Sandbox for Service Desk

Premier customers can now create a sandbox for Service Desk. The Service Desk Sandbox is a secure, isolated environment exclusively for creating and testing configurations in a non-production environment.

For more information, see Sandbox.

Attach runbooks via automation

A new option is available to attach or remove a runbook from an incident via automation rules. This removes the need for your agents to manually search and attach runbooks.

With with automations attaching runbooks, you can:

• Have a runbook waiting for your users to walk through predefined steps for troubleshooting.

• Have a runbook with process integrations auto-run on an incident to take an automated action. This can help either auto-resolve issues and or take precursor steps before your agents work the ticket.

• Replace the runbook assigned to the ticket if the conditions change (for example, a category change, custom field value change, site changes, or other changes)

This option is located under the Action dropdown in all automations for Incidents.

See Create an automation rule.

Enhanced workflow for key actions in core automation areas

SolarWinds released variable replacement capability in process integration payloads on January 13, 2026. We are now expanding that capability to key actions in process workflows and all automation rules.

This enhancement:

• Unlocks advanced automation use cases that require dynamic data transfer within Service Desk.

• Enables customized and context-aware notifications, reducing confusion and improving communication quality.

• Eliminates the need for external scripting or custom solutions to achieve dynamic field updates or conditional logic.

See Automation rules and Process workflows.

Improved calculation method for business hours

SolarWinds changed the way business hours are calculated in Service Desk. Now calculations are based on the business hours your organization configures in Setup > Account. For example, previously business hours were calculated based on a 24-hour day. If your business hours are set to an 8-hour day, calculations are now based on that 8-hour day. What previously looked like one business day (24 full hours) will look like three business days (3 x 8-hour day).

For example:

Where business hours are used for a metric, Service Desk shows the number of hours and does not convert that number into days.

• Assume business hours are Monday through Friday 8am - 5pm
• Ticket is opened on Wednesday at 3 pm
• Ticket is closed the next Tuesday at 2 pm
• This would display as 31 business hours (2+8+8+8+5)

Where business days are used for a metric, Service Desk shows the number of full business days and the number hours that do not constitute a full business day.

• Assume business hours are Monday through Friday 8am - 5pm
• Ticket is opened on Wednesday at 3 pm
• Ticket is closed the next Tuesday at 2 pm
• This would display as 3 business days + 7 hours [(2+8+8+8+5)/8]

See Business hour calculations.

Custom fields cannot be deleted or disabled if they are in an active automated workflow or integration

When someone attempts to delete or disable a custom field, Service Desk performs a dependency check that now looks for active references within automated workflows and integrations, in addition to previous criteria to search service catalog items, change catalog items, and custom forms. This improvement reduces automation failures and system instability.

See Custom fields.

Advanced plan customers can enable AI-powered ticket descriptions for resolutions

SolarWinds now makes available to our Advanced plan customers our AI-powered ticket descriptions for resolutions after a ticket is resolved. AI-powered descriptions for resolution summaries/case summarizations are limited to 250 per month.

• An administrator on an Advanced plan must enable the AI Case Summarization feature via system settings. If you don't have GenAI enabled, you have to enable it and then enable the AI Case Summarization feature.

• If your limit is reached during a single month, Service Desk notifies you via a message and AI-powered descriptions for resolutions will no longer be available for the month.

See Enable GenAI and AI Case Summarization.

Advanced plan customers can now add runbooks

Advanced plan customers can now add up to three runbooks. Runbooks document processes in an automated workflow, helping you ensure that repetitive tasks are standardized, error-prone, and performed on time.

Learn more about Runbooks.

Select the Intune field you want Service Desk to use in identifying asset ownership

You can now configure your Intune connection to identify which Intune field Service Desk should use to identify asset owners.

See Match Asset Owner to Intune Field.

Jira Multi-Connector integration

Advanced and Premier customers can connect and configure multiple separate Jira integrations so that different departments can escalate incidents to their respective Jira environments. For example, IT, Security, and Engineering could escalate their specific issue types to their own projects.

See Jira connectors.

