IT Help Desk Software

Help Desk Software Review

2012-03-07T02:56:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Thanks for visiting my blog. Really happy to get 20,000 views just in a couple of months.

So, just sharing about my experience with this blog. I just started this blog to give a compact portal for all help desk reviews, news and everything about IT help desk software. I gradually added so many options like advertising and submitting article @ http://it-help-desk-software.blogspot.com.

I am happy to see so many people, submitted their articles and asked for advertising space here. The requests are still under moderation and you will receive a mail when confirmed.

So coming to the point, you may think why i have given the title as "help desk software review".

Yes. I dedicate this post to all my visitors to promote their help desk software or submit review about their favourite help desk.

Use the comment section to say your review. Dont forget to add the website url.

The First ManageEngine Middle East User Conference Commences in Dubai

2012-03-07T02:37:00.000-08:00

Registrants from UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and Russia Gathering to Learn about Real-time IT Management

ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, today announced the opening of its first user conference and training event in the Middle East. Bringing ManageEngine users from around the region together with the company’s product management teams and industry experts, the Middle East User Conference and Training creates a forum to discuss the state of real-time IT and to showcase how the ManageEngine product portfolio can help IT professionals and their organizations meet the needs of the evolving business world.

TeamSupport.com Powers ClinicSource.com Growth

2012-02-28T05:11:00.003-08:00

TeamSupport.com (http://www.TeamSupport.com) - the popular provider of web-based customer support and help desk software solutions - today announced a successful integration of the company's Enterprise Edition by ClinicSource.com, an innovative developer of management software for individual and group therapy practices.

Their rapidly growing user-base includes thousands of Speech Language Pathologists, Occupational and Physical Therapists, and Mental Health professionals. ClinicSource is 100% Web-based and fully HIPAA compliant.

Read more @ http://world.einnews.com/247pr/265216

Help Desk Software Review – FXF Listing & Comparison

2012-02-28T04:07:00.000-08:00

With more than 700 vendors competing in the help desk software market, ITprofessionals are in need of a single source for unbiased, in-depth informationcomparing and contrasting the wide variety of offerings.

Until now, researching the many help desk applications available has been atime consuming, arduous task. IT professionals were left to search forappropriate vendor websites, then having discovered those sites, spend valuabletime clicking through multiple pages in an effort to identify and compile theneeded information. And that was only the beginning. Having theinformation in-hand, IT professionals then worked to evaluate each offering'scapabilities against the others, stripping-away the marketing-content topick-out the core capabilities.

ITHelpDeskSoftware.com greatly simplifies the process by providing a free,central source of vendor neutral information. It organizes the research inthree main categories:

FxF Listing -- The most unique, powerful, tool provided byITHelpDeskSoftware.com is the site's Feature-by-Feature listing. It is the onlywebsite that lists help desks along with their detailed features. When usersunderstand what each help desk offers, they can make an informed purchasingdecision.

Help Desk Comparison -- Because each user's needs differ, there canbe no definition of "the best help desk software."ITHelpDeskSoftware.com lets users make their own comparison and decidewhat's best for them. FxF listings help users make quicker, easier comparisonsand identify help desks that offer the best features for the individualuser.

User Reviews -- Customer testimonials are all over vendor websites.But often, these testimonials sound like modified sales pitches. OnITHelpDeskSoftware.com, users can rant and review help desks based on theirexperience, providing a genuine insight.

Apart from these, there listed the help desk news, help desk events andconferences, informative articles & blogs.

As ITHelpDeskSoftware.com focuses on user needs, increasing user-vendorinteractions and providing valuable help desk content, its value will continueto grow.

HelpSTAR 2012 Delivers Collaborative Workflow Service Desk

2012-02-24T04:30:00.001-08:00

HelpSTAR, a leading pioneer of helpdesk software, today announced the global availability of its HelpSTAR 2012 Service Desk Collaboration Suite. HelpSTAR has set a new standard for collaborative workflow by integrating the workflow components of its award winning enterprise-class Service Desk Management solution with documentation (ECM), communication and synchronization functionality.

SaaS-based Start-up Freshdesk Refreshes Its Customer Support Platform

2012-02-24T04:25:00.001-08:00

Accel Partners-backed SaaS-based start-up Freshdesk Inc has launched what it calls ‘version 2.0’ of its helpdesk platform to make customer support more engaging, powerful and as simple as sending an email. Freshdesk is a customer support platform that allows organizations to support their customers through email, phone, website, Facebook and Twitter.

ITHelpDeskSoftware.com - All Help Desk info in one place

2012-02-21T03:02:00.000-08:00

I recently came through a website called ITHelpDeskSoftware.com. So i just want to share with you people.

You can see the website screenshot below.

ITHelpDeskSoftware.com, calling itself as the first website to perform FxF comparison of help desk softwares, provide us with some detailed information about IT help desk softwares.

In the main page itself, you can see the compare option, where you are asked to select any two help desk softwares, you want to compare with. While clicking on compare, you see a big list of feature by feature comparison report of those selected help desk softwares. You can also see the fxf listing of individual help desk softwares listed there at the website. Apart from this, you can also see help desk news, event listings, blogs and help desk articles.

It is the best place for you, if you are a consumer who is looking for help desk software reviews, or a help desk vendor who wants to promote your product or event, or a person who loves help desk researching.....,

Click here to visit the website.

Share your views about it..

BMC Acquires Numara Software

2012-02-02T23:54:00.000-08:00

We all know that BMC acquires Numara software, a provider of integrated IT management solutions for medium-sized businesses.

Sequels are so predictable. Numara products will become more and more expensive as BMC tries to recoup the acquisition costs from its newly expanded customer base. In the not-too distant future, Numara customers will be finding the price increases nudging them towards the more complicated BMC Service Management (Remedy) solution — which may or may not provide the service they need, at the price they want to pay.

There is another way…

For more info,

Check this link http://www.manageengine.com/bmc-acquires-numara/index.html

Searched Keywords for this page :bmc acquires numara, numara acquired by bmc, bmc acquired numara, bmc and numara, bmc software to acquire numara software

Promote your product here

2012-01-22T05:48:00.000-08:00

Advertise here at IT help desk software.

Display ads about your events, product, submit a press release, promote video or place your blog in our website and get more exposure and traffic.

Please fill the form below and we will contact you by email as soon as possible.

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Help Desk Tips & Tricks - Incident Management

2012-01-22T05:18:00.000-08:00

The Help Desk Tips & Tricks webinar, organized by ManageEngine will make you understand more about our Help Desk Management tool, ServiceDesk Plus and the tips to improve the performance and efficiency.

You’ll learn more about incident management in this webinar, through our ITIL ready product.

To Walk the Talk

The webinar presentation will also be covered by a complete walk-through inside the ServiceDesk Plus product which will provide you more information on the features and the benefits.

Register now for free !!!

FrontRange HEAT Help Desk Software Demo

2012-01-22T05:06:00.000-08:00

Check out the demo video of help desk software, FrontRange Heat.

About FrontRange Heat Service Provider,

"Built on more than 15 years of service management experience, award-winning HEAT help desk software integrates core service and support components into one complete help desk software solution to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency."

Perils of 'Static' Windows Service Accounts

2012-01-08T02:29:00.000-08:00

Windows Service Accounts, used by the system programs to run application software services or processes often possess higher or even excessive privileges than normal user accounts. These are indeed very powerful accounts that run critical business processes and services. Many third-party services or scheduled tasks or processes might make use of the same service account, resulting in a complex interconnection.

In many production networks, it is not uncommon to find service accounts with 'static' credentials. Service accounts are normally forgotten after configuring them initially. Passwords are not changed for ages due to the sheer complexity of the service account password reset process. The new password has to be updated in all the associated services or processes. Otherwise, many services will simply not work. Unless the administrator follows the best practice of meticulously maintaining a master list of all service accounts and their dependencies/associations, password change of service accounts will prove herculean.

Static service accounts make the enterprise a haven for hackers! Malicious programs and hacking tools can decipher the service account credentials and wreak havoc on your network. Windows Security Experts often say: "service accounts are one of the simplest ways to turn a compromise of one computer system into a compromise of an entire network".

Properly managing the credentials of Windows Service Accounts is one of the crucial aspects of protecting the Windows Network.

Manual efforts to achieve this is not only time-consuming and mind-boggling, but also error-prone. The best way to ensure security is to automate the Windows Service Account password management.

ManageEngine Password Manager Pro helps achieve this with ease.

Password Manager Pro has the ability to identify the service accounts associated with a particular domain account. While resetting the password of a domain account managed in Password Manager Pro, it will find out the services which use that particular domain account as service account. It will automatically reset the service account password when the domain password is changed.

In certain cases, services corresponding to the service accounts require to be restarted for password reset to take effect. The windows service account password reset feature of Password Manager Pro helps achieve this precisely, fully automated.

You can create scheduled tasks to change the passwords of domain accounts and their associated service accounts in fully automated fashion, in accordance with the IT policy of your enterprise. You need not worry about the service account dependencies.

Try Password Manager Pro now!

Privileged password management: Protection alone is not sufficient

2012-01-07T02:28:00.000-08:00

Privileged password management has now emerged a key aspect of IT management. With ever-increasing number of privileged identities in shared environment, protecting the administrative passwords is absolutely essential, but that alone is not sufficient. IT Managers are required to establish both 'protective' and 'detective' measures in managing administrative passwords.

While Privileged Password Management deals more with the 'protective' aspect of securely storing administrative passwords and restricting access to passwords, the 'detective' provisions to monitor password management operations and user activities are highly essential from the standpoint of preventing/identifying insider-threats and ensuring compliance to numerous industry and government IT regulations.

Password Manager Pro scores high in both these aspects - it helps protect your privileged identities and control access to the resources; it also generates real-time alerts, SNMP traps and Syslog messages whenever an activity/event - including password access, modification or any other occurrence -takes places within the ManageEngine application.

These traps/syslog messages can be sent to a third-party SIEM tool, which can thoroughly analyze and correlate the data from Password Manager Pro with other network events. This results in a more secure infrastructure with an in-depth and holistic view of overall network activity.

