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.

Navigation

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.

Cross Platform Settings

for ESM Organization level administrators only

Ticket Forwarding

Enable this feature to allow ESM customers to use Ticket Forwarding on the organization level for all enabled service providers in your organization. Make selections appropriate for your organization.

o Forward tickets with public comments

o Require agent comment to be entered after selecting Service Provider for ticket forwarding

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. Leave this option On to generate tags automatically.

Inherit Tags From Service Catalog

Leave this option On to automatically pass the Service Catalog tags to the Service request.

Inherit Tags From Change Catalog

Leave this option On to automatically pass the Change Catalog tags to the Change request.

Require Mandatory Fields On Resolution

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.

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.

Mandatory Change Fields

Toggle On to require all change requests to include the planned start and end date/time.

Resolve Incomplete Service Requests

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

Close Incomplete Changes

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

Inline Edit on records

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

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

If on, the most recent email response to a ticket, will completely override the ticket's CC list and all comments made via email will default to private comments. See Change incident comments from private to public for instructions.

If off, comments via email will remain public and anyone added to the CC list via email or via the application, will remain on the ticket's CC list, until removed via the application

Automatic approvals for unreachable approvers

Enable if you want an approval action to be approved by default 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

When enabled, re-authentication is required on each approval response. Allows higher compliance with requirements such as 21 CFR Part 11.

Assigned to field displays only users and queue members

When On, the Assigned to field includes individual users and queues in all service desk modules.

When Off, the Assigned to field includes all users, queues, and groups.

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

Select a duration after which inactive incidents in a selected state will be moved to Resolved.

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 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.

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, Administrator and Service Agent users can toggle the visibility of the Incident index.

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 workflow process (including conditions and task assignments) is evaluated for each workflow, before the process starts to run. Enabling this option results in SWSD evaluating each workflow step as it is reached and executed. As a result, the outcome of each evaluation depends on variable and field values at execution time vs. their values at the time the workflow is started.

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.

Data Masking

Toggles should be On to:

Mask sensitive information (PII/PCI) in supported attachments (.txt, .csv, .json, .xml, .log, .pdf, .docx).

Mask sensitive information (PII/PCI) in user inputs, including titles, descriptions, comments, and custom fields.

Ticket Forwarding

for ESM Organization 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.