Introduction

SolarWinds® Web Help Desk® software (WHD) is a web-based automated ticketing solution that helps you manage your IT support requests for both internal and external clients.

Web Help Desk includes a web console with an integrated dashboard for performance reporting. Using customizable widgets that you add to the dashboard, you can track metrics such as ticket activity, ticket status, and ticket resolution in real time to help you decide how well your help desk is performing.

All help desk processes are managed through the web console. After you set up the application, you can configure Web Help Desk to perform specific tasks, such as routing tickets to a specific help desk technician or work group, billing customers for parts and labor costs, and creating new tickets from email requests or alert messages from a supported monitoring application.

You can run Web Help Desk on the following operating systems and platforms:

Microsoft® Windows Server®
Apple® OSX
Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®
Red Hat® Fedora
CentOS
VMware® vSphere
Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines

Key Features

Web Help Desk provides the following features for your enterprise or managed service provider (MSP) help desk operations:

Automated Ticketing. You can generate tickets manually in the user interface or automatically by emails from any third-party monitoring tool. If you are running DameWare® Mini Remote Control (MRC) (included with Help Desk Essentials), you can establish a remote connection and troubleshoot a client's system directly from a ticket or asset and save remote session details into a new or existing ticket.
Asset Management. Using Windows® Management Instrumentation (WMI) or supported third-party discovery tools, you can search a specific IP address range in your corporate network and create a list of client assets (such as computer systems, installed software, and attached peripherals). When asset discovery is completed, you can use DameWare MRC to connect remotely to a client system, troubleshoot the issue, and append remote session information to a new or existing ticket.
Knowledge Base. Includes an extensive library of FAQs, integrated tool tips, and help you can access from the web console.
Communication. Automatically creates new tickets from alerts received from SolarWinds monitoring products, such as SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, SolarWinds Server and Application Monitor, and SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager. If the ticket is not resolved within a pre-configured span of time, Web Help Desk can escalate the ticket and send an SMS alert to the assigned help desk technician. Additionally, when you create new tickets, you can send notes to the end user to provide status or request additional information.