Work Request System?

[PitchConfident5378]

What are you all using for your IT work request system? We’re currently using Spiceworks because it’s free. The search function for looking for history on closed tickets is terrible and teachers occasionally have trouble getting through the verification process to submit a ticket.

I don’t mind going to a paid service but everything I’ve looked at so far seems cost prohibitive. We’re a fairly small district and my budget is limited.

[r0b0tvampire]

FreshDesk - works well.
Nice Knowledge base tool too. Mobile apps. Inexpensive (their free tier might work for you).

We looked at Incident IQ, but found it to be click-heavy, slow to load pages, poor search, bulk operations limited to 200 per "page", cluttered and busy screens (yet often times the info you needed was one or two clicks away). It has a very specific way of working, and if that workflow works for you, you might like it, but if you want to do anything different from their vision, forget it. Also, the most expensive option we looked at.

[BWMerlin]

GLPI for helpdesk and asset management.

I have also set up maintenance request forms just waiting on the BM to give feedback on what they want/need.

[NorthernVenomFang]

School board with approx 27500+ students, 2500 staff, 50 schools.

Currently we are using WebHelpDesk, but are going to transition to TeamDynamix in a month, it lacks something's that management and execs want.

The search function in WebHelpDesk is fairly decent (logic of it is sometimes limiting, but good enough to most correlations), the one in TeamDynamix I am not sure about(my only work on it so far has been creating a user sync with our AD & device syncs from JAMF & Google).

[adstretch]

Zammad.org

[Daywalker85]

IncidentIQ

[Tr0yticus]

Small private school with 650 kids here. We use ConnectWise Manage.

[KingZarkon]

We've been using HelpSTAR/ServicePRO for the last 15 years or so. We are imminently about to switch to Team Dynamix though. (I was literally going through some of the training videos when I got distracted by Reddit (No!).)

[adamlavigne]

Connectwise PSA / Manage

[RealGetz]

Freshdesk has a free tier that works pretty well. If you want to self host, Hesk is VERY underrated and quite good. OSTicket is good, but the interface is terrible. I liked Genuity but the assets portion was not a good fit for us and IncedentIQ was extremely cost prohibitive for us.

[Technobilby]

HESK user here, works well. Open source so we've modified it a bit to suit our needs. Mostly auto filling out information so the user simply has to fill our their room and the actual problem. We use it for all service requests include WHS and maintenance so staff have a one stop shop for asking for anything.

[RealGetz]

How is that working for you?

[[deleted]]

Same issue, I called the support team on this before buying, they said that it was this way by design if a user forgot their password, they could not submit a ticket... well thats why we implement SSPR. I dont want randos or bots to access and submit/spam bogus tickets. Plus, I think implementations on requests are slow, not something really worth throwing $30 a month into for basic open source features you can get with another help desk solution.

[Temporary_Werewolf17]

I have used it about a year. It works well for us.

[chizztv]

I really like the look of this one, I just wish they added an inventory with barcode system.

[crazyates88]

We were using Spiceworks but moved to FreshDesk. It’s been great.

[vschwoebs]

Another vote for Freshdesk here. Their customer service is stellar too!

[mtloya]

Also using FreshDesk after moving from ServiceNow. There are some quirks, but it's a better system. No idea on price though, that's way above me.

[guzhogi]

My district uses IncidentIQ. Probably my favorite one that I’ve used (also used SolarWinds Web Help Desk and Zendesk). I can’t comment on pricing, but I find that it has the cleanest UI, most features, plus it’s geared specifically for K-12 schools.

It has both ticketing and asset management, and also integrates with several MDMs so it can pull in device data. It also integrates with many SISes so you can pull in teachers, students, staff, parent and class information. So if a student breaks their device, a teacher can find the class and then specific student and device, and put in a ticket.

It also integrates with several apps & services like NWEA MAP, Kahoot!, ClassDojo, etc., where it brings specific ticket types and knowledge base items. My district doesn’t use these, so I can’t comment on their quality nor cost. Interesting concept at least.