The auditing mechanism of Password Manager Pro is quite comprehensive. It records all operations performed by the user including the password viewing and copying operations. The list of important operations that are audited (with the timestamp and the IP address) includes:

User accounts created, deleted and modified
Users logging in and logging off the application
Resources and passwords created, accessed, modified and deleted

Upon the occurrence of any of these events, real-time alerts are generated. The integration with SIEM allows security administrators and auditors to monitor privileged account access and activities from a single console and reconcile security incidents to possible privileged access abuse. With insider threats looming large, specifically due to privileged account access, this ability to quickly understand the root of a security event makes it possible to rapidly respond to attacks and always be in complete control of the computing environment.

Try Password Manager Pro now!

An automated solution to enforce IT policy on standard password practices

2012-01-06T02:27:00.000-08:00

Growing instances of information security incidents have forced IT enterprises to put an effective IT policy in place. All such policies stress three essentials, among the numerous guidelines:

Usage of unique, strong passwords across all IT resources
Rotating the passwords at periodic intervals
Role-based access controls for IT resources

Enforcing the IT policy with respect to the privileged passwords turns out to be a daunting task to carry out manually. For instance, entering a new password that satisfies the strong password policy -- numerals, mixed case, special characters, minimum length and so on -- would be a nightmare.

Similarly, when there are too many IT resources, administrators often find it easier to assign a non-unique, same password to all the resources. Or they would prefer to recycle previously used passwords.

Above all, periodically changing the passwords on numerous resources would literally consume man-days! And to make things worse, if there is no proper password management practice in place, enforcing the above policies might result in system lockout issues and utter chaos.

By using a password management solution, you can automate the entire process of enforcing the IT policy with ease.

Password Manager Pro helps enforce the policy in more ways than one:

Once you define the password policy, Password Manager Pro automatically generates unique, strong passwords and deploys them across remote resources. It also automatically synchronizes the passwords at periodic intervals. It generates policy compliance reports prominently showing the violations.

In enterprises, different categories of administrators will just require access to the resources pertaining to their job roles alone - for instance, network administrators should be able to access only the network devices and not Windows servers. The password ownership and sharing design of Password Manager Pro precisely helps achieve this.

Password Manager Pro strengthens IT security through the usage of stronger and dynamic passwords.

Take a look at this quick video to learn more on how Password Manager Pro can help you enforce IT policy.

Don’t let your administrative passwords become Pulcinella's Secrets!

2012-01-06T02:23:00.000-08:00

If you wonder what the phrase 'Pulcinella's Secret' means, let me start with explaining that:

Pulcinella is a popular comic character in Commedia dell'Arte, a form of theatre that began in Italy in the mid-16th century. The very character of Pulcinella is his inability to keep secrets. That means, any confidential matter revealed to him would soon become an open secret. Everyone will come to know of the 'secret', but will pretend not to be knowing. So, in reality, Pulcinella's secrets are not secrets at all!

Now, coming back to the question: Do you leave your administrative passwords as Pulcinella's Secrets?

I am afraid the answer would be ‘Yes’ if you still follow the practice of keeping your administrative passwords in text files and spread sheets. Everyone will be knowing all the passwords, while you would be thinking otherwise!

Let me explain further:

Modern IT and other enterprises are heavily dependant on servers, databases, network devices, security infrastructure and other software applications for their day-to-day operations. These infrastructure are accessed and controlled through administrative passwords. Typically, the applications are used in a shared environment by a group of administrators.

The number of administrative passwords keep on growing as more and more servers, devices and applications are added to the enterprise. Administrators end up virtually struggling with a pile of passwords and face problems on securely storing, managing and sharing the passwords.

How administrative passwords are being handled in enterprises?

If truth be told, even many big enterprises do not have any effective password management system in place at all. Employees follow their own, haphazard way of maintaining the passwords; there is rarely any meaningful management

Sensitive passwords are stored in volatile sources such as text files, spread sheets, print-outs etc.,

Many copies of the administrative passwords are circulated among the administrators who require them for their job functions. The passwords thus become impersonal in the shared environment – no accountability for actions

When other members of the organization such as developers, database administrators and support personnel require access to IT resources, passwords are generally transmitted over word of mouth

The administrative passwords mostly remain unchanged for fear of inviting system lockout issues

Still worse, most resources are assigned the same, non-unique password for ease of coordination among administrators. In most of the organizations, a common administrative account is created and all the administrators use the same account to access the infrastructure - for instance 'Administrator' on Windows, 'root' on Unix/Linux, 'enable' on Cisco, 'sa' on SQL server etc.

There is rarely any internal control on password access or usage. Administrators freely get access to the passwords of all the resources in the organization

There is generally no trace on ‘who’ accessed ‘what’ resources and ‘when’. This creates lack of accountability for actions

If an administrator leaves the organization, it is quite possible that he/she may be getting out with a copy of all the passwords

So, if you follow the traditional practice of storing the passwords in text files and spreadsheets, sensitive administrative passwords will be known to everyone, much like Pulcinella’s secrets.

What is the Solution?

One of the effective ways to securely manage the administrative passwords is to store the passwords in a central, secure vault and automate password management tasks. Deploying 'Password Management Applications' or in simple words, the 'Enterprise Password Managers' can help you in controlling access to administrative passwords and in taking total control of the shared administrative passwords. Your passwords will no longer remain as Pulcinella’s Secrets.

ManageEngine Password Manager Pro precisely helps achieve this. Deploy Password Manager Pro and Stay Secure!

Do you still keep your administrative passwords in text files and spread sheets?

2012-01-06T02:20:00.000-08:00

Modern IT and other enterprises are heavily dependent on servers, databases, network devices, security infrastructure and other software applications for their day-to-day operations. These infrastructure are accessed and controlled through administrative passwords. Typically, the applications are used in a shared environment by a group of administrators.

The number of administrative passwords keep on growing as more and more servers, devices and applications are added to the enterprise. Administrators end up virtually struggling with a pile of passwords and face problems on securely storing, managing and sharing the passwords. Spreadsheets, flat files and even print-outs containing the passwords are circulated among the administrators.

This traditional practice brings with it a host of issues such as the following:

When one administrator changes a password, it should be updated in all the 'copies'; otherwise, at the most needed time, one would be trying to login with an outdated or old password!
Chances of security attacks on the IT infrastructure become very bright
The business of the enterprise would be in jeopardy as sensitive passwords remain insecure

In most of the organizations, a common administrative account is created and all the administrators use the same account to access the infrastructure - for instance 'Administrator' on Windows, 'root' on Unix/Linux, 'enable' on Cisco, 'sa' on SQL server etc.

These administrative passwords, also known as 'Shared Administrative Passwords' give unlimited access to the infrastructure to the extent that the user can do virtually anything. This practice brings along with it accountability issues since the super-user is not role-based and actions could not be traced back to a particular user.

According to a research report of Gartner, the shared accounts with superuser privileges or other high-level access rights pose a significant risk in all organizations. Passwords are shared by multiple users who are sanctioned to use those accounts, or they're managed using fragile manual processes. High risks stem from passwords becoming known to others, as well as the lack of individual accountability. (Source: Gartner, Inc., "Toolkit: Password Management Tools for Shared Accounts and Service Accounts", Ant Allan, 11 January 2007).

Also, IT Managers often wish to enforce certain standard password policies - such as usage of strong passwords, curbs on usage of obvious passwords, rotating passwords at periodic intervals etc. The traditional password management lacks provision for all of these policies.

Governmental and industry regulations prescribe severe security measures for protecting passwords and require comprehensive audit records on each and every action on the passwords. In the traditional approach, there is no way to ensure compliance to such regulations.

In short, administrators of enterprises are drowning in a pile of administrative passwords and are struggling to store and manage them securely and effectively.

The Solution

One of the effective ways to securely manage the administrative passwords is to store the passwords in a central, secure storage and automate password management tasks. Deploying 'Password Management Applications' or in simple words, the 'Enterprise Password Managers' can help organizations in controlling access to administrative passwords and in taking total control of the shared administrative passwords.

Password Manager Pro is a secure vault for storing and managing shared sensitive information such as passwords, documents and digital identities of enterprises. The benefits of deploying Password Manager Pro include:

Eliminating password fatigue and security lapses by deploying a secure, centralized vault for password storage and access
Improving IT productivity many times by automating frequent password changes required in critical systems
Providing preventive & detective security controls through approval workflow & real-time alerts on password access
Meeting security audits and regulatory compliance such as SOX, HIPAA and PCI

Allowing Temporary Access To Sensitive IT Resources

2012-01-04T04:31:00.000-08:00

Assume the scenario below:

You administer a sensitive IT resource - a database in production network containing important data. An emergency troubleshooting situation arises. A developer has to be provided time-limited, temporary access to the DBMS, say for a day.

How do you handle such a scenario?

In many organizations, the required administrative passwords are conveyed through telephone or transmitted via email. And, the administrative passwords are rarely reset. As a result, the developer will continue to have access to the production database even after completing the troubleshooting task.

These kind of practices bring with them operational and security issues and threats. The organization will become a paradise for malicious insiders and external hackers. They can easily wreak havoc on the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the organization’s information systems, resulting in huge financial losses.

A better way

Automating the privileged password management life-cycle is the best way to handle this scenario. Using Password Manager Pro, you can store the privileged passwords in a secure, centralized vault and enforce role-based access restrictions.

In addition, you can enforce the users to go through a request-release mechanism. Users requiring temporary access to a password will have to make a request, which will be approved by one or more administrators. Upon approval, the user will get time-limited access to the password. Once the user checks out a password, it will be available exclusively for his/her use till the stipulated time. After that, the user will forfeit access and also the password will be reset.

The request-release mechanism is part of access control workflow, that ensures security of highly sensitive passwords. Try Password Manager Pro now!

How do you control concurrent privileged access to sensitive IT resources?

