Ben-BSH Posted February 4, 2010 Posted February 4, 2010 Is this system really as good as it looks? from what i see on the site, it looks amazing, anyone use? and if so, what are the loves and hates? Thanks
leco Posted February 4, 2010 Posted February 4, 2010 Yes it's good. Depends on how you set it, but regular reports on devices. Shows if and when devices are off line. Integrated with AD so grouped the same. I don't monitor the network all of the time but it's usefull for when I need to. 1
mossj Posted February 4, 2010 Posted February 4, 2010 Only one bad point about the entire system, and thats that the inventory is a little slow (a lot slow when it's searching for new devices). But apart from that it is the dogs, and takes less than 5 minutes to setup to have a look, can even tell you when a printer is about to run out of ink. 1
Edu-IT Posted February 4, 2010 Posted February 4, 2010 Using it here for the helpdesk and it just works, to be honest. Easy to configure, and sits in the background happily. 1
James2k Posted February 4, 2010 Posted February 4, 2010 Using it here for the helpdesk and it just works, to be honest. Easy to configure, and sits in the background happily. Using it for Helpdesk and a Basic knowledge base through the User portal page. Very easy to set up. We do use the Inventory function but I agree it is rather slow. But is improving with every release. 1
Ben-BSH Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 the network scan functionality, does not seem to work correctly, and is very slow, is there any way of removing that functionality? i only really would ever need Spiceworks for the amazing helpdesk system, as we are currently using OTRS and it is... .. Sloooowwwww... Thanks in advance
AntiThesis Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Spiceworks is really excellent - I had an issue once where it froze on scan at around 2% and just sat there forever but that's since been fixed. AD Integrated, talks to exchange, does pretty much everything.
sparkeh Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 (edited) I use Spiceworks at three schools and it is indeed excellent. The slowness that some people experience is something that has dogged SW for a while. Interestingly it doesn't affect everyone and for me it runs best on an ancient old box I was testing it on and found it ran better than our shiney server. However there are some things that you can do: 1) Run it as a service (to do this right click the SW icon on the tray on the server) 2) Access the management stuff using Firefox or Chrome, they works much better than IE due to their superior Javascript engines, though the helpdesk seems to run equally well in both. Edited February 9, 2010 by sparkeh Removed incorrect information, insert correct information
3s-gtech Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 I run it on an old dual P3 DC I have, the performance is pretty good there for what it is. Impressive piece of software, very easy to migrate too.
Domino Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 I've got a seperate helpdesk setup, so never used that side of it. I found the inventory side a little hit or miss - so switched to lansweeper instead, which is excellent as an inventory only system.
mossj Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 the network scan functionality, does not seem to work correctly, and is very slow, is there any way of removing that functionality? i only really would ever need Spiceworks for the amazing helpdesk system, as we are currently using OTRS and it is... .. Sloooowwwww... Thanks in advance Yes, in the settings I beleive (you may have to adjust it to show advanced settings), just schedule it for never... or schedule it daily for 6pm. ..or you can use the start up collector (http://www.edugeek.net/forums/network-classroom-management/37644-new-spiceworks-version-4-0-a.html)
tmcd35 Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Yep using SW here. Love the product. The recent upgrade to v4.5 (from around 3.6 i believe ) has gotten rid of any inventory slowness we had here. We've just started using the Helpdesk properly amongst us Techies over the past fortnight and it's great. I really like the fact I can attatch helpdesk tickets to inventory items so we end up with a problems history for all hardware/software we have here. Will be getting the Business Manager involved after half term and start getting some staff reporting problems after Easter. Hopefully come September everyone will be using to it's fullest
mossj Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Yep using SW here. Love the product. The recent upgrade to v4.5 (from around 3.6 i believe ) has gotten rid of any inventory slowness we had here. We've just started using the Helpdesk properly amongst us Techies over the past fortnight and it's great. I really like the fact I can attatch helpdesk tickets to inventory items so we end up with a problems history for all hardware/software we have here. Will be getting the Business Manager involved after half term and start getting some staff reporting problems after Easter. Hopefully come September everyone will be using to it's fullest We just hooked it into the depts email account, staff didn't even know there problems were being logged.
john Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 We use it with good success within our College, staff are informed of progress on tickets now unlike in the past, which is good news and they find it easy to use. Just wish it would stop duplicating workstations in the inventory Never mind.
