Change to behavior of First Assigned filter

When tickets are first assigned to an individual (not a group or queue), the assignment counts as first assignment. This includes assignments via default assignment rules, automations, and round robin.

Minor changes to UI look and feel

To facilitate the upcoming release of Dark Mode, SolarWinds made minor changes to the look and feel of the UI.

Dark mode is available in Labs

Administrators can enable a new profile setting, Dark Mode, in Labs. In the web platform, dark mode changes the visual theme of Service Desk to a darker palette, with a black background and light-colored text. Once enabled by an administrator, all users can set their preferred theme in their profile. Dark mode is not currently supported in the mobile app or portal view. See Setup: Labs.

Primary software uniqueness requirement

In preparation for the rollout of our software data normalization feature, primary software titles now must be unique. See Merge software titles to create a new primary title.

You can now download your 360 report in Service Desk

360 reports let customers view key insights into their own incident and service request management, showcasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their IT operations. The reports are available for download and can be customized to run based on date range.

The reports must be enabled and configured in Labs. After an organization level administrator enables the feature in Labs and makes it available to everyone in the organization, ESM administrators can then choose to make the reports available to some, all, or none of the users in their service provider account.

See Setup: Labs.

Relabeled out-of-the-box reports from Templates to Reports

SolarWinds renamed Templates to Reports. This change applies to all out-of-the-box reports accessible from Analytics > Reports. See Reports.

Ability to redirect users from the Virtual Agent to the Service Portal to complete creation of tickets

When enabled, a Virtual Agent user can begin creation of a ticket through the Virtual Agent but is redirected to the Service Portal to complete the creation process. This feature is particularly helpful to customers who use custom fields in their ticket forms. You can gather all the required information at the time the ticket is created. This capability is available in MS Teams, Slack, and the mobile app.

You decide whether to enable the feature for all tickets created through the Virtual Agent, or for only some, based on their ticket category and subcategory. See Virtual Agent: Create a new incident.

Broadened search scope for suggested solutions is now generally available

Service Desk now searches closed incidents, solutions, and knowledge base articles before offering a suggested solution. Previously, the suggested solutions feature searched only closed incidents. The feature is now available for all Premier customers and no longer requires enablement in Labs. See Suggested solutions and draft responses.

Approval reminders

SolarWinds has added automatic reminders for some approvals. Approvers will receive a reminder when an approval is not completed. An administrator can modify the interval between reminders or set the interval to zero to eliminate all reminders. For more details and a list of places where approval reminders are available, see Approval Reminders.

Enhancements to Runbooks

With new enhancements to runbooks, you can now collect situational information from an incident ticket when an agent attaches a runbook to a ticket.

For example, you could have a database server that is not responding, but each of your database servers is unique in the way it needs to be troubleshot. By requiring the agent to provide the server name and IP address from a drop-down list when the runbook is attached, you can know that the proper runbook steps are provided for that specific server. For an agent-performed runbook, the agent who performs the runbook steps can feel confident that the proper steps are being followed.

Specific enhancements include the ability to:

• Add custom fields to a runbook when creating or editing one.
• Use form logic to configure custom fields. Options include hide/show, enable/disable, require/make optional.

See Runbooks.

Report settings sidebar automatically displays when a report is selected

When you select a report in Analytics, the report settings sidebar automatically opens. Users can configure report parameters and filters without waiting for the initial report to load, reducing unnecessary wait times. This new feature applies to all reports.

Other improvements

• Added minor UI improvements to enhance ease of use and access.

You can set up field mapping for alert-triggered Incidents from both SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted and SolarWinds Observability SaaS

Advanced and Premier plan customers can map alert data fields to Service Desk system and custom fields that correspond to Incident records. See:

• Set up field mapping for SolarWinds Observability Self-Hosted alerts
• Set up field mapping for SolarWinds Observability SaaS alerts

A new Incident origin was created for SolarWinds Observability - SaaS

SolarWinds Observability - SaaS was added as an Incident ticket origin. Where the Incident origin is used, it is listed as SWO-SaaS. See Incident origins. Also see Set up the integration between SolarWinds Observability SaaS and Service Desk.

