Documentation forSolarWinds Service Desk

ESM service providers

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Introduction

Service providers represent the different departments in your organization that provide services to your end users, for example, HR and Facilities. Your Organization level administrator creates a new service provider. The service provider owner can then customize the provider's roles and permissions, service portal, and service desk features specific to the service provider.

Service providers are set up only for ESM customers.

The SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) Service Providers page is where Enterprise Service Management (ESM) customers can view a list of all service providers and create new ones.

Navigation

ESM customers
Organization > Setup > Account > Service Providers

Service providers dropdown menu

From the Service Providers dropdown menu you can switch to or from the Organization.

As your Organization administrators create new service providers, those providers will also display in the dropdown list.

Service Providers index table

To see the Service Providers index table, navigate to Organization > Setup > Account > Service Providers.

The Service Providers index table contains all service providers for your organization. Actions you can perform for each service provider are edit, enable, and disable.

From the Service Providers page, administrators can create new service providers based on your organization's needs. You can also view all enabled and disabled service providers.

Default columns in the All Service Providers page are:

  • Name
  • Description
  • Owner
  • Actions

Create a service provider

Only Organization level administrators can create new service providers.

  1. From the Service Providers page, click .

  2. Select a template:

    Default settings used in all new account setups
    Template name Features
    Blank

    Includes default settings used in all new account setups.

    Does not include samples for categories, custom fields, catalog items, or solutions.

    Sample

    Includes:

    • Default settings used in all new account setups.

    • General samples for incidents and service catalog items applicable to any service provider. Samples include categories, custom fields, catalog items, and solutions.
    HR

    Includes:

    • HR-specific settings.

    • HR-specific samples of categories, custom fields, catalog items, solutions, and others.

  3. Provide the following:

    • Name. The functional name for the service provider, which is used across the platform. Many organizations use functional area names, for example, Human Resources, Facilities, Finance, and other similar names.

    • Description. The description you provide that best describes the new service provider. To be used for your convenience.

    • URL. The URL is structured, and you only need to enter the subdomain prefix. For example, if you chose to name the provider Human Resources, the prefix can be hr.

      Limit the subdomain prefix to include only alphabetic characters (A-Z) and numeric characters (0-9) and limit the number of characters to 10. You can change the domain name after the service provider is created.

    • Owner. By default, the Organization account owner is the service provider is the owner. You can change the service provider owner to someone from the list of administrators.

    • Ticket name. You can select a name for the tickets for the service provider. For example, you might want to call tickets work orders for a service provider named Facilities.

  4. Click Create.

    The new service provider has been added to the Service Providers index table. Its status is Initializing.

  5. Refresh the page within a minute or so after creation and verify that the service provider was enabled.

    If you are the owner of the new service provider you will see it in the Switch provider dropdown list.

    Based on your plan, you may be allowed an unlimited number of enabled service providers. Some customers may see a message stating that the recently created service provider was set as disabled because your company reached its limit.

Duplicate a service provider

Organization administrators can duplicate existing configurations and settings from enabled or disabled service providers, thereby reducing the time needed for setup.

  1. From the Organization service provider, navigate to Account > Service Providers.

  2. Locate the service provider you want to copy for duplicating.

  3. Hover over the service provider's row, and to the right, under the Actions column heading, click the ellipsis icon and select Duplicate from the pop-up list.

  4. In the Duplicate Service Provider dialog:

    1. Create a name for the new service provider.

    2. Provide the subdomain prefix, as described above in Create a service provider, Step 3. You only need to add the first part of the URL in the white box after https://. The rest of the URL is already provided.

    3. Select an owner.

    4. Select a name for the new providers tickets.

    5. Scroll down and place a check mark next to each setting you would like to duplicate.

    6. Click Duplicate.

SWSD creates the new service provider and automatically enables it.

Enable or disable a service provider

Only Organization level administrators can enable or disable service providers.

  1. From the All Service Providers page, hover over the line containing the name of the service provider you wish to enable or disable.

  2. In the Actions column, click the ellipsis icon that displays on the row of the service provider.

  3. Click the ellipsis and select either Edit or Disable.

ESM ticket forwarding

If someone opens a ticket with the wrong service provider, that service request or incident ticket can be forwarded to the correct service provider. See Incidents and Service Desk settings for instructions on how to enable this feature.

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