Helpdesk/service desk options

[HKP]

Hi,

 

We currently use a in house built helpdesk solution which we aren't able to add additional functionality. What are others using for their service desk please? We do have some budget available if needs be..

 

Some of the things we need to have are

 

1) Full AD/Azure integration, I've looked at osTicket and its OK, however whilst it has AD integration all users still need to be added to the system which simply is impractical for us. Our current helpdesk just pulls the user details out of AD so they have SSO and no need to add users to the system for just being able to log a call/ticket.

2) Needs to have some workflow functionality and the ability to have separate areas for different teams. We need a helpdesk that us used by IT Support, facilities, MIS team etc. We'd like the ability for a helpdesk ticket to be passed between departments for workflow. So if someone logs a ticket for a new user, the MIS team add the user then pass the ticket onto IT Support.

3) Needs some reporting facility as Senior Management would like to see how calls are handled with response times etc.

 

Thank you.

[Norphy]

FreshService isn't bad

[HKP]

Thanks, will take a look at that one.

[jthompson]

Do your end users really need to sign in with an account to log a ticket, or will email-based ticketing suffice? IME end users far prefer firing off an email to a helpdesk address rather than filling in a form (especially if the form is behind a sign-in).

FreshDesk is really good, and will give you a trial of paid features for 28 days or something. There is a free tier, but since that limits you to just a single monitored email address, that may not be sufficient for you.

[HKP]

That's an interesting point...

 

I'd need to check with de management but that might be an idea.. Assume fresh service is an email based helpdesk? If so, does that offer multiple team/departments and the ability to pass calls onto other teams, i.e. some sort of work flow. We ideally would like to be able to have the technicians managing calls to be able to pass calls to colleagues on the same desk for when they need 3rd line support on a call.

[dhicks]

What are others using for their service desk please?

 

There's a couple of recent threads on here about this already, listing most of the well-known options. We use Trello, with the SendDesk plugin to enable general users to be able to email in tickets. We also have a Google Form that people can fill in that then gets emailed in to create a ticket, so no need for every user to register with a helpdesk system. I really like Trello's Canban-style view of tasks, with tickets that you can change around in order and move between lists - I'd like to have the whole admin team using it so we could swap tasks around between us, rather than just the IT team.

[jthompson]

FreshDesk will do both, but tbh email based tickets are probably going to be the main way of doing things.

Once you've added your various agents and put them into your various teams (IT, MIS, Facilities, etc.), tickets can then be assigned/reassigned to teams or agents. You can add ticket processing rules to help automate that. The free tier has some basic features available on that front, but the paid tiers add progressively more powerful automation features. From memory, it does a slick job of onboarding you and introducing its various features.

[HKP]

thank you, will take a look at those threads and also at Trello.

[jthompson]

If you're using M365, the Planner app on that is similar to Trello, so might be worth a look as well.

[TechMonkey]

Moved to FreshService over the summer and, wow! It can do a lot! Not cheap at all but we have our Estates team on it and looking to get HR and Finance on it too.

Having been a fan of email tickets into Helpdesk, I'd now say try and drive them to the portal to fill in the form. It allows better information gathering and you can then base automations on the information supplied. Email submissions is a really blunt tool.

[Rob_D]

We use https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ for both IT and Maintenance/Facilities support sites. Works well, and does the things you're looking for.

[foofighterjim]

We use https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ for both IT and Maintenance/Facilities support sites. Works well, and does the things you're looking for.

 

+1, we use the cloud version.

[Disease]

We use https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/ for both IT and Maintenance/Facilities support sites. Works well, and does the things you're looking for.

 

I am looking at that at the moment but the Professional version with the Asset Register, I find the Nodes licensing confusing though.

 

How easy is it to setup with separate help desks for IT and Facilities, I have an onsite demo running at the moment but not done any configuration.

[HKP]

Thank you, will take a look.

[Aprice]

We've been looking at OSTicket (Free / self hosted) and SolarWinds WHD.

I've used SolarWinds previously and quite liked it.

[HKP]

We've been looking at OSTicket (Free / self hosted) and SolarWinds WHD.

I've used SolarWinds previously and quite liked it.

