SolarWinds Service Desk June 2020 release notes
Release date: June 2020
These release notes describe the new features and improvements in SolarWinds Service Desk.
If you are looking for previous release notes for SolarWinds Service Desk, see Previous Version documentation.
New features and improvements in SWSD
- Discovery Scanner
Reporting and Analytics
Just-in-Time Workflow Processing
There are two ways to process workflows:
Pre-processing: Evaluate all steps in a workflow right before it begins
Just-in-Time processing: Evaluate each workflow step as they occur during workflow execution
Our workflows currently use the pre-processing approach. This means when a change or service request is submitted, the entire workflow is processed, with each step in the workflow evaluated based on the value of conditions and fields before the workflow even begins.
Now, we’ve added Just-in-Time Workflow Processing to your service desk, which evaluates each step of a workflow based on the value of conditions and fields when these steps are reached. This allows you to base workflow decisions on the current value of conditions and fields rather than the values of these conditions and fields before the workflow began. As a result, you can build more dynamic and realistic workflows that replicate your IT and business processes.
For more information on Just-in-Time Workflow Processing, please see our technical documentation on the Service Catalog or Change Catalog.
Service Monitor Enhanced and Reporting Capabilities
As agents and Service Desk managers you constantly need visibility into incidents’ resolution times and service process efficiency. Until today, the Service Monitor section at the Incident Page, helped you track the lifecycle of each incident at a very high level while additional data was available for further investigation via the Audit Log.
Our latest Service Monitor enhancements help you identify service bottlenecks or deficiencies directly from the incident’s page quickly and easily. The advanced version of the Service Monitor includes the high-level view you are familiar with, and additional information grouped by the incident’s State and Assignees. Starting today you can keep track of the time it took your team to process an incident (business/ total hours), how many times it’s been reassigned and how much time this incident spent in each State/ Assignee queue - in a couple of clicks!
Chat Reports
Tracking processing times of service processes is one of the main KPIs every Service Desk manager is monitoring. We are now glad to introduce chat reports which will provide you with more visibility into agents and requesters chat times, as well as chat breakdown by different groups.
Discovery and CMDB
Discovery Scanner - Schedule Scans
We recognize the need for flexibility to run the SolarWinds Discovery Scanner at a fixed time interval (for example: every 10 hours) or at a specific day and time of the week. As a result, we’ve updated the feature to allow you to schedule a scan based on the time and day you define.
This increases the consistent of scans by enabling you to run each scan at the same time each day. In addition, you can get a more accurate representation of your IT and business environment by scheduling scans when your assets are operational and your employees are in the office.
Discovery Scanner - Change Asset Type
To keep an accurate account of your asset repository, you may occasionally need to recategorize assets found by the Discovery Scanner. We’ve made enhancements to this feature allowing you to reclassify assets by changing the asset types of Network Devices to the correct type, such as Computer, Storage, and other types. This helps keep your asset inventory accurate and up-to-date.
Discovery Scanner - SCCM Software Integration
We have enhanced the SolarWinds Discovery integration with Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) to allow you to import software information collected by SCCM (Previously only hardware data was imported). Now, your Discovery scan can import both software and hardware information from SCCM directly into your service desk.
This gives you better visibility into your IT environment, as SCCM can give you a detailed breakdown of all software installed on Windows devices throughout your organization. These insights provide a complete picture of your technology landscape, which can help you reduce IT spending, mitigate risks, improve software compliance, and align your assets with IT service management.
Mobile Updates
Browsing and Attaching Solutions
We have added the ability to browse through solutions and attach them to incidents on mobile. There are many benefits such as if your employees lose access to their computer or Wi-Fi network. They can log in to the Service Desk mobile app browse possible solutions and reach out to you in case they cannot find a relevant solution. In addition, from now on, agents will be able to browse and attach solutions when processing incidents on-the-go.
Platform Updates
Managing Multiple Accounts
You can now use one email address across multiple service desk accounts. This gives your organization more flexibility to provide better support to employees and customers by allowing your users to access multiple instances of SolarWinds Service Desk. This allows you to:
- Test new capabilities in an alternate account before enabling them in production
- Maintain separate accounts for different departments, such as HR and IT
- Support both internal and external service desks for your organization
- Allow specific individuals to access multiple accounts, such as contractors
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