2012-01-03T05:03:00.000-08:00

In enterprises, quite often, many administrators might be accessing a system in production environment concurrently. They might be attempting to carry out conflicting operations, unconnected tasks or even trying the same activity.

In the absence of proper planning and coordination, such concurrent access on IT resources could affect the integrity of data/information, lead to conflicts, duplication of effort and a host of other issues. For instance, two administrators might be attempting registry edits on the same system concurrently. Conflicts during this operation might lead to serious damages.

In other cases, for certain sensitive IT resources in production, there might be requirements to grant exclusive, time-limited access to a particular administrator. During that period, no one else should be allowed access to that resource.It will be very difficult to achieve the above objectives without the help of a proper tool.

One of the best ways to tackle this scenario is to control the access to privileged passwords and thereby check access to the resource. You can deploy a Shared Account Password Manager and store all the administrative passwords in a centralized repository. Administrators can be granted access to the passwords strictly based on their job responsibilities and requirements.

Password Manager Pro from ManageEngine provides a perfect solution to control concurrent access to resources and also to grant exclusive, time-limited access to administrators selectively.

Source : Password manager

The 'Access Control Workflow' feature of Password Manager pro helps achieve Concurrency Controls with ease. A specific password could be made available for the exclusive use of a particular user for a specified time during which, no one else, including the owner of the resource would be allowed to view the password.

For Example, if you specify the time period as two hours, the password would be made available exclusively for that user for two hours. Others cannot view the password during that period. After the specified time period, the password would become void and will not be available to the user. In addition, the password will be automatically randomized. Later, other users will now be able to view the passwords thereafter. In case, an emergency need arises to revoke the exclusive permission to the user, administrator can forcefully check in the password at any point of time.

Try Password Manager Pro now!

IT Help Desk Software Review - Net Help Desk

2011-12-29T01:44:00.000-08:00

Here is the review of it help desk software, net help desk.

Official Website : http://nethelpdesk.com/

Screenshot of the page :

From the Service Provider,

"Our software has been built for the needs of IT Companies and IT DepartmentsTailor and customise NetHelpDesk to meet your business needs, and not the other way around!"

Pros :

ITIL compatible
Technician Time Recording, Timesheets and Calendar.
Advanced SLA Handling with SLA Monitor for Management.
Reporting with Designer and Query Builder.

Cons :

In Net Help Desk, there is no service catalog available.
Net help desk is lacking essential feature customizations and integrations
All the advanced customizations in Net help desk requires some additional programming knowledge with expert guidance

Win Your Christmas Wish

2011-12-08T23:28:00.000-08:00

Win your christmas wish with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus....

Decorate your office this christmas, upload your pics on their facebook fan page wall and win exciting gifts from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus !!!!

Before submitting, do check the guidelines in the Picture above.

For more, visit facebook.com/servicedeskplus

Merry Christmas !!!!!

Zendesk Launches Enhanced Android Application

2011-12-08T23:17:00.000-08:00

Zendesk, a cloud-based help desk software provider, today announced a brand new version of its Zendesk for the Android mobile platform. Zendesk now runs across all Android devices, from smartphones to tablets. Through Android devices, companies will have the same visibility into Zendesk customer service activity as they would from desktop browsers, allowing them to view and manage requests while on the go.

Read the whole story @ destinationcrm.com

Download Free White Paper : Delivering the IT Service Desk of Tomorrow

2011-11-29T23:11:00.000-08:00

Delivering the IT Service Desk of Tomorrow, While Working within the Realities of Today's Constraints

Source : Help desk software

Download the white paper for free now!!!

The changing role of IT Support in businesses has made it imperative for IT service desk software to break away from the shackles of traditional IT service management.

With trends like increasing complexity of IT systems, advanced technologies on multiple service delivery platforms and an untethered mobile workforce to cater to, IT help desks need to gear up to address the challenges of the new age.

This whitepaper examines the pitfalls of traditional IT service management and offers a perspective on why on demand IT helpdesks on the cloud may just be the answer in the future. Download the white paper for free now!!!

Customer Infographics - ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

2011-11-28T04:19:00.000-08:00

View this interesting customer infographics of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, help desk software with asset management.

Know more about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus customers and how it is widely deployed across the globe in an interesting graphical representation.


View Original image : ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

"ServiceDesk Plus integrates your help desk requests and assets to help you manage your IT effectively. It helps you implement ITIL best practices and troubleshoot IT service requests faster. ServiceDesk Plus is a highly customizable, easy-to-implement help desk software. More than 10,000 IT managers worldwide use ServiceDesk Plus to manage their IT help desk and assets. ServiceDesk Plus is available in 23 different languages."

A Typical day of an IT Manager - Sean Freeman [True Story]

2011-11-08T03:37:00.000-08:00

This video shows the true story of Sean freemen, VP of IT who had to spend most of his time working on the routine IT Jobs...Finally ManageEngine for the rescue which saved him from the rat race and gave him his life back....

Here i am embedding the video from youtube. It clearly depicts the life of an IT manager before and after the usage of the best help desk software in the market, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus. Know the problems faces without using any IT help desk software and the benfits you get after buying an IT help desk software which best satifies your requirements.

Check out this interesting video and share your comments and feedbacks...

Help Desk Management with Numara Track-It!

2011-11-03T04:41:00.000-07:00

Quick overview of help desk management using Numara Track-It!.

Numara Track-It is defined in the words of the service provider as follows.

"Leading choice for small to medium sized businesses searching for helpdesk applications. Over 50,000 customer sites worldwide have installed a Track-It! help desk"

Here is the overview video of help desk management from Numara Track-It

Help Desk Software Review - Spiceworks

2011-11-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the review of help desk software, spiceworks.

Official website : http://www.spiceworks.com/

Screenshot of the page :

From the service provider,

"Join over 1,500,000 IT professionals using Spiceworks’ free network management software. This free IT management software benefits IT pros needing a complete network monitoring software solution."

Pros :

Free help desk software.
Easy to access with useful daily summary page & scanned reports.
Iphone & android mobile app

Cons :

Its not completely free. Free with ads, or $20 per month without them.
Slow interfacing
You will get instant emails to buy sponsor products of spiceworks
AVG antivirus reported that the EXE package of spiceworks has included some potentially harmful program, "HackTool. DHQ"

Welcome to Zendesk

2011-11-02T02:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the introductory video of zendesk.

Zendesk is defined by the service provider as follows....

"Web-based help desk software with an elegant support ticket system and full live chat software functionality."

Iphone Mobile Help Desk App - ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

2011-10-21T00:23:00.000-07:00

ServiceDesk Plus is now available on the iPhone. It's a simple to use app which helps the service desk staff work even on the move.

With request management going mobile, the tickets can be viewed, created and handled instantly from anywhere...

Get the App for free http://www.servicedeskplus.com/iphone

3 Ways to Improve Customer Service with Help Desk Software

2011-10-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

By Donna Gunter

When you start your online business, you have very few customer service issues. Those that do emerge can usually be handled fairly easily via email or a phone call, and you'll probably resolve most of these yourself. However, as your business grows and you begin to develop products and programs, the number of customer service issues increases, as well. You then begin to look for a way to delegate this task, but if you don't have procedures outlined for how you have handled these issues in the past, it becomes difficult to train your team on carrying out these procedures. And, without a system, it becomes difficult for you as the business owner to ensure that your team is handling these issues in the way you want them handled.

That's when a system set up using help desk software comes in handy. When you set up this software for use in your business, you are also prompted to document your procedures, your text for email responses, and create a list of common customer service questions and how to answer them.
Here are 3 ways that help desk software can help you improve your customer service:

1. Creates trackable tickets. Your help desk software should require the customer to create a ticket that is attached to her customer service issue. Rather than relying on email, at any point your customer can log into the ticket system, track the progress of her ticket, read the response to her ticket, and post a reply if needed. Now you have a documented, trackable record of all of your customer service issues, as your customer service staff's replies are embedded in this system, as well.

2. Lets customers help themselves. Once you have answered customer service issues over a period of time, you'll notice a number of questions are asked repeatedly. You can gather these questions and your responses to them and create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) portion of your ticket system so that customers can get the answers to commonly asked questions right away from your FAQ database.

3. Permits timely response to customer service issues. Your time is valuable. When business really picks up and your time is at a premium, it no longer makes sense for you to be handling your customer service issues. Your overwhelming to-do list may mean this issue slips between the cracks and is unintentionally ignored. Instead, delegate this task to a team member and provide the appropriate training. Help desk software permits you to log in and check on the reported customer service issues and ensure that they are being handled appropriately, as both the customer and staff requests and responses should be logged in this system. In this way, you can easily track any mistakes made and make corrections right away. Your team member's timely response makes your customers feel heard and supported.

Perhaps help desk software is overkill for you at the moment. However, as your business grows, you'll come to appreciate it as a valuable asset that helps you better serve your customers.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/3-ways-to-improve-customer-service-with-help-desk-software-3391422.html

About the Author

Introvert Marketing Coach Donna Gunter helps professional service businesses stop the client chase and create online businesses that drive clients to them. Want to learn specific Internet marketing strategies that can be automated to help get more clients online? Discover how to automate your marketing in this free teleclass replay, Stop Obsessing About Your Online Marketing and Automate It at http://www.EasyMarketingAutomation.com

IT Service Level Agreement

2011-10-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

This demo shows how quality service can be delivered at the right time with Service Level Agreement using ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus.

Customer Service Software - 11 Tips to Get What You Really Need

2011-10-17T22:31:00.000-07:00

By Joe Boye

Nowadays, no one understands a good, comprehensive customer service without a supporting software platform. A good Customer Service Software will allow you to address efficiently your customer issues, by registering them, assigning them automatically to the right resources, tracking their evolution until resolution, obtaining relevant metrics and creating easily a knowledge base to record known solutions to recurring issues.

If you have spent some time investigating your options in the Internet, you will by now be aware that there are plenty of alternatives to choose from, everyone of them stressing their own strengths. As the features they provide are many and their relative importance may not be completely clear to you, here is a list of the things you should really focus on when making a purchase decision:

1. The Customer Service Software you select has to be compatible with your existing IT infrastructure (computers OS, browser, e-mail technology...).

