SupportAssist for Business PCs with Windows OS Administrator Guide—Early access to next generation user experience April 2021 Rev.
Notes, cautions, and warnings NOTE: A NOTE indicates important information that helps you make better use of your product. CAUTION: A CAUTION indicates either potential damage to hardware or loss of data and tells you how to avoid the problem. WARNING: A WARNING indicates a potential for property damage, personal injury, or death. © 2020 - 2021 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Dell, EMC, and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Contents Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................................. 5 Version................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Audience.......................................................................................................................................................................
Chapter 8: Retrieve SupportAssist data using WMI..................................................................... 28 Chapter 9: Resources..................................................................................................................
1 Introduction SupportAssist is a proactive and predictive technology that provides automated technical support for your Dell PCs. When deployed, SupportAssist monitors each PC and proactively detects both hardware and software issues. Depending on your service plan, when an issue is detected, SupportAssist automatically opens a support case with technical support and sends you an email notification. SupportAssist collects and sends the required information securely to Dell technical support.
New features and enhancements in this release ● Early access to next generation user experience for SupportAssist in TechDirect. ● Ability to view a record of the group management and remote actions related changes and activities performed in last 30 days on the Audit trail page. ● View updates to Dell applications installed on your PC, along with BIOS, firmware, and driver updates. ● Improved the criteria based on which the Recommended and Optional driver updates applicable for your PC are displayed.
NOTE: Premium Support service plan offers the same capabilities as ProSupport. Similarly, Premium Support Plus service plan offers the same capabilities as ProSupport Plus. SupportAssist capabilities and roles in TechDirect TechDirect enables companies to designate administrators and add technicians under that administrator account. To add an administrator, go to Utilities > Administrator Control Panel, and click ADD COMPANY ADMINISTRATOR.
Table 2. SupportAssist capabilities and roles in TechDirect (continued) Capability TechDirect navigation Description Device Management Administrator Device Management Technician Device Management Administrator and Device Management Technician. Manage SupportAssist alerts Device Management > Manage Alerts Manage alerts for monitored assets. Configure alert rules Device Management > Configure Alert Rules Configure rules to determine how SupportAssist alerts are handled in TechDirect.
2 Managing PCs and groups After your deploy SupportAssist, the PCs are automatically displayed on the PCs page in TechDirect within 24 hours after they connect to the Internet. For information about configuring and deploying SupportAssist, see the SupportAssist for Business PCs with Windows OS Deployment Guide available on the SupportAssist for Business PCs Manuals and Documents page. The PCs page enables you to: ● View all the PCs in your fleet, and its performance and utilization details.
Table 3. PCs (continued) Column Description Model Model of the PC, for example, Latitude 5400. Warranty plan Service plan of the asset, for example, ProSupport Plus. NOTE: A graphical representation of the numbers of PCs and the associated service plans is displayed on the Overview page. Expiration date Date on which the service plan expires. Version Version of SupportAssist installed on the PC, for example, 2.3.0.125.
You can use the Filter option to filter and view specific information about the PCs, and use the Advanced Search option to specify additional requirements for a search. The PCs page also enables you to view the PC details weekly or daily based on your preference. Create service request Create a service request for an asset and submit it to Dell. Prerequisites Sign in to TechDirect with Device Management Administrator or Device Management Technician rights. Steps 1.
Groups overview Site When you configure and download SupportAssist from TechDirect using the Device Management Administrator account, a site is automatically created for that account. When you deploy SupportAssist on PCs, all the PCs on which SupportAssist is deployed is displayed in TechDirect for that site. By default, every site contains a Default group. Groups A group is a logical group of assets within a site. You can create groups to organize the assets during deployment or in TechDirect.
3. Go to Manage > PCs. The PCs page is displayed. 4. Click the Groups tab. 5. Click Organize PCs. The Organize PCs window is displayed. 6. Select one of the following options: ● By using online forms—to organize PCs by moving them from one group to another group in TechDirect. You can move upto 5000 PCs by using online forms. ● By downloading and uploading a spreadsheet—to organize PCs by moving them from one group to another using a spreadsheet.
● Sign in to TechDirect with Device Management Administrator rights. Steps 1. On the TechDirect dashboard, click Device Management. 2. In the Manage My Fleet of PCs card, click START HERE. 3. Go to Manage > PCs. The PCs page is displayed. 4. Click the Groups tab. 5. Locate the row where the details of the asset group that you want to delete are listed, click NOTE: You cannot delete the Default group. 14 Managing PCs and groups , and click Delete.
3 Managing a single PC SupportAssist for business PCs enables you to view recommendations and perform remote optimizations on a PC. SupportAssist also provides insights about PC health and application experience for the PCs. To manage the PCs, go to the PCs page and click the Service Tag of the PC. NOTE: You can view the recommendations for all the PCs, but can only perform the optimizations on PCs with an active ProSupport Plus or ProSupport Flex for Client service plan.
Performing remote optimizations instantly To perform the optimizations immediately, the PC must be online and connected to Dell, and the user must be available for SupportAssist to run the tasks. You can perform the following remote optimizations on the PC: ● ● ● ● ● ● Scan and install driver updates that are available for the PC. Scan the PC for hardware issues. Clear temporary, redundant, and other unwanted files from the PC.
