HappyFox is a web based customer support ticketing system hosted in the cloud. It helps track and manage all customer support requests across multiple channels like email, chats, social media and phone in a centralized ticket support system. It provides integration with other web apps like CRM, live-chats, voice and bug tracking apps. Community forums feature help customers help each other and connect. Mobile versions of Happyfox provide support on the move.
$29
per user/per month
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Score 7.9 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds
Web Help Desk is ticketing and IT asset management software. It is designed to
simplify help desk management. This solution includes built-in ticketing
management, asset management, change management, and knowledge base
capabilities.
Happy Fox works well in companies that want a full look at all of their tickets in one place. It may be better suited to smaller companies who can check or double check their tickets and have the time to spare. For bigger companies, I think there are better, more robust solutions.
SolarWinds WHD is well suited if you have a limited budget, as it costs less than many help desk software packages that are more full featured and modern in their design. It is not well suited to an environment where you want to manage inventory, users, purchases and tickets all in one package. It has an asset feature that we don't use but that looks quite limited. We track our assets and users separately from this.
Smart Rules - Easily create triggers that run based on a variety of criteria. This allows for easily moving tickets through our process. An awesome example is our manager's ability to assign tickets to technicians right from their email simply by responding to the ticket in a certain way. This prevents the opening of a web browser or the mobile app to complete basic functions. Removing one step from the process has already saved us countless hours.
Easy to use and clean interfaces all around. Whether it's the web interface, mobile web interface, or one of the mobile apps, HappyFox is all around intuitive. Plenty of things can be made to be updated in two or fewer clicks (Assigned to, due date, priority).
HappyFox allows our users to easily create tickets on behalf of customers. Any person who has previously contacted the Help Desk is stored as a contact and can be referenced again quickly.
While the portal they provide is basic, it can be quite heavily customized with color schemes and logos. Ours ended up looking better than almost anything else we host both internally and externally. It's clean, simple and provides an easy way for users to input a ticket.
Between the Smart Rules and SLAs it's easy to make sure every ticket gets the attention it deserves. Automatic reminders can be sent to technicians based on criteria. Reports can be run to ensure that service levels are being met. These two things alone have greatly increased the quality of service.
Customized reporting allows us to track our service and support better, and find where we need improvements. This allows us to constantly upgrade our service levels and keep the customers happy.
Detailed tracking and response to the end users have led to quicker remediation of tickets. We are able to see where we need a better response or where to add additional resources for support.
Overall metrics allow us to staff properly for our tickets by location and remote users.
There are a few features that I would hope to be standard that are not yet accessible. For instance, having different time zones isn't a choice, and clients aren't able to create their own reports, only staff can. So, my staff is required to run those reports for our clients.
Because of AD integration, users sometimes try logging in with their email address and not AD credentials. The user then calls stating they can't put a ticket in, it would be nice if there was a method of matching the AD Email field with a login.
Setting up new techs with the building they are responsible for can be a little messy
The way we have our implementation customized has allowed us to tailor the application to exactly how we would like to use it. We didn't have to change our procedures and fear the potential of poor adoption. Instead we customized the application to be used the way we already ran our help desk. From there on out we reaped the benefits of quicker resolutions, increased transparency, and much happier end users. After setting up Smart Rules, HappyFox does a lot of thinking for us. Tickets go where they need to go, close when they are supposed to close and even remind techs of inactivity. This removes the necessity for micromanagement, which is appreciated by our employees and managers alike
We are definitely going to be sticking with Web Help Desk for the foreseeable future since the product is very inexpensive for the features that it provides, the integration that it has with our existing systems, and the ease for managing users, assets, locations, and tickets. Web Help Desk is a great product that is backed by even better support, which is well worth looking into if you are considering moving to a new ticketing system.
The system has time and time again proven to be much easier to use and setup for both technicians and end users. It is simple enough to enter a ticket for end users, and even easier to communicate with logging back and forth because you can reply to the ticket emails to enter comments on the tickets. The technician side is a little clunky at first, but after looking at it for a few minutes it's very clear to see what you need to do to accomplish the goals. The mobile interface is snappy and responsive. It's a great product overall.
SolarWinds is a great customizable and affordable ticketing system. We use SolarWinds Web Help Desk for IT and Software Development trouble ticket tracking and resolution. The reporting that SolarWinds provides is great since it helps us discover problem areas and fix those areas so they don't keep reoccurring
Take the time to roll out a test VM to configure and make changes to before doing a live deployment, this way you don't end up with a VM that has been tweaked and re-tweaked until it's perfect and instead end up with a final, polished product. I would also recommend taking the time to read through the support forums for figuring out minor issues that may pop up, chances are that you aren't going to be the first one to encounter them. When all is said and done, SolarWinds Support is VERY responsive and you shouldn't hesitate to contact them.
HappyFox delivered a more cost effective solution and asset management had no limit. The main problem I saw with the various other services I demoed, was the up charges. The pricing seems manageable until you see that they charge for every 100 or so of this and 100 of that. HappyFox is truly a one-stop shop for us.
Web Help Desk is definitely lacking in the UI/UX department compared to most other ticketing systems I have used int he past. It's very utilitarian; however, what it lacks in UI it makes up for in extensibility and customization. The main issue that the developers need to address is the use of a Web Objects back-end.