2. The solution has to be adaptable to your (presumably evolving) needs.

3. It has to be scalable, mainly if you intend to grow or if it is difficult for you to anticipate the demand.

4. If the Customer Service Software is going to be accessed directly by customers (for issues reporting, for example), check that it provides a user-friendly interface and is easy to learn and use. Otherwise, there will be resistance to its adoption and it will hamper your plans for implementation.

5. In the case mentioned above, make sure also that the Customer Service Software provides configurable filtering options that avoid one customer seeing other customer's issues with your product or service. You do not want unimportant issues reported as critical by others or issues that finally are not such, to unnecessarily change the perception of your customer about the product or service.

6. If you plan to get a free Customer Service Software solution because you prefer to give it a try and then decide if you go for the premium option, you have to take into account that you will be investing effort in installation, training, database building, historical records... you will be locked into this particular Customer Service Software and the vendor pricing schemas. Think of this and check also the conditions and cost of an upgrade. The next point may add another difficulty if you decide to change the software platform after your first try.

7. You will also be locked into a particular vendor if you choose a solution that is based on a proprietary standard. A solution that works with Open Standards is much more easy to migrate to another one if you eventually decide to change your Customer Service Software.

8. Make sure your provider offers training to the help desk staff and check which kind of technical support and maintenance it is providing once you have your software installed and running. The support should include upgrades, security patches, new training, etc...

9. Some providers offer hosting in their own machines and they may even run themselves some, if not all, help desk operations. This may save you time and money in the long term, especially if you need to build a help desk department from scratch and you prefer focussing in your core abilities.

10. If ITIL is a must for you now or you guess it may be sometime in the medium term, make sure that the solution you get is ITIL compliant.

11. When you finally reduce your list to one or two final candidates for your Customer Service Software, ask for a live demo, or even, if possible, download a free version and use it for some days to have a better understanding of its features, performance, ease of use, etc.

There are important advantages to selecting a good Customer Service Software, some of them you may not have think of yet. Check them in the Top 10 Advantages of Help Desk Applications [http://www.helpdesksolutionsallabout.com/p/help-desk-applications-10-key.html].

For more interesting details and tips about help desk solutions, their most common features, types, advantages, good practices and other resources visit our site Help Desk Solutions [http://www.helpdesksolutionsallabout.com]

Article Source: Customer Service Software - 11 Tips to Get What You Really Need

A Day in the Life of Kate - Asset Management using ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

2011-10-17T22:26:00.000-07:00

A interesting video depicting the typical day of an Asset Manager. Kate, the Asset manager uses ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to manage her IT assets seamlessly. Know more about ServiceDesk Plus at www.servicedeskplus.com

Self Service Portal and its Benefits

2011-10-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, IT customers become more demanding and expecting quick resolution of issues and frequent updation in products. To reduce the service desk pressure and to keep the help desk up and running 24x7, self service portal need to be implemented to make the users deal with incidents without the assistance of service desk.

Through web based self service portal, users can log in their requests, track the progress of their logged tickets and search solutions from the knowledge base, all without contacting the help desk team. You can even provide a personalized portal to the users allowing them to enter their personal information, chang the display language and the date and time format.

Advantages of Self service portal :

Provide enhanced user experience by making your help desk available to your end users 24x7.
Minimize the load of technicians and improve your productivity.
Users can find solutions directly from the knowledge base, without any help from the service desk.
Allow the users to submit and track the status of the requests by themself.
Human error is greatly reduced through web based self service portal.
Identify frequently used solutions and eliminate the root cause thereby increasing end user productivity.
Avoid repetitive tasks and improve deployment in more challenging tasks.

A Tale of Two Realities: IT Managers, What's Keeping You from Adopting New Technologies?

2011-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Author: ManageEngine

I had a lot of fun talking to Michael Dortch recently. For those of you who don\'t know Michael, he\'s a charismatic IT analyst who has a great perspective on IT and who likes to share it. The man\'s one of the toptweeting IT analysts and has written extensively about IT infrastructure, collaboration, and cloud computing — all of which are right up our alley at Zoho and ManageEngine.

So Michael came toPleasanton, and we talked about what is on the minds of IT managers today. Feeling Dickensian, we agreed that it is both the best of times and the worst of times for IT managers. A lot of exciting technology is making its way into business, and some of those technologies — mobile tech like smartphones and tablets, and social tech like Twitter and Facebook — are game changers. Some have introduced dramatically improved levels of productivity; others have changed entire business models.

That\'s the best-of-times view.

The worst-of-times view takes in these same game-changing technologies but looks at them from the perspective of IT professionals struggling to deal with them. How do we incorporate them into our infrastructure? How do we manage them for the enterprise? How can we make the most of them ourselves to deliver IT services more effectively and play a larger role in the delivery of value to the business and our customers?

Sure,CIO\'s are all talking about using technology to grow their businesses, improve service delivery, align more effectively with business units, become more agile, establish a common language between IT and business groups, and so on. Wow, sounds good, right? But now, turn your gaze away from the big screen. Pay attention to your colleagues behind the curtain — the ones in charge of keeping the server lights green and the networks up and running. 'It sounds nice,' they mutter, 'but it\'s not going to happen at the pace that it should.'

Why not? Well, as most industry analysts indicate and discussions with IT professionals validate, it comes down to budget and hours in the day. Most analysts say that 60-85 percent of IT budget dollars are spent on 'keeping what they have working and making what they have work together.' Not surprisingly, IT professionals spend about the same percentage of their time on the management and maintenance of existing technologies and projects — leaving virtually no time to execute the forward-thinking vision of the CIO.

Michael and I reached the conclusion that until IT organizations can get their arms around the technology they already have and until they can drive down the maintenance costs, the cool new stuff will take a backseat. It\'s a bit of a catch-22, sadly: The new technologies may very well contribute to greater productivity and lower costs but only if the IT organization can find time to explore them, envision and test new business and service delivery models, and then deploy those technologies — which, of course, they can\'t do until they can free up some time.

It would be great to get a larger population of IT professionals to weigh in on this topic. Let us know: Are you able to adopt new technologies fast enough? And if not, why not?

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/a-tale-of-two-realities-it-managers-whats-keeping-you-from-adopting-new-technologies-5244072.html

About the Author

ManageEngine is the leading provider of cost-effective enterprise IT management software and the only one making the 90-10 promise — to provide 90 percent of the capabilities offered by the Big 4 at just 10 percent of the price. The ManageEngine suite offers enterprise IT management solutions including Network Management, HelpDesk ITIL, Bandwidth Monitoring, Application Management, Desktop Management, Security Management, Password Management, Active Directory reporting, and a Managed Services (MSP) platform. ManageEngine products are easy to install, setup and use, and offer extensive support, consultation and training. More than 50,000 organizations in 200 countries, from different verticals, industries and sizes use ManageEngine to take care of their IT management needs cost effectively. ManageEngine is a division of ZOHO Corporation. For more information on ManageEngine, please visit www.manageengine.com.

ManageEngine is a trademark of ZOHO Corporation. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Cynergy Software Overview

2011-10-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the overview video of cynergy software.

Help Desk Software Review - Zendesk

2011-10-13T23:42:00.000-07:00

Here is the review of help desk software, Zendesk.

Screenshot of the page :

From the service provider,

"Web-based help desk software with an elegant support ticket system and a self-service customer support platform. Agile, smart and convenient."

Pros :

Easy and intuitive interface with self service support.
Customizable interface makes it easy to insert your own logos and branding
Zendesk has included widgets which allows you to integrate data from outside the help desk.
Iphone mobile application

Cons :

$95 a month for 5 agents (there are plans for 1 and 2 users as well) with additional charges for more than five “agents,” even on premium-level accounts.

How to Choose Your Helpdesk Software

2011-10-12T02:10:00.000-07:00

By Alex C Johnson

How you choose your helpdesk software will have an important impact on your customer satisfaction and profits. Because it is where you have all the contact with your customers and can turn them into raving fans.

You know how many various helpdesk software and services are out there, so you want to discover which one is the best for your business style and needs.

Here are some of the most common types of helpdesk software...

Web based helpdesk software
Help desk software vs. services
Open source helpdesk software
And more...

So as you see, before you choose a certain service, it's important to first choose the type of helpdesk you want your company to use.

Would you like it as a hosted software on the provider's servers that you can access from anywhere? Or do you prefer it to be hosted in-house on your own computers, which you can only access from inside your office?

Are you looking for a free helpdesk service to save money, or you don't mind paying a bit for a more reliable, more advanced solution to help your customers better?

The good news is, there some professional free helpdesk software solutions available that you can use to get the same power you'd get using most of the paid services out there.

You can find out a lot about the quality of their services easily by checking out people's reviews of each helpdesk company.

You can save yourself a lot of time this way by going with the best solution right from the start, avoiding trial and error which would cost you many customers.

By using a remote software, you can access your customer issues anytime and anywhere to easily get to their needs as soon as possible.

Would you like to discover more about the best helpdesk software solutions and how to choose the best service to help your customer better and increase your sales?

Then check out this free helpful guide on [http://www.helpdesk-software-free-tips.com]free helpdesk software to get your own professional helpdesk in just 7 minutes.

Article Source: How to Choose Your Helpdesk Software

Help Desk Software HESK

2011-10-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

This is a brief video introduction to HESK help desk software highlighting main help desk software features and work flow.

Help Desk Software - SysAid Intro Video

2011-10-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

Watch this animated 3-minutes Help Desk Software intro clip by SysAid!

This 3-scenes clip is an overview of the Help Desk Software experience, from both the end-user and IT administrator point of view.

Help Desk Software For Your Website

2011-10-07T00:52:00.000-07:00

By John Horsch

If you are offering products and services online, it will greatly help if you get to monitor the movement of sales, as well as the activity and responses of your clients. Using this type of information is greatly useful if you want to improve your business. You will discover that considering their problems and concerns will optimize your system as well as the way you do business. Here are some tips on how you can stay visible and helpful through your site.

