Oracle Service vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)

Oracle Right (Oracle Service Cloud) was an important evolution in the group's ombudsman channel management processes. We brought the Oracle Service Cloud to digitize the processes for capturing and managing the group's ombudsman channel, no longer operating manually (MS Excel).

Oracle Service Cloud (Right Now) brought about an important evolution in the management processes of the group's ombudsman channel, where activities that were performed manually, repetitively and with risk of errors, are now operated by the Right Now platform itself, whether by API, or by automation of the tool.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• We can access the best-in-class features for cross-channel contact center management amd field service management.
• It provides a great way to mobilize agents and boost collaboration within the office which in turn improves the overall customer experience.
• Automation of back of the office repetitive tasks leading to a faster way of addressing customer concerns.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Oracle Service Cloud needs a better built in integration with Oracle Social Cloud or it needs to build in more Social network capabilities.
• SMS is handle via a third party application but could be built in as part of the product.
• The knowledge foundation product needs a better way to handle multiple languages. Currently you have to purchase an additional interface for each language. You can purchase the more expensive Knowledge Advance which does have a better language feature.

• 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
• I would like to see the UI updated. It looks old, even in the latest releases.

Incentivized

Although RightNow is extremely flexible, the flexibility comes with a price. It is often not intuitive which settings you need to change (and under which menus these setting are buried) to enable the system to do what you want. Also, sometimes the system can do things you need, but you don't initially realize it. When RightNow sells a system to a new customer, I think it should come with X hours of consulting time with a RightNow expert. The customer should be able to consult with this expert over the next year to get advice concerning how to configure the system to achieve desired needs. Often RightNow Support would just answer "no" when I asked if I could do something, but then I would find another way to achieve my goals after talking with other companies using RightNow.

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.

Incentivized

The learning curve is fairly steep; but for something that has this much capability, it's nearly impossible to make it "easy". The layout and organization are at least reasonably intuitive. The hardest part-- the "weakest link"-- is the portal development (where you can build help centers and other end-user pages.) The capabilities there are significant, but the learning curve for that part is especially steep and it takes a fair amount of expertise to be able to update it.

I give it this rating based on my experience with SNOW which I would rate lower because it is so difficult to find anything in SNOW. It might be better with more time to configure but we "had a box to check" and it met that requirement and I haven't had time to refine it.

Incentivized

We have never had issues with downtime or it not being available. Upgrades and maintenance also happens in weekends or at night.

Incentivized

We use a lot of tabs and fields on our incident workspace, which should slow the system down, but it's still quite fast, and we continue to optimize whatever is possible.

Incentivized

Technicians seem to be assessed based solely on how quickly they close the issues. I've had to reopen requests multiple times because they didn't actually solve my problem. Also, when the issue has even a moderate amount of complexity, the technicians often instruct me to "open another SR" to handle the other issue. I'm the customer, I shouldn't have to follow their processes, they should handle that for me. But even when I create the new SR, it seems like their right hand isn't talking to their left - they aren't reading back to the previous issue for context. So I get bounced around a lot, and I have to tell them how to do their job

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Most of our training was given while doing user acceptance testing, and getting the system approved by the market. When ever we were in doubt, our implementer helped us along. Later on we started exploring by our selves.

Incentivized

Work with a RightNow expert during the implementation. Explain features that would you like to have. Often, somebody who really knows the system can show you what you need to do to achieve the desired results. Where a RightNow support engineer or a consultant might say "the system can't do that," a RightNow application engineer will listen to what you need, and often come up with an alternate path to achieve it

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.

Incentivized

TCS' customers who also selected Oracle Service Cloud over Salesforce Service Cloud and GE's ServiceMax in the Mfg. vertical in which I work, did so because of the robust ability of Oracle Service Cloud and its APIs to integrate with other value-add solutions for manufacturers such as IoT applications, Big Data Analytics, and Field Service applications.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We have never had any down time, slowness or anything. Any error or instability that has occurrred has so far has been caused by user errors.

Incentivized

• Since its, it has significantly reduced our training time of new agents. What used to take 6 weeks in the class room, went to 4 weeks.
• Service Cloud allows us to easily gather data to report to the other departments quickly.

Incentivized

• Amazing impact on our Organization, we are much more organized since we implemented SolarWinds Web Help Desk
• The ROI is in the statistics! The application cost pennies to run compared to what the product will do for your organization.
• I challenge you to find a better product for the price!
• Our documentation has improved since we implemented SolarWinds Web Help Desk

Incentivized