Account Setup

ServiceDesk Plus Cloud requires Zoho Account to manage your organization and user settings. Zoho offers the following two types of accounts:

Personal Account: This type of account is used by individual users to access services for personal use like Zoho Mail, Zoho Vault, etc.
Organization User Account: This type of account is used by businesses/organizations to set up and use services like ServiceDesk Plus Cloud Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk, etc. With this type of account, you can manage your organization's users, settings, etc.

ServiceDesk Plus Cloud is an organization model application and it requires you to sign up for an Organization User Account.

A user in Zoho can be part of a single organization only. However, you can use the External Partner User feature to associate users like consultants and vendors with multiple organizations.

Only the domains that are owned by the organization can be associated with the organization.

Subsidiaries can utilize the same domain as the parent organization. For setting up subsidiaries, contact support.

For all the Zoho Cloud services, Zoho Account (accounts.zoho.com) acts as the service for maintaining organization and user details. For user authentication, organization policy, etc. we use directory.zoho.com.

Supported browsers: Google Chrome 75 or later, Mozilla Firefox 67 or later & Microsoft Edge 79 or later.

Step 1: Signing Up for ServiceDesk Plus Cloud
Step 2: Setting Up the basic requirements for Organization
- Domain Verification for User Management
- Custom URL for ServiceDesk Plus Cloud
Step 3: Adding users
Step 4: Setting up Authentication

Step 1: Signing up for ServiceDesk Plus Cloud

To create a new account visit: https://sdpondemand.manageengine.com/AccountCreation.do

If you would like to use an existing Zoho Account, click Sign in on the above page or visit https://accounts.zoho.com/

Provide Company Name, Business Email, Phone Number, and Portal Name. Read through and agree to Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and click Get Started.
Through a three-step questionnaire, set up your account by specifying your industry, technician count, ITSM needs, and data preferences. This helps us personalize your setup, including recommended configurations and the appropriate license edition. Sample data will be populated based on your industry, helping you explore the platform faster. For example, healthcare setups include sample healthcare requests.
The user who signs up becomes OrgSuperAdmin and OrgContact, who will be the primary point of contact for all organization-related configurations and communications.
The Portal Name will be the subdomain of the URL that is used to access the application.

Step 2: Setting Up the Basic Requirements for Organization

Once onboarding is complete, essential help desk configurations are applied automatically. Administrators can explore the platform through a guided tour or customize settings via a centralized setup page where access to key configurations, such as mail server setup, admin configurations, self-service portal customization, personalization settings, and GenAI and ML-powered features, are made easier.

Editions are automatically selected based on onboarding inputs. Administrators can switch editions at any time and select relevant add-ons to extend capabilities from the Profile pane. Based on the selected edition and add-ons, the system applies details page and navigation menu customizations. Switching editions will reset the admin-configured details page and navigation menu customizations to match the new edition.

Domain Verification for User Management

If your organization's domain is used as the email domain for your users, you have to verify your domain with Zoho using CNAME, TXT, or HTML files. Once a domain is verified, users with verified email domains can be added directly as organization users.

To verify your domain,

Go to ESM Directory > Custom Domains.
Click New Domain.
Provide your domain name and click Save.

Choose Click to verify and select your preferred method:
- CNAME Method:
  1. Obtain the CNAME record information from this pop-up

Sign in to your domain host and go to your domain's DNS settings.
Create a CNAME record using the information obtained.

The domain will be verified between 1 to 72 hours. You can check the status by clicking Verify. For more detailed instructions, click here.

HTML File Method:

Open a text editor and copy the verification code displayed on this pop-up to it.

Save it with the name "zoho-domain-verification.html".
Upload the file to the root directory of your webserver.
Click Verify.

The domain will be verified immediately. For more details, click here.

If the domain where you manage your user base is not verified in ServiceDesk Plus Cloud, an invite email will be sent to users. Users will be added as Organization Users and allowed to use Zoho services only after they accept the email invite. A maximum of three re-invites can be sent to the users and the users will be blocked if they reject an invitation.

In case the user already has a personal Zoho account or uses any other Zoho services, they will need to accept the invitation received from Zoho on behalf of the organization.

Custom URL for ServiceDesk Plus Cloud

You can access ServiceDesk Plus Cloud by using the default URL or a custom domain URL.

The default URL is sdpondemand.manageengine.com. It varies by your region. For example, the default URL for organizations in India will be sdpondemand.manageengine.in. Learn more.