You Can Get It for Free

There are actually plenty of help desk software that can readily be downloaded and installed into your system. These come for free, with several focusing on helping individuals customize and improve their web sites. You only need to have the system requirements to effectively upload the program. You can set up and configure a ticket-based support system or help desk for your web site to cater to your clients more effectively.

Your customers can now submit support tickets and your employees get to have a functional web-based interface to manage help desk tickets and reply to various concerns. Expect several features such as unlimited categories, unlimited personalized accounts for your employees, file attachments, canned responses, easy-to-use web interface, easy-to-translate languages, custom fields in the submit ticket form, effective ticket search capabilities, email notification of new replies and tickets and many more.

You can also customize the appearance of the help desk, editing the style, header and footer. The test can be stored in a single language file so you can translate the script, requiring you to edit only a single file. The software also comes with an install script that is responsible for the database setup so your help desk stays operational with little work. The program should be compatible with the different operating systems.

Why Your Web Site Needs It

Useful help desk software is a web-based application that is created purely to create solutions for browers. A lot of other tools began as client-server applications, with little focus on the web. However, the new approach emphasizes a powerful cross-platform format wherein you can track progress and keep in touch with your customers for full support. A reliable product also comes with a 1-year guarantee, wherein you get unlimited product support via phone or email, maintenance agreements and updates.

How Your Site Can Benefit

In a web help desk, knowledge base functionality is often built in so you can manage the creation of a database that is both expansive and searchable. Common requests with corresponding resolutions will easily be available to clients, administrators and technicians even if they browse independently. You can attach one or more files as well to every FAQ so that the knowledge base continues to grow.

Technicians and clients can benefit more by updating their knowledge constantly through email alerts and other web-based notifications. New tickets and ticket updates can immediately be emailed to the proper clients. Technicians and administrators can be alerted once jobs are still incomplete, unassigned or left unattended over a certain period of time.

You can be sure that client's concerns online are answered to very well. Scheduled tasks and other assignments are also very unlikely to be missed because of the iCalendar integration. You get full ticket information for every calendar entry.

John Horsch writes premium high quality articles ranging from Internet Marketing to Gardening. Each is researched and edited with the greatest degree of professionalism. John has been writing articles for Internet consumption since 2001. Get More Quality Articles Here: [http://johnhorsch.com]

Article Source: Help Desk Software For Your Website

Help Desk Software Customers Talk - Creative Collage Video

2011-10-07T00:39:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting collage video. Have a look at it and share your comments

Help Desk & Asset Management Software - Choosing The Right One

2011-09-28T22:20:00.000-07:00

By Natarajan Aravind

If you are to buy a HelpDesk & Asset Management software, see the following checklist before you decide on one.

Comprehensive Help Desk Functionality

A good Help Desk product can dramatically rise the productivity of the Help Desk Personnel (which in turn will rise the organisation's productivity as a whole). Computer users can be made to submit their requests by mail, phone or through the web interface provided by the product. These requests gathered centrally will be attended to by technicians (who already are automatically notified about the request). Adding memos/notes to the requests & viewing the history of Requests can help too.

Buildable Knowledge Base (KB)

Even before a complaint is registered, Users can be made to search a prebuilt KB which will result in time savings for the Help Desk Personnel. The KB will also result in increasing the first call resolutions. The Help Desk personnel should be able to add on to, edit & delete from the existing KB.

Asset Management

What is considered here as an organisation's Assets are typical hardware components like PCs, Printers, Scanners etc & Licensed Software like MS Office, Adobe Photoshop etc. The product should allow these assets to be well tracked & their records to be maintained - from their purchase till end-of-life. It should also allow easy software license tracking which will contribute to a significant cost saving for the organisation.

Contracts (AMCs) Management

Most hardware components in an IT organisation come under some Annual Maintenance Plan. The product you choose should allow you to create & maintain various AMCs with the various vendors. If the product reminds you days before a contract ends (say, through an auto-generated email), it will be an added advantage.

Purchasing

Your IT department is constantly in need of spendable Hardware (floppies, CDs, printer ribbons, printers, PCs etc) and software. All these needs will be typically taken care by a separate Purchase Department. Seamless tracking between the two departments is an essentiality which will result in getting the required needs on schedule & their optimal use. Also, see whether the product you choose lets you mail the Purchase Orders to Vendors & track them too.

Out-of-the-box

The product installation should go on like a breeze. Moreover, it should be put into operation with nil to minimum initial configuration & all the features should be inbuilt with no extra development effort.

User friendly UI

The product you are looking at should have a very user friendly client interface as it'll be used by all employees in your organisation. The UI should be simple & at the same time offer easy-to-use features. If the product is web enabled, it'll make things much more easier - any user can login from anywhere using just a browser.

Pricing & Licensing

Most Help Desk products in the market are prohibitively costly with many hidden costs associated with them. Coupled with this, the products' licensing models can be tedious to understand & implement. Make sure the product you choose offers affordable pricing with an easy licensing model.

AdventNet's ServiceDesk Plus offers to solve all the above & has much more to offer. The product is available at a very affordable price starting from $495 & there's a Free Edition too that can manage 25 Workstations. For further information, mail to sales@adventnet.com or visit http://www.servicedeskplus.com

Natarajan Aravind
Market Analyst
AdventNet,Inc.
http://www.servicedeskplus.com

Article Source: HelpDesk & Asset Management Software - Choosing The Right One

Help Desk Software Review - Sysaid

2011-09-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

Here is the review of help desk software, Sysaid

Screenshot of the page :

From the service provider,

"SysAid IT Help Desk Software provides a complete web-based solution for any IT department. Automate your service desk, control your hardware and software management, and implement effective systems monitoring."

Pros :

SysAid chat features allow users to chat with any other end-user logged into the network. Users can create service requests, access service history, and save all chats.
SysAid solutions are built on the ITIL methodology, incorporating industry best practices and customer feedback
SysAid is simple to use, yet feature-rich, to help your company better resolve IT issues in a quick and secure manner.

Cons :

Sysaid (the free version) is limited in the number of servers monitored to only 1.
Clunkiness of the UI (from the user end)
Requires some IT knowledge to set up
Tasks are handled through the Project Management which is an add-on module
Sysaid does not come as a single downloadable product. It includes addons for functions like project management, server monitoring, cmdb, change management, problem management etc with seperate incurring costs.

Help Desk Software Review - BMC Service Desk Express

2011-09-27T04:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the review of help desk software, BMC Service Desk Express.

Screenshot of the page :

From the Service Provider,

"The No. 1 choice for ITIL-aligned service management processes. Reduce complexity and make customer support, change, asset, and request management a seamless integrated process."

Pros :

Simple User Interface: reduces staff training time and speeds problem solving processes.
Built-in Process Flow Taskbar: simplifies service desk functions.
ITIL-based Incident & Problem Management Applications: speeds resolution times and identifies IT infrastructure defects.

Cons :

BMC ServiceDesk Express has some complex licensing models with additional costs for some high level functions like problem, change, knowledge management and self service.
BMC ServiceDesk Express costs more than $3, 500k for each concurrent user with basic modules plus each addons priced individually.
Pricing structure is dependent on the number of users
BMC ServiceDesk Express provides separate addons which are charged from $10 per concurrent user to more than $ 3,000

Help Desk Software Review - Helpstar

2011-09-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

Here is the review of help desk software, helpstar.

Screenshot of the page :

From the service provider,

"We’ve been in the service management solutions business since 1988. Since then, our helpdesk software has been licensed to over 3,500 organizations around the world. We help all types of businesses, ranging from those with a hundred employees to those with tens of thousands. We take pride in the fact that we are recognized as a worldwide leader inhelp desk, workflow software and business process management."

Pros :

Helpstar delivers a web portal that allows users to access the help desk from anywhere in the world.
HelpSTAR has a 45 day unconditional money back guarantee if your company is not satisfied.

Cons :

Too expensive with some incurred costs.
Lacks essential help desk integrations and customizations.

ITSM Webinar Series 3 : Improving service quality - ServiceDesk Metrics

2011-09-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

Here i am sharing information about an ITSM webinar which should not be missed by you...

"The ITSM webinar series, organized by ManageEngine, with Rob England (a.k.a IT Skeptic) as the speaker, will be presented in a 6 part series.

The third part of the ITSM series of webinars is titled "Improving service quality: Service Desk Metrics". This webinar discusses in detail about various metrics that have to kept in mind when measuring service quality.

To Walk the Talk

Rob's presentation will be followed by a brief demo of ServiceDesk Plus, wherein you will understand how to effectively achieve what was spoken during the webinar."

Check out the other Webinar series on ITIL

Help Desk Software Review - Web Help Desk

2011-09-22T02:21:00.000-07:00

Here is the help desk software review of webhelpdesk.com

Screenshot of the page :

From the service provider,

"Not all help desk software solutions are built alike. The web-based Web Help Desk user interface is a breath of fresh air — easy on the eyes and easy to deploy."

Pros :

The official website is really clear with all features listed with comparison between editions.
Provided with the online web demo with free trial option.
Fully web based help desk software
Provides integration with apple remote desktop and icalendar.

Cons :

Basic Business Impact and Urgency which determines the Priority is missing in Incident Management in Web Help Desk.
Asset Scanning is based on third party applications and it will incur extra cost to the client in Web Help Desk.
Web help desk includes remote desktop support for apple and not any other platform.

Searched Keywords : web help desk review, help desk software review, it help desk software review, webhelpdesk.com review, web based help desk software review, help desk review.

Help Desk Software Review - Service-now.com

2011-09-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the review of Service-now.com

Screenshot of the web-page :

From the service provider,

"At ServiceNow we call this new level of service IT 3.0. Born on the cloud, our IT Service Management solutions help the best IT thinkers to transform from the legacy status quo to a new level of world-class IT service."

Pros :

They are providing a wiki page with the clear explanation of all the features.
Providing all the basic help desk functions and they are categorized based on industry, roles and service based for user- friendly navigations.
Selecting an IT hero every month and providing them with complimentary passes.
Follows ITIL best practices.