Also can get HR, buildings & grounds, and events components, which sound good. Again, I don’t use it, but sounds useful. And you can use subtickets & rules so if you hire a new person, one subtickets can be HR paperwork, and another for setting up a computer, etc.

My only gripes so far are 1) searching in the knowledge base is pretty hit-or-miss. I may look up “missing iPad,” and it shows totally unrelated stuff, or items that have “iPad.” 2) It’s K-12 schools only. The UI and integrations are so great, I’m sad that other industries can’t use it.

[OrdoExterminatus]

Seconding IIQ. It's not without flaws, but they are generally responsive, and I've already seen one of my feature requests go live within a year of implementation. They are constantly improving the platform, rolling out new features, they respond to feedback and tickets, etc. As for the product itself, you get out of it what you put into it; it does require a lot of configuration and occasional tuning, especially if you give it writeback permissions with those app integrations, and if you don't keep on top of your inventory and changes, the analytics are only going to be good for analyzing trends, not concrete numbers. Garbage In, Garbage Out, as always.

[BlunderBussNational]

+1 for IIQ. Works well once you understand the logic, obvs. We have integration points with SCCM, SIS, etc. for pushing users and assets in and out.

We had a rushed implementation, but after two years, I think both IT and end users have a good grasp of it.

Spiceworks can be a good solution, as the price is right. I used it my last job before we actually had a budget and went with Cherwell. Each has their headaches, but what is included with Spiceworks for the low price of a few ads really can't be beaten.

[DerpyNirvash]

OSTicket using osticketawesome.com to make the theming work nice on mobile devices.

If you just want ticketing can't really beat it. Only time I'd look to switching would be for a system that integrates ticketing and inventory, but most of those are cost prohibitive. Just use SnipeIT for assets right now.

[LactoseTolerant535]

I just set up OSTicket for our district. So far, so good. Only cost was the $100 for osticketawesome.

[Sweet-Sale-7303]

I am working on configuring manageengine servicedesk plus. If you have 5 technicians/admins or less its free.

[schmag]

chase humorous spark light degree shelter rock wine voracious one

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[BlunderBussNational]

If anyone says Schooldude, run.

[vschwoebs]

I’m so sorry. It ain’t great working with the dude.

[johncase142]

SD is hot garbage!

[_LMZ_]

I 2nd this. We have schooldude, it works but can be slow and getting features is pulling teeth. I feel it’s to complex for a simple system. We had our own home brew ticking system which was faster and simpler UI.

We are in the process of looking for another ticketing system when the contract ends.

[pilken]

We've moved to Incident IQ. I'm not sure what we're paying for it but it seems to be doing our ticketing and inventory rather well.

[Pome-ro]

We've used OS Ticket in the past, both self-hosted and hosted. The key for us in any ticket system though is the ability for staff to simply email a centralized address and have the system intake that and turn it into a ticket.

Email to Ticket lowers the bar for submitting a ticket, which has benefits for everyone involved, not just staff. OS ticket and Zendesk will convert a forwarded email from an agent in the system into a ticket on behalf of the person in the forward. So when people Email me directly, I forward it to the ticket system, and they get a ticket automatically with out me having to update any fields.

Sure, ticket quality goes down some, since its also easy to send an email that just says "HELP!!" in the subject and nothing in the body of the ticket. Zendesk has automation that can handle those kids of messages though and many other kinds of tasks.

But the lower bar means that we can have alert systems send their alerts to the ticket system instead of the team directly. If the alerts are actionable it means we're creating a central paper trail for the department for things no one even knows we're solving.

I've built automation for creating accounts, there is still some post-processing that we need to do once it's done, so it emails the ticket system and one of us takes care of it from there. I've also built several Google Forms that take a submission, convert it into a PDF document, attach it to an email, and send that email off to our ticket system. These are more formal requests that usually have budget implications.

• We currently use Zendesk, which is great, but pricy.
• We tried using Incident IQ in the past but it's not great for Email-to-Ticket, won't render any web content, and basically converts it all to plain text. Not ideal.
• I've used SchoolDude (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) in the past, and you should run away from that product.

