Parature from a user's perspective
The organization I was in was used by IT as a Helpdesk tool to capture, route and track Helpdesk tickets. I believe it was only being used …
Overview
What is Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)?
Parature was a self-service customer support platform providing a self-service knowledge base to connect with customers across multiple channels, including email, the web, chat or social media. The company was acquired by Microsoft in January 2014 and reached EOL in…
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What is Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)?
Parature was a self-service customer support platform providing a self-service knowledge base to connect with customers across multiple channels, including email, the web, chat or social media. The company was acquired by Microsoft in January 2014 and reached EOL in 2017. Former users are…
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What is Spiceworks Help Desk?
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What is Salesforce Service Cloud?
Service Cloud is a customer service platform that helps businesses manage and resolve customer inquiries and issues. It provides tools for case management, knowledge base, omni-channel support, automation, and analytics, enabling companies to deliver exceptional customer service experiences.
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What is Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)?
Parature was a self-service customer support platform providing a self-service knowledge base to connect with customers across multiple channels, including email, the web, chat or social media. The company was acquired by Microsoft in January 2014 and reached EOL in 2017. Former users are encouraged to migrate to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued) Competitors
Microsoft Parature (Discontinued) Technical Details
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
|---|---|
| Mobile Application | No |
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Reviews
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December 18, 2014
Flexible, Expandable, Full Featured Customer Support Portal
Parature is used primarily by the Customer Support team to support users of our Resource Manager, Analytics, and Impact solutions. It is also used by our sales engineers during evaluations, our professional services group, and engineering team. We leverage the "Download Manager" capability for software entitlement and delivery. In addition we make heavy use of the Knowledge Base module to provide customer self-service.
- Parature ia an "All-in-One" solution that does most aspects very well. For us the key differentiator was the "Download Module". We provide our software electronically and we were able to use the Parature API to integrate with our entitlement systems to provide software delivery for our customers.
- The Ticketing Module is top notch and is completely customizable. It has a very powerful workflow system which includes routing rules and time based triggers giving you a lot of flexibility when designing the process.
- While not a feature of the product, the Customer Support team at Parature is top-notch. I don't need to contact them often, but when I do the replies are swift and detailed.
- The Forums Module is minimally functional and not well thought out - it seems more like an afterthought to the solution. We do use this module, but as a broadcast-only system for product updates and other alerts. It works well in this limited capacity.
- If you make heavy use of the Download Module you will find that you cannot "link" files into different folder structure. Our software is delivered in modules, some of which are common across product lines. I have to upload the same file multiple times in order to make it available in the various folder hierarchies.
- The WYSIWYG editor is a bit cumbersome, and often inserts a lot of extraneous HTML. This is particularly difficult in the KB Module when authoring large documents.
- There is a character limitation in the Ticket Module that causes the reply (from either the CSR or the customer) to be attached as an HTML document after the limit is reached. The information is not lost or truncated, but is not viewable in the context of the ticketing module - you have to open another browser window.
- Customer Satisfaction has improved dramatically for several reasons. First, our prior solution was cumbersome and provided a very poor customer experience. It was also difficult to use from the CSR side. The Parature interface is clean and fast for both users and CSRs. In addition to creating a better customer experience, this allows us to process more tickets resulting in higher satisfaction. Overall, satisfaction is up approximately 60% since we deployed Parature and ticket throughput is up approximately 40%.
- The built in reporting - and optional advanced reporting - are extremely powerful. We do make use of the advanced reporting module, but 80% of the data I use to run my business comes from the built-in reports. The reports are indispensable and I rely on them to make adjustments based on many factors including ticket volume, response and resolution times, performance against SLA, and CSR performance. I've been able to increase team efficiency by about 15% using this information.
- Because Parature is used by Engineering, Sales, Services and Customer Support, there is a high level of collaboration that takes place resulting in better information sharing across the various organizations within Zenoss.
Before choosing Parature we reviewed many of the currently available solutions before building our short list of Parature, SugarCRM, Zendesk, Salesforce, and NetSuite. In the end, the licensing models for Salesforce and Netsuite eliminated them from consideration. The SugarCRM solution was our current solution, and didn't appear to be a key area of focus for Sugar (though we continue to use SugarCRM for everything except the Ticketing feature). Zendesk lacked the Download Module feature which is a critical element of our deployment.
In the end, it was Parature that addressed all of the needs we identified and did so in a single, hosted solution. It was also one of the least expensive to deploy and maintain.
In the end, it was Parature that addressed all of the needs we identified and did so in a single, hosted solution. It was also one of the least expensive to deploy and maintain.
December 18, 2014
Parature Ticketing Solution - Feedback/Review
As a technician within a college's Information Technology Support Department, we used Parature to track the issues reported by our user-base (students/staff/faculty) in order to enhance the level of service we could provide. Building a knowledge base of our most common issues with Parature allowed for faster response times, quicker problem resolution, and the proliferation of knowledge among employees.
- Clean/Friendly UI. It was extremely easy to navigate around Parature's menus at a high level, and you could take advantage of the more robust features as you became more comfortable and familiar with how Parature operates!
- Strong Knowledge Base. Writing KB articles or ticket summaries and making use of the search function within Parature allows for expedient recovery of past ticket information. Being able to search for a fix action, or at least a troubleshooting article that can guide you towards a resolution is extremely valuable.
- Enhanced Notation Capability. Being able to send/post internal or external updates to a ticket is great! You can leave the wordy technical details for other employees while making sure to communicate the high-points and fix action to the end-user.
- Integration. After working for a different tech company, I have come to realize how robust Parature really is. This comes at the cost of being able to "play nice with others". While my current company's ticketing software plugs directly into a multitude of other .NET applications as an Add-in, Parature is cut from a different cloth and has to be run independently.
- Learning Curve. As a flip-side to the "basic level" ease of use, Parature has some complex functionality to it! While a user can read through tech references and help menus all day, a more intuitive design would make it easier for things like "issue association/categorization" or "filter open tickets by -keyword- in the problem description".
- Ticket templates. While it may be in the works (or has already been implemented in some fashion), Parature did not have a template feature when I was actively using it. It would severely cut down on the time it takes to make/fill out a ticket with basic information if I could click a button for "Account Lockout" issues or to "Create New User".
- Increased Efficiency. Parature problem tracking options cut down on the amount of tickets that engineers would initiate for essentially the same issue.
- Employee On-boarding Turnaround. Parature is a relatively easy ticketing system to grasp, which makes it priceless for bringing new employees up to speed. Every minute not spent in a classroom or training environment just learning how to use the system is an extra minute that an employee can be working with customers on live issues!
- Ease of Access. Having the Parature Portal makes it extremely easy to log into the ticketing system from any workstation and gain access to all the tickets that i've been working on. I am not confined to a single desktop or session, so I can gain access to my work from just about anywhere!
Parature comes in at just the right blend between ticketing solutions like Ceridian and Remedy. Ceridian is a little too cut-down/simple while Remedy can be mired by its complexity. Parature shares the same features as quite a few other ticketing solutions, but hits strongly in the middle ground (ease of use, cost, customizability, etc.)