Email based helpdesk system

[RabbieBurns]

We currently use just a shared mailbox for our helpdesk, it is becoming unmanagable.

 

We want to replace it with a proper ticket based solution.

 

However we want to keep the method of opening tickets the same - users simply fire off an email to helpdesk.

 

I don't want to have to maintain a database of users, I don't want users to have to register, or login to websites, or fill in forms, just simply send an email to an address with their problems and the system will automatically log a ticket etc and we can then do whatever..

 

Dont mind paying for a proper system.

[CyberNerd]

RT: Request Tracker - Best Practical

[RabbieBurns]

that looks like they have to fill out a form to create a ticket though, rather than send just an email? edit: and also looks like they have logged in to something as well.

 

http://bestpractical.com/static/images/screenshots/rt/4.0/ticket_create.png

 

(just running out the office so apologies if im wrong, will have a proper look when i get home..)

[mdench]

+ 1 for RT

 

I believe you can have it set up like that we have our RT system set up so they email [email protected]. The email then appears on the helpdesk and the various techs have logins so that we can assign tickets and keep track of whos talking to who.

[Jawloms]

Spiceworks.

[bladedanny]

osTicket can be set up to pull down emails from a number of email addresses and automatically create tickets ob the helpdesk system.

[unixman_again]

There are loads which to this. Good free solutions include OTRS and osTicket. If you have a budget then SysAid isn't bad. If you've got a real budget then either Kayako or Remedy is the way to go. Having had experience on all of these (and several others), your decision might be based on what reporting you can get out of the system. In this regard, Remedy and Kayako are the leaders.

[Netman]

There are loads which to this. Good free solutions include OTRS and osTicket. If you have a budget then SysAid isn't bad. If you've got a real budget then either Kayako or Remedy is the way to go. Having had experience on all of these (and several others), your decision might be based on what reporting you can get out of the system. In this regard, Remedy and Kayako are the leaders.

 

Yer, we use sysaid here - not overly expensive and a fairly decent system. We choose it testing against Spiceworks and a few other paid for and free types. Just fitted our needs best...

[twin--turbo]

GLPI does ticket by e-mail, but never realy tried it.

[glennda]

that looks like they have to fill out a form to create a ticket though, rather than send just an email? edit: and also looks like they have logged in to something as well.

 

http://bestpractical.com/static/images/screenshots/rt/4.0/ticket_create.png

 

(just running out the office so apologies if im wrong, will have a proper look when i get home..)

 

No You can setup to collect mail from Exchange via IMAP using Fetchmail.

 

I used it like that at my last place.

[CyberNerd]

that looks like they have to fill out a form to create a ticket though, rather than send just an email? edit: and also looks like they have logged in to something as well.

 

 

(just running out the office so apologies if im wrong, will have a proper look when i get home..)

 

it does both, it can be entirely email based if you want it to be. There are some really powerful email scrips

[mb2k01]

Another recommendation for Kayako from me - have used them for years. They have hosted or self-hosted versions of their product available. Email parsing can be set up to do what you want - you can even have several departments set up in there - e.g. ITServices@ SiteServices@ which will generate tickets in their own 'departments'

[RabbieBurns]

cheers ill sign up for a couple of them and give them a whirl. Not sure an online hosted one is for us, especially as its per tech per month, but it seems they do a perpetual license as well which would suite us better..

 

budget would be a couple of hundred bucks i guess so it seems what their prices are..

 

cheers all

[sparkeh]

Spiceworks does this nicely, for free.

[glennda]

cheers ill sign up for a couple of them and give them a whirl. Not sure an online hosted one is for us, especially as its per tech per month, but it seems they do a perpetual license as well which would suite us better..

 

budget would be a couple of hundred bucks i guess so it seems what their prices are..

 

cheers all

 

RT is free plus you can also have multiple queues etc. for such like grounds premises etc. the installation @mdench has has about 9 queues running on a ubuntu box with 1 cpu and 512mb ram.

[RabbieBurns]

how much configuration / time does it take to get up and running?

 

I dont mind paying for a solution which will just work out of the box and will take minimal time to get up and running, compared to a free product which will take a week of my time to tweak and configure to get perfect...

[glennda]

how much configuration / time does it take to get up and running?

 

I dont mind paying for a solution which will just work out of the box and will take minimal time to get up and running, compared to a free product which will take a week of my time to tweak and configure to get perfect...

 

Once you have it installed not long at all. The time spent installing is minimal but tweaking/customizing to how you would like it takes a little bit of time. Which TBH any system would require. By tweaking I mean customizing the auto-reply etc.

[ADMaster]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned webhelpdesk. I have been using it for about a year and it is very easy to install and get working out of the box. You can setup and email address for it to check for new tickets or the user can log in to the web interface.

When I was shopping for helpdesk software I tried webhelpdesk and sysaid side by side, they were very close. I think the deciding factor for choosing webhelpdesk is it is what our ITC uses.

Although they were just bought out by solar winds this summer, so I don’t know how that will affect the product.