 

Thanks, with OSTicket were you able to get users out of AD/Azure? We are hosting locally and the only way I can get a test user to be able to login to log a ticket is to create them in OST. Then they are able to login using their AD/Azure credentials. So it looked to me that you have to create all users in that system rather then it pulling their info out of AD. This makes it of little use to use as we'd be forever creating users as and when students enrol.

Edited November 3, 2022 by HKP

[Rob_D]

How easy is it to setup with separate help desks for IT and Facilities, I have an onsite demo running at the moment but not done any configuration.

We've got locally installed support sties, so we just have 2 instances of the support site installed on 2 different virtual servers, each with their own license. It wasn't hard to set up, once we got the settings right for ours it was pretty easy to copy them across to the Maintenance one. The trick is to pick 2 very different colour schemes so people don't get confused about which site they're on.

[dhandford]

I would second Freshservice, it is good at what it does.

[andy_b]

Thanks, with OSTicket were you able to get users out of AD/Azure? We are hosting locally and the only way I can get a test user to be able to login to log a ticket is to create them in OST. Then they are able to login using their AD/Azure credentials. So it looked to me that you have to create all users in that system rather then it pulling their info out of AD. This makes it of little use to use as we'd be forever creating users as and when students enrol.

 

We use Osticket without pre-registration and AD.

 

I think it is these settings on the User Settings page that are important IIRC

 

[HKP]

We use Osticket without pre-registration and AD.

 

I think it is these settings on the User Settings page that are important IIRC

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]66949[/ATTACH]

Thanks for that, that wasn't checked on our own web server version.

I've logged into a domain PC but when I try and login with my AD credentials I get a message back saying "Access Denied", which points to the user not being in the system. I don't have any errors on the AD connection in OST. I also tried using the Azure plugin for authentication but got exactly the same issue. It seems to me that users either have to be setup in the system by an Admin or they have to register? Our users wont want to register to use the system...

Edited November 4, 2022 by HKP

[jmak]

Moved to FreshService over the summer and, wow! It can do a lot! Not cheap at all but we have our Estates team on it and looking to get HR and Finance on it too.

Having been a fan of email tickets into Helpdesk, I'd now say try and drive them to the portal to fill in the form. It allows better information gathering and you can then base automations on the information supplied. Email submissions is a really blunt tool.

 

Having been a fan of email tickets into Helpdesk, I'd now say try and drive them to the portal to fill in the form. It allows better information gathering and you can then base automations on the information supplied. Email submissions is a really blunt tool.

 

The service requests raised by forms give better data for analysis and options for workflow management (automated or manual), but I've never got above 80:20 email to portal.

 

I put a link on the desktop, the new tab homepage, the favorites bar, the landing page for the staff area of website, a link in my email signature, mentioned it every time there was IT training, minimised the number of fields requested, changed process so that tickets from the portal were always prioritised, didn't require login (submissions required you to provide an email address from the school domain), yet still they preferred emailing the helpdesk...

 

If anyone has more persuasive techniques, please let me know!

Edited November 4, 2022 by jmak

[andy_b]

Thanks for that, that wasn't checked on our own web server version.

I've logged into a domain PC but when I try and login with my AD credentials I get a message back saying "Access Denied", which points to the user not being in the system. I don't have any errors on the AD connection in OST. I also tried using the Azure plugin for authentication but got exactly the same issue. It seems to me that users either have to be setup in the system by an Admin or they have to register? Our users wont want to register to use the system...

 

Strange, our users are 100% auto created at first login.

[TechMonkey]

We've got 49.14 to 47.41 in favour of the portal. That has slipped a bit but it is publishing the portal address, pushing it hard and stating that jobs will get sorted quicker if we have all the information we need first time.

[supportman]

SharePoint Lists is fantastic and very versatile for things like workflows with power automate.

[HKP]

Strange, our users are 100% auto created at first login.

 

Ok that is interesting...

 

I've only setup the "LDAP Authentication and lookup" plugin, as that is all that is required from my reading of the documentation and its setup as follows:-

 

 

 

My test user tries to login via, https://servicedesk.xxx.net/osTicket/login.php

 

Have I missed something please? There are no errors etc, for the plugin showing in osTicket.

Edited November 4, 2022 by HKP