Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application
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@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Looks like Zammad does both SSO and Groups (Departments). I don't use it though, so no experience there...
I have this deployed locally. It can be multi-department, but it is, obviously, geared toward IT more then anything else. It can do LDAP and SAML auth and have the ability to integrate with pretty much anything.
It's also stupid easy to install. The big complaint I have at the moment is that some of the customization that I wanted to do needed to be done in the backend.
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Jira is easy to setup for multiple departments. It's not the best ticketing software, but it's inexpensive and very short learning curve. You can also do quite a bit with the api.
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@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Jira is easy to setup for multiple departments. It's not the best ticketing software, but it's inexpensive and very short learning curve. You can also do quite a bit with the api.
Until you need more than ten people, then it is a little expensive.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Jira is easy to setup for multiple departments. It's not the best ticketing software, but it's inexpensive and very short learning curve. You can also do quite a bit with the api.
Until you need more than ten people, then it is a little expensive.
It's still less than half of his $8k budget for 50 users
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@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Jira is easy to setup for multiple departments. It's not the best ticketing software, but it's inexpensive and very short learning curve. You can also do quite a bit with the api.
Until you need more than ten people, then it is a little expensive.
It's still less than half of his $8k budget for 50 users
Self hosted (one of his requirements) is $19,000 for 50 agents
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@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Self hosted (one of his requirements)
Have fun with that!
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@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
It's still less than half of his $8k budget for 50 users
Sure, but his budget is huge. He can afford Jira in a mode he can't use, but that doesn't make it cheap
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@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Self hosted (one of his requirements) is $19,000 for 50 agents
That feels crazy high, lol.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
It's still less than half of his $8k budget for 50 users
Sure, but his budget is huge. He can afford Jira in a mode he can't use, but that doesn't make it cheap
Yeah but considering that its hosted and a very simple interface which requires minimal training, it ends up being pretty damn cheap.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Self hosted (one of his requirements) is $19,000 for 50 agents
That feels crazy high, lol.
Yeah basically they dont want you self hosting lol. If you decide its a requirement for whatever reason, they will penalize you for it.
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@IRJ said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Self hosted (one of his requirements) is $19,000 for 50 agents
That feels crazy high, lol.
Yeah basically they dont want you self hosting lol. If you decide its a requirement for whatever reason, they will penalize you for it.
Yeah, heavily.
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@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Curious about the on-prem requirement? Seems lime an odd requirement?
On-prem because we have a lot of PII information that gets put into our help desks, plus we just like having some control over things. Not everything has to be cloud hosted.
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@coliver said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Looks like Zammad does both SSO and Groups (Departments). I don't use it though, so no experience there...
I have this deployed locally. It can be multi-department, but it is, obviously, geared toward IT more then anything else. It can do LDAP and SAML auth and have the ability to integrate with pretty much anything.
It's also stupid easy to install. The big complaint I have at the moment is that some of the customization that I wanted to do needed to be done in the backend.
That product looks really good and the only reason I'm hesitant is because I don't have a ton of Linux admin experience. I have worked with Linux a bit at school, homes labs and at work and I know my way around (to some small degree) but the one problem I've always had with Linux is that something eventually/always breaks when some application or module or script gets updated. PHP and Apache are working fine today but come in on Tuesday and suddenly nothing is working anymore.
That being said, I will give it a try!
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@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Self hosted (one of his requirements)
Have fun with that!
Yeah because self hosted = bad! Seems like a pointless comment and a foolish attitude.
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@dave247 said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Curious about the on-prem requirement? Seems lime an odd requirement?
On-prem because we have a lot of PII information that gets put into our help desks, plus we just like having some control over things. Not everything has to be cloud hosted.
Oh I see. I didn't realize it would be set up for the general public to have read access if it were cloud hosted.
I suppose all these multi-billion dollar enterprises using hosted services like Service Now have no idea!
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@dave247 said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@bnrstnr said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Self hosted (one of his requirements)
Have fun with that!
Yeah because self hosted = bad! Seems like a pointless comment and a foolish attitude.
No I didn't mean it like that. I meant it as in have fun with all the extra work/time/effort/etc that is going to entail versus SaaS.
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@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@dave247 said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Curious about the on-prem requirement? Seems lime an odd requirement?
On-prem because we have a lot of PII information that gets put into our help desks, plus we just like having some control over things. Not everything has to be cloud hosted.
Oh I see. I didn't realize it would be set up for the general public to have read access if it were cloud hosted.
I suppose all these multi-billion dollar enterprises using hosted services like Service Now have no idea!
Not quite a full on JB explosion there....
But you're not wrong. The fear of cloud based solutions (not real cloud - just other people's servers) is overblown, etc. Do you need to do your due diligence and make sure that any vendor you pick is up to snuff - sure.. but you should do the same for self hosted stuff too.
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This is the same resistance people had with Virtualization. To those that understand cloud services, its has many more benefits security and infrastructure wise.
The key problem here is proper data management. Why are you storing PII in the help desk? For verification of end users? If that is the case, even if on prem, you should have a better way of making sure that is accessed securely and preferably not stored in a ticketing system.
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@dave247 said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
@Obsolesce said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
Curious about the on-prem requirement? Seems lime an odd requirement?
On-prem because we have a lot of PII information that gets put into our help desks, plus we just like having some control over things. Not everything has to be cloud hosted.
No, but not everything needs to be internally hosted, either. ALL decisions should be based on logic and needs evaluation.
PII doesn't make hosted not an option, it actually makes it more important. Because a self hosted tool won't have the security resources of a hosted one. "Like having some control" is the same as saying "we don't think like a business". Nothing wrong with having control, but that's an emotional description. How does "having control", and what does that mean in this case, help the business?
"Liking" approaches is something no business should act on. The moment you feel that you "like" hosted, or on premises, virtual or physical, it should set off a red flag that something is wrong. It's a term people use to express when they are knowingly making a bad decision, but haven't stopped themselves from doing so yet. It's trying to justify a business decision (that must be logical) in terms of consumerism (buying what we like regardless of value.)
None of this is to berate you or to say you can't do it this way. It's the same kind of problem that @WrCombs had and it's best explained this way....
We all have to deal with the emotional whims and non-business illogic of people above us in an organization. What we are required to do is often out of our control. What we do control is repeating false logic as reasons. In this case, stating that you have PII, security, or control concerns aren't valid reasons to chose on premises - they are excuses to cover for someone being emotional. Instead of repeating them, identify that they are false and just say "someone who isn't concerned with business needs above me in the organization demands it be done in this way".
If you say it is a requirement that is out of your control, someone might still point out that it is likely a bad idea, but that's it. If you repeat the false logic, it essentially requires that we point out that the logic is wrong because otherwise we must either act as though we have accepted something false and/or ignore that giving bad advice is not in your interest. We can't honestly try to help while not pointing out when a decision is made on false logic.
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@dave247 said in Trying to find a good, on-premises, multi-department help desk application:
but the one problem I've always had with Linux is that something eventually/always breaks when some application or module or script gets updated. PHP and Apache are working fine today but come in on Tuesday and suddenly nothing is working anymore.
Sure, but lessso than with Windows
To avoid that, your only real option is getting something in the SaaS vein where that support is someone else's problem. The aforementioned desire of control is what causes the need to do that kind of component support whether Linux, Windows or other.