Cons :

service-now needs you to install so many plugins for functions like self service, integrations and so on.
There is not even a sign up button in Service-now website and we can’t find their official pricing details anywhere
Service-now requires knowledge about JavaScript or some other scripting language to configure or enhance a mid to large sized deployment, since business rules, client scripts, and UI actions are all written in JavaScript.
service-now is provided with so many plugins for every function which need to be installed with proper guidance.

Searched Keywords : service now review, help desk software review, it help desk software review, saas help desk software review, saas help desk review, service-now.com review

How ITIL-based IT Help Desk can help Small and Medium Businesses

2011-09-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

Author: ManageEngine Zoho

Introduction:

Everybody knows Bob! Bob works in the IT department of a Financial Services company. When the Office staff have a problem, they call him and say, 'Hey Bob, I have a situation here, Can you fix it'. Bob knows all the employees by name and their assets details. He fixes all problems and runs a great show. The business is going great and the company expands adding more employees providing them more IT Services. Can Bob still run the show? Let us see how ITIL-based Help Desk Software can help Bob and businesses with IT Help Desk team similar to Bob\'s run a great show and provide uninterrupted IT services.

How ITIL can help SMBs to streamline IT Service Support?

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a framework of best practices to manage IT operations and services. Government of Commerce, UK defined ITIL in the mid 1980s for business to efficiently manage their IT environment. ITIL \'s main objective is to align business and Information Technology. ITIL\'s IT Service Support process helps organizations to efficiently manage software, hardware, and human resource services to ensure continued and uninterrupted business. ITIL defines that the core function of IT Service is to offer 'uninterrupted and best possible service' to all users. It defines 5 processes such as Incident Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, Change Management, and Release Management to offer uninterrupted and best possible service. ITIL does not mandate enterprises and organization to implement all the framework specifications. This freedom to choose is one of the prime reasons why ITIL is still very relevant even today to enterprises of all sizes. SMBs need to have a cost savings approach to ITIL implementation; this approach helps them to adopt the right features without getting caught in standards-sake ITIL implementations.
Here is an illustration that shows how SMBs can manage an IT environment with an ITIL-based Service Support solution. Consider an Office with users having IT and non-IT assets. Consider that IT and non-IT asset services are handled by the IT Support team and Quality of Service offered is at an excellent level. The Excellent QOS is an end result of the IT Support team and all the components such as IT, non-IT assets, and complete IT infrastructure functioning at their best. As shown in the illustration, all requests from users are classified as Incidents and problems, a workaround is suggested to ensure that normal operations and services are not affected. Problems are traced to their root cause and a Change is initiated to eliminate problems and related incidents. Using ITIL\'s Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change Management, the IT Support staffs continually ensure that all components perform at their best level, to contribute to the Excellent Quality of Service.

Managing Chaos with ITIL

Most SMBs start with a modest email-based IT Support setup, but as they grow and as service requests increase, the quality of service drops drastically. The IT support team gets into a fire-fighting mode, just resolving requests to avoid service failure. Without ITIL, there is no vision to proactively identify and resolve problems before it affects service and business. ITIL provides the framework or the 'common sense approach' to IT service support so that each issue is analyzed to determine the root cause. Finally, the root cause of the problem is eliminated to prevent similar problems in the future.

Steps to implement ITIL

Make a clear plan of high-level goals to be achieved with the ITIL implementation
Implement an ITIL-based Service Desk with Incident, Problem, Change, and Configuration Management

Planning your ITIL Implementation

Enterprises need to plan ITIL implementation with clearly defined short term and long-term goals. This helps enterprises to stay focused on their vision with every step and on the whole move.
A simple plan with the following key points can help SMBs to stay focused and implement ITIL successfully.

What is the Vision?
Where are we now?
Where do we want to be?
How do we get where we want to be?
Check Milestones to ensure the organization is head towards defined vision

Define Your Vision

Define high-level objectives you need to move towards.
These objectives can help you define and refine your goals.

Example

Move towards ideal minimal cost to provide the best &
uninterrupted services possible
Provide 99.9service uptime
Provide new services to users and take services to the
next level

Where We Are Now

Take a baseline statistics of Key Performance Indicators.
Track statistics and trends to measure KPI.

Example

Total number of incoming call volumes
Total number of first call resolutions
Average Service downtime in a week, month, quarter, and year.
New services introduced
Service Support staff distribution taking level1, level2, and level3 calls
Total time spent by Service Support staff by level of
issues

Where Do We Want To Be

Define specific goals to improve on Key Performance
Indicators based on the KPI statistics, define specific goals to
improve service. This can be considered as short-term goals
towards improving the service.

Example

Reduce Incoming service calls by 40/li>
Increase first call resolution rate by 20/li>
Reduce the most frequent service outage

How Do We Get Where We Want To Be

Implement ITIL process or part of the process to reach your
short term goals

Example

To reduce Incoming 40in incoming service calls
Implement a Self-service Portal with solution to common problems users can resolve themselves
To Increase first call resolution rate by 20/li>
Implement a Help Desk solution with asset management and network monitoring software to drill into problems and resolve them faster.

Check Milestones And Direction

Check Milestones and KPIs to ensure you are heading
towards your vision

Example

Define Timelines to check the impact of short-term goals on
your KPIs

Check how many users logged in to Self-service portal to solve their issues and analyze how it reduced your level1, level 2 calls.
Check if your first call resolutions rates have increased
Analyze results from User Satisfaction Survey

Implementing ITIL-based Help Desk

Enterprises can implement an ITIL based Help Desk for proactive IT service management and to reduce service downtime. Consider a financial services company with multiple teams of employees. Employees are spread across two floors and all employees have a workstation to run their applications. Employees access a shared resource pool of printers to print out cheques or transaction reports. Employees print cheques often as they sanction loans and provide financial reports to customers. Workstation or printer failure can be critical for business. Let us see how IT Help Desk staff can implement an ITIL-based Help Desk solution to identify and manage service requests, eliminate problems and provide uninterrupted service.

Incident Management

When an employee sends a request saying that he is unable to print. There can be various reasons why he is unable to print, the service staff needs to ask the right questions to understand and pin point service problems. Here are a few possibilities.

Right Questions

Is the Printer configured in his machine
What is the name of the printer he is configured to
Are the required Device Drivers working properly
Is the Toner Low in Printer
Is the Printer out of paper
Is there a Printer Paper Jams

Right Details

Requestor details
Requestor location and network connected to
Workstation details
Hardware and Software installed
Printer Status & Details
Network Status & Details

Right Answers

All the information is pulled out from the requestor and the support staff gets back to the requestor with alternative problems to print by anyone of the following options

Directing the request to another functioning printer
Configuring the printer
Restoring the printer

An incident is an event that it is not part of the standard operation. It interrupts or reduces the Quality of Service.
In this instance a single user being unable to print, this affects the user alone and might not affect business in a big way. This event only reduces the overall QOS from Excellent to Good, so this event can be classified as an Incident.

Problem Management

The Office operations are not affected in a big way by Incidents, as only a single employee is affected in this case. But when another employee or a group of employees send requests communicating that they are unable to print. In this case, when the second incident is raised, a basic check is performed with the knowledge base for matching incidents. If there are matching similar individual Incidents pointing to a single point of failure. This might be classified as a problem as it might adversely affect business as a group of employees are affected. The Support Staff must provide resolve the situation to restore the QOS. After asking the Right Questions and getting the Right Details, the support staff zero in on the problem. Say if there is a printer malfunction that is causing the problem. The printer needs to be replaced and normal operation must be restored to affected users at the earliest.

Problems Solutions

Printer not configured Configure Printer / Provide detailed steps to configure printer Printer Problems Provide detailed steps to load paper, load toner, or clear a paper jam
The main goal of problem management is to find the root cause of the problem proactively and eliminate all the related incidents. The Support staff can get back configuring the workstation or rectifying or by providing users an alternative way to print.
The goal of problem management is find the root cause of the problem and to eliminate incidents and prevent further incidents related to the problem.

Configuration Management Database

The CMDB is one integrated database that contains all the details about employees, workstations, devices, incidents, problems, changes, and complete details of all the components in business. It provides a public Knowledge base of Known errors and solutions that help employees search and resolve minor incidents themselves with out contacting the Help Desk. It provides private knowledge base for the Support Staff get detailed reports about all assets with problem history, work-around and temporary fixes.

Requestor Details

Requestor Name
Requestor Contact Details
Requestor Location
Associated priority
Associated Workstations and assets

Workstation Details

Location of workstation
Workstation type, manufacturer, vendor with complete
request history
Workstation Hardware and software details
Complete associated inventory details

Associated Assets

Associated assets details such as printers, scanners, and
webcams.
Asset Status, availability reports, and problem history

Change Management

Now employees are given a workaround to print, still the problem remains and points to the printer. A detailed report with workstation and printer problem history from the CMDB shows that the printer has been failing repeatedly. To eliminate the problem, the printer needs to be changed and replaced with a new printer to restore normal services. A change is initiated to resolve a problem and a proposal is raised to replace the old faulty printer with a new printer. A proposal to change printer is submitted for approval, the approver can be IT manager or COO based on the cost of purchase. A detailed plan is prepared to implement change with a roll-back plan acting as a safety net. After implementing the change, the requestor needs to verify that change was successful.

Steps

Explanation

Proposal for change

A proposal for change is planned based on the requestor\'s information and problem history report of the printer. The proposal for change must state, why change is required now with complete details

Evaluation of Change

The change plan is submitted to the approver and with an implementation plan that ensures minimal downtime during change. Example, if a new printer is installed and it might require printer configurations in all machines. Support staff needs to ensure that
change plan is implemented on non-business hours so that there is a minimal business impact.

