Adding tags or search terms to the Jira Service Management customer portal

Question

Does anyone have information regarding how to add tags or keywords to requests types so that the search functions better on the customer portal?

I have read that the search functions in 2 ways. A primary search that checks request type names and descriptions and then a secondary search that looks for keywords against already submitted requests but I am hoping there is a way to directly add a list of keywords to a request type.

I have also seen some other comments in the forum referencing using {anchor:keyword} to add search terms, but after a little testing I cant seem to get that to work.

Sami Shaik · Answer

Hi @Skyler Munsterman , I tested the current portal search behaviour in a sandbox today, so here is the practical picture.

@Tomislav Sablic is right: there is no keywords or tags field on request types. Portal search matches therequest type name and the description, and I verified both today: a distinctive word placed in either one surfaces the request type in search. So the working approach is to load the customer's actual vocabulary into those two places: the words people really type (refund, laptop, VPN, reimbursement), especially in the description, where a synonym-rich sentence costs nothing visually.

Two honest notes from the same test. Knowledge base coverage is often suggested for this, but in my test today portal search did not surface KB article content, so test that on your own portal before relying on it as a discovery path. And if you are on Premium, the virtual service agent is the real answer to the underlying problem: it matches customer intent rather than exact words, so "my laptop died" can route to the hardware request without either sharing a word, which no amount of description tuning achieves.

Short version: synonyms in names and descriptions today, intent matching via the virtual service agent if the plan allows it.

Skyler Munsterman · Answer

Hey!

Thanks for the reply. It definitely works to some extent. As you can see in the screenshots below using a test tag I am able to get the search results to show that request type.

What I am not sure about is the exact limitations of how this functions. It seems like there may be some limit to the amount of terms you can use before the search starts failing.

Tomislav Sablic · Answer

Hi,

There's no separate tags/keywords field for request types. Portal search only matches against the request type's Name and Description.

The {anchor:keyword} syntax you tried sounds like a Confluence macro, not a JSM feature, so it won't do anything on the portal.

Best fix: edit the request type's description to naturally include the terms/synonyms customers are likely to search for (e.g. add "VPN" to an "Access to a system" request type).

More on how this works: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-Service-Management/Customer-Portal-Search-Request-Types/qaq-p/2396780