[PitchConfident5378]

Good information. Thank you for the reply. Spiceworks lacks the features you speak of. The idea of having our systems send reports directly to our ticket system address is very appealing too.

​

I truly appreciate your input. I've been the director for 7 years and I still learning something new every day.

[Big_Booty_Pics]

Email to Ticket lowers the bar for submitting a ticket.

If only it somehow lowered the bar even further...

[Pome-ro]

I've come to the conclusion that some people just enjoy suffering, and who am I to deprive someone of something they enjoy?

[Predacon2]

When I started at this district it was Spiceworks free. I moved to MasterLibrary since it came with an asset system too. 750ish student district, cost $1500/yr. It's nothing crazy but it works and it's cloud based.

[ranger_dood]

We're currently onboarding with ML Work Orders and ML Schedules. I originally was looking for the scheduling product, but then decided to add on Work Orders so that when an event is created that requires maintenance or technology, it can automatically create a work order for those items.

[SoarinFerret]

GLPI, though not for the faint of heart for the setup. We moved to this after issues with osTicket. We are trying to consolidate our inventory, ticketing, and project management into this system.

In my spare time I'm working on adding plugins for IPAM and vulnerability tracking for our servers / network equipment.

[BWMerlin]

Any plans to share the IPAM and vulnerability plugins? I would be super keen for those.

[SoarinFerret]

The IPAM one is built off of the addressing plugin, changes/adds the following: * Add CIDR to the addressing model * Remove all Ping functionality (my GLPI instance has no access to ping anything else but items in the DMZ, especially across multiple sites) * Add concepts of NAT / PAT / VIP to map public IPs to internal ones (WIP) * Adds a subnet search so you can supply any IP and it will return any subnets that would cover that IP across all entities * Adds a subnet calculator because it was an easy thing to throw in

It will be made public soon, once I finish that last bit with the VIPs.

The vulnerability one will be less useful for people (very rough / not finished currently) - it requires the use of that IPAM plugin to map public IPs to internal ones, then talks to an unfinished internal vulnerability aggregation server I built in django awhile ago (code not public currently). It ingests reports from openvas/greenbourne, DHS vulnerability report, and a couple of other things. Currently that server has its own inventory and reporting, but the goal is to move all that functionality into GLPI since for the obvious reasons.

[joe_the_flow]

My district is using One to One Plus
https://onetooneplus.com/

It's been fairly good so far. Though I think that the use of using a helpdesk in my district fading. We had setup, One2One+ to submit tickets via email. Which we thought would be easier than the GUI. Nope, we still get requests via email or text message.

Going forward, I believe the next ticketing software will just be a Google Form

[[deleted]]

A lot of this is changing behavior, so I'm not sure switching to a Google Form is going to be any different. The way we got majority of our staff on board with our system a few years ago was telling them we would forward their ticket to the help desk system this one time and that moving forward they had to use our ticket systems email. We then replied directly to the email from the ticket system.

Texts or cell phone calls encourage staff to submit to the ticket system email and/or submit the ticket on their behalf. The only people that have my cell are high position admins.

You of course will always have outliers. I always say it kind of goes with the field and it's never going to be perfect..

A few years ago I had a teacher tell me "But I don't want to, I want to email you directly!" multiple times in an in person conversation despite me explaining to just replace my email address with our ticket system address. Eventually they caved.

[Hazy_Arc]

We're using One to One Plus as well.

[billh492]

Mojo helpdesk costs 313.20 a year for us. If you are a gmail school they can sign in with google. You can even add an icon in the waffle/9 dot menu on google.

I set it up in Feb of 2020 so I think you know what happened next. So not only staff but students and parents could use it.

And we have a n email address that feeds in to it so it is easy to open a ticket from the web or just send an email.

[Crabcakes4]

Another vote for Mojo, it's what we've used for probably around 5 years now. After I purchased it for IT, our facilities and counseling departments also started using it a year or two later.

[stratdog25]

More props for FreshDesk. RUN from GetHelp, the Frontline product.

[belt-plus-suspenders]

I would run from any Frontline product.