For long-term use, we recommend using a custom domain URL (support.zylker.com) rather than a subdomain with default URL (support.sdpondemand.manageengine.com). This ensures better compatibility for third-party integrations, bookmarks, or email notification links.

To use a custom domain URL,

Sign in to your domain host and open the domain's DNS settings.
Create CNAME for your preferred subdomain:
- Enter your preferred subdomain as Hostname and customer-sdpondemand.localmanageengine.com as Target/Destination and save the record.

Enter the Target/Destination value based on your region. For example, organizations in India should use customer-sdpondemand.localmanageengine.in.
For the exact value, please refer the in-product guide displayed while adding the subdomain in ServiceDesk Plus Cloud.

Log in to ServiceDesk Plus Cloud.
Go to ESM Directory > Custom Service URL.
Enter the subdomain and select the verified domain configured earlier.
Click Verify & Save.

To learn more about accessing ServiceDesk Plus Cloud via a custom domain URL, click here.

SSL certificate for your custom domain URL will be applied automatically. The domain verification can take up to 72 hours.

Step 3: Adding users

You can add users to ServiceDesk Plus Cloud in one of the ways listed below.

When adding users, a domain verification check will be performed and an invitation email will be sent to users from non-verified domains.

Manual Process

You can add users manually via the user addition form.

You can add users directly to your organization via the form. To do this, go to ESM Directory > Users > New User, and fill out the form with necessary details.

After adding users to your organization, you can import them to your preferred instance by choosing Import Users > Import from Organization in the requester or technician list view. To access it, go to Setup > Users & Permissions > Requesters.

Alternatively, you can add users directly to an instance as a requester or technician. To do this, go to the instance to which you want to add the users, and then navigate to Setup > Users & Permissions > Requesters or Technicians > New Requester or New Technician, and fill out the form.

CSV Import

You can also import users in bulk to an instance using CSV files. To do this, go to Setup > Data Administration > Import Data, select module as Users, upload the CSV file and follow the on-screen instructions to import users.

You can import requesters without login permission only. After users are added, you can enable login or designate them as technicians in bulk from the application. However, you can update both requesters and technicians via imports.

Using AD sync

You can import and sync user information from your local Active Directory using our provisioning tool. The Active Directory server must have Internet access to use the provisioning tool.

To download the provisioning tool, go to ESM Directory > Active Directory, and click Download under the Download Provisioning app section.

For instructions on how to use the provisioning tool, visit this guide.

A verified domain is required to use the provisioning tool.

ServiceDesk Plus Cloud uses OAuth to authorize the provisioning tool and no credentials are stored in the tool.

The provisioning tool requires read-only access to the Active Directory to query user information.

If you have configured a firewall, whitelist the service domain access/IP.

Azure AD

You can use Azure AD to import and sync your entire user base. To do this, there are two methods as discussed below:

Method 1: Using Direct Azure AD Integration

You can integrate Azure AD directly with ServiceDesk Plus and import users from Azure AD. To learn more, follow the links below:

Method 2: Using Zoho Directory to import from Azure AD

You can also import users from Azure AD and sync with ServiceDesk Plus Cloud via Zoho Directory. Using this method, Azure AD is integrated with Zoho Directory instead of ServiceDesk Plus Cloud, which helps sync user information from Azure AD with all other apps that use Zoho Directory.

To do this,

Sign in to Zoho Directory as OrgAdmin.
Visit this link: https://directory.zoho.com/directory/<portal_name>/scimtoken?provider= microsoft.

Replace <portal_name> with your ServiceDesk Plus Cloud Portal Name.
Copy SCIM Endpoint and token.
Sign in to Microsoft Azure Portal as an admin.
Go to Portal Menu > Azure Active Directory.
Click Create your own application, provide a name, choose Integrate any other application you don't find in the gallery (Non-gallery), and click Create.
On the app page, click Provision User Accounts, and set provisioning mode to automatic.
Provide SCIM token and endpoint URL and click Test Connection.

Edit User Mapping

Once the test connection is successful, attribute mapping is enabled for provisioning.

Expand Mappings tab.
Click Provision Azure Active Directory Users.
Target Object Actions: Choose the actions that you want to perform over Zoho Directory using Azure. ( Create, Update, Delete )
Close the tab and save the details.

To learn more, click here.

