
Go to Settings > Workspace > Fields > Attributes.
2
Create
Click New. The create dialog is the same as the custom field dialog, but the Type picker only offers eligible types.
3
Configure and save
Set the label, description, type, and options, then save. The new field is created and marked as an attribute in one step.
Manage attributes
Open Settings > Workspace > Fields > Attributes to see every attribute in the workspace.- Reorder attributes by dragging. The order controls how they appear on tickets in the workspace.
- Edit an attribute to change its label, description, or options. Because attributes are custom fields, edits propagate to every form that also uses the field.
- Remove an attribute to stop showing it on tickets. Removing an attribute does not delete the underlying custom field. The field stays available in the Fields tab and on any form that still references it.
Removing a Select or Multi-Select option
Removing an option from a Select or Multi-Select attribute (or custom field) does not blank the value on tickets that already hold it. The option is archived instead of deleted:- Tickets that already held the removed option keep displaying it, greyed out and labeled (removed). Agents can clear the value, but they cannot re-select the removed option once cleared.
- Removed options do not appear in pickers on new tickets or tickets that never held the value.
- Ticket list filters and analytics group-by continue to offer removed options, labeled (removed), so you can still find every ticket that carries the value.
- The Ravenna Agent can read a removed option by name on a ticket that holds it, but cannot set a removed option on a ticket that doesn’t already hold it. Attempting to do so returns
ATTRIBUTE_FIELD_VALUE_INVALID. - Once no ticket references a removed option, Ravenna hard-deletes it during a daily cleanup sweep. Restoring a value after that requires creating a new option.
Attributes on tickets
By default, attributes appear in the ticket detail sidebar alongside standard fields like status, priority, and assignee, and you can move the Attributes section to a tab if you prefer. Agents can set or update attribute values directly on any ticket in the workspace, and the same editor is available from the ticket create and edit modals and the ticket drawer.Attribute values are stored on the ticket and available anywhere custom field values are:- Filter and sort tickets by attribute value in views, and show attributes as table columns. Attribute columns are hidden by default, so enable the ones you want from the column picker. Sorting is available for single-value types, not multi-select.
- Group and break down tickets by attribute in analytics dashboards. Group-by on a User Multi-Select attribute buckets by user name, so each bucket is a person rather than a raw stored id.
- Reference attributes in workflow conditions and actions.
- Read and set attributes in agent conversations.
- Show attribute values on Slack work objects, following the same workspace setting as custom fields.
- Include attributes in ticket CSV exports. For user attributes and user form fields, the export writes the user’s display name, not the internal user id.
Attributes on forms
An attribute can also be added to a form. The submitter fills it in like any other field, but the answer is saved as the ticket’s attribute value, not as a form response, so it appears in the Attributes section on the ticket rather than under the form’s captured fields.- In the form builder, attributes appear on the Ticket tab alongside built-in ticket fields. They no longer show under Shared or Custom.
- Hidden attributes cannot be added to forms. The form builder does not offer them and the backend rejects the attach.
- On the Create ticket dialog, an attribute added to the selected form renders in the form’s field list instead of being duplicated in the top attribute bar.
Learn more about custom fields, which attributes are built on top of.