SupportAssist for Business PCs Frequently Asked Questions

Discover SupportAssist for Business PCs

• What is SupportAssist for Business PCs?
• What benefits does SupportAssist offer for my PC fleet?
• What is TechDirect?
• What is the cost of SupportAssist?
• Should I purchase SupportAssist or the Connect and manage service?
• Is proactive and predictive support available in SupportAssist?
• What are the supported capabilities for Basic, ProSupport, ProSupport Plus, and ProSupport Flex for Client service plans?
• The service plan on my PC has expired. Will SupportAssist continue to function on my PC fleet?
• What are the languages supported by TechDirect?
• What are the languages supported by the SupportAssist user interface?
• How to access TechDirect Self-Service tool tutorial and videos?
• Can a dark site customer use TechDirect?

Understand requirements

• I am an IT administrator. Which Dell accounts should I create before I set up SupportAssist?
• I am a partner. Which accounts should I create before I set up SupportAssist on the PC fleet of my client?
• I have already set up a Dell My Account. Can I use the same credentials to log in to TechDirect?
• What operating systems are supported by SupportAssist?
• What are the prerequisites for deploying SupportAssist?
• As a TechDirect user, how do I find the account admin for my company?
• Who approves requests to join a company TechDirect account?
• Where can I go to find information and see a demo on TechDirect?
• Is SSO enabled for TechDirect?
• How can I enable SSO for TechDirect?
• Where can I go to understand TechDirect features?
• What are the TechDirect features?
• How can I delete or deactivate my current company name and association to enable adding a new company name?
• Can I remove a company administrator on Tech Direct and assign another company administrator?
• What is TechDirect registration procedure for partners?
• Can Secure connect gateway send the automatically created tickets (call home) to TechDirect for server products?
• I receive an error after creating an account in TechDirect when I enter the Company Name. The message displays, your search returned no results. You can either modify your search criteria above and try again or begin the process of registering your company. How do I fix this?
• How do I know if there is a planned outage in TechDirect?
• Why do I not see all my tickets in TechDirect?
• Can I clone a user in TechDirect?
• What are the service levels supported in TechDirect?
• What are the entitlements supported in TechDirect?
• How do I effectively manage address details in all the TechDirect Services?
• Can I Add a secondary contact for my dispatches?
• Does TechDirect utilize multi-Factor authentication (MFA)?
• How can I update my address in TechDirect?
• Are there any minimum requirements to be eligible to use TechDirect?
• Is TechDirect related to the customer number?
• How do I register in TechDirect?
• Who do I contact for Dell Logistic Online Inventory Solution (LOIS)?
• Can an account have more than one administrator?
• How do I change my password?
• Do you have a mobile app?

Deploy SupportAssist

• What are the available sources for getting started with SupportAssist for Business PCs?
• As a channel partner, what is the best method to include SupportAssist on my customers PC fleet?
• How do I deploy SupportAssist?
• Which SupportAssist deployment package formats are supported?
• Do I need to complete the configuration to download and deploy SupportAssist?
• Can I deploy SupportAssist for Business PCs on the same PCs that have SupportAssist for Home PCs installed?
• I want to deploy SupportAssist to new PCs in my environment. Do I need to download a new deployment package to deploy SupportAssist to new PCs, or can I use an existing package?
• Will I receive a registration email from TechDirect when I deploy SupportAssist?
• When will the PCs display in TechDirect after deploying SupportAssist for Business PCs?
• What are the uses of the SupportAssistCleanup.ps1 script?
• How can I organize my PCs during deployment across different sites?
• Should I redeploy SupportAssist on the PCs after modifying configuration preferences?
• Will SupportAssist connect to the Internet and Dell if my proxy is not reachable from the PCs?
• What happens to older versions of SupportAssist when I deploy the latest version on my PC fleet?
• What could be the reason for the 1644 code displayed during SupportAssist deployment?
• What should I do to complete the deployment if the 1939 error code is displayed?

Configure SupportAssist

• Can I update my contact information after deploying SupportAssist?
• What options are available for running scans and updates?
• If I enable the Suppress end user notification in case reboot is needed after installation option, will the PC reboot automatically?
• What does automatic software optimization do?
• Does automatic software optimization handle automatic driver or PC updates?

