osTicket is an open-source help desk / ticketing platform that can create inquiries online, through email, and through phone calls.
$9
per month
Sugar Serve
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
SugarCRM offers Sugar Serve, a version of its CRM providing en emphasis on customer service automation, service case management, SLA management, customer self-service and includes the SugarBPM workflow tool to automate processes.
For beginning smaller companies that are in need of partially automating their incoming requests this product is easy to set up and will assist in structuring these request[s]. These requests can come in via email/phone or web portal. For companies that are beginning to streamline their support procedures, this tool can be a first step into automating part of these processes. This is also how user[s] should see it. It is merely a tool that can assist in structuring the incoming request flow the rest still has to be fit into business processes.
The idea of Sugar Serve, is similar to SugarCRM, so I feel more comfortable implementing it, thanks to having used SugarCRM in the past. It allows us to change and adapt the design to be able to use it according to the needs of my department and according to the goals of our company. It is a great help to have the customization that Sugar Serve offers us. If we want to connect to an external service, we just contact our IT staff to develop a module that connects internally via API.
osTicket is extremely user friendly for end users and support agents. It's very easy for new end users to put in a service request. This aspect of simplicity is important because we don't have to train new users on how to put in service requests.
Feature wise osTicket has everything you need without being overly complicated or cluttered. This is important for us because it allows for faster support times and happier end users.
Lightweight and very reliable, osTicket uses PHP and MySQL. Setup is easy and it can be hosted internally or externally web hosed. Also, since it relies on PHP it gives you flexibility to use Apache, Nginx , Lighttpd , IIS, etc.
Thriving community: the community behind osTicket is feature-wise. Which is very helpful if you have any questions.
Best of all, osTicket is completely free and open source. While they do offer pair tier cloud-hosting and enterprise support. The free version offers all the features of the paid tiers (minus hosing and support).
I am familiar with osTicket and this allow me to teach all the staff and support them whenever they have any concern regarding the usability and following processes.
osTicket has proven to be a very useful tool for the team to help support the business. Open-source was the right price point and self-hosting as mentioned was quite important (however I believe that osTicket does have a hosting solution available if needed). Jitbit was a close contender but didn't like how it doesn't separate people submitting tickets from users acting as agents. So all in quite happy with the choice.
When we had a hosted version of osTicket, we were saving some time by having them work on our setup, but we were spending a lot. Switching to our own osTicket build from their open sourcing not only saved us money upfront but we actually spent LESS time developing because we knew our ideas and didn't have to explain them to another (unrelated) party.
Creating our own ticketing infrastructure for institutional data requests has been a game changer for us. We have been able to interface with our enterprise email client and create a level of customization that meets our existing informational technology culture.
The contents managed by Excel are migrated so that employees can consult and update them at any time from the browser.
It is simple and versatile, so it can be used both by the work team and in all departments involved in the system, simplifying the management of processes, and collaboration and documentation
It allows us to check visually and comprehensively, the status of the company and each of its members in an easy-to-understand way. Which facilitates decision-making and help desk CRM integration