Execution of Change

After the approval, the Change plan is executed

Post Implementation Review

After executing the change, approver(s) reviews the change to ensure it was successfully. Incase of an unsuccessful change the previous state is restored. If the change is successful it is approved

Close Change Request

Once the Requestors verify that implementing the change eliminated the problem. The change request is closed.
Enterprises can continually ensure excellent QOS by implementing Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change management process to efficiently and proactively handle service requests.
Summary
Growing SMB with an expanding IT environment often struggle to provide uninterrupted IT services to users. Enterprises need to adopt a standards based solution to handle their IT services.

ITIL can help IT support staff to control IT environment and provide uninterrupted IT Service at best QOS
Enterprises must adopt a cost saving approach while implementing ITIL
The Cost saving approach will help SMBs to plan and implement ITIL in the right way without getting lost in the standards
'Chaos Management with ITIL' shows how enterprises can plan and implement ITIL to proactively handle issues using Incident, Problem, Configuration, and Change Management and maintain excellent QoS.

Getting back to Bob, ITIL can help Bob manage IT Services, no matter how big his IT environment expands. It can help Bob and his team, resolve problems faster and prevent a few from even arising.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Javier Garcia Arcal for his reviews and comments.
Javier Garcia Arcal is an independent Senior ITIL Consultant, he consults for large government and private corporations in Spain. He collaborates with Nebrija University handling part time courses on PMBOK (Technology Project Management). With his extensive experience in ITIL, Javier works part time as a trainer helping aspirants take the ITIL Foundation Exam. He is a major contributor at and forum. Contact Javier Arcal at javier.arcal@gmail.com.
For comments on the White Paper get in touch with Alex D Paul at alexdpaul@manageengine.com
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/how-itil-based-it-help-desk-can-help-small-and-medium-businesses-3687758.html

SaaS Help Desk Software Reviews / Best SaaS Help Desk Softwares

2011-09-09T00:28:00.000-07:00

Nowadays, in all industries, every small and large enterprises are switching from on-premise software applications to SaaS services, of which the highest priority goes to help desk management services. Since not all the SaaS help desk softwares are efficient to meet the organizational needs, before considering any of the SaaS help desk providers, you need to carefully evaluate the SaaS help desk vendors for some key help desk features.

Here i have listed the best SaaS help desk software reviews available in the market (not specifically in any order).

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus On-Demand

" Service Desk Plus On-Demand is a SaaS help desk software with asset management that is delivered as software as a service on the cloud. Combining the SaaS advantage with a plethora of features for IT help desk management online, it enables the IT organization to provide best-in-class ITSM service to their users at unmatched value for money. By featuring the ITIL best practices that include Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, ServiceDesk Plus On-demand helps to streamline the IT processes and improve productivity."

Samanage

"SAManage is a SaaS based service desk solution that makes it easy to manage your users support requests. Users can submit new requests via email or your self-service portal, manage end-user service and support requests, collaborate with users and IT team members and deliver better IT service to your users. with no software to install, you can customize your help desk quickly and empower your users to submit support requests via the web."

Livetime

"LiveTime Help Desk is the Web 2.0 Help Desk system for small to medium organizations. Based on LiveTime Service Management platform, Help Desk provides access to many ITIL compliant service support features required to efficiently manage a modern Help Desk at a reasonable price."

Webhelpdesk

"The Web Help Desk is a high performance web application designed as a 100% browser-based solution. The Web Help Desk's browser-only focus guarantees a rich, powerful cross-platform application regardless of your operating system."

BMC Remedyforce

"With IT service management best practices built right in, Remedyforce is a smart step up for organizations that need a service desk solution. Automate your service desk processes and help your users help themselves"

Kayako

" Kayako on-demand is hosted in the kayako cloud and scales with the size of your helpdesk and organization. No need to maintain your own hardware or server administrators with latest backup and contingency technologies."

Zendesk

"Zendesk is a SaaS delivered help desk solution that provides a backend service for small to medium sized help desks. Some features include fully customisable tickets, RSS feeds for both tickets and views, tagging of all helpdesk attributes, self-service portal, tickets are email integrate, SLA tracking, knowledge base etc."

Helpdesksaas

"HelpDeskSAAS is a Help Desk Software-as-a-Service for customer service and support. It lets you to automate help desk processes, record and manage online customer requests, and assign tasks to your team members. It also enables email integrations, workflow rules, automatic notifications, client self-service portal etc.

AJhelpdesk

"AJ Help Desk SaaS provides simple and effective help desk services to your customer support system. It covers customer support, ticket system and online help depends on your business needs. AJ Helpdesk SAAS is an economic, easy to use and useful tool for the growth of all type of business."

Service-now

" Service-now is the SaaS help desk software for enterprise IT management. The application was built to support the automation of ITIL processes such as incident, problem, change, release, request and SLA management. ServiceNow redefined the service desk with intuitive usability and the introduction of social IT."

I may have missed out some best saas help desk software reviews. Please use the comments section to share some some best saas help desk software reviews. Post your suggestions and feedbacks.

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Online Help Desk

2011-08-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

The most effective way to run a help desk is only through online. Through online help desk software, you can easily run an effective and streamlined help desk for your company.

Online help desk softwares are said to be in On-demand model, ie with no software or hardware to buy, install, maintain, or upgrade, it prevents you from burdening into hardware and software maintenance processes. There is no need to download the product, rather it can be used with a single sign up to get instant access to the software.

However, there are some criterias, we need to check before buying any online help desk softwares. The three factors which is the must for any online help desk software are

Security Policy - To manage your help desk and assets without any data hacking or losing, check out security policy in any online help desk software whether it follows all the secured processes to keep your data and assets secured.

Here is the architecture of popular online help desk software in the market.

Source : Online help desk

ITIL Best Practices : Check whether the online help desk software supports ITIL compliant service modules to streamline your IT management processes, based on industry proven best ITIL practices.

User-Friendly : You need to check whether online help desk software is built with easy to use web based interface, built in features as per your business requirements with transparent pricing options.

Check out the online help desk software reviews and demo or use the trial period to know about the software, before buying it. Please share your comments, suggestions or feedbacks.

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Help Desk Solution

2011-08-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

Help desk solution is the one which helps to manage all the complex databases containing your customer details, call logs, inventory details, problems, solutions, sla and so on.

Help desk cartoons

Eventhough there are so many reliable help desk solutions available in the market, you need to decide first, whether to go for hosted or cloud based solutions, as per your business requirements. This selection is purely based on your budget and the number of employees in your organization. Cloud based help desk is best suited to small organization as well as low budget businesses whereas the hosted help desk is suited for large organizations.

However, you need to check out certain essential key features before choosing any it help desk software for your business, as per your present and future requirements. The top 5 essential features, you need to check in any help desk solution are,

Help desk solution

Storage space (memory) which fits the help desk of your organization since the storage space increase as the organization grows.
Secured FTP based file access since security is the most important factor for any help desk solution.
24*7 help desk support so that help desk can be accessed at any time.
Simple usage which help you access the help desk without any expert guidance and any kind of complications.
Free trial before purchasing the help desk solution since you can work, analyze and check whether the help desk software has the ability to improve your productivity, even before purchasing the help desk solution for your business.

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Free Help Desk Software

2011-08-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

From many IT service management providers, you can get free help desk software for effective business management at relatively no cost of service. When a product is given free, you can easily find some lack of trust and feature limitations. However, you can go for some 30 day free trial period as given by ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, before buying any help desk software for your business to achieve real profitability and efficiency.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helped them save $86,000

With reliable help desk softwares, you can get the following benefits

Effective self service portal with trouble ticket management
Email to ticket conversion
Robust Knowledge base
SLA management
Help desk integrations
Help desk with asset management software
ITIL rich features
Effective help desk reporting
Inventory management and so on.

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Web Based Help Desk

2011-08-09T05:34:00.000-07:00

Every business need help desk software to tackle customer demands and to answer their queries from time to time. It is more convenient when the help desk software is web based so that it can be accessed from anywhere and from any computer in the world.

Source : Web based help desk

In web based help desk software, all kinds of help desk features like help desk ticketing, knowledge base, self service portal, asset management, asset tracking, SLA, Po tracking, contract management etc comes web based with easy to use, user-friendly navigation.

By using the web based help desk software, you will get a professional help desk dashboard with seperate logins for admin, requester and technician for effective ticket management system included with all the help desk features.

Check out the web based help desk demo here.

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Best Help Desk Software

2011-07-26T02:05:00.000-07:00

Finding the best help desk software is really a difficult task to be done. A simple google search may show you the best help desk software to the worst one or simple and complicated help desks. So there required a detailed analysis before choosing the best help desk software for your business.

Here i am going to share about the best help desk software in the market.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Website : http://www.manageengine.com/products/service-desk

With ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, there wont be any help desk worries. It is easy to install without any expert guidance, no addons or plugins required and gives you a good user experience.

Best ITIL Help Desk Software with Asset Management

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helps you to manage your help desk tickets easily by automating processes like request routing, business rule application, SLA management and escalation management.

Best Help Desk Software Work Flow

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus have integrated asset management solution along with help desk software. Get accurate inventory of all software and hardware assets in your organization, scan and discover all your assets automatically.


Best IT Asset Management Software

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus implements ITIL best practises inbuilt into the help desk with asset management modules. IT service support modules like incident management, problem management, change management and CMDB can be implemented successfully using this best help desk software

Best ITIL Software

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus supports integrations with network monitoring software, applications management, storage device management, VoIP call & QOS monitoring, WLAN management, network configuration management, windows desktop management and so on.

Best Help Desk Software Integrations

More than 10,000 IT managers worldwide use ServiceDesk Plus to manage their IT help desk and assets. ServiceDesk Plus is available in 23 different languages.

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IT Help Desk

2011-07-05T23:58:00.000-07:00

Today's IT organizations face some countless, laborious and time consuming processes like answering phone calls, manually log problems and so on. There arises the need of IT help desk to get rid of all your IT problems and maximize your profits.

Source : IT Help Desk

Any business with no IT help desk faces some consequences like improper help desk workflow, lack of best practices to be adhered, wastage of time, no knowledge base for future reference, work pressure, confusion in ticketing systems and lack of trend & productive analysis.

