Looking for Helpdesk software for my team

[m0bov]

Hi all, I have just recently taken on the roll as NM with a team of 5. I am new to all this, having been a tech for about 20 years. The team covers the main high school, plus a couple of other sites nearby which are primaries.

 

The main issue we face is calls are not logged, we just use a shared mailbox! You can imagine the issues this causes, I have always worked with HD software and don't know how they managed before.

 

We have SCCM running and they have been trying to use Service Manager and using Sharepoint as a front end, it all looks a bit custom. The good thing with this is that it knows the users from AD.

 

We looked at OSticket but looks a bit clunky.

 

Any other suggestions? Paid for is fine, needs to integrate into AD for user accounts, templates for tickets would be nice so a check list process can be followed for freq activities like create accounts or change passwords.

The ability to submit tickets via e-mail is important, also web front end, cloud based. We have On Premises Exchange.

 

Thanks for any ideas.

 

James

[ITGuyNW]

We use Spiceworks

 

https://www.spiceworks.com/free-help-desk-software/online/

[network41]

Freshdesk here

[LTurner3692]

We use Zendesk

 

Works well for us.

[sister_annex]

We use https://www.supportpal.com/ it's not too much of a dent on the budget. Has a large amount of features. You can install a trial for 30 days which helped us decide

[hardtailstar]

We use Spiceworks

 

https://www.spiceworks.com/free-help-desk-software/online/

 

Spiceworks here too.

 

Its free.

[DalekSec]

Spiceworks here, it's free but very buggy!

 

But hey it's free!

[Davit2005]

SysAid or ManageEngine.

[southhamster]

Spiceworks web version here. Not found any major problems except that the date format is fixed on mmddyy which hurts my brain trying to remember to decode it!

Started using it about 4 months ago and it has really helped to have records of things done in one place.

[DrBeaker]

Spiceworks in one role. Far better than the paid-for solutions another role used to use. And for that one they had somebody employed full-time to "administer" the system. Also used AdventNet servicedesk years ago. I'd still give my +1 to Spiceworks. The larger the org the less Spiceworks works but I've yet to come across a solution that actually works properly for large orgs anyway.

[CHiLL]

We used to use the self-hosted version of Spiceworks, but found it to be quite buggy. For the past couple of years we've been using the Spiceworks Cloud Help desk, completely hosted by Spiceworks. Sure, it's only the Help desk (not the inventory), but that's all we need. If you want your users to authenticate via AD, all you need to do is install the AD connector onto one of your servers and configure it to your AD.

 

The only change we did was regarding the email address staff use to email their requests to. Spiceworks Cloud defaults to help@.on.spiceworks.com. We configured a Office 365 mailbox called help@bham.sch.uk and configured automatic forwarding on that mailbox to forward all incoming emails to help@.on.spiceworks.com.

[CHSGM]

Freshdesk free version here. Each school set up as a company so it can easily identify where it's from and then have dispatch'r rules to auto-assign to techs dependent on site they are responsible for.

[Rob_D]

ManageEngine here. Not had any complaints. Works fine for us.

[m0bov]

Cheers guys, I used Spiceworks a few years ago (about 5) but was self hosted. Will have another look.

Thanks.

[pantscat]

You should try Autotask...

[colly72]

Spiceworks cloud, or Freshdesk both work well and we've used in the past as they are free. Also used Netsupport Servicedesk too previously, which works well although not cloud-hosted I don't think.

[karldenton]

We use sharepoint. Staff email the helpdesk and using Microsoft Flow, it creates a ticket on a sharepoint list. Happy to PM you screenshots

[m0bov]

Can we use an e-mail forward from our main it e-mail account to foward to the spiceworks e-mail address? I am looking at the cloud version of spiceworks that does'nt integrate with Exchange.

[m0bov]

For Fresh Desk, does it have an AD plug in to pull details from our network? We have all our accounts synced between frog, AD, etc.

[Edu-IT]

Seems it’s not that straight forward. https://support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/2018-active-directory-integration

[ITGURU]

OSTICKET highly recommended and free. used it for years for tickets. No cumbersome forms or training to end users, they can still email itsupport@ as normal, then a ticket is generated in osticket automatically, we can then reply through the ticket system from ITSUPPORT@ so they can then reply back to this again and also see the ticket thread.

Quick and reliable system. a school that joined our trust used manage engine but discarded and changed them to osticket too as the staff didnt like long forms to fill in.

[markwilfan]

OSTICKET highly recommended and free. used it for years for tickets. No cumbersome forms or training to end users, they can still email itsupport@ as normal, then a ticket is generated in osticket automatically, we can then reply through the ticket system from ITSUPPORT@ so they can then reply back to this again and also see the ticket thread.

Quick and reliable system. a school that joined our trust used manage engine but discarded and changed them to osticket too as the staff didnt like long forms to fill in.

Same here. Osticket rocks. Even ties into AD

[Ditto]

Same here. Osticket rocks. Even ties into AD

 

Bit late to this party! We recently moved from a Sharepoint System, provided by Ivero, to Spiceworks. Interesting to note how many Spiceworks users out there and stating because it's free - a comment on school funding perhaps?! We joined this camp. So far, we've had no issues and whilst it's basic, it's doing the job for us and all other schools in the MAT.

[synaesthesia]

As above, OSticket here too. Just works, reliable, never once had any issues, email polling on so people just email their jobs in without having to log into anything, plus AD integration anyway in case they wanted to check up on something. It's better than many of the paid solutions IMO, and we've seriously been considering using it instead of the vastly, overinflated underdeveloped "Every" system.

[andyfield]

Freshdesk is amazing! I've got mine linked to 365 so that's sorts out logins as my AD is synced. The apps are amazing as well and really handy for mobile working. You can even create a support portal on the free version which I find really useful as you can even refer back to it when replying on tickets.