Ticketing/Inventory/Reporting Systems...

[enbiggen]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm perplexed by the number of different helpdesk systems and matching them up with what I and others want, so I thought I'd come here for some general advice. (It doesn't help that I'm not completely sure *what* I want for it.)

 

The sort of things we require are:

 

• The helpdesk would be email driven, although possibly with forms as well to encourage people to fill in the right level of detail for us to be able to help (rather than having to go back and forth to try and get the information, slowing the response down.)
  
• Something that can be used by separate departments (both the Premises Team and the ICT Support Team).
  
• We'd also want asset inventory - ideally on the ICT side it would fill in details like amount of RAM, Serial Number etc from interrogating devices where possible.
  
• I'd like to be able to store multiple pictures with each asset so we could record damage, and see how that damage changes over time.
  
• I'd like to be able to add tags to tickets (including retrospectively) so that I generate reports based on these.
  
• I'd like to be able to park tickets - if we're waiting on a response I don't want it to be visible on my day to day list, but I also don't want to forget about it either. Similarly, we occasionally get tickets too far in advance which I'd like to park until a set date, then for them to appear, rather than them clogging up the helpdesk view.
  
• We'd like to be able to categorize tickets so that we could more easily identify who has training needs, common problems - maybe whether a particular type of device is failing relative to its age etc, whether there's particular issues with rooms (ideally without always having to record which room something happened in manually).
  
• It would be good it the inventory side could submit tickets automatically - e.g. A service asset for, say, when the contract is up for renewal, or when we NN days away from the last day we cancel before renewal.
  
• We might also need queues so that move tickets between them, to help us keep things compartmentalized.
  

 

I guess the main things are easy to use, without it getting in our way, clear, and allow us to get useful information out of the helpdesk to help us plan for the future.

 

I realize that I need to get a better handle on what where trying to achieve (that the helpdesk helps towards), but I don't know what I don't know.

 

So I'm throwing this open, not only for solutions, but the sort of thing other people think is important, and what sort of requirements I should be considering?

 

Bleurgh. That's a bit of a word splurge, but hopefully someone will have something to contribute to help me clarify things in my head.

 

Thanks.

[chrisakak9]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm perplexed by the number of different helpdesk systems and matching them up with what I and others want, so I thought I'd come here for some general advice. (It doesn't help that I'm not completely sure *what* I want for it.)

 

The sort of things we require are:

 

• The helpdesk would be email driven, although possibly with forms as well to encourage people to fill in the right level of detail for us to be able to help (rather than having to go back and forth to try and get the information, slowing the response down.)
  
• Something that can be used by separate departments (both the Premises Team and the ICT Support Team).
  
• We'd also want asset inventory - ideally on the ICT side it would fill in details like amount of RAM, Serial Number etc from interrogating devices where possible.
  
• I'd like to be able to store multiple pictures with each asset so we could record damage, and see how that damage changes over time.
  
• I'd like to be able to add tags to tickets (including retrospectively) so that I generate reports based on these.
  
• I'd like to be able to park tickets - if we're waiting on a response I don't want it to be visible on my day to day list, but I also don't want to forget about it either. Similarly, we occasionally get tickets too far in advance which I'd like to park until a set date, then for them to appear, rather than them clogging up the helpdesk view.
  
• We'd like to be able to categorize tickets so that we could more easily identify who has training needs, common problems - maybe whether a particular type of device is failing relative to its age etc, whether there's particular issues with rooms (ideally without always having to record which room something happened in manually).
  
• It would be good it the inventory side could submit tickets automatically - e.g. A service asset for, say, when the contract is up for renewal, or when we NN days away from the last day we cancel before renewal.
  
• We might also need queues so that move tickets between them, to help us keep things compartmentalized.
  

 

I guess the main things are easy to use, without it getting in our way, clear, and allow us to get useful information out of the helpdesk to help us plan for the future.

 

I realize that I need to get a better handle on what where trying to achieve (that the helpdesk helps towards), but I don't know what I don't know.

 

So I'm throwing this open, not only for solutions, but the sort of thing other people think is important, and what sort of requirements I should be considering?

 

Bleurgh. That's a bit of a word splurge, but hopefully someone will have something to contribute to help me clarify things in my head.

 

Thanks.

I was quite a fan of spiceworks for this originally using the on premises setup but moved to the online help desk towards the end of my role.

 

Nice simple and free.

Great community support and banter too.

[enbiggen]

I was quite a fan of spiceworks for this originally using the on premises setup but moved to the online help desk towards the end of my role.

Nice simple and free.

Great community support and banter too.

 

I did like spiceworks, but we're moving away from it. It isn't really coping with the volume of tickets, and the reporting in order to get the best our of the data doesn't seem that good. It used to have better features too - like the ability to combine tickets etc.

 

Also, it looks like we're going with Parago, as that's the way the premises team is headed.

 

Cheers.

[RobD]

Fresh Service I think can do all of those items I think.

[Rob_D]

We've been using parago asset management for a few years now. It's been great for asset management, and it does have a helpdesk built in but we found the helpdesk rather barebones and clunky to use.

 

If you're happy to go with a separate helpdesk, then check out ManageEngine, it does pretty much everything you want on the helpdesk side. It's not free, but it's not been hugely expensive for us.

[Deanuk]

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