Documentation forSolarWinds Service Desk

Service Desk settings

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Introduction

SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) options configured through Service Desk Settings are global and affect your entire instance of SolarWinds Service Desk. Global settings establish the foundation of how your Service Desk will look, feel, and behave. Only administrators can make changes in Setup.

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ITSM customers ESM customers
Setup > Global Settings > Service Desk Settings Organization (or Service Provider) > Global Settings > Service Desk Settings

Setting options

Service Desk Name (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enter a service desk name for your company. This name displays in the FROM field in email notifications and in the service portal.

Image - Sign In (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

This image will only show on the native SWSD sign-in page. If you redirect to a Single Sign On (SSO) login page, no image will display. The recommended size for the image is 1400 px width X 1050 px height. Larger images will be cropped.

Ticket Name (for ESM service provider administrators only)

From the dropdown list, each ESM service provider administrator can select a name for tickets. The options in the dropdown include:

  • Ticket
  • Incident
  • Work Request
  • Case
  • Issue
  • Request
  • Service Request
  • Work Order

Default Landing Page (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

This is where administrators can establish the default landing page for all licensed administrators and service agent users. This can be set per user on the User edit page or by the users themselves when Allow agent to change their default landing page is enabled.

Extra Features (for ESM service provider administrators only)

Set any toggle below to Off to hide the feature from the service provider service portal.

  • Problems
  • Changes
  • Releases
  • Change Catalog
  • Assets
  • Procurement
  • Risk Management

Custom Resolution Codes (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Custom Resolution Codes are used to define the way your team reached a resolution on an incident. You can customize these codes to match your business logic, add new custom codes, delete existing ones, and even make this field mandatory for your technicians. 

Examples for helpful resolution codes include:

  • Fixed
  • Proposed
  • Duplicate

Change Types Values (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Define the types of changes used in your organization. The values, and their order, will be seen in the Change Management module, as part of the Type field dropdown list. The first value in the list will be the default type.

Tagging (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

  • Auto Tagging - Used in SWSD to add additional search terms to your Incidents. You can check this box if you want SWSD to automatically generate tags.
  • Inherit Tags From Service Catalog - Toggle On to automatically pass Service Catalog tags to Service requests.

  • Inherit Tags From Change Catalog - Toggle On to automatically pass Change Catalog tags to Change requests.

Require Mandatory Fields On Resolution (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enabling this option requires submitting mandatory fields when resolving incidents. This is important:

  • To ensure accurate reporting. If all mandatory fields are not completed, reports you run that measure and monitor your service desk metrics can be affected because of incomplete data.

  • To drive a consistent resolution, ensuring you are collecting the mandatory data points associated with an incident.

Mandatory Change Fields (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

You can configure distinct fields to be mandatory for incidents, for example: Category/Subcategory, Custom Fields, and Resolution Codes.  When activated, this feature creates a popup window on the Incident Page that shows you all editable fields, marking the mandatory ones with a red asterisk.

To ensure you are getting all the necessary data points you desire when an incident is resolved, and that processes you have in place automating incident resolutions are not broken, SWSD allows for certain exceptions to the rules. The Mandatory fields are not required:

  • When Incidents are auto-resolved due to requester inactivity.

  • When Incidents are resolved via an automation rule.

  • When Incidents are resolved via an integration or API call.

Resolve Incomplete Service Requests (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Toggle to On to allow service requests to complete even if incomplete tasks exist.

Close Incomplete Changes (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Toggle to On to allow changes to complete even if incomplete tasks exist.

Inline Edit on records (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Toggle to On so that inline edit will display a pop-up window to process dynamic form rules and dependencies.

Inline Edit On Service Catalog Items (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Toggle to On to enable the use of inline editing on service catalog items. Turn off the feature so all service catalog items can be saved before they are rolled out to all employees. When the toggle is in the Off position, you can click Edit to make any changes.

Any update to the values or default text in a custom field will be reflected in all places where that custom field is used.