Ticket forwarding now supports custom fields

Custom fields are supported for tickets forwarded from one ESM service provider to another. Forwarded tickets contain data for all custom fields when the field definition exists in the target service provider.

• If a ticket is forwarded containing data for a custom field not defined in the target service provider, the forwarding agent sees a warning that lists the missing field(s) before forwarding is complete.

• If data masking is enabled for the original service provider's account, data masking is preserved before ticket forwarding is complete.

For more information on ticket forwarding, see Incidents and Service Desk Settings: Cross Platform Settings.

Organization-level managed custom fields, custom forms, and dynamic rules

Organization-level administrators can now take ownership of and manage custom fields, custom forms, and dynamic rules created and previously managed by individual service providers. They can then make them accessible to the entire organization, ensuring a common definition used by everyone.

These enhancements allow:

• Standardized incident management via creation of a rule that dynamically displays a specific form for critical incident tickets, regardless of which service provider handles the ticket. The rule could trigger if a ticket were submitted with a P1 priority and High impact.

• Centralized change management through the use of a standard dynamic form rule for all major change requests across all service providers to ensure consistent data collection for audit and compliance purposes.

• Consistent problem identification via presentation of a dynamic form that collects specific details every time a problem ticket is created.

• Shared Service Desk processes and forms, which might include processes that require the collection of data such as asset type, location, and user information through a single form. For example, both the IT service provider and the HR service provider can use data collected through employee onboarding and offboarding forms.

For more information, see Sharing custom fields, Sharing custom forms, and Sharing dynamic form rules.

The blank dashboard widget now supports computers

The blank dashboard widget can now be used to create a widget specifically for computers. From there, you can slice and dice data in a way that is most useful to you and your organization. Previously it could be used only to display incidents.

See Blank widgets.

GenAI: Auto-generate a runbook from a solution

Premier plan customers can now generate service catalogs and runbooks from a Solution. This new feature lets you convert critical, validated procedures into a runbook that ensures an actionable, step-by-step guide for incident response and service operations.

Open the Solution from the Solutions index page and click Generate Process in the upper right. See instructions in Service catalog items and Runbooks.

Enhanced workflow automation: Dynamic variable support for process integrations

Process integrations within service catalogs, change catalogs, and runbooks now support the addition of variables. This allows users to pass context-aware values—including system fields, custom fields, and process fields (process fields available in change catalog only)—directly into the process integration configuration, enabling dynamic cross-platform orchestration.

See Configure dynamic input mapping for workflow process integrations.

Process integration is available as an action in automation rules

You can now add process integrations to automation rules. You first define the process integration, and then, in the automation rule add it as an action.

See Process integrations and Automation rules: Actions.

Process integration URL character limit increased

Process integration URLs used in Service Desk can now be up to 290 characters in length.

See Process integrations.

The Other Assets module is available in the mobile app

Version 3.3.0 of the mobile app is available for both Android and iOS. This version adds the ability to view and edit Other Assets in the mobile app.

See Mobile app: Download for instructions on how to download from the App Store or the Google Play store.

Self-service management for email suppression lists

SolarWinds is giving administrators greater control over email communications. You can now view and edit the suppression lists for your domains to identify and remove email addresses that may have been blocked due to previous bounces or complaints. This ensures higher deliverability for critical Service Desk notifications.

See Email settings: Suppression list.

In Labs: Incidents and service requests are renamed to Tickets

To better align with ITIL®, SolarWinds is changing the way we label certain items in Service Desk. Previously, all tickets were under the Incidents menu item, which led to confusion on what data was represented in the index. To resolve this confusion, we are changing the name of the Incident index to the Tickets index. This better aligns with the data shown on that index page (both incidents and service requests). In addition, we are adding a new filtering functionality. Easily accessible filters for the most used fields are available without the need to edit the view.

After enabling this feature in Labs, you can see that the left navigation label changed from Incidents to Tickets.

See Setup: Labs.

Filenames for attachment uploads are no longer case sensitive

Previously, file upload restrictions were case sensitive. Now, the file type extensions are not case sensitive, which allows for clearer control.

See Attachment settings.