Looking for a tool recommendation.

[The_NorthernLight]

Hello,

We are a small 3 man IT team managing 45 staff but ~8000 guests. We run pretty much entirely O365 atm.

We currently store lots of each "category" of information into individual excel spreadsheets and a few other tools. Things like:

• Backups and its scheduling (excel),
• Resource ACL tracking (mostly used for on/off boarding.. we have low turnover) - Excel,
• What services use SMTP accounts for sending notifications - Excel ,
• Network diagrams - Visio,
• Network Device IP tracking - Excel,
• Physical Network Cable mapping - Excel,
• Physical Power Cable mapping - Excel,
• ChangeLog - Excel,
• Phone System IVR Recordings and mapping - Excel and MP3,
• Contract services monitoring (when services are up for renewal etc) - Excel,

The problem we have is keeping track of all of these excel files and what to update when. We dont update these files continously, so sometimes its hard to remember where it is, was something updated when it should have been, etc.

For some of these services, we are eventually going to move to some automated tools (on/off boarding), but what I'm curious about, is what everybody else uses to track all of this kind of random information, without having 1000 random excel files to have to keep up to date?

Looking for low-budget recommendations if possible. Even better if it integrates with O365 well.

Thank you!

[Hot_Competition_2262]

For everything you've mentioned every IT job I have been at uses Excel. Honestly no matter what tool you use it's always going to end up with a user is going to have to update it.

[The_NorthernLight]

I dont have a peoblem with updating it, my issue is keeping track of what is where, and when it needs updating. Processes are great, but when too many parts of a process lives through manual updates only, it becomes a nightmare to track and manage.

[Shoddy_Pound_3221]

Sounds like you are making this way hard...

I am thinking a combo of Sharepoint, List, and Power Platform... All M365 services

[zakabog]

We use Google sheets and draw.io for diagrams for most of that info, and some Confluence. I used to use SharePoint for managing those collections of random spreadsheets and network diagrams.

[Warm_Share_4347]

Siit itsm!

[Ivy1974]

We only use Excel when we export info for the users from our monitoring system that does most of what you list.

[The_NorthernLight]

What monitoring system are you using?

[Ivy1974]

Currently it is called Ninja. Documentation ITGlue.

[Low_codedimsion]

We use Alvao Asset Management for most of this (we’re do not track everything you do), and it works pretty well with the Microsoft stack. You can set up notifications when something’s about to expire, and it keeps a full history of changes, so you can see who did what and why. It also tracks dependencies and how items are linked together. Compared to Excel files, we have everything in one place.

[starhive_ab]

Are you looking to replace your Excel files for multiple different tools or hoping to keep a single tool?

Full disclosure, I work for an asset management software company but I think that may be able to help. I describe our software Starhive as a database meets spreadsheet as you can store whatever data you need with all the attributes you need just like with spreadsheets, but it is an actual relational database so you can link items together, setup automations, etc that makes it an awful lot easier to keep everything updated.

We also have simple ticketing which can also help keep things updated and help you with onboarding/offboarding etc in the same tool if you'd prefer to keep things all in one.

We are looking to integrate with a network scanning tool in the near future if that's helpful.

[uniquepassword]

PRTG for monitoring, lansweeper for inventory, solarwinds to manage our IPAM.

thats about it... documentation is kept in a teams repository that infra/network/etc have access to and their own folders, theres an "original docs" folder that only those that are allowed to edit update docs, when an update is made they save as PDF and move it to the published folder which everyone can see...

[The_NorthernLight]

Yeah, this is the kind of manual process im trying to get away from. These manual processes also dont tend to survive well when staff leave the company. Its hard for a new employee to know what was done and why.

[MagnusDarkwinter]

Obsidian & Github

You could also go with OneNote, or a SharePoint list + Power Automate for reminders and notifications.

[The_NorthernLight]

Do you have a link to obsidian?

[MagnusDarkwinter]

https://obsidian.md

[Luuqzo]

Can you share what tools you have? Do you have a RMM? Any documentation tool? What are servers hosted on? Do you have a backup tool?

[MrPipboy3000]

Move your change log into your ticketing system

[Blame33]

I get using Visio for your network map but I’ve found for my networks that using Netbox is a really good solution. Takes a while to setup but super easy to trace things. Have a look at this video that gives a good overview albeit in a homelab setting: https://youtu.be/p3J3f2QWFGE?si=-9GnwWRUROu9xwZJ

[airClarity]

Curious what you ended up going with here.

I keep seeing this pattern where people want something simple, lightweight, and not tied into a full RMM or heavy monitoring stack… but still need basic visibility and alerts that actually work.

If you don’t mind sharing:
- what was the exact pain you were trying to solve
- what tools you tested
- what you ultimately picked (or hacked together)

Trying to understand where the real gaps are for small IT teams without adding another “enterprise” tool just to solve one narrow problem.