Dashboard widgets

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Introduction

Your SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) dashboard plays a key role in helping you gain visibility and lets you analyze your performance and that of your team.

Your dashboard displays information that helps you:

Identify gaps.
Improve service desk operations.
Increase overall productivity.

Navigation

Dashboard .

Customize widgets on your dashboard

You can customize your dashboard by adding widgets and customize those widgets to display the information that is useful to you.

There's a limit of 30 widgets per dashboard.

Add a widget

Click Add Widget in the upper right.
From the menu that opens on the left, search for a widget by name or click the right-facing arrow next to a category to display a list of available widgets for that category, and then select the widget you want to add. Widget options are categorized by type:
- Incidents
- Service Statistics
- Time Tracking
- Tasks
- Solutions
- Changes
- Risks
- Other Assets
SWSD adds the widget to the top left of your dashboard.
Drag and drop the widget to the location of your choice.

Widget data is grouped by the type of widget. For example, If you want data to be grouped by category, SolarWinds recommends using the Incident by Category widget.

Edit a widget

Hover over the name of the widget until the pencil icon displays.
Click the pencil icon.
In the Edit Widget pane on the left, select the appropriate tab (Widget or Filters).
- To rename, select the Widget tab and edit the Widget title.
- To change widget filters, select the Filters tab. The filtering options available are based on the widget type. For an incident related widget, apply filters just as you would on the incident index page, for example, level status, state, and other fields. See Incidents for more information.
Click Update to save changes.

Example edit

For this example, we review the service statistics widget named Average time to first response (business hours).

Before you begin, notice the average time for a KPI and the trends for the selected metric as compared to the average of the previous period. The time reflected by HH:MM is color coded. Green reflects improvement vs the previous period, and red reflects degradation.

If you want to edit an out-of-the-box widget, SolarWinds recommends that you first duplicate it.

Before editing, duplicate the widget by clicking the ellipsis in the upper right and selecting Duplicate.

This creates a copy of the widget that you can edit.

With the newly duplicated widget selected, follow the instructions above on how to edit a widget.

In this example, the filters tab lets you edit attributes (example: state; assignee) and value (example: open; Jack Smith).

After completing the edits for open tickets assigned to Jack Smith, you can then duplicate the widget multiple times to compare data across your team. For example, you can open the Average time to first response widget for each user on your team and analyze what works best and the areas that need improvement.

You can also create multiple widgets of the same type to save time. As your side edit becomes more complex, the ability to duplicate a widget lets you enter and edit as needed.

Collapse, duplicate, or delete (close) a widget

Click the ellipsis icon in the upper right, and then select the appropriate option from the dropdown list.

Useful widgets and widget types

The blank widget provides you with endless filtering and customizing abilities. When initially selected, all incidents are displayed. When you click on All Incidents, the filtering pane displays. You can add any incident related filters there. , similar to what you are familiar with when filtering in the incident index page, displays.
Incident trend reporting helps you track your overall efficiency by looking at the number of submitted incidents versus closed incidents for a given time period. For example, using incident trend reports you helps you identify agents or departments that have a higher than average number of unresolved incidents over a period of time.

Some service delivery managers use this to identify the origins of incidents. With the data they can align resources to upgrade hardware and systems or determine root cause of incidents.
Service agent reporting lets you review performance of service desk agents who need assistance in areas of improvement on an individual basis. For example, because multiple departments are responsible for delivery of services, comparing departmental performance can help you determine which service each department should provide.

Service desk managers can assess their team members via the Incidents Throughput report. It is an assessment of the number of incidents created, opened, or closed per service desk agent. The information assists you in understanding overall team member workload and effectiveness over a specified period of time.
Ticket transfer widgets let ESM customers see which tickets were transferred between service providers. There are two different transfer widgets:
- Tickets forwarded from other providers
- Tickets forwarded to other providers

Group custom widgets

As you create widgets to gain insight into your team's performance, you can group custom fields to determine best processes for your team. For example, you can create a widget that groups impact and risk.

By comparing custom fields you gain insights into additional metrics across your organization.

Available widgets

The available widgets are based on type. Below you can see each type and the widgets available for that type.

Service statistic widgets

Average time to assignment
Average time to first response (elapsed time)
Average time to first response (business hours)
Average time to resolution (elapsed time)
Average time to resolution (business hours)
Average time to closure
Average age of open incidents
Average time in a state (elapsed time)
Average time in a state (business hours)
Average time spent by assignee (elapsed time)
Average time spent by assignee (business hours)
Average number of reassignments

Computer widgets

Computers by OS
New Computers
Computers by Status
Computers by Department
Computers by Site
Computers by Category

Other assets

Other Assets by Manufacturer
Other Assets by Owner
Other Assets by Department
Other Assets by Site
Other Assets by Type
Other Assets by Model
Other Assets by Status

Software

New Software
Top Software Categories
Top Software Installs
Top Software Vendors
Top Software by Vendor

Contracts

Expired Contracts
Expiring Contracts
Contracts by Manufacturer
Contract by Type
Contracts Financial Value

Risks

Risks Summary
New Risks
Risks by Category

Incidents

My New Incidents
My Active Incidents
All New Incidents
Unassigned Incidents
Incidents Due in Next Days
Incidents Overdue
Aging Incidents
Active Incidents by State
Incidents by Priority
Incidents by Category
Incidents by Subcategory
Incidents by Assigned to
Daily Incidents by Assignee
Active Incidents by Requester
Incidents by Site
Incidents by Department
Customer Satisfaction Today
Customer Satisfaction
Service Level Management
Tickets forwarded from another service provider (available to ESM customers only)
Tickets forwarded to another service provider (available to ESM customers only)

Time tracking

Most Time Consuming
Recent Time Entries
Where Time Is Spent

Tasks

Tasks by Assignee
My Tasks
My Overdue Tasks
My Team Tasks
My Team Overdue Tasks
All Tasks
Tasks Due Today
Tasks Created Today
All Overdue Tasks
Tasks I Requested

Solutions

New Active Solutions
Solutions by State

Changes

Changes by Process Starting Date
Changes by Creation Date
Changes by Planned Start Date
Changes by Planned End Date
Changed Passed Planned Start Date
Changed Passed Planned End Date

Benchmark

Benchmark

News

Product Updates
Customer Community
Blog

Custom feeds

Custom RSS Feed

Other

User Summary
Service Desk/Portal Users Ratio

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