Business Need
SolarWinds Service Desk currently allows incidents to be resolved without requiring completion of the built-in Resolution Description field.
While Resolution Codes can be made mandatory, they do not provide sufficient information about the actual troubleshooting steps performed, root cause identified, or final resolution applied.
Requested Enhancement
Add a native option within Service Desk Settings to make the built-in Resolution Description field mandatory before an incident can be resolved or closed.
Example:
☐ Set Resolution Code as Required
☐ Require Mandatory Fields on Resolution
☑ Require Resolution Description on Resolution/Closure
Why This Is Important
Resolution descriptions are one of the most valuable data sources within an ITSM platform. They provide operational knowledge, troubleshooting history, and resolution context that can be reused across future incidents.
Without mandatory resolution details:
- Tickets are frequently closed with only a resolution code.
- Valuable troubleshooting knowledge is lost.
- Future incidents become harder to resolve.
- Knowledge Base article creation becomes less effective.
- Reporting and trend analysis lose important context.
- AI capabilities have less data available for learning and recommendations.
Impact on AI and Knowledge Management
SolarWinds continues to invest in AI-powered capabilities such as:
- Case Summarization
- Suggested Solutions
- Draft Responses
- Knowledge Recommendations
The quality of AI-generated insights depends heavily on the quality of historical incident data.
When agents are required to document meaningful resolution details:
- AI recommendations become more accurate.
- Similar incidents can be identified more effectively.
- Knowledge articles can be generated more efficiently.
- Resolution trends can be analyzed with greater accuracy.
- Organizational knowledge is retained instead of being lost when staff members change roles.
Expected Outcome
Provide administrators with the ability to enforce completion of the built-in Resolution Description field before an incident can be resolved or closed, similar to how mandatory fields and Resolution Codes are currently enforced.
This would significantly improve data quality, knowledge retention, reporting accuracy, and future AI-driven capabilities within SolarWinds Service Desk.
