Owner's Manual

• Proactive parts dispatch — Based on examination of the troubleshooting data, if the Dell technical support
agent determines that a part needs to be replaced in your environment, a replacement part is dispatched to you
with your consent.
Features Supported With Dell Service Contracts
The features supported in your environment may vary based on your Dell service contract.
The following table provides a comparison of the features available with the Dell Basic Hardware and Dell ProSupport
service contracts.
Feature Basic Hardware ProSupport
Remote monitoring
Automated log and configuration collection
Automatic support case creation
Proactive parts dispatch
Case Data Handling
For increased performance, Dell SupportAssist case data is cached prior to display in the dashboard, and is not
displayed in real time. When SupportAssist launched, it:
• Queries Dell once every three minutes for cases in the Submitted state to determine if it needs to update the
case status.
• Determines the last time the case data was updated for a submitted case. It then queries those cases whose
cached status information has expired in the last three minutes.
• Queries Dell once every 15 minutes for cases in all status other than Submitted.
NOTE: If the data for a particular case is older than 15 minutes by the next poll time, SupportAssist queries for that
data in the current poll. Therefore, SupportAssist may only poll for cases that are in the Open state for case data
every 12 minutes.
Event Handling
Dell SupportAssist intelligently handles event storm conditions, allowing up to nine separate alerts from your
OpenManage Essentials-managed environment in a 60-minute time span. However, if it receives 10 or more separate
alerts it automatically enters Maintenance Mode.
Maintenance Mode suspends any further processing of alerts, enabling you to make infrastructure changes without
generating unnecessary alerts. After 30 minutes in Maintenance Mode, SupportAssist automatically exits Maintenance
Mode and resumes normal alert processing.
Data Collected
Dell SupportAssist continually monitors the system configuration data and usage information of your OpenManage
Essentials-managed Dell computer hardware and software. While Dell does not anticipate accessing or collecting
personal information, such as your personal files, web browsing history, or cookies, in connection with this program, any
personal data inadvertently collected or viewed will be treated in accordance with the Dell Privacy Policy.
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