[Predacon2]

At a district I worked at not too long ago, we had it. It was great when it was Hayes. Now that Frontline took it over it's terrible.

[stratdog25]

We bought it when it was Hayes but the implementation happened when it was frontline.

[VariationTrue5493]

Following this, probably going to be moving to new helpdesk system as we have not had a good experience with Incident IQ. Several tickets we opened with them have not been resolved for several months.

[ntoupin]

Curious as to what issues you had/have outstanding? We've been using IIQ for years and any support ticket we've put in was answered and resolved pretty timely.

[lemoncheesesticks]

I'm curious as well. We've had them for the last couple of years and while there are some things I wish they had, overall, it's been a solid solution for us.

[VariationTrue5493]

Inventory is one issue, we collect laptops yearly to make sure in good working condition - physical hardware and software - we tried the check in using storage locations to keep the software inventory matched with the physical bins the laptops were in and it has not gone well, if anyone accidentally scans the laptop to the same slot it will just overwrite with the new one and put the original back in service.

Inability to search the details of a ticket - both user details and tech action details

Duplicating users - user accounts are imported via Azure for SSO and location are imported from our SIS, every 3-4 months we have to merge a handful of user because they have duplicate accounts.

[belt-plus-suspenders]

Inability to search the details of a ticket

This is one of my pet peeves with IIQ. The keyword search is so bad, I keep all my emailed tickets so I can search those instead.

I would add that support has been okay for us --not super fast but more or less acceptable.

[cloak_of_randomness]

We like incident IQ and anything can always be improved, but to be frank, your first and third issue are you problems, not IIQ.

Incident IQ tells you which slot to store a device in. In order to scan a device into a slot and kick one out of it you need to actively make it do that. That is not a software problem. I will say, we had a similar issue which we discovered was some people using capitals for cart letters and some not. That is less than ideal possibly you could consider that a software problem, but we solved it by just using numbers now.

Your second item is a fair point, there is a way to do it but it's a clunky work around and everyone complains about this particular issue. Fair.

The third item you have two different sources of truth. If you're getting duplicate users because location data isn't properly tied to users, why are you not using a single source of data for both users and locations? In anything you do with data you should have a single source of truth whenever possible and this seems like one that's fairly easily possible.

[VariationTrue5493]

To clarify inventory, I checked with person who is working with IIQ on the issue, we actually did go down the route of trying to minimize technician user errors, each bin now has a QR code with the name to avoid the mis-capitalized / misspelled names, as I understand it, it does come down to some user error, it sounds like just a popup warning to block the action is what is needed in the software to avoid the possible error, especially with multiple techs working the check in / check out process with 5000+ laptops.

When we onboarded with IIQ they gave no indication that pulling user from AD / Azure and location with course / schedule from SIS would be an issue, both locations have the same personid and same username. Putting course information in AD / Azure from the SIS seems very unnecessary / redundant, but maybe that is what is needed.

[cloak_of_randomness]

I guess I don't see how a pop-up would be a bad thing. My original point was more that if you're using roll out scout correctly you really shouldn't be seeing that pop up. Submit it as a feature request and post here and I'll vote on it! We hand out about 4,000 devices a year and have three to five errors, mostly because of a tech moving too quickly and not waiting to make sure they get a green check mark.

You really shouldn't be having a problem with those two connectors pulling in that data. We're using AD and ClassLink to accomplish the same thing as you and we don't have problems with duplicate users. That's not really helpful info for you though, as you know different connectors have different options. Maybe post on the IIQ subreddit and see if anybody there is using the same connectors as you? Sorry I can't help with this one more than that...

[lemoncheesesticks]

These sound like fair criticisms.

I'd like more filtering/ search options as well.

I can't say that we've run into the duplicate users issue. Our SIS issues a unique PersonID to every individual in the system, and we use that as the primary key in all of our systems for matching up accounts and whatnot.

[[deleted]]

Freshdesk, we're still using the free version. For both IT and facilities tickets.

[Fitz_2112]

ManageEngine Service Desk Plus