● Disk 0—the amount of hard drive still available for file storage and the average hard drive activity over a selected time period. ● Battery health—average percentage of charge that the battery holds against its designed capacity, when it is fully charged. OS crashes The OS crashes section provides an overview of operating system crashes that help determine the type of errors and detect potential issues to take the required action.
4 Recommendations for your Dell PCs fleet SupportAssist enables you to review the recommendations for the PCs and help take action on them to keep your PCs running at their best. These recommendations are displayed based on scheduled scans or the latest telemetry data collected from the PCs. To optimize the PCs, go to TechDirect Dashboard > Device Management > Manage My Fleet of PCs > Manage > Recommendations and select the site and groups from the Sites & groups list.
Table 4. Recommendations for your Dell PCs fleet (continued) Tile Type of Recommendation Action Tune Performance Indicates the number of PCs that have not been To tune the PC performance, perform the tuned for performance in x number of days, following steps: where x denotes 30 days, 60 days, or 90 days. 1. Click REVIEW PC LIST. 2. Select the PCs on which you want to tune the PC performance. 3. Click RUN.
5 Configuring settings On the Settings page, you can configure the following settings: ● Select different options to identify your asset. ● Integrate the alerts with ServiceNow. ● View and modify Device Management Technician roles and permissions. To configure the settings, go to TechDirect Dashboard > Device Management > Manage My Fleet of PCs > Settings. NOTE: You require Device Management Administrator rights to configure the settings.
Enable ServiceNow integration Prerequisites Sign in to TechDirect with Device Management Administrator rights. Steps 1. On the TechDirect dashboard, click Device Management. 2. In the Manage My Fleet of PCs card, click START HERE. 3. Go to Settings > Connectors. The Connectors page is displayed. 4. From the Select site list, select a site. 5. Clear Inactivate (continue managing SupportAssist Alerts in TechDirect), if selected. 6.
activities, whereas a Device Management Technician has limited access to SupportAssist. The technicians can only manage SupportAssist based on the permissions configured by a Device Management Administrator. The Roles & permissions page provides information about the users listed with the PCs fleet, their assigned, roles, and so on. To view and modify the roles and permissions, go to Settings > Roles & permissions.
6 Audit trail The Audit trail page provides a record of the changes and activities performed by the Device Management Administrator and Device Management Technician in last 30 days. This helps in tracking, monitoring, and reviewing interactions related to group management and remote actions, when required. To view the audit trail details, go to TechDirect Dashboard > Device Management > Manage My Fleet of PCs > Summary > Audit trail.
Table 6. Fleet view Column Description Site Name of the site to which the asset is assigned. Number of PCs Total number of PCs on which an activity is scheduled to perform. Successful PCs Total number of PCs on which the activity was performed successfully. In progress PCs Total number of PCs on which the activity is being performed. Failed PCs Total number of PCs on which the activity has failed. To view the failure details, click the roll-up count.
7 Managing SupportAssist alerts in TechDirect SupportAssist alerts can be managed using your company TechDirect account or ServiceNow solution. If you have configured SupportAssist with your TechDirect account credentials, all alerts are forwarded to your TechDirect account. You can also integrate ServiceNow with SupportAssist to redirect all alerts to your ServiceNow solution. This section provides information about managing SupportAssist alerts in TechDirect and integrating ServiceNow with SupportAssist.
c. From the Select Time Zone list, select a time zone. d. From the Select Technician list, select a support technician. 8. Click SAVE ALERT RULES. View SupportAssist alerts in TechDirect When an issue is detected on the systems that are monitored using SupportAssist, an alert is automatically created in TechDirect. Prerequisites Sign in to TechDirect with Device Management Administrator or Device Management Technician rights. Steps Go to Services > Device Management > Manage Alerts.
Table 7. SupportAssist Alerts (continued) Name Description ● Update the case details ● Close the case ● Forward the case to Dell NOTE: Users with Device Management Administrator rights can perform all the actions available for users with the Device Management Technician rights. An administrator can also assign a case to one of their technicians. SupportAssist alert actions You can take action on the alerts that are created by SupportAssist through TechDirect.
8 Retrieve SupportAssist data using WMI You can get information about the state of each system where SupportAssist is deployed by using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) classes. The namespace to access the SupportAssist profiles and classes is root\supportassist. The information that are exposed by WMI classes is as follows: ● ● ● ● Registration status Support request details Alert details Configuration and entitlement details This section provides information about the available WMI classes.
Table 10. DSA_CaseInformation (continued) Property Property Type Description Status CIM_UNIT16 An integer that indicates the status of the support request. The possible values are: ● 0—any other status. ● 1—the support request has been submitted. ● 2—the support request is open. ● 3—the support request is reopened. ● 4—the support request is in progress. ● 5—the customer has deferred the support request. ● 6—the support request is closed.
Table 12. DSA_SystemInformation (continued) Property Property Type Description ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 0—Other 1—Basic 2—ProSupport 3—ProSupport Plus 4—Premium 5—Premium Support Plus 6—ProSupport Flex for Client 7—Unknown Warranty EntitlementExpiryDate CIM_DATETIME Indicates the expiry date of the system service plan. Version CIM_STRING A string that identifies the SupportAssist version installed on the system.
9 Resources This section provides information about the documentation resources and other useful links that provide more information about SupportAssist for business PCs. Table 13.
