SolarWinds Service Desk 2024 Release Round-up
This year, we’ve been hard at work bringing you a lineup of new features and enhancements across our SolarWinds® Service Desk solution. Each release in 2024 was designed with a clear goal: to make ITSM simpler, faster, and more powerful yet flexible. Let’s take a look at an overview of what’s been released this year, what the features and enhancements brought to the table, and how these new features can make a difference for your team.
January
The year began with updates to approval workflows and collaboration tools. One of the releases gave approvers the ability to view comments directly in the portal, promoting transparency in decision-making. Dynamic workflows enabled seamless conversion of service requests into incidents, improving operational efficiency. See January’s release post for more details.
February
February marked a leap in Enterprise Service Management (ESM), further expanding service desk capabilities beyond IT. This release introduced ticket forwarding, shared custom fields, and Virtual Agent for ESM to help improve efficiency and collaboration, enabling departments like HR and facilities to manage their services more efficiently.
Also released in February were asset selection improvements, which simplify workflows by allowing users to choose related assets directly from the portal when submitting an incident. Understanding which devices are affected from the start can greatly speed up remediation.
March
Power BI integration took center stage in March, allowing users to harness advanced reporting capabilities. Custom fields and incremental data syncing enabled more granular analysis of incidents and assets. Enhancements to asset reporting provided greater visibility into IT environments. This release helps empower teams to make data-driven decisions faster.
April
April introduced significant advancements, including an ITSM maturity model assessment to help organizations evaluate their service management effectiveness. Teams using the framework can audit their current setup, understand where their gaps and improvement opportunities are, and create a plan for progressing their overall ITSM maturity.
Also released in April were Virtual agent upgrades, Out-of-the-Box (OOTB) knowledge articles and the ability to chat with a live agent on Microsoft Teams and Slack, improving ticket handling and customer interactions. See April’s release post for more details.
May
With the release of SolarWinds AI, AKA your new service desk sidekick, May marked a major milestone in how agents can use SolarWinds Service Desk. Features like automated ticket summarization and contextual solution suggestions helped agents resolve issues more effectively. These enhancements emphasized automation's role in improving user satisfaction and operational efficiency. SolarWinds AI took the next step into what a modern ITSM solution looks like, helping to resolve more tickets faster and more accurately.
June
In June, we saw two releases focused on enhancing automation and integration capabilities. New filters for automation rules allowed admins to fine-tune workflows, while CSV updates streamlined bulk data management. The SolarWinds AI app became available in Microsoft Teams, enabling seamless collaboration across platforms. The release of response templates for agents and admins simplified routine communications. See the June 9th release and the June 23rd release for more information.
July
July’s release delivered features aimed at data privacy and usability. Generative AI became available in EU datacenters, aligning compliance with local regulations. This month also featured a preview of upcoming custom field changes further supporting speed at which agents can resolve tickets by working to give them the ability to separate data more cleanly, as well as fine the tickets that need their attention in a faster and simpler way.
August
August was a big month, jam-packed with releases to improve the agent workflow. We saw the promised release of major upgrades to the service catalog, with custom fields introduced for searching, sorting, and filtering items. On the ESM front, IT service portals gained customizable URLs, enhancing branding and user navigation and service provider templates were released to help mitigate the work required when expanding into additional service providers.
Advanced data masking was introduced into Labs, adding another layer of security for sensitive inputs. Also introduced into Labs were the generation of Runbooks from text or documents, as well as workflow process entity switching–both developed to reduce the manual and repetitive tasks that agents get tied up with every day. For more details about these releases, see the August 18th post and August 25th post.
September
Enterprise Service Management features expanded further in September, with tools for ticket forwarding customization and duplication simplifying workflow management between service providers. Reporting capabilities improved, allowing teams to better analyze service performance. New group assignment fields and incident-specific survey results enhanced team collaboration and provided actionable feedback for continuous improvement.
October
Released in October, a toggle for SLA adjustments was introduced, offering greater flexibility in service delivery. Instead of being forced to delete SLAs (and losing all the related reporting), managers and teams can simply turn them off while keeping all the historical data intact, helping with the transition to the use of SLAs or at the start of a new cycle.
Also released was the ability for users to see the benefits of generative AI, Runbooks, and other Premier features with a free two-week trial of the Premier plan, starting with just a single click. These updates underscored the focus on streamlining user experiences while enhancing service management capabilities of SolarWinds.
November
November saw the general release of auto-generated runbooks, enabling teams to standardize and accelerate complex workflows by automating the time-consuming task of turning existing operational guides into structured, step-by-step Runbooks.
Custom fields received significant updates, supporting better data organization and reporting. Data masking was expanded from just attachments to include text-based or user input fields across different platforms. A mobile app expansion brought Enterprise Service Management functionality on the go, ensuring teams stayed connected and productive. See the November 10th release, November 24th release, or November 28th release for more details.
December
December’s release wrapped up the year with robust enhancements to process integrations. The ability to access and utilize details embedded in API responses was released, allowing that data to be parsed, mapped, and used in custom or system fields, enabling advanced workflow conditions or actions. New JSON response analysis, which allows the download and analyzation of JSON responses from third-party integrations, improves the troubleshooting and debugging process. These updates closed the year on a high note, reflecting the commitment of SolarWinds to empowering IT teams with the tools they need to excel, setting the stage for 2025.
The 2024 releases for SolarWinds Service Desk showcase a year of exciting innovation, designed to make IT teams more efficient and service management more intuitive. From AI-powered tools to smarter automation and improved reporting, these updates create meaningful value for teams across IT and beyond. This blog only scratches the surface—there were even more enhancements rolled out throughout the year, furthering the dedication of SolarWinds to continuous improvement and helping customers succeed.
We want to thank you for your continued dedication to providing feedback to help us better improve Service Desk for everyone and for choosing us as your ITSM partner. Cheers to 2025, where our top resolution is better, faster resolutions.
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