Email CC List Should Override Ticket's CC List (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Toggle to On for SWSD to completely override ticket cc lists with the cc list in the most recent email response and make all comments made via email become private comments.

When the toggle is set to on, all comments are flagged as private. After comments are made private, requesters can change the visibility of comments from private to public from within an incident ticket, if comments should be visible to both end users and agents. See Change incident comments from private to public for instructions.

When the feature is toggled to Off, comments made via email remain public and anyone added to the cc list via email or via the application remain on the ticket's cc list until they are removed via the application.

Automatic approvals for unreachable approvers (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enable this option if you want an approval action to be approved automatically when an approver is unidentified.

Disable if you want the action to be declined by default. An unreachable approver is someone who is unavailable because their user account was deleted or disabled.

Require Authentication on Every Approval (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

When enabled, this feature lets you require re-authentication on each approval response, which provides higher compliance with requirements, such as 21 CFR Part 11.

Close Inactive Resolved Incidents (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Select a duration after which inactive incidents will be moved from Resolved state to Closed. Note that an incident is considered inactive when it has no new comments and no changes are made to the incident's fields.

Resolve Inactive Incidents (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

This feature allows you to select a state and duration of inactivity on an incident that then changes the incident's state to Resolved.

An incident is considered inactive when no new comments or changes have been made to the incident's field for a period of time.

Reopen Resolved/Closed Incidents (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

This feature allows you to reopen any closed or resolved incidents when a new Incident index table is entered. If you opt to disable this feature, technicians can still be made aware of new comments made on resolved incidents based on your Notification settings or Automation rules settings.

Default Priority For New Incidents (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

This feature allows you to set the default priority for new incidents. You can adjust the default priority to Low, Medium, High, or Critical.

Live view of new incidents (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enable this feature to get a real time indication of new incidents.

By enabling the live view provides a real-time indication of new incidents.

For instructions on editing the Incidents index page view, see List viewList view

Chat (for administrators managing ITSM and the ESM service provider named IT Service Provider only)

Toggle to On to enable the direct communication between requesters and agents via the portal and an inbound chat queue for agents.

See Chat for administrators for more information and instructions on settings up roles and permissions for Chat.

Default Comments Visibility (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Set the visibility of comments added to SWSD incidents by Administrators and Service Agent users, establishing the default setting for any new comments added in the incident view. Public comments will be visible to both Service Agent Users and requesters, while Private comments are only visible to Service Agents. When viewing the Incident index table, Administrator and Service Agent users can toggle the visibility of the Incident index table.

Comments Sorting (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Toggle to On to display the newest comments first in the incident view. To reverse the order, switch the toggle to Off.

Time Tracking Comments (for ITSM and service provider administrators only)

Toggle to Off to let agents submit a time tracking entry in incidents without entering a comment. Toggle to On to require comments for time tracking entries.

Auto Set State to Resolved at workflow completion (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enabling this option will set the associated service request's status to Resolved when the workflow process reaches the last step or is stopped using a Stop Process task in the process. When this option is disabled, the service request’s state will not be modified at process completion. This option does not apply to runbooks.

Sentiment Analysis (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enable sentiment analysis to quickly identify incidents with negative sentiment. Take action by prioritizing incidents which need attention. Sentiment data is gathered from the time this feature is enabled.

Just-in-Time workflow processing (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

When this option is disabled, the entire process (including conditions and task assignments) is evaluated for each workflow, before the workflow process starts. Enabling this option results in evaluating each workflow step when it is reached at workflow execution time. As a result, the outcome of each such evaluation depends on variable and field values at execution time vs. their values at the workflow start time.

User Impersonation (for ITSM and ESM service provider administrators only)

Enable this feature to allow administrators to access and operate as if they were logged in as a different user. Licensed users with impersonation permissions established through Roles & Permissions can impersonate any user in their network and act as that user.

You can also choose to send notifications to the person being impersonated via email or via a bell when impersonation starts.

Ticket Forwarding (for ESM ORG level administrators only)

Enable this feature at the organization level to allow ESM customers to forward tickets to all enabled service providers in your organization.

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