Brightly Asset Essentials™ vs. TOPdesk

SchoolDude has been great for us to easily submit maintenance requests, keep them organized for tracking, and simple for staff to view and respond to.

Incentivized

I think TOPdesk is best fitted in small to medium businesses, if there is someone capable of programming the rule sets. Those can be hard to create properly or maintain over time. The knowledge base and Self Service Portal can provide users with some insights and help, even if the SysAdmin is unavailable at that time. I don't think it is suitable for larger companies, because I personally think it will get quite messy then.

• For maintenance requests, Dude Solutions Help Desk documents the request and then allows the custodial staff to record updates for the staff member to see. So, the request and solution are available for all parties involved.
• For building use, I find some of the features helpful including the ability to see if what you are looking for is available before you book it.
• Overall, Dude Solutions Help Desk is not difficult to use.

Incentivized

• TOPdesk provides a clean and modern interface for all of its modules. Many of the modules have a similar look and feel, which makes it easy for users to utilize each one.
• Its workflow system allows administrators and developers to define what needs to occur when certain events happen. This can ensure that processes happen in the correct sequence.
• TOPdesk includes a vast API system to allow for external systems to integrate with it, and for TOPdesk to communicate with external systems.

Incentivized

• The overall user interface is bland.
• Switching to the IT application takes opens in another tab.

Incentivized

• The requirement to fill out certain fields before a ticket can be closed can be cumbersome. This could be a requirement for some organizations though.
• The field mappings from Azure AD to user data could be a little more precise. Some of the fields just don't translate.
• When setting up the system to intake emails as trouble tickets, it can be tricky when people reply after a ticket is closed. It will create multiple tickets from this.

Incentivized

As the project manager for the system, I find it to be intuitive and helpful to keeping our technicians in the field and working rather than running back all the time for paper copies of work orders. I think once we have a solid year under our belt there are things that we can work to expand on. The technicians like it because they can look back at old work orders to see what we did in certain locations to make repairs. All the notes are contained on the system rather than relying on someone else to put them in and dig them back out. The system benefits the technicians when they use it to their advantage. We are also finding reduced calls to the office asking about work order statuses. The customers are getting real-time updates on their requests.

Incentivized

Sometimes I think some things are hard to find. I often do not know if I have to search in Settings or in Modules. In some cases the user has to do a lot of clicks for example to link a key to a user. Something could work a little smarter.

Incentivized

Like I said somewhere else in this review: the helpdesk of TOPdesk is top of the bill! In the Netherlands, that is. I can not plea for the helpdesks in other countries, but I guess the TOPdesk organization will make sure the quality of the helpdesk is the same in every country.

Incentivized

Although being a SAAS solution, TOPdesk performs pretty fast. One can imagine that any SAAS solution is slow or has hiccups, but we have not experienced such with TOPdesk. Pages load quickly, logging in goes smoothly. We have made reports on premise in the past - that always took some time, as you might expect with such complex tasks. It seems that in the SAAS solution TOPdesk somehow has managed to make it even faster!

Incentivized

I find the basic concept and use of Dude Solutions Help Desk to be good, but I think it could use an update to look and work more smoothly. The maintenance aspect of Dude Solutions Help Desk is definitely better than the scheduling tool. The maintenance request does have a decent set-up and does offer clear communication between the staff member and custodial staff. The scheduling tool needs a calendar feature and the ability to receive a notification in your calendar. Both tools do have an email service that directly sends updates to your email.

Incentivized

TOPdesk is easy to use and affordable with all the major features required for any organization to smoothly manage its services. We were not quite sure at the beginning if we should go with the TOPdesk for IT service management but we started getting used to it in just a few months. Now, after using it for 3 years, it has been a backbone tool of our organization. The customer support provided by TOPdesk is fast and reliable.

Incentivized

We had Topdesk in-house here training staff for almost a month (2-3 hour meetings 3x a week.) It was invaluable and we were able to take that training and share with the rest of our IT staff. Once implemented we were able to fly from there. The challenges we found were in how to get started. Once started the knowledge base offered from Topdesk has been invaluable.

Incentivized

Online training documentation is easy to access and consume. There is no real challenges with finding information on how to use the product and some really helpful knowledge base items that show us how valuable these options are in our own implementation of it. The online training we've used has been self driven

Incentivized

It was a challenge to port over years of the same thing and we ended up keeping old ideas in Topdesk that we will eventually weed out as time passes and we learn how users view categories and flows of tickets. Planning is key but bear in mind that just because you used to do it this way doesn't mean you still have to

Incentivized

I have used a ticketing system through FirstClass that does not come anywhere close to where SchoolDude is in ease of use and quality of a program.

Incentivized

TOPdesk was picked as our new Helpdesk solution due to the Asset Management module and the ability to integrate to Active Directory. When we work with the product demo we enjoyed the way TOPdesk does its work flow. Just about any field in the system is customizable. I have found their knowledge base of the product to be well written and up-to-date.

Incentivized

TOPdesk is very flexible and scalable. Every department in you organization can you the software. Perhaps some persons need some training, but that can be provided by TOPdesk ot some keyusers.

Incentivized

• We can calculate the need for IT workers based on work orders.
• We can track issues at buildings and what buildings may need more help.
• A simple approach where it makes it easy to get work order information rather than emails and phone calls.

Incentivized

• The self-service portal has allowed us to shift left massively. Students can find the solutions themselves very often.
• It has allowed easier collaborative working between teams.
• We are more efficient as we do not have to ask the student to repeat their question and we can record everything necessary in the incident. This provides an improved student experience as well as improved staff efficiency.