Microsoft Parature (Discontinued)

Works pretty well with all web browsers

Does not need a ton of training to use

Reduces the time to input and track tickets allowing the technician to do what they get paid to do, concentrate on fixing things

Keep it simple - too many ticket routing tools like this try to do too much which ends up requiring more training time to use and makes it cumbersome for the user in production

Love the fact that its web browser based but I'd love to see a Cloud Client that can be installed on the workstation so the user has a choice

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.

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".

Parature is excellent at housing information and making it accessible.

Parature is excellent for anonymous and detailed communication with students.

Parature needs to desperately make viewing student files and incident reports more seamless. Getting bounced between areas makes it very hard to manage where you are at at any given time.

Parature really needs to bring back to sanctions tab at the top of each incident report. Hiding it under the incidents tab is inconvenient and not as user-friendly.

It would be really great if Parature could have a retract button. In case a Summons or a VRA goes out and is wrong. Or at least a feature that allows the letter to be altered after it is sent out, Like housed on the Parature system and then the student sees the most up-to-date letter, and we cut down on re-sending and retracting statements made in the letter during the summons meeting.

Syncs all support emails into cases that can the be prioritized, monitored, and tracked.

Provides easy canned responses to common support questions helping save time.

Provides live chat.

Chat is not very steady. It often logs you out when you do not realize it.

Chat options, reporting, and so on are very limited.

Unfortunately, Parature's own support team is not very efficient.

Knowledge base- easy to use (as reported by our clients)

Ticketing system

Reporting- very helpful to monitor quality

Implementation- I think they have worked on improving this since we launched

Custom requests

Perhaps an interface with other business systems

It has a lot of in depth features. They are almost to many of them.

The product is not user friendly at all. This needs to be worked out if Parature is going to make its mark on the industry.

The tickets system is sloppy at times and seems to have a mind of its own.

The custom version that was created for Blackboard was so up and down it was very frustrating

The back end of Parature is very complex

I believe with some major work the product could be great.

Parature allows to mass edit tickets.

Parature will easily give you counts for each queue, folder, and sub-folders.

Parature has all the selections available to address a ticket professionally.

Parature has a mobile version that is extremely user-friendly

Once in a ticket Parature will not allow you to go to the next/previous ticket

The search options are a little broad in Parature.

Tickets sometimes default to a Work in Progress Queue (depending on your selection) without telling you.

It's functional. It does what it needs to do without too many excess frills or features.

Uptime was generally good and we were usually notified of any planned outages.

Reporting is barebones at best. If you need special reports, we had to go through Parature to have them built.

The use of frames on a website is very 1990s. It actually impacts usability of the product, especially when combined with how Parature handled sessions. An engineer could only work one ticket at a time which, honestly, isn't very realistic for a busy support team that is working on several issues at a time.

Support was often unresponsive when contacted for unplanned problems.

The knowledge base was not very friendly for clients and it provided no real encouragement for it to be used.

It took several clicks to do something as simple as edit and assign a ticket or to close a ticket.

Parature is greatly diverse in the ways that queues can be set up. With just one service, the interface can be hyper organized to handle multiple departments and can therefore cover multiple related websites at once.

The filter and drop-down settings are fantastic. When events are being held on the client's websites, we can adjust the ticket entry with fields that will help us organize questions during high traffic periods.

Individualized profile interfaces for customers let them know the status of their ticket and the visibility reduces customer confusion.

The only downside we've found to using Parature is the price per seat. Having individual seats for a whole team can become a bit costly.