Changes to Incident origin and Scan origin for SolarWinds Orion

The Incident Origin previously named SolarWinds Orion and the Scan Origin previously named Orion have both been renamed to SWO Self-Hosted.

Serial numbers now match to computers

SolarWinds now gives you the option to select what should be used as the unique identifier for assets. This new option lets you match solely on serial number or on serial number, mac address, and hostname.

Using serial numbers as the unique identifier to update existing records can help reduce duplicate records when in a multiple-source environment (Discovery agent, Discovery scanner, and SCCM integration, and more). See Asset Management: Asset Unique Identifier(s).

Other improvements

• Added minor UI improvements to enhance ease of use and access.

Implemented Phase 2 of filterable, sortable, and searchable custom fields

Phase 2 implementation of the ability to filter, sort, and search custom fields is effective as of February 16, 2025. Phase 1 was previously announced in November 2024.

• No changes occurred for customers who previously configured their filterable, sortable, and searchable custom fields.

• Customers that have not configured those fields will not be able to filter, sort, or search any custom fields.

See Configure custom fields to be filterable/sortable and searchable.

Customers can enable broadened search scope for suggested solutions in Labs

When you enable this GeAI enhancement in Labs, Service Desk can search incident solutions and knowledge base articles before offering a suggested solution. Previously, suggested solutions searched only closed tickets. See Setup: Labs and Suggested solutions and draft responses.

Improvements in warranty management

Improvements include:

• The ability for administrators and agents to easily identify and map warranties in the Unknown state, enabling timely updates to missing dates.
• Complete visibility into the warranty lifecycle, reducing the risk of unnoticed expired warranties.
• The ability to add prompt actions to address expired warranties, which help you avoid delays in warranty-related claims or actions.
• A streamlined process for tracking and managing warranty statuses, improving overall workflow efficiency.

See Manage computer warranties.

Ruby upgrade for Windows and Linux Discovery agents and scanners

SolarWinds upgraded Ruby to version 3.3 for Windows and Linux Discovery agents and scanners.

Although agents will automatically update over time, you can download the latest version by navigating to Setup > Discovery & Assets > Installation.

Customer action is required: Service Desk is moving to a new email service provider

SolarWinds is moving Service Desk email services to a new provider. This change will enable our support teams to better monitor and support emails issues. SolarWinds will also take a stricter approach to security and what is allowed via Service Desk if we are not authorized to send on your behalf.

Settings that will change with the implementation of a new email service provider

For sent emails:

• Setting a reply email address will require email authorization.
• Personalized email names will be split into two different features:
  • Personalized email names: The email FROM address will change to the agent’s name.
  • Personalized email addresses: The email FROM address will change to the agent’s email address.

What functionality is changing

Current functionality	New functionality
You can set a reply email address to any address, even if you do not own that domain.	You can only set a reply email address after you authenticate the domain with Service Desk.
You can set a reply email address that sends notifications on behalf of your agents. Those notifications include their name and email address.	You can only include the agent’s name in the FROM field if you authenticate your domain with Service Desk After the domain is authenticated, you can change the FROM email address to that of the agent.

What customer action is required

SolarWinds will make this change to a new service provider by using a two-phased approach. Customer action will be required when Phase 1 begins so that the transition in Phase 2 goes smoothly.

• Phase 1 begins January 12, 2025.
• Phase 2 will release March 16, 2025.
On February 21, 2025, SolarWinds moved the release date of Phase 2 from March 2 to March 16, 2025.

In the time available between Phase 1 and Phase 2, SolarWinds encourages you to authenticate your domain with Service Desk. For more information, see: Service Desk is moving to a new email service provider.