FreshThemes are customizable templates in Freshdesk that can be used to extensively change the look and feel of your support portal. They are a collection of style settings that can be configured in your account, including everything to do with colors, stylesheets and layouts.
If you are new to Freshdesk, there are two ways to get started with FreshThemes:
1. Do it yourself using the advanced portal customization options
In addition to your basic rebranding options, Freshdesk comes with a set of advanced portal customization options to let you define each and every little detail of your support portal. They are found under Admin > Channels > Portals > Customize Portal.
You need to be on the right plan to be able to completely customize the styles, interactions and layout of your support portal using FreshThemes, so make sure you check out our Plans & Pricing and get on the right plan for your needs. Here's a little quick-start checklist below gives you a brief overview of the level of control you will have across each plan.
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A Freshdesk account: You will need a Freshdesk account to actually customize, try and publish your FreshTheme styled support portal. Quite obviously! In case you don’t have a Freshdesk account, or would just like to explore the possibilities, you can sign up for a Free Trial here.
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The Right Plan: As George Orwell once said, some plans are just “More Equal than Others”. You will be able to make some real deep customizations to your support portal even in the basic plan, but if you are looking for real portal magic here is what you get at each level:
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Blossom - Colors, fonts and rebranding all the way: On the Blossom plan, you can stylize, color and set the font of every element in your support portal, put up your logo and customize your favicon. You get to stylize your support portal, and put up your logo. And you get to call it “My Support Portal” by mapping your domain and giving your customers a uniformly refreshing experience, starting with the URL.
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Garden - Your own style sheets: On the Garden plan, you can take portal rebranding to a whole new level. Want to make some text bigger? Think one of those tabs should pop out a bit more? Prefer having a “more curvy feel” to your portal? you got it! In short, you can just pull up your main website’s style sheets, tinker a bit and make your support portal look and feel just like the rest of your site. Or even better, if you are up to it.
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Estate and Forest - The portal of your dreams: Short story - on the Estate plan you get to customize the layout of every page in your portal, add your javascript, and decide what comes where, and how. Shorter yet - It’s your support portal completely unchained. We’ll be focusing the rest of the guide on layout level customizations and the kind of themes you can build, so enough said.
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Blossom - Colors, fonts and rebranding all the way: On the Blossom plan, you can stylize, color and set the font of every element in your support portal, put up your logo and customize your favicon. You get to stylize your support portal, and put up your logo. And you get to call it “My Support Portal” by mapping your domain and giving your customers a uniformly refreshing experience, starting with the URL.
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Garden - Your own style sheets: On the Garden plan, you can take portal rebranding to a whole new level. Want to make some text bigger? Think one of those tabs should pop out a bit more? Prefer having a “more curvy feel” to your portal? you got it! In short, you can just pull up your main website’s style sheets, tinker a bit and make your support portal look and feel just like the rest of your site. Or even better, if you are up to it.
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Estate and Forest - The portal of your dreams: Short story - on the Estate plan you get to customize the layout of every page in your portal, add your javascript, and decide what comes where, and how. Shorter yet - It’s your support portal completely unchained. We’ll be focusing the rest of the guide on layout level customizations and the kind of themes you can build, so enough said.
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Some basic HTML and CSS: Building your FreshThemes isn’t very difficult. If you are an absolute newbie, you can still try to go on (it probably won’t slow us down), but you might consider running through some basic “what are we talking about” tutorials like w3schools (HTML / CSS tutorials here). Of course, you can get by without looking at a single HTML tag by using the advanced rebranding options in the next section. But seriously, where’s the fun!
2. Download and use a ready-made theme from the FreshThemes Gallery
If you aren't used to writing HTML and CSS, or if you don't want to start from scratch, you can download a ready-made theme from the FreshThemes Gallery. A select number of these themes are free to use and can be installed into your accounts in a matter of minutes. You can pick them up and use them exactly the way they are, or work on top of them to add any of your custom modifications.
Note: You'll have to be on the Estate or Forest plans to be able to use FreshThemes completely.
