The toolbar

At the top of the landing page are several icons that provide useful information.

1. Search. Enter keywords into the search bar to navigate directly to areas such as:

   • Incidents
   • Catalog items
   • Solutions

2. What's new. See newsroom posts on the SolarWinds Service Desk Thwack site. Includes information about recent product updates and enhancements, as well as new features.

3. Chat. Open an engagement channel between you and your end users that allows direct communication. This results in faster resolution times as you are able to obtain all the information you need quickly.

   Enterprise Service Management (ESM) customers: Chat functionality is available only for the service provider created as a result of your ESM migration, for example, IT Service Provider.

   Icon settings:

   • An outline icon signifies there are no active chats in the queue.

   • The blue background signifies a chat is waiting in the queue. Select the chat icon to accept the chat.

   • By accepting the chat, the chat is now assigned to you.  From here you can assist your end user, create an incident (which includes the chat transcription), or end the chat.

   • The number in red represents messages received from the end users.

4. Notifications. If you have new notifications, you will be alerted by a red number. 

   Enterprise Service Management (ESM) customers receive notifications for tickets and tasks from all service providers. When a notification is clicked, the user is redirected to the service provider for that notification.

   Notifications are received regarding:

   • Incidents received.

   • Incidents resolved.

   • Incident new Incident index.

   You can manage your notification settings by going to Profile > Notifications.

5. New. Opens a dropdown menu where you can create new objects, such as asset, catalog item, change, computer, and others.

6. Your avatar. By default, your avatar reflects your initials.

   For Enterprise Service Management (ESM) users, all Profile tabs described below are cross platform, excluding the Provider Preferences tab. It is specific to the service provider you are logged in with at the time you make changes.

   When you click the icon, a dropdown menu displays, where you can select different pages and tabs. What you see in these pages is dependent upon your organization's setup and your role.

Your avatar dropdown menu

clicking your avatar in the upper right corner, you can do many things.

1		Profile	View and edit your user settings
2		Documentation	Go to the SWSD documentation site
3		Community	Go to the Thwack user community
4		Support	Go to the SolarWinds Contact Us site
5		Go to Portal View	Go to the Service Portal view.
6		Keyboard shortcuts	See a list of Keyboard shortcuts
7		User Impersonation	Initiate a user impersonation session
8		Sign Out	Sign out of SWSD
9		Availability	Set your availability for round robin queue assignment

Profile

When you select Profile from your avatar, several tabs display. You can then edit your personal settings.

• Profile tab. Agents can edit some of the information stored in their user profile. Editing is not allowed for information managed at the company. You can upload a picture to replace your default avatar by hovering over the large avatar on the left of the page and clicking it when the image changes to a camera.

• Password tab. Change your password.

• Settings tab.

  • Create an email signature.
  • Select your default SWSD home page*.
  • Select your display mode.
  • Select your service request input mode.
  • Select your default opening tabs.
  • Enable keyboard shortcuts.
  • Set up and activate an out of office message with a start and end date and assign new incoming records to another individual or group during your absence.

    See Out-of-office message for instructions. New incoming records can include objects such as incidents, tasks, and approvals.

• Notifications tab. Enable and manage email notifications, daily email, and chat notifications,.

• Provider Preferences tab.* (Available only for ESM users.) See your role for the selected service provider and select your default SWSD home page.

• Personal response templates tab. Create and manage your personal response templates.

Documentation

Documentation opens the SolarWinds Service Desk documentation page.

Community

Community opens the community resources site on Thwack, where you can access:

• Resource articles
• Product announcements
• A list of items we are working on
• Access to the support portal

Support

Support opens the SolarWinds Support Contact Information page. From there users can:

• Search solarwinds.com for the information you need, including knowledge base support articles and additional guides.
• Contact the SolarWinds support team via chat.
• Get contact information to call your local office.

Go to Portal View

Go to Portal View opens the service portal where users can create a new request, see a list of your requests and tasks, ask questions, and have valuable services and articles at your fingertips.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts opens a list of the available keyboard shortcuts. See Keyboard shortcuts.

User Impersonation

User Impersonation opens the User Impersonation window, where authorized users can select which user to impersonate and then start an impersonation session. See User impersonation.

Sign Out

Sign Out lets users completely sign out of SWSD.

Availability

Agents can set their availability status for two different types of assignment:

• Availability for round-robin queue assignment

  Agents can set their round-robin queue assignment availability from their avatar when they are logged into SWSD. See General navigation for agents: Avatar dropdown menu.

  The only person who can see the Available toggle is the agent. When a requester opens a new chat, the requester cannot see which agents are available and which are unavailable.

  • Each time an agent logs in, the agent needs to set the Available toggle to Active.

  • While logged in, agents can manually change the state of their Available toggle to Active or Inactive.

  • When an agent logs out, the Available toggle is automatically set to Inactive and the agent cannot be assigned a chat to receive messages.

• Availability for live chat

  See Live chat availability.

The SWSD navigation panel

On the left side of your screen is the navigation panel.

	1.	Home. By default, the home page displays content decided by your administrator. Your administrator may opt to allow you to change this setting yourself. If your administrator has allowed you to change the setting, see User home page for instructions.
	2.	Dashboard. Displays information important to your daily work. You can customize the content on this page. See Dashboard.
	3.	Service Desk. Access incidents, problems, changes, the change catalog, releases, solutions, the service catalog, and the CMDB.
	4.	Assets. Access computers, software, printers, mobile devices, network devices, other assets, and a map of asset locations.
	5.	Tasks. Access a list of active tasks.
	6.	Procurement. Access contracts, purchase orders, and vendors, and reconcile records.
	7.	Risk Management. Access risks and compliance.
	8.	Analytics. Access out-of-the-box reports, create custom reports, and view and edit benchmarking information.
	9.	Help. Access documentation, the community forum, support information, and release notes.
	10.	Setup. For use by administrators in setting up your company's service desk.