Discussion on:

What your help desk needs to do, Part 2

Jay, you nailed it. And, reporting, timely reporting, is the bread and butter and the pie. Reporting starts in the trenches, gets seen at the top of the organization and triggers activity, mostly good activity in the teams that produce change. Second is asset management, but its a distant second as far as making a healthy organization goes. Change management plus good leadership is a game-changer.

Steve Palmer
CIO, OptHome
www.opthome.com

Great article. I recently started a new job with no help desk software. Well, they had Track-it 5, but it had never been used. It is one thing I wnt ot implement. I'm considering developing my own, probably LAMP based, since I know some basic HTML and PHP, but I would consider a ready-made product.

So, anyone out there have any suggestions on software? Is there any open-source software out there?

I recently entered into the same situation that you describe above.

I was coming from a HelpSTAR environment, and have even used ManageEngine in the past, but Illient's SysAid software is truly worth its weight in GOLD.

For starters... one version is totally free, can support an unlimited number of users and can hold 100 different assets (this includes software, hardware, etc.) The free version does not have access to LDAP integration, and also will not allow use of the Manager Portal, a great quick glance reporting tool.

On the other hand, the paid version is great, offers unlimited users and assets, LDAP integration, great reporting, cost less than $2000 USD and if all of that was not enough...

Illient's support team is by far one of the best group of individuals that I have worked with.

As I previously stated... Don't just try it... Buy it.

I found this list while I was researching the post:

http://www.opensourcehelpdesklist.com/

It lists a ton of open source help desk applications.

I have used IRM in the past and found it lacking. I switched over to GLPI about 2 years ago. It is open source and web based and written in php/mysql.
The good:
It has ticketing and asset management (links to ocs inventory) and many plugins to extend it.
The bad:
The developers are French and the English documentation is lacking.

It is difficult to find something that truly is a complete IT solution. I am an IT department of 1. I do a little web development, a little bit of programming, shell scripts, project management, network management, ...
I find it hard to have something that is a configuration management for knowing what server has what OS version and what patch AND can keep track of things like router and switch configs. And then also something that is geared toward software development like trac, but to handle multiple small software projects (like custom reports). And then small scale project management for things like "remote office is moving in to a new building".

We use OTRS for the last 2 years for a team of 12 people in multiple cities across Australia. Now, we can not live without it. It has all the functionality in Issue Management, including reminder, escalation, issue groups, time recording, LDAP integration, etc.

Though it lacks Configuration Management, Asset Management and Work Order Management.
If you want all those things bundle together you need to go for a big commercial vendor like CA, IBM or HP.

We have the Enteo product line (config mgmt and software mgmt), the Centennial product line (asset mgmnt), and the Service Desk line (HEAT or ITSM). We are a better solution for small or midsized companies or the smaller enterprise. We do fit into the bigger enterprise, but it takes more config and PSO time.

I have to say I like Enteo better than LANDesk in a lot of ways and Centennial is a top notch license management and discovery tool. ITSM is great is you are going down the ITIL path as the tool is almost 100% configurable.

* I work for FrontRange

...I was a project lead, looking to build up a call center. Two of the key technologies I chose for use to work with were the FrontRange Voice/IVR system and HEAT (selected over BMC SDE, RightNow and Alcatel-Lucent's contact center suite). The integration & transition from Tier 0 to Tier 1 support was fantastic and fairly easy to manage.

Everyone I worked with at FrontRange (as well as the reseller, SMA) were top-notch.

Just wanted to pass along the kudos, since you noted you worked with FrontRange.

Hi,
just to spread the good news:

All New ITIL V3-compliant Change Management Module debuts at Pink Elephant IT Service Management Conference & Expo OTRS::ITSM 2.0 first open source software to track and support change management processes and roles as defined by ITIL

http://www.otrs.com/en/news-and-press/news-details/article/itil-v3-kompatibles-it-service-management-mit-otrsitsm-2/

http://www.otrs.com/en/products/otrsitsm/

http://www.otrs.com/en/products/otrsitsm/change-management/

It's not open source, but we have some good products.

HEAT is a service desk tool that's really for the smaller helpdesks

ITSM is an ITIL based tool that does everything from ITIL ITSM, to SAM (via Centennial for discovery and Enteo for push), to License Management (Centennial)

GMEE is a CRM product that includes Case

IPCM is a VoIP product that ties into all our product line to allow things like screen pops and a more robust self service experience.

Not to sell these tools, but I gotta say I'm pretty damn proud of ITSM.

For the money that you'll spend in time, software and learning, it's such a false economy that I'm surprised that people still consider it.

Think about it.

How long would it take to develop something even basic to run your helpdesk? Even a simple product would take months. How much is your time worth?

You can buy helpdesk software that has years of product development and real-world testing, ideas and support for a few thousand dollars. With such a rich field, why would anyone even contemplate re-inventing the wheel...again...

Best regards,

Rod

Its an all in one Inventory/Network Scanning/Ticketing/Helpdesk Solution, and its free! I used to use Track-it but it was too expensive and cumbersome to deal with. Integrates with Active Directory as well.

For over ten years we used our own in house tool developed in Lotus Notes/Domino. It was great in that most of the requirements were already built into the system, i.e. email, calendaring, workflow (for work order authorizations), etc. We would still be using this tool except that we decided not to further enhance our own product but to go with a fully ITIL compliant solution and are now using LiveTime - http://www.livetime.com/webservicedesk/app . Although it's not "free" it does provides all that we need including integration with our internal systems. It's ITIL compliant, runs on multiple OS platforms, and so much more. It is hugely less expensive than a BMC (formerly Remedy/Heat) or HP solution (formerly Mercury) which those are really tailored more for larger organizations. With LiveTime we get all the stuff a large org has but wouldn't get in many of the smaller application offerings. And unlike many other offerings it's based on # of technicians and not by client licensing. Reporting metrics are excellent.

And it's not THAT expensive...On that note, ITSM (FrontRange's ITIL product) is pretty spiffy and I quite like it and the work flow engine.*

*I work for FrontRange Solutions

Does anyone know of a task management system that would escalate an issue if it hasn't been resolved by a certain time sending an email would be very helpful. I looked at some of the opensource systems, but the tasks parts seemed to be more like lists. Is there anything like this out there that would tie in to SharePoint?

In ITSM you are able to assign tasks to users or teams, use SLAs or just simple resolutions timers, and send email via Outlook integration or send notifications via the ITSM server connecting to your mail server.

We use a tool called BPD which is BPML based to do all schedule (time based) kung fu.

We do work with SharePoint. I'll stop short of saying integration, but there are a number of options open to using SharePoint in ITSM. The best, and easiest, is using a Dashboard with IE part pointing to the SharePoint Server.

I have worked with help desk systems as a user and vendor, I now work for a company that specializes in a dashboard that plugs into these tools (help desk, Asst Mgt, PBX, CMDB...). The fact that most commercial help desk tools still lack reporting and interactive dashboards is quite amazing - that's why we built ours. We understood what was needed and how it should be interacted with. The additional point I will make is that it doesn't require any coding or specialized reporting staff, sql queries, datawarehousing. We remove that dependance and allow anyone that can use a mouse to create a dashboard - in 30 seconds. Although we do not plan to address the majority of the concerns Mr Rollins states above, we are addressing the 'bread and butter' issue of the reporting and status dashboards very successfully.
This, at least alleviates the pain and cost associated with manually attempting to get around the issues of lacking reporting, but also consolidating the data into single dashboards to create useful business information.
bruce@hagridsolutions.com