Edu-IT Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 We use it with good success within our College, staff are informed of progress on tickets now unlike in the past, which is good news and they find it easy to use. Just wish it would stop duplicating workstations in the inventory Never mind. I've noticed that too. Have you logged the duplicate issue with Spiceworks?
Crowmanuk Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Only problem I had with it is when some of the staff filled in their email address wrongly and I had emails bouncing all over our exchange server, might be an idea to get them to log in with their AD user/pass, in fact I might look into that tomorrow.
Edu-IT Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 Only problem I had with it is when some of the staff filled in their email address wrongly and I had emails bouncing all over our exchange server, might be an idea to get them to log in with their AD user/pass, in fact I might look into that tomorrow. Oh that's frustrating too, such as when a user has a full mailbox you keep getting it bouncing back and forth. I'm sure there must be a way to stop that from happening?
James2k Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Only problem I had with it is when some of the staff filled in their email address wrongly and I had emails bouncing all over our exchange server, might be an idea to get them to log in with their AD user/pass, in fact I might look into that tomorrow. The problem with this is Spiceworks doesn't know who is an administrator. So to edit the Portal you afaik put it back to email login to be able to edit it.
sparkeh Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Just wish it would stop duplicating workstations in the inventory Never mind. I used to have this problem. For me it was stale DNS records. As I was using my IP scope to scan it was checking DNS for the hostnames and picking up two entries for some of the machines. Worth a look. Only problem I had with it is when some of the staff filled in their email address wrongly and I had emails bouncing all over our exchange server, might be an idea to get them to log in with their AD user/pass, in fact I might look into that tomorrow. AD auth works great, no more mistyped email addresses
ICTSM Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I use it for a helpdesk. Easy to setup. The only 'irritating' problem is the display of tickets. They are grouped - so any tickets that are unassigned are listed on one page, and assigned tickets on another. If you forget to keep switching, you won't see any new ones. Very irritating indeed. There should be an option to combine the sets of tickets since there is only me having to manage the network here. Or maybe there is and I have missed it. A suitable response to this would be to tell me off and show me where it is...
sparkeh Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I use it for a helpdesk. Easy to setup. The only 'irritating' problem is the display of tickets. They are grouped - so any tickets that are unassigned are listed on one page, and assigned tickets on another. If you forget to keep switching, you won't see any new ones. Very irritating indeed. There should be an option to combine the sets of tickets since there is only me having to manage the network here. Or maybe there is and I have missed it. A suitable response to this would be to tell me off and show me where it is... Yeah I have noticed this too. There used to be an option to show all tickets but seemed to disappear after an update.
Edu-IT Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Yeah I have noticed this too. There used to be an option to show all tickets but seemed to disappear after an update. No? There's an option to display open tickets which will show both assigned and unassigned.
sparkeh Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 No? There's an option to display open tickets which will show both assigned and unassigned. Open tickets are tickets that have been assigned to someone....aren't they? Edit: Ah just tested and you are quite correct
ICTSM Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 Open tickets are tickets that have been assigned to someone....aren't they? Edit: Ah just tested and you are quite correct Go on...tell us if you dare! Bet ya daren't!
Grommit Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 the network scan functionality, does not seem to work correctly, and is very slow, is there any way of removing that functionality? i only really would ever need Spiceworks for the amazing helpdesk system, as we are currently using OTRS and it is... .. Sloooowwwww... Thanks in advance I have the same problem... very slow to scan the network and seems to leave out most of the PC's .. we have over 600 PC's, 13 Servers and over 80 printers on one domain. Helpdesk.. there is only one and that is MLH...
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