- Why the agent?
- The Status of the agent.
- Using the agent to get your machine information
- Using the agent to submit a ticket
- Change your machine description
- Using privacy mode
Why the agent
The focus is moving from on-site, over the shoulder IT support to remote and automated assistance for a whole raft of reasons. Faster resolution, lower costs (travel, vehicles, equipment etc) and much more.
To enable this, as well as other functionality we have an “agent” installed on all appropriate machines. This enables us to :
- Run reports and audits
- Monitor the state of the machine
- Send messages to one, several or all machines.
- Schedule updates and patches
- Tech to user chat
- Remote control sessions
- Copying files to and from machines
- Updating registry entries
- Locking down machines
- ………and much more (again!)
So…..if the agent isn’t installed and running on your machine then there’s not much we can do to help. You’ll know if it is as there will be an icon in the system tray.
The Status of the agent
The icon in the system tray will change depending upon the status of the agent. Sometimes this can indicate a problem and other times it can show something is in progress.
Here’s a list of the icons and the brief description of the status.
(NOTE : The back-end system we use for the management is called the “AEM platform”)
| Name | Description | |
  |
Online | Managed Agent that is currently connected to the AEM platform. |
 |
Offline | The Agent is not connected to the AEM platform. |
 |
Privacy Mode | The Agent is currently connected to the AEM platform and has Privacy Mode enabled. |
 |
OnDemand Mode | OnDemand Agent that is currently connected to the AEM platform. |
 |
Alert Mode Online | The Agent is online and waiting for a job to be run by the end user. |
 |
Alert Mode Offline | The Agent is offline and waiting for a job to be run by the end user. |
 |
Stopped | The Agent service has stopped. No logging is performed at this time. |
 |
Active Screen Share (Shown with ‘Online’) | A screen share session is currently in progress. The tray icon alternates between the Active Screen Share icon and the Online icon for the duration of the remote session. |
Using the agent to get your machine info
Double clicking the agent icon will open up a window on your desktop which is called the “agent browser”.
As you’re not an Endpoint Management Administrator you can just ignore the login fields on the left.
On the right, you have three tabs.
1) Summary – this shows you information that we often as you for but which you’d not necessarily know off the top of your head. We refer to machines by their name in the same way you refer to vehicles by VIN or registration. It also lists the operating system, the machine’s serial number, the currently logged on user and so on. Take a look as you can’t damage anything.
2) Tasks – this is where we will have a list of tasks that you can fire off, either when requested by IT support or that we’ve pre-informed you about. For security reasons very few users have administrative rights on their machines. This just isn’t required unless you are a virus and want to infect a machine or you need to install an update or patch. We want to avoid the former but we hope to populate this with useful tasks you can invoke when you need them rather that raise a support ticket.
3) Tickets – we like you to raise a ticket by email as the preferred method. However, despite a well designed and fairly simple support ticket procedure (which you can find on the Intranet) getting the basic information from users to allow us to know where to start troubleshooting is like getting blood from a stone. See below for how to submit a ticket from here to make both your and our live easier.Using the agent to submit a ticket
Using the agent browser, you can raise a ticket and it’ll populate it with much of the info we need and ask to explicitly for other relevant information. Furthermore, for tickets raised here you can add notes and close them from the same tab. (Please note, you don’t see the note you’ve added until later so click submit once only)
On the ticket tab clock on the New Ticket button and then just fill in the form that you are presented with. Simples!
Change your machine description
If you right click on the agent icon, the menu that pops up allows you to change the machine description. It won’t change the actual machine name, but you can write a short description that you can remember, and we’ll have logged against the machine name. Like having the vehicle with registration AL61 RDT known as “John’s yellow Porsche Carrera” for example.
Using Privacy Mode
For some staff such as senior management, HR and personnel there are times when you are working on something confidential and don’t want to be disturbed. You can use the Privacy mode to restrict IT access to your machine while you are doing this. Privacy mode is avaialble from a right click on the system tray icon.
If you turn on privacy mode to surf dodgy websites then we have a klaxon that sounds at IT support and a screen showing your name.
You can choose to have it on, off or off for a specific period.