Start Provisioning

Once provisioning is ON, start provisioning will be auto-enabled. If needed, it can also be disabled (Sync will be disabled). You can restart provisioning anytime to resume synchronization.

Assign Users

Click the Users and Groups tab on the left pane.
Click Add user/group and assign users to the application.

You can assign users based on the group, apply a filter to sync only selected users, or choose all users of Tenant to sync the entire user base.

Google Apps

You can import users from your Google Apps to ServiceDesk Plus Cloud if you use Google account or sign in to ServiceDesk Plus Cloud. To do this, the admin of Google Apps must be a technician with SDAdmin role in ServiceDesk Plus Cloud.

To import users from Google Apps,

Sign in to ServiceDesk Plus Cloud using your Google account.
Go to Setup > Users & Permissions > Requesters.
Select Import from Google Apps from the Import Users drop-down.

Alternatively, you can also access ServiceDesk Plus Cloud app from the Google Workspace Marketplace to your Google account.

Step 4: Setting up Authentication

You can configure login access for your users using any of the following methods.

Zoho Credentials

ServiceDesk Plus Cloud uses Zoho credentials as its default method for authenticating users. When login permission is enabled for a new user, an invitation to create a Zoho account will be sent to the provided email.

To enable login permission for users,

Go to Setup > Users & Permissions > Requesters/Technicians.
Click Edit against your preferred user.
Select the appropriate option: Enable login to requester(s) or Enable login to this technician.
Finally, click Save.

To learn more, visit configuring requesters or configuring technicians pages respectively.

Users with an existing Zoho account can use the same credentials to access ServiceDesk Plus Cloud.

Passwords used in the Zoho application (accounts.zoho.com) are encrypted and are in irreversible form.

Active Directory Authentication using SAML

You can use Active Directory to authenticate users via SAML. To use SAML for Active Directory authentication, you need to set up ADFS as the IdP for SAML.

To learn more about setting up AD FS 3.0, click here.

To configure SAML,

Go to ESM Directory > SAML Authentication.
Provide IdP Login URL, IdP Logout URL, and IdP's Certificate.
Choose an encryption algorithm: RSA or DSA.
Finally, click Save.

For more information on SAML configuration, click here.

Azure/Office365

Direct Method: If you have integrated Azure AD directly with ServiceDesk Plus Cloud, you can set up single sign-on by following the steps in this guide.

Using Zoho Directory: If you have created a custom app while importing users from Azure AD, as mentioned in Step 3), you can also set up SSO for the custom app.

To do this,

Sign in to directory.zoho.com as OrgAdmin.
Go to Security > Custom Authentication and copy the ACS URL.
Now, sign in to the Azure portal and configure the ACS URL and obtain the certificate, Sign in and Sign out URLs from the custom app created for user provisioning. To learn more, click here.
Upload the certificate and provide the necessary URLs in Zoho Directory > Security > Custom Authentication.
Finally, click Save.

Google Apps

You can authenticate users using Google Apps as the SAML identity provider.

To do this,

Make sure your organization domain has been verified under ESM Directory.

Configure Google Apps as SAML Identity provider:

Log in to admin.google.com.
On the Home page, click Apps.
Go to SAML Apps.
Click the New App ("+") button.
Click Setup my own Custom App.
Copy the SSO URL and Download the certificate.
Save the certificate with a ".cer" extension.
Provide other information as provided in the screenshots below.
In the Service Provider Details page, enter the ACS URL or Reply URL in the format <https://accounts.zoho.com/signin/samlsp/ORG ID> (if you have signed-up in EU, use accounts.zoho.eu)

The Organization ID (ORG ID) is listed under ESM Directory > Organization Details.

Provide zoho.com as the Entity ID and your sub domain or custom domain configured in the application as the Start URL.
Log in to ServiceDesk Plus Cloud and go to ESM Directory > SAML Authentication.
Use the SSO URL copied from the Google Apps as the Login URL. For Logout URL, configure https://accounts.google.com/logout.
Browse and select the saved certificate with .cer extension and click Save.

To learn more, click here.

Other third-party IdP

You can also configure SAML for third-party IdP similar to setting up SAML for AD.

To configure SAML,

Go to ESM Directory > SAML Authentication.
Provide IdP Login URL, IdP Logout URL, and IdP's Certificate.
Choose an encryption algorithm: RSA or DSA.
Finally, click Save.

For more information on SAML configuration, click here.