SupportAssist for Business PCs with Windows OS Deployment 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................................................................................................................. 4 Version....................................................................................................................................................................................4 Audience.......................................................................................................................................................................
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.
2 Onboarding to TechDirect TechDirect is an online portal that enables you to configure SupportAssist, download a customized SupportAssist package, and manage SupportAssist alerts that are generated by your PCs fleet. To start managing your PCs fleet using SupportAssist for business PCs, you must first onboard to TechDirect.
5. Select For my company. 6. Click Submit. Results As a company administrator, you have full access to manage services, reports, agreements, and user permissions for your company's TechDirect account. Next steps Activate Device Management service on page 6. Join existing company If your company is already registered in TechDirect, you can join that company using a TechDirect user account. Prerequisites Ensure that your company is already created in TechDirect and is associated with a company administrator.
Results The Device Management service is activated, and you can start configuring SupportAssist. Next steps 1. Configure and download SupportAssist for the first time on page 8. 2. (Optional) Add technicians on page 7. Add technicians Optionally, a company administrator can add Device Management Technicians to a TechDirect account and assign permissions to access certain TechDirect services and accounts. Steps 1. Sign in to TechDirect. 2. Go to Utilities > Administrator Control Panel. 3.
3 Configuring and deploying SupportAssist TechDirect enables you to configure and download a customized SupportAssist executable file that is associated with your TechDirect account. Each Device Management Administrator must configure SupportAssist in TechDirect before downloading and deploying SupportAssist for business PCs. After you have configured and downloaded SupportAssist, extract and create the deployment package which can be deployed on the PC to install SupportAssist.
CAUTION: Do not deploy the executable file directly on your PCs. You must run the executable file to extract the SupportAssist deployment package. NOTE: If you are unable to download SupportAssist, clear the browser cookies and cache, and then retry. Results The SupportAssist executable file is downloaded and the Deploy section is displayed. The Getting Started - Deploy page is displayed every time you sign in to TechDirect till you deploy SupportAssist on a PC.
Results The SupportAssist executable file is downloaded and the Deploy page is displayed. Next steps Create SupportAssist deployment package on page 11. Managing SupportAssist preferences SupportAssist enables you to perform automated and manual tasks on the target PCs. PC users can perform manual tasks only if the SupportAssist user interface is enabled. However, automated tasks are performed on the PCs even if the SupportAssist user interface is not enabled in preferences.
NOTE: The following options can be configured only when you enable the Allow users to open and run SupportAssist on their PCs option. ○ Admins only—enables SupportAssist user interface only for users with administrator rights on the PC. ○ All users—enables SupportAssist user interface for all users. ○ Display notifications—allows SupportAssist to display notifications about hardware and software issues, driver updates, support requests, and other alerts for the PC.
NOTE: The group configuration is applied to the assets within 24 hours after they connect to the Internet. 6. Click Next. The Deployment Key page is displayed. 7. To generate an encrypted deployment package, enter a key for encryption and click Next. The deployment key is similar to a password that you must create for encrypting the deployment package. You must use the same deployment key while deploying SupportAssist on your PCs.
￭ http://dl.dell.com ￭ https://www.dell.com ￭ https://agent-api.sa.insights.dell.com ￭ https://dellupdater.dell.com ￭ https://sa.apis.dell.com ￭ https://apigtwb2c.us.dell.com ￭ https://content.dellsupportcenter.com ￭ https://hb.apis.dell.com To verify if the above destinations are connecting from the PCs, at the command prompt, type tracert and press Enter. For example, tracert apidp.dell.com ￭ If the PCs can connect to the destination, appropriate results are displayed.
Install SupportAssist on a single PC using Command Prompt or PowerShell Prerequisites The PCs must meet the System requirements for deploying SupportAssist on page 12. About this task You can install SupportAssist on a single PC using the Command Prompt or Windows PowerShell. Steps 1. To install SupportAssist using the Command Prompt, perform the following steps: a. Search for Command Prompt and click Run as administrator. b.
About this task For SupportAssist to function normally and as expected, SupportAssist must be connected to Dell. Run the self-diagnosis test on any of the PCs after deployment to determine if SupportAssist is successfully connected to Dell and is working as expected. Steps 1. Access the PC on which you want to perform the self-diagnosis test. 2. Click Start to open the Programs menu. 3. Find Command Prompt and click Run as administrator. The Command Prompt window is displayed. 4. Change the directory to \Pr
A 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. To add a technician, go to Utilities > Administrator Control Panel, and click ADD TECHNICIAN. The following table summarizes the SupportAssist capabilities available for different roles in TechDirect: Table 1.
Table 1. SupportAssist capabilities and roles in TechDirect (continued) Capability TechDirect navigation Description Device Management Administrator Audit trail Device Management View the record of > Manage My Fleet of group management and PCs > Settings remote actions related changes and activities performed by the Device Management Administrator and Device Management Technician. Manage SupportAssist alerts Device Management > Manage Alerts Manage alerts for monitored assets.
B Resources This section provides information about the documentation resources and other useful links that provide more information about SupportAssist for business PCs. Table 2.