IT help desk solves all those IT problems though an easy to use web based portal which satisfies all the ITIL best practices. Streamline your IT processes by converting emails into tickets automatically, tracking phone calls and web-form requests, knowledge base, self service portal, automatic request routing, business rule application, SLA management and escalation management.

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IT Help Desk Management

2011-07-04T03:49:00.000-07:00

IT help desk management is extremely essential to maximize profit of any organization and to streamline the IT processes. With automated IT help desk management in place, it becomes more easier for your IT department to carry out their responsibilities efficiently in an effortless manner.

Source : Help desk

Here are the benefits you gain with the reliable IT help desk management software like ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus.

Provide a web based interface to your company employees to raise their requests and queries.
Reduce the burden of your support staff and sys-admins to a greater extent.
Set rank, priority and criticality for the requests as they arrive and manage incidents effectively through simple to use it help desk management.
Reduce the turn around time by giving solutions to various incidents through knowledge base itself.
Define business roles, groups and assign the incidents automatically to the technicians, based on availability and other filtered criterias.
Provide a self service portal to your employees to submit their tickets, access the knowledge base and to check the status of incidents.
Define SLA and get solution to the requests within a specified period of time by managing automatic escalation practises.
Convert the solutions submitted while resolving any incident into knowledge base articles thereby preserving them for future reference.
Send automatic notifications to technician and users whenever a ticket is assigned, closed or resolved.
Get periodic help desk reports on IT help desk load, performance, SLA violation etc to do a trend analysis for future.

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Trouble Ticket System

2011-07-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

Trouble ticket system is the process of issue tracking where you can manage all the help desk requests effectively. It is otherwise called as issue tracking system, ITS, support ticket or incident ticket system.

Here is the workflow of the popular help desk trouble ticket system.


Source : Help desk

The basic steps involved in any trouble ticket system are as follows.

Technician receive ticket from customer through various mediums like telephone call, email, phone, forums, chat or web portal.
Then the ticket will be verified and all the required informations about the incident will be collected from the customer, if necessary.
Ticket will be created with all the informations provided by the customer.
Business rules, service level agreements and groups then come into action. While considering help desk softwares like ServiceDesk Plus, automatic assigning of help desk tickets and escalation management can also be facilitated.
After clearing the issue, the tickets will be marked resolved by the corresponding technician. All the steps taken in resolving the issue will be added by the technican in the trouble ticket system so that it will be added as knowledge base for future reference.

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Download IT Help Desk Software

2011-06-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

Here is one of the latest video from youtube. View this video before you download IT help desk software and feel free to share your comments here.

For more, visit help desk software

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IT Asset Management Software

2011-06-28T06:34:00.000-07:00

As a business owner, you may find difficult to manage all your IT assets. Proper management of your IT assets is required to maximize your profit by saving more money and by reducing the overall costs. Instead of using normal spreadsheets or other manual systems to manage and track your IT assets, the most preferable and effective way is to go for IT asset management software.

IT Asset management software

IT Asset management software reduces your IT costs upto 25%, thereby helping you to make better IT decisions and to gain more out of your budget. The major benefits you can get from IT asset management softwares are

You can know what you own actually. Asset management software provides you the best record of all the informations related to your IT assets, eventhough it may be hundreds or thousands.
You can get to know the ways to save money from IT asset management software which paves the way to implement software usage policies, hardware configurations and other asset processes.
It enables you to make better IT decisions by tracking all your assets, organizing all your assets inventory and by keeping track of contracts and other records.
It helps you to reduce the help desk and support costs to the greater extent by providing with the complete asset configuration which pushes a faster issue resolution.
It prevents your assets from any kind of potential risks like missing security patches or improper anti-virus or anti-spyware protection and ensure software license compliance.

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Help Desk

2011-06-13T02:56:00.000-07:00

What is help desk?

Help desk is the place where any user can get solutions for their problems. Any customer can get their issues solved through the centralized place called help desk by means of toll free number, email or website. There may be different escalation levels in any help desk where the tickets will be passed from level 1 to top levels based on the severity and priority of the incidents.


Help Desk from Flickr

Difference between help desk & service desk

Help desk is basically a part of service desk and it is an IT service meant for IT service management. It acts as a communication bridge between the users and the IT employees. Service desk follows the best practices as defined by information technology infrastructure library. It is different from help desk, call center or contact center.

Help Desk from Flickr

Importance of Service Desk

Service desk is extremely essential for comprehensive IT management. It helps to render immediate response to end-user IT problems. You can improve your productivity through the full-fledged IT help desk with well equipped technicians.

However, before purchasing any help desk, you need to check some features to check the efficiency and reliability of your help desk. As in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, your help desk should have the following features to implement ITIL best practices and to troubleshoot all your IT requests effectively.

Web-based interface
Automatic ticket routing and assignments
Email ticket creation
Service Catalog
FAQ Knowledgebase and self-service portal
Asset management and tracking
Automated Password Reset Tool
Integration with monitoring software, Remote Control, E-mails and pagers, AD Synchronization, Windows Single Sign-on and Mobile Access
Software license tracking
Purchase,contract and report management
Incident and problem management
Available in 22 languages

Help Desk

Tips before buying

There are so many help desk softwares which follows the best ITIL practices. Go through the help desk software reviews before purchasing any help desk software. There are so many websites providing some wonderful user reviews of various products. Check it out, try the demo, go through the free trial and then purchase the product for your business.

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Help Desk Software Review

2011-04-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

IT Help Desk Software

There are so many help desk softwares present in the market. Here i am going to do help desk software review of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus.

With the web based help desk software ServiceDesk Plus, you can convert all your helpdesk emails into tickets and log request for all phone calls or walk-in or web-form requests. You can even create multiple support queues and define business rules. You are provided with some default templates for placing incidents, requests, problems, resolution, reply etc.

ServiceDesk Plus provides you an auto-assign technician functionality which follows the Round Robin or Load Balancing model, and based on the availability of the technicians and criticality of the incident. You can even exclude some technicians, enable some matching criterias or assign based on the business rules.

Technicians can mark the issues as resolved, open, pending or closed thereby providing a user-friendly workflow. You can get multi site support from serviceDesk Plus which allows your business units across all the geographic areas to have a single help desk which takes into account all the different rules and regulations of each unit.

Users dont need to access the web interface to submit issues. Rather, they can use the self-service portal from ServiceDesk Plus where they can raise their request, search solution in the knowledge base or check the status of their tickets.

ServiceDesk Plus allows flexible API integration with monitoring software, Remote Control, E-mails and pagers, AD Synchronization, Windows Single Sign-on and Mobile Access.

ServiceDesk Plus Architecture

If you are looking for SaaS, you can even go for free saas help desk software from ServiceDesk Plus Ondemand.

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IT Help Desk Software Reviews

2011-02-25T02:13:00.000-08:00

Selecting a proper help desk software is extremely essential for any company which really wishes to provide best possible customer support. When you have implemented the correct solution, it not only results in reduction of response and resolution times, but also increase customer satisfaction rates and customer retention. Select a proper help desk software for your company to maximize your profits and reduce your IT costs.

Here i have listed some good it help desk software reviews(not specifically in any order).

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus :

IT help desk software

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a Web-based, easy to use Help Desk and Asset Management software whose features include contract management, software license management, network inventory management, purchasing, active directory & LDAP integrations and knowledge management functionalities. ServiceDesk Plus is a highly customizable, easy-to-implement help desk software with best ITIL practises. It also provides Hosted, SaaS Help Desk with Asset Management Suite, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus On-demand.

Zendesk :

Zendesk is the web based help desk software with support ticket system and a self-service customer support platform. Combining the fields Priority, Type (Question, Incident, Problem, Task), and Status (New, Open, Pending, Solved), and age, ZenDesk creates a score that places that ticket in order.

Sysaid :

SysAid is a suite of web-based IT software tools. It automates your processes for help desk, hardware configurations, asset monitoring, software licenses, tasks, projects and much more. By automatically scanning and testing your network, SysAid provides you with the necessary details about each machine and lets you control each one remotely.

H2Desk:

H2desk is the powerful way to provide online support to your customers. From small businesses to larger corporations, the help desk will streamline your online communication with your customers - your business will save time and money. Create, manage, and overlook unlimited staff members, departments, and tickets.

Web Help Desk :

Web Help Desk is a web-based help desk software that empowers IT help desk technicians with email-to-ticket conversion, trouble ticket email notifications, track work time, a self-service knowledge base, LDAP & Active Directory integration, and much more.

Helpstar :

Helpstar is the help desk with asset management software which specialized in tracking PC configurations and assets, manage help desk work orders, and perform reports and queries.

Spiceworks :

Spiceworks is the help desk software which lets you manage user tickets, organize your work, and assign tasks to your helpdesk team. Receive tickets via web or email, assign tickets across your IT team, create tickets while browsing network assets and track tickets by user, asset, due date & more.

Helpdesk Pilot :

HelpDesk Pilot is web based, php & mysql driven support / trouble ticket solution. Turn customer emails into tickets and each email id as a deparment. Add support members (staff) to a department. Each ticket (issue) is grouped by responses and each activity is tracked.

Numara Track-IT :

Numara Track-It is a comprehensive IT help desk software and asset management solution that allows you to cost effectively implement industry best practices, including ITIL . It helps you manage all aspects of help desk and asset management functions.

I may have missed out some other good help desk softwares. Please forgive me for that and feel free to use the comments to tell about the missed ones. Thank you ....

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How ITIL-based IT Help Desk can help Small and Medium Businesses

Introduction:

How ITIL can help SMBs to streamline IT Service Support?

Managing Chaos with ITIL

Steps to implement ITIL

Planning your ITIL Implementation

Define Your Vision

Example

Where We Are Now

Example

Where Do We Want To Be

Example

How Do We Get Where We Want To Be

Example

Check Milestones And Direction

Example

Implementing ITIL-based Help Desk

Incident Management

Right Questions

Right Details

Right Answers

Problem Management

Problems Solutions

Configuration Management Database

Requestor Details

Workstation Details

Associated Assets

Change Management