Update SupportAssist

• Should I update to the latest version of SupportAssist for Business PCs if I have an older version installed?
• What is the expiry date for my SupportAssist installation?
• What is the expiry date for my Central Resource Manager installation?

Manage sites and groups

• What is a site?
• Why does SupportAssist create sites?
• When is a site created?
• Can I manually create a site in TechDirect?
• How do I avoid creating multiple sites?
• Can I move PCs between sites?
• Can I merge multiple sites?
• Can I delete a site?
• How do I manage multiple sites and administrator accounts in TechDirect?
• What is a group?
• How should I group PCs located in multiple geographical locations?
• Can I organize my PCs in a group while deploying SupportAssist?
• Can I deploy SupportAssist to a site created by another Connect and manage administrator?
• I have multiple administrators managing different PCs in my organization. The administrators have customized a deployment package for the PCs that they manage. How are the PCs organized?
• Where can I find information about sites and groups?
• What should I do to manage PCs in sites created by an administrator who has left the organization?

Manage PCs

• Why are the PCs not displayed on the Inventory page after deploying SupportAssist?
• How can I remove PCs from the Inventory page in TechDirect?
• How do I assign multiple administrators to manage my PC fleet?
• Does SupportAssist require an active Internet connection to monitor the PCs?
• When can I see the PC utilization data on the Overview page in TechDirect?
• What replacement parts are dispatched when a hardware failure occurs on your PC?
• Is there an option to download and view the PC information?
• When can I see details about the external devices connected to a PC?
• The System BIOS version is not displayed for certain PCs in my fleet. What could be the reason?
• Why do I only see the health status of certain PCs and not other telemetry data?
• Can PC users troubleshoot common hardware issues by themselves?
• Why are my users reporting that their PCs are occasionally slow or non-responsive?
• How does the SafeBIOS check script function in Dell library remediation?
• How often is the data on the Performance indicators (KPIs) page refreshed?
• When does SupportAssist collect telemetry data depending on the end-user PC state?
• Why do I not see all open Service Requests in TechDirect?
• Can I view non-TechDirect related dispatches and cases in TechDirect?
• Why do I have missing orders from the TechDirect Self-Healing Image Recovery?
• How can I submit an issue to TechDirect services team?
• How do I find the status of my active service request?
• How do I find the status of my active work order?
• How do I request support for my warranty support APIs?
• Can I see notes of my maintenance and notes history in TechDirect?
• Can I view notes history in TechDirect?
• Can I add a CSI (Customer Specific Instructions) message in TechDirect?
• Does TechDirect support non-Dell systems?
• What is the Service level Agreements (SLA) to get a response from Technical support on support cases created through TechDirect?
• What is the difference between Technical Support and Self-dispatch?
• How many boxes do I get for my Depot request?
• Is Depot return option available for servers?
• Can I bulk upload new addresses in TechDirect?
• Can I update existing address book records in TechDirect?
• Can I submit a request using the Order number and PPID?
• Where can I go to get live help?
• What is the difference between TechDirect and Easy button?
• What data does dell collect from connected PCs running SupportAssist?
• How do I transfer ownership of a system?

Update PCs using Dell Recommendations

• How often does SupportAssist check for PC updates?
• I have scheduled PC updates for recommended BIOS, drivers, firmware, and Dell applications. How long is the request valid?
• How long is a remote optimization task valid after initiation?
• I have initiated a remote optimization task on the PCs. Should the PC user intervene to perform the task?
• Will the PC user be notified when a remote optimization task is initiated?
• I have disabled the option of users opening and running SupportAssist on their PCs and enabled scans to run in the background. However, SupportAssist displays notifications about updates for users in my company. What could be the reason?
• Can I select specific updates to perform on my PC fleet?
• Can I remotely install PC updates if my PC users do not have administrator rights?
• Will remote tasks be performed on a PC that is not connected to the Internet or turned on?
• Can I update the BIOS on a BitLocker enabled PC?
• When I attempt to run BIOS or PC updates, TechDirect indicates that these updates are already scheduled. However, the updates are not installed. What could be the reason for this?
• Are PC users allowed to update BIOS and drivers on their PCs?
• Where can I enter BIOS passwords to perform updates on password-configured PCs?
• What could be the reason for BIOS updates failing on password-configured PCs?
• Can I perform BIOS updates on PCs that are not connected to a corporate network or VPN?
• Can I perform PC updates remotely from TechDirect?
• I have PCs with expired warranty in my fleet. Can I still perform updates on those PCs?
• Can PC users without administrator rights perform updates to BIOS, drivers, firmware, and Dell applications?
• Can PC users without administrator rights run hardware scans?

