Introducing SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD)

I’m excited to announce the general availability of SolarWindsRegistered Service Desk, the newest member in the SolarWinds product family, following the acquisition of Samanage.

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SolarWinds Service Desk (SWSD) is a cloud-based IT service management solution built to streamline the way IT provides support and delivers services to the rest of the organization. The solution includes an ITIL-certified service desk with incident management, problem management, change management, service catalog, and release management, complemented by an integrated knowledge base. It also includes asset management, risk and compliance modules, open APIs, dashboards, and reporting.

Core Service Desk

SWSD includes a configurable Employee Service Portal, allowing employees to make their service requests, open and track their tickets, and find quick solutions through the knowledge base. The portal’s look and feel can be customized to your branding needs, and

configurable page layouts support your organization’s unique service management processes.

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For IT pros working the service desk, we provide an integrated experience to bring together all related records (for example, assets or knowledge base articles related to an incident or change records related to a problem), so the agent can see all the information available to expedite the resolution.

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To help agents prioritize work, Service Level Management (SLM) helps build and manage SLA policies directly within the service desk, including auto-escalation rules.

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IT pros often need to be on the go or need to respond to urgent service requests and incidents after hours. The SWSD mobile app, available on both iOS and Android mobile devices, allows agents to work on records, make approvals, and track the status of their work queue at all times.

Process Automation

Driving automation throughout all aspects of service delivery helps service desk groups drive fast, affordable, and highly consistent services to the rest of the organization. Process automation in SWSD uses custom rules logic to route, assign, prioritize, and categorize inbound tickets, change requests, and releases.

The Service Catalog allows you to define and publish IT (VM provisioning or password reset) and non-IT services (employee onboarding) through the Employee Service Portal. The catalog forms defining those services are dynamic and can be configured to fit specific use cases, with little to no coding required.

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The other part of defining any Service Catalog item is automated fulfillment workflow.

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IT Asset Management and CMDB

SWSD offers full asset lifecycle management starting with the management of IT and non-IT asset inventories and an audit history of changes. Compliance risk analysis helps expose unmanaged software or out-of-support software and devices. Where applicable, asset information incorporates contract, vendor, and procurement data to provide a full view on assets under management.

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The Configuration Management Database (CMDB) populated by service supporting configuration items (CIs) plays a critical role in providing better change, problem, and release management services. Knowing what CIs support each service and the dependencies between them helps IT pros to better assess the risks and impacts related to IT changes, driving better root cause analysis (RCA) in problem management, as well as being better prepared for new software releases.

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Integrations

Many service desk processes can be integrated into other IT and business processes. SolarWinds Service Desk comes with hundreds of out-of-the-box integrations and an open REST API, allowing you to make it part of the workflows you need.

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We are releasing a brand-new integration today with DamewareRegistered Remote Everywhere (DRE). The great synergy between SWSD and Dameware’s remote support capabilities allow agents to initiate a DRE session directly from a SWSD incident record.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is embedded in a few different SWSD functions, introducing a new level of automation and an improved time to resolution. Our machine learning algorithms analyze large sets of historical data, identify patterns, and accelerate key service management processes. There is a “smart” pop-up within the employee service portal that auto-suggests the best corresponding knowledge base articles and service catalog items related to the keyword(s) typed in the search bar.

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For agents, AI helps with automatic routing and classification of incoming incidents, reducing the impact of misclassifications and human errors. It also offers “smart suggestions” agents can leverage when working on a ticket. Smart suggestions are made based on keyword matching from historical analysis of similar issues—those suggestions offer knowledge base articles or similar incidents, advising the agent on the best actions to take next.

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Reports and Dashboards

SolarWinds Service Desk comes with dozens of out-of-the-box reports to analyze and visualize the service desk’s KPIs, health, and performance. Those reports help agents, managers, and IT executives make data-driven decisions through insights, including trend reports, incident throughput, customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, and SLA breaches.

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Dashboards provide a real-time dynamic view of the service desk. Dashboards are comprised of a set of widgets that can be added, removed, and configured to adjust to the individual needs of the agent, manager, or organization.

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This has been a pretty packed inaugural product blog for us, and I hope you found it useful. We’d love to get your feedback and ideas here. Please stay tuned to many more ITSM updates as we’re quickly building out the new THWACK Service Desk product forum.

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  • Who are you buying renewals from?  I just pulled up the customer portal and the 1 year 15 tech license support I'm getting quoted for renewal is $1815.  So try the math on the new product with 15 technicians and 25,000 devices (chromebooks, iPads, workstations all included).  I get $69 per tech per month for 1 year as 12,420 plus an additional 12,500 for device licenses.  So retail pricing for the new product is close to $25,000 versus less than $2000.  Please correct me if I'm way off on something here.

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  • Who are you buying renewals from?  I just pulled up the customer portal and the 1 year 15 tech license support I'm getting quoted for renewal is $1815.  So try the math on the new product with 15 technicians and 25,000 devices (chromebooks, iPads, workstations all included).  I get $69 per tech per month for 1 year as 12,420 plus an additional 12,500 for device licenses.  So retail pricing for the new product is close to $25,000 versus less than $2000.  Please correct me if I'm way off on something here.

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