Help desk and Inventory software (again sorry)

[edie209]

I know this has been talked about a few times here but I want a final answer as there are lots of differing ideas I'm looking at One-Zero at the moment but is it the best for both or is there a better product?

 

It has to be simple for the end user, as you all know they don't want to learn to much new stuff oh and the most important thing It must be FREE we have less than 50 teachers here so any limited user liciences may be ok

 

Maybe once we have some suggestions one of the Mods could creat a poll so we could see at a glance what is prefered (only an idea)

[CyberNerd]

IMO requesttracker is better as it is more flexible - it has been designed so that it can be used and customised in just about any way.

http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/

OneorZero looks to me more basic, but has the advantage that its probably easier to set up and maintain.

[SpuffMonkey]

We're using Liberum - its very simple and also free.

[edie209]

Dos_Box I was looking over previous posts and I found you post

Another free tool. It's limited to 2 admins and 100 users, but is worth a look

 

downloads-zdnet.com.co...32310.html

 

I did download that and try it briefly but with other things i removed it thinking i would look later but it seems to have gone can you remember what it was called I seem to remember that it looked perfect for what I wanted.

[budgester]

http://irm.stackworks.net

 

But them I would say that as I am the developer of it.

[edie209]

Its ok Dos_Box I found it

Its called SYS Aid, I seem to remember that it was just what I wanted. For anyone else its here

 

I'll take a look at yours too Budgester

[Espada]

We're using Liberum - its very simple and also free.

 

We're going down that route as well. Great piece of software.

[plexer]

I use request tracker here with a web based form that the user fills in which is then emailed to thr RT server.

 

Ben

[edie209]

I have just spent the last two hours or so looking at a program called Sys Aid.

 

I have to say it is the one I am going to use Dos_Box originally mention a while ago.

 

Its great not only do it have a help desk that looks very simple for the user, (and gives the user the option to send a screenprint) but it looks to be very configurable too, PLUS it will do an inventory of your network machines and you can add other items manually. If a machine has had work done to it the help desk and the inventory link so that you can see what been to to which ever machine.

 

And you can use the same interface to remotely accces clients.

 

As Dos_Box said originally you can have only 2 Admins and 100 users but I'm sure there are alot of us that would fall into that catagory.

 

Sys Aid get my vote

[MkII]

It would be good to put a comparison matrix together for our preferred solutions: Resource Tracker, IRM, One||Zero, Liberium and SysAid. (did I forget any! )

[Ric_]

@mark: Well volunteered... it could go into a newsletter

[MkII]

Damn!

[MkII]

The information was already there at helpdesks.com - below is a bastardised one of just the relevant options for us

 

Request Tracker details updated

 

Authentification and Automated Inventory columns added

helpdesk_comparison_matrix_198.zip

[woody]

Mmmm, what a good topic. I spent a large amount of time last year configuring onezero on a linux box, but I could never get the email confirmation right. For instance, if I added a job for my own reference, it would email every user regardless of their involvement.

 

And when a user posted a request, it took the helpdesk about 20 seconds to process while it sent the email. Probably I had it configured wrong, but I'm not enough of a linux guru to work it out.

 

So I gave up But now I might try one of these that will work off a windows server and see where I get

[CyberNerd]

The comparison matrix is out of date WRT RequestTracker,

The RT server has been ported to Windows, It does have a knowledgebase (the RequestTracker FAQ Manager. RTFM) and most of the other stuff can be setup from within the gui.

 

(not on commission

[MkII]

Request Tracker details updated on Matrix

 

 

Open Ticket Request System looks good - nice interface!

[Ric_]

Looks good Mark... just one extra bit though - authentication methods (manual list, CSV, SQL, LDAP...)!

 

It would also be useful to see which have automated inventory tools (including what platforms they run on).

[edie209]

Well done mark! sorry to cause you work in the holidays

[MkII]

Authentification and Automated Inventory columns added

 

I'm unclear wether LDAP authentication includes Active Directory, and I don't understand what you want Ric_ - the platform the inventory harvesting runs on is surely the same as the whole systems - or did you miss that bit?

[Norphy]

LDAP is the access protocol used to connect to Active Directory and other directory services. Netware uses it as well I think. If the software supports authentication via LDAP it can use a whole load of directory services for authentication, AD amongst them.

[ITWombat]

Does any one here allow remote access to there help system as the examples listed are all browser based?

[Ric_]

@Mark: Some of the software has little tools for harvesting the inventory stuff, as you say. However, this tends to only be runnable on Windows whereas many of the helpdesk systems may be run on LAMP servers.

 

Some people also use other exotic operating systems on their clients - OS X, Linux, BSD, etc. so these 'harvesting' tools wouldn't help too much.

 

Hope that helps

[MkII]

@edie209 what are all the components listed on SysAid's website? I presume you get everything you need for free??

 

@Norphy thanks for that - that's what I thought. I'm sure one of these suckers say that they authenticate automatically with AD... must've been hallucinating I guess!

ah! it was SysAid:

User accounts automatically retrieved from the network's Active Directory (or other LDAP server)

Nice

 

@Ric_ Yeh

SysAid (again ):

the agent is installed on the computer of the end user. It can be installed on any computer running on Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Linux, or Solaris.

With IRM being LAMP you'd assume it would work on a wide client base. Can't find it on thier webbie tho' so that one remains a mystery. I found no reference of any other H/W::S/W inventory tools on any of the other systems webbies.

[woody]

Does any one here allow remote access to there help system as the examples listed are all browser based?

 

I was just wondering why you might want to do this? I know if I did, I'd get teachers logging their home computer faults on the system from home. NOT a good idea.

[GrumbleDook]

Help systems are not just call logging systems, but also knowledge bases and FAQs. These can be a fantastic aid for staff and students, especially if you are trying to raise the IT skills of users whilst at home (mainly so they bring less problems to you during the normal day)