Add a DESK environment to Davis Assistant

You interact with Davis Assistant based on a DESK environment selected from among those you have access to. Find out how to add a Saas or Managed environment or your Managed users to Davis Assistant.

Once all your DESK environments are all available in Davis Assistant, see how to select/switch environments in Davis Assistant.

DESK SaaS environments

DESK SaaS environments associated with your account are automatically added to Davis Assistant.

You do not need to add your SaaS users to Davis Assistant; users are automatically inherited from the SaaS environment.

DESK Managed environments

You must manually add DESK Managed environments to Davis Assistant.

A token is required for each Managed environment you want to add to Davis Assistant. Depending on how updated your Managed environment is, the token can be either:

• For updated Managed environments—a Davis token, generated in the DESK modules page of global settings
• For older Managed environments—a DESK API token (as the Davis token generation button may not exist in DESK modules)

You are automatically taken to the relevant token generation page as part of the workflow (see below) for adding a Managed environment.

To add a Managed environment:

1. Go to https://assistant.desk.com. Sign in with your DESK Managed credentials.

2. If there are no SaaS environments associated with the user account, you are presented with the form below for adding a Managed environment. Click the add a DESK Managed environment link.

   If your user account has at least one associated SaaS environment, which is automatically added to Davis Assistant, you can add a Managed environment by navigating to the User menu at top right and selecting Account settings > DESK environments > Add Managed environment.

3. You are directed to the environment wizard, where the Using DESK ActiveGate check box is selected by default. If you're using an ActiveGate, enter the ActiveGate URL in the Public ActiveGate URL field. (Learn more about ActiveGate.)

   Otherwise, deselect the Using DESK ActiveGate check box.

   

   Note
   If you're using a DESK ActiveGate, ensure that any firewalls are open to requests from 52.0.97.215 on port 9999. If you're not using an ActiveGate, ensure that any firewalls are open to requests from 52.0.97.215 on port 443.

4. Enter the URL of your Managed environment in Environment URL.

   Note
   You must first enter a valid environment URL before the API token field is displayed (see next step).

5. Enter a Friendly name (required) for your Managed environment.

6. Click the Get token link provided in the API token label.

7. Based on the environment URL entered, you are automatically directed to the correct page for token generation in a separate tab. Note that only users with administrative privileges can add tokens.

   • For older Managed environments, you are directed the API token generation page. Follow these instructions to generate a DESK API token.

     We strongly recommend creating a dedicated API token, named for easy recognition (for example, Davis), for use with Davis Assistant.

   • For updated Managed environments, you are directed to the DESK modules page to generate a Davis token.

     1. Type a name for the token (for example, Davis) and click Generate token for Davis.
     2. Click the arrow button of the newly created token to expand token settings.
     3. Copy the token to your clipboard.

8. Return to the Davis Assistant browser tab and paste the copied token in the API token field.

9. Click Save.

Add users for a DESK Managed environment

Due to differences in the information available to Davis Assistant for Managed and SaaS environments, Managed environment administrators must add other users via manual entry or based on the email-address domain name.

Users are added via the User accounts menu in Account settings.

To add a user:

1. Go to https://assistant.desk.com. Sign in with your DESK Managed credentials.
2. Click the User menu in the top-right corner.
3. Ensure that a DESK Managed environment is Active in Account settings > DESK environments.
4. Go to the User accounts section in Account settings. Note that this menu item only appears if your selected environment is a Managed environment.
5. To add users:
   • Administrators can enable domain name-based user addition for certain domains. A toggle switch automatically appears above the Users tab if your environment is eligible for this option. This option allows all users with an email domain that matches an administrator's email domain to automatically add an associated Managed environment.
   • By manual entry:
     1. Click the Add user tab, then enter the user's name and their DESK-associated email address.
     2. Select the Administrator check box if the user should have administrative privileges.
     3. Click Add.

Response-related environment data caching

Server-side caching is used in Davis Assistant to improve response times and reduce DESK API calls. Closed problems are cached for 30 days. Open problems aren't cached. Application, service, host, and process-group data is cached for 10 minutes. Other data accessed through the DESK API is cached for less than a minute.

Interaction history is stored in local storage in the Davis Assistant web application. This data can be cleared by clicking Clear interaction history in the User menu in the top-right corner of the Davis Assistant web UI. Interaction history is cleared from local storage after you sign out of Davis Assistant.