Solved Do I need help desk system ?
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Having a help desk is almost always good. Forcing people to use it is only sometimes good. Help desk for you is good. For them is maybe. We don't expose helpdesk to users normally, we manage the tickets ourselves.
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@openit said in Do I need help desk system ?:
I agree with maintaining Help desk. But I have two real questions :
- Should I enforce all users to complaint for any IT issues through Help desk only ?
In this case, how much reasonable for me to spend time to users to guide, updating and closing tickets (which is additional work) ?
Or
- Receive complaints from users and create tickets, update solution and close ticket myself ?
In this case, it will bit additional work unlike first option but I will get organized record for issues and solutions.
And then choosing application :
Spiceworks Help Desk or ManageEngine Service Desk Plus ?
there are several options,
- Spiceworks
- ManageEngine
- osTicket
- HESK
If you have your website hosted, it is likely they have a One Click install for osTicket... Might look there. Still free, and very functional. NTG moved to osTicket from SW and thus far, I like it better than SW....
Overall though, I have used all four of the these,... Of them, I would go with osTicket.
- Should I enforce all users to complaint for any IT issues through Help desk only ?
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We prefer osTicket to either of the two that you mention but you have to run it yourself. But it is very easy.
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Of the two that you mention, it really comes down to which you like for you.
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Thanks for feedback.
What attracted you people to move/stick to/with osTicket ?
I may choose btw SW or MD.
One more thought is, choosing MD will fetch on my Profile ? through hands-on experience if I wish to move to other company (as ManageEngine is known in industry and ITIL HD), is it ?
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osTicket is pretty easy to use, and fully open source. We can control everything about it and it's not so hard to use.
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The first thing about helpdesks is that your company policy may require record of all IT activities, whether it for legal reasons or for the sake of record keeping or other reasons like patterns. It may also serv as a way to remember how you resolved a past similar issue.
Whether or not you need a ticketing system depends on if it will benefit the company. If you are walking through the halls to do a specific task, and someone stops you for one of those "quick questions", you may forget what you are going to do or you may forget what the person in the hall just tasked you with. I suppose you could walk around everywhere with a pen and pad, but that isn't always the case.
Ticketing systems also help to stay organized and to help prioritize things closer to the money. I don't know anyone who can live from the list of 1000 things strictly in their head. Having it documented somehow will be best.
We require all users to submit tickets. If you don't know if you should make a ticket, make a ticket. If a user emails you, forward it to the ticketing system. Most systems will automatically turn them into a ticket.
If a user calls you and its more of a request than a question, kindly ask them to submit a ticket.
Depends completely on your environment of course, but those are my thoughts anyway.
Wrote this on my cell phone which is hard, so excuse my not so well thought out points and spelling errors.
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We normally have IT submit tickets because users often put in useless tickets without useful details.
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@scottalanmiller said in Do I need help desk system ?:
We normally have IT submit tickets because users often put in useless tickets without useful details.
Yes you'll have that. Our system automatically includes pc name and user name. So you'll have breadcrumbs at the very least to follow up with.
I think that's better than nothing at all. Also, IT generally doesn't have time to act as a ticket receptionist. Maybe not the case in big places where there's a team dedicated to it, but in smbs, IT is only 4 or less people.
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Well, I have decided to setup help desk anyways. Will test those software and decide it later.
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Maybe I will start maintaining (opening, updating and closing) as of now. I will think later about to involve users to Submit Tickets or no.
What is unnecessary to create a ticket for ? like toner replaced, monitor was not working due to power cable loose, outlook mobile app forgot password for email etc.
Do you think above kind of issues are not necessary to include in help desk system ?
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I put everything in as I find it a useful log of my time. It's also useful to know that it's the 37th time Sue from Accounts has forgotten her password in the last 10 years.
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@openit said in Do I need help desk system ?:
Maybe I will start maintaining (opening, updating and closing) as of now. I will think later about to involve users to Submit Tickets or no.
What is unnecessary to create a ticket for ? like toner replaced, monitor was not working due to power cable loose, outlook mobile app forgot password for email etc.
Do you think above kind of issues are not necessary to include in help desk system ?
I think that that is best. Zero disruption for now, learn the system, figure out how to make it useful. Then decide how to impact users later. And maybe it can be voluntary, or just for some users.
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Ticketing systems are very useful, even if you only use them in the background. They help to keep you organized, they provide metrics to help you know about issues and workflows. They simplify documentation. I would highly recommend that you use one, even if just for yourself.
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@openit said in Do I need help desk system ?:
What is unnecessary to create a ticket for ?
Everything goes in the helpdesk. If the users ask you to do it, it goes in the helpdesk, whether it is replacing their mouse, replacing the stuck N key on their keyboard, replacing toner, or fixing the coffee maker that keeps shorting out... or anything else they ask you to do.
If you don't put everything into the helpdesk, things tend to slip through the cracks.
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Thanks all for your responses !!
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From the looks of it, you may not have a huge technician base but you do have a lot of users. A simple help desk software with automated ticketing system, workflows and self service portal will help immensely, especially to track your tickets (IT issues/complaints). ManageEngine's ServiceDesk Plus, as you've mentioned, is an ITIL based help desk software with easy automations and ticketing workflows. It converts emails to tickets automatically, so you can keep track of them and close them when you have a resolution. You can add resolutions to a knowledge base as knowledge articles for future references. This will help save time and effort spent in working on similar issues. And you can also automate ticket closure by setting up one-time rules. So it really isn't going to steal away time from your schedule.
The policy for the free edition has been changed. Each edition (standard, professional and enterprise) is free up to a limited number of technicians and nodes. You can check out this link for more information: https://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk/free-it-help-desk-software.html
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We have Spiceworks setup. People email an address we have setup for help. Spiceworks sucks in the email and creates the ticket. Other than when we respond out of it people don't know anything about the ticketing system. You can really change how and when Spiceworks sends out emails, making it almost invisible to the end user. I recommend some type of ticketing system just for tracking purposes.