Update PCs using custom catalogs

• What are custom catalogs, and what types of catalogs can I create in TechDirect?
• If I select the Latest version category during catalog creation, will updates for BIOS, drivers, and firmware be deployed automatically when Dell releases new versions?
• If I have selected the option to automatically apply updates when a new version of the custom catalog is available on the Set PC update source page, will the PCs be updated again with the new version of the catalog if the previous version was deployed?
• If I edit the catalog to a higher version and have selected the option to automatically apply updates when a new version of the custom catalog is available on the Set PC update source page, do I need to redeploy the catalog?
• Is the option to automatically apply updates when a new version of the custom catalog is available applicable for the test catalog?
• If more than one catalog contains the same driver update with the same or different driver versions, and both catalogs are deployed, will the system be updated with drivers from both catalogs?

Optimize PCs

• SupportAssist does not run scheduled scans even if it is enabled on the PCs. Why?
• What does Boost Performance optimization do?
• What are the benefits of performing the Boost Performance optimization?
• What does the Optimize Network optimization do?
• What does the Remove Virus and Malware optimization do?

Manage alerts

• What is the meaning of proactive and predictive issue detections?
• How are dispatch alerts handled when an alert is generated by SupportAssist?
• Can SupportAssist be integrated with external helpdesk management solutions?
• I am unable to forward a dispatch alert to Dell. How can I resolve this?

Monitor data consumption

• How much Internet data does SupportAssist consume for monitoring PCs?

Use Application Programming Interface (APIs)

• What do PC Management APIs do?
• How do I access the PC Management APIs?
• Are APIs supported for channel partners?
• Where can I find information about PC Management APIs?
• Whom do I contact for questions related to PC Management APIs?
• Can I implement TechDirect Self-dispatch API in a ServiceNow instance?
• Can I use the TechDirect APIs with RESTful API and JSON? I noticed that the Dell TechDirect Self-dispatch API currently uses SOAP and XML only.
• Are there APIs for Tech Direct?
• How many API keys are provided per project request?
• Can a company have multiple API keys?

Troubleshoot SupportAssist

• How do I repair SupportAssist?
• I have installed SupportAssist on the PC fleet, but the PC user is unable to open the user interface. What could be the reason?
• How can I check if any other application uses the 5700 port?
• I have allowed the users in my organization to view and use the SupportAssist user interface. But, they are unable to open the user interface. What could be the reason?
• How can I provide logs to Dell support for resolving the PC issues?
• How do I verify if the SupportAssist installation file is digitally signed?
• Whom should we contact if we need assistance with SupportAssist?

Reporting

• Can I sort the TechDirect report by group?
• Is there a way to generate a report that includes column for users and device names associated with service tags?
• Can I customize TechDirect report? If so, how?

Security

Where do I find information about the security monitoring aspects of SupportAssist and TechDirect?

Self-dispatch

• How can my technicians get certified for self-dispatch?
• If technicians successfully log into TechDirect, can they be able to access the training link for Self-dispatch certification with the same credentials?
• Are there Self-dispatch reports?
• How to I get to Self-dispatch reports?
• I get an error when trying to raise a Self-dispatch in TechDirect, where do I get help?
• Why am I unable to find some of my service and Self-dispatch requests in TechDirect?
• Can I request a specific date and time for my Self-dispatch?
• How can prevent my Self-dispatches from being denied?
• Can I order out of warranty parts from TechDirect?
• Can I create a bulk dispatch in TechDirect? How do I create a bulk dispatch in TechDirect?
• Can I use group my dispatches together in one box for my Depot dispatches?
• Can I print or reprint labels for Tech Direct Warranty Parts orders?
• Is a dispatch within 4 hours possible in TechDirect?
• Why I am I asked to attach a photo to my dispatch?
• What is the reimbursement program?
• Why I am I getting the error that I am not certified for self-dispatch?

Support

• Can I upload files in TechDirect?
• How do I upload files in TechDirect?
• What kind of files can I upload in TechDirect?
• What is the attachment size limit in TechDirect?

Secure Connect Gateway

Why do my Secure Connect Gateway assets not appear in TechDirect?