Discussion on:

help desk and asset management

I work for a small company approximately 30 PC's and around 75 servers at various locations. I am looking into automating more of my Helpdesk Staffs tasks, Web Enabled, Remote Management, basically I think you see where I am going with this. We are currently a staff of 4. I have looked into Intuit Track It and have found that while I enjoy the features I am of course looking for perhaps a less expensive solution. Any ideas suggestions would be appreciated.

With that amount of equipment I'd build my own database using MS Access.

There are quite a few open source solutions at http://sourceforge.net. I did a search for "helpdesk" and here's the link for the results. http://tinyurl.com/au6ns

Also did a search on "asset"
http://tinyurl.com/c7wyd

Free: Access database is cheap and easy way. drawback is growth and maintenance.
If your familiar with IIS or Apache I would suggest building an web server and hosting PHPhelpdesk which can be found on sourceforge.net. I have used this a couple times when looking for some design idea's.
MyHelpDesk is anothe PHP/MySQL driven platform.
$$$: I really suggest only one, AssetNavigator I have used this on about 5 projects and after testing 5-6 Asset managment systems and helpdesk solutions this one was pretty above. Its about 3.00 a seat. It it configured to track changes on users machines create asset tags for them. attach vendor information, leasing info, and has a full web based helpdesk solution that is web based or software based your choice. It tracks problomatic users and/or machines. Big or small operation this software works really good and is great at the end of year for inventory. Id be glad to get you some help if you wanna message me offline. Good Luck.

Check out this System Panel at http://www.sysbotz.com/

Goodday,presently am doing my NYSC with a company as their help desk but i want to know more about it because am a fresh graduate hungry for knowledge.thanks so much.
from Nigeria

Try the SysAid product from Ilient software. There is a free version and a pay version. We are using the free version for about 125 PCs and it does a great job. It takes some effort to set up, but I think you will find it meets your requirements. It is web based and supports remote managment.

I saw someone mention Illient's SysAid. I am currently implementing it. There's alot of great features in the software, including notification of changes in hardware and software configuration of machines, asset management and remote control. The best thing about it, FREE FREE FREE

I'm looking for the same which allows me to have a separate interface for the end-user and for the IT Staff.
I had a quick look at Adventnet (http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/service-desk/index.html) but didn't do any thorough testing yet.
Altiris is another alternative (but very expensive) I would like to implement as this houses not only the helpdesk and inventory but also contract management etc.
I'm going to look further also on http://del.icio.us/tag/helpdesk.

We're running Track-IT Enterprise for asset management and issue tracking and I'm pretty happy with it. Having an SQL database backend gives the data security and though-put that I like; 90% of our tickets come in through the automatic email system (which I think is great); and I can do all kinds of easy and interesting reports with Crystal Reports.

For remote management we're actually using Dameware v4.0. We've got 5 techs, 35 servers, and about 400 workstations (with 75% of them at remote sites) and the licensing costs for just about anything else were insane. Dameware is licensed by tech... not by client. Also has more functionality than anything else I looked at at the time (PC Anywhere, Intuit Desktop Manager, a couple of other things).

Concerning remote control and basic management of the remote computers I use Hyena (http://www.systemtools.com) with the integration of UltraVNC (http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net).
This is fairly cheap (Hyena only as UltraVNC is free) but fast, reliable, secure, easy to use and surely has enough features to do remote control.

I can only recommend this (with our without Hyena).

$200 / tech for small sites or site license for larger.

MS SQL, AD Integration and others, fast pages, assets, integrates with email for tickets.

Novo Solutions is a leading provider of scalable, easy to use web based help desk, customer support and knowledge management solutions. Check us out, www.novosolutions.com.