Watch a service desk agent for ten minutes and count the Halo browser tabs they have open. Each one is a duplicated session using more browser memory, and every navigation away from a filtered ticket list means finding your place again afterwards. Most desks treat this as the unavoidable cost of working several records at once.
Halo Tab turns the top navigation bar of the agent interface into a tabbed view. Each tab keeps its own state, so an agent can keep tickets, assets, users, reports and configuration open at once inside one browser tab, and switch between them without losing scroll position or filters. Tabs are opened with the plus icon beside the last tab, closed by hovering over a tab and clicking the cross that appears, and duplicated or closed from a right click, much as you would expect.
The feature was announced in the Q2 2025 product updates for both HaloITSM and HaloPSA, which share the same core engine, and is described in full in the Halo documentation. Enablement is a global setting, and an agent can override it on their own agent profile, under the Preferences tab, Appearance section. From v2.248 the new tab landing page can be set per agent as well.
This is a navigation change, not a functional one. It does not touch tickets, workflows, SLAs, the data model or any integration. What it changes is the cost of moving around. When switching context no longer throws away an agent's place, the ten browser tab habit, and the duplicated sessions that come with it, can go.
Two companion settings sharpen the effect. List preview and popout defaults can both be set to open records in a new Halo tab, so the record opens in its own Halo tab and the filtered list is still there when you switch back. Halo's announcement claims higher agent productivity, fewer errors and less browser memory pressure. Those are vendor statements with no published measurements behind them, but the mechanics are plain enough: fewer duplicated sessions, and less time spent finding your way back to where you were.
Service desk agents Move between tickets, assets, users and reports in one browser window, with each tab holding its own state. Side panes such as notifications persist across tabs until closed.
Team leaders One consistent working pattern, set globally, with an agent level override in agent preferences where an individual needs a different setting.
Management A navigation change with no data model, workflow or integration impact, so the only real change management is the 2025 UI switch it depends on.
Nothing in Halo's material describes any portal or end user change. This is entirely an agent side feature.
Turning it on is a handful of toggles. The Halo Tab Display setting sits in Configuration > Advanced Settings > Appearance, and there are three prerequisites: the 2025 UI must be active, the tree menu must display in the undocked format, and the browser window must be wider than 1000 pixels. There is no data model change, no integration work and no migration.
The real effort is the first prerequisite. If your instance is still on the older UI, the switch is a visual change agents will notice, so plan a short comms and familiarisation exercise rather than flipping it mid shift. Configuring the feature well means deciding where new tabs should land (administrators can point them at a custom page such as /home or /config), deciding whether list previews and popouts should open in Halo tabs, and testing with a pilot group before setting it globally. Budget hours, not days.
On licensing, no Halo source states an edition, module or licence tier requirement. That is an absence of a statement rather than a confirmation, so check your Halo edition before promising it to the team.
Hikon is a Halo partner supporting service desks across the UK and Israel. Switching the feature on is a small piece of work; the useful work sits around it. That means sequencing the 2025 UI switch so it lands as an improvement rather than a surprise, choosing sensible landing page and preview defaults for each team, and running the pilot before anything goes global. If your desk is still on the older UI, this is a low risk reason to plan the move.
The full configuration detail, including the companion preview settings, is in the Halo documentation. If you would like a second pair of hands on the rollout, or an honest view on whether your desk is ready for it, get in touch.
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