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SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk
Formerly Samanage

Overview

What is SolarWinds Service Desk?

SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) is a cloud-based, multi-tenant IT service desk and asset management software for IT and enterprise service management. Samanage is on a single, always new instance of software. The service desk includes a self-service portal, service…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly known as Samanage) is a versatile software solution that caters to a wide range of use cases across …
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SolarWinds is a homerun!

9 out of 10
May 30, 2022
We use SolarWinds Service Desk for our Incident tracking and it helps to use SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) for the reporting that we must …
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Solarwinds works for us!

7 out of 10
December 15, 2020
Incentivized
It is used across the whole organization. It addresses Incident mgmt, change mgmt, purchase orders, and device management mainly for our …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 13 features
  • Organize and prioritize service tickets (95)
    9.3
    93%
  • Self-service tools (85)
    8.0
    80%
  • Asset management dashboard (80)
    6.9
    69%
  • ITSM reports and dashboards (86)
    6.4
    64%
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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is SolarWinds Service Desk?

SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) is a cloud-based, multi-tenant IT service desk and asset management software for IT and enterprise service management. Samanage is on a single, always new instance of software. The service desk includes a self-service portal, service catalog, knowledge…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.solarwinds.com/products/pri…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Features

Incident and problem management

Streamlining ticketing and service restoration processes

8
Avg 8.2

ITSM asset management

Managing all IT assets and enforcing policy rules

6.9
Avg 8.2

Change management

Ensuring standardized processes for making changes to IT infrastructure

8
Avg 8.4
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Product Details

What is SolarWinds Service Desk?

SolarWinds Service Desk, previously Samanage Service Platform, is a cloud-based service desk for IT or any other department.

A single platform for service management, IT asset management and configuration management, Service Desk is ITIL-ready and complete with Incident, Problem, Change, and Release Management capabilities. Advanced reporting modules empower users to analyze trends, monitor service quality, and continuously improve service management processes.

SolarWinds Service Desk Features

Incident and problem management Features

  • Supported: Organize and prioritize service tickets
  • Supported: Expert directory
  • Supported: Service restoration
  • Supported: Self-service tools
  • Supported: Subscription-based notifications
  • Supported: ITSM collaboration and documentation
  • Supported: ITSM reports and dashboards

ITSM asset management Features

  • Supported: Configuration mangement
  • Supported: Asset management dashboard
  • Supported: Policy and contract enforcement

Change management Features

  • Supported: Change requests repository
  • Supported: Change calendar
  • Supported: Service-level management

Additional Features

  • Supported: Self-Service Portal
  • Supported: Software and Hardware Inventory Tracking
  • Supported: Robust and Flexible Reporting
  • Supported: Knowledge Base
  • Supported: Contract and License Tracking
  • Supported: Integration with Over 200 Applications
  • Supported: Code-Free Customization
  • Supported: SLA Management

SolarWinds Service Desk Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

SolarWinds Service Desk Video

SolarWinds Service Desk Overview

SolarWinds Service Desk Integrations

SolarWinds Service Desk Competitors

SolarWinds Service Desk Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesAll
Supported LanguagesSupport for 40+ Languages

Frequently Asked Questions

SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) is a cloud-based, multi-tenant IT service desk and asset management software for IT and enterprise service management. Samanage is on a single, always new instance of software. The service desk includes a self-service portal, service catalog, knowledge base, and SLA management tool. The integrated agent-based asset management solution collects contracts and licensing data from Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix systems.

Zendesk Suite, ServiceNow IT Service Management, and Freshservice are common alternatives for SolarWinds Service Desk.

Reviewers rate Organize and prioritize service tickets highest, with a score of 9.3.

The most common users of SolarWinds Service Desk are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(161)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly known as Samanage) is a versatile software solution that caters to a wide range of use cases across different industries and departments. Users have found the platform to be extremely valuable and user-friendly, enabling them to streamline processes and improve overall efficiency.

One of the primary uses of SolarWinds Service Desk is in IT incident management, where it provides service level agreements (SLAs) and measures customer satisfaction. It helps IT teams effectively manage and resolve tickets by centralizing ticket submission, documenting tasks, and providing real-time support. Additionally, it offers comprehensive automation capabilities for accurate tracking and management of requests.

The software is also commonly used for asset management, allowing organizations to track and manage their computer inventory and device assignment. This feature proves beneficial for various departments such as Customer Support, HR, Sales, and Facilities Management to efficiently handle inquiries, track warranties, contracts, licenses, and assets. Moreover, SolarWinds Service Desk enables users to create self-service forms and checklists for streamlined onboarding processes and makes job ticketing more efficient for media management teams.

Another notable use case of SolarWinds Service Desk is its utilization as a help desk platform company-wide. It allows employees to log tickets easily, browse knowledge base articles for IT assistance, and monitor their resolution. By cataloging and prioritizing IT requests, it assists in maintaining standardized processes while also providing transparency and records for incidents, changes, and inventories.

Overall, SolarWinds Service Desk has proven its versatility by being utilized for incident management, asset tracking, knowledge base portal access, vendor management, contract management, helpdesk operations, change management, service cataloging, and more across various industries and departments. It aids in improving efficiency and effectiveness in tackling everyday problems while minimizing interruptions and optimizing workloads.

Users commonly recommend Solar Winds for several reasons. Firstly, they suggest giving Solar Winds a try as it integrates into other applications and offers a good product at a lower cost. It is particularly recommended for small teams or teams without much IT expertise.

Secondly, users find Solar Winds to be an effective ticketing system that provides an organized and efficient way to communicate and address issues with clients. This makes it a great choice for companies in need of a reliable customer support solution.

Lastly, users suggest Solar Winds for its ability to fully manage a support shop, help IT teams streamline their tasks, and create custom catalogues and workflows. They also appreciate that it provides the necessary features to implement a small CMMS system without high implementation costs.

Overall, users believe that Solar Winds is an all-in-one customizable, hosted solution that offers integration capabilities, an efficient ticketing system, and the tools needed to manage IT tasks effectively.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use SolarWinds Service Desk to keep up with help tickets from our users. Now, especially with working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been increasingly helpful to keep track of who has needed help and who still requires assistance.
  • Custom Categories
  • Time worked on each issue
  • Comments and information fields so we can keep track of work done
  • Would like previously used tags to appear as options when tagging new tickets
  • Would like to be able to add multiple assignees to a ticket
If you're in need of a tracking tool for your help desk tickets but don't have one already, SolarWinds Service Desk is great because it integrates your inventory management along with any help desk tickets related to the computers and mobile devices in your inventory.
Incident and problem management (7)
41.42857142857143%
4.1
Organize and prioritize service tickets
50%
5.0
Expert directory
50%
5.0
Service restoration
50%
5.0
Self-service tools
N/A
N/A
Subscription-based notifications
N/A
N/A
ITSM collaboration and documentation
80%
8.0
ITSM reports and dashboards
60%
6.0
ITSM asset management (3)
66.66666666666667%
6.7
Configuration mangement
100%
10.0
Asset management dashboard
100%
10.0
Policy and contract enforcement
N/A
N/A
Change management (3)
20%
2.0
Change requests repository
N/A
N/A
Change calendar
N/A
N/A
Service-level management
60%
6.0
  • This tool has greatly enhanced our productivity and tracking of user issues
We are using SolarWinds Service Desk because it was here and already integrated with our computer management inventory. We also have access to Footprints, which is used campus-wide, but SolarWinds Service Desk is better for us. It is easier to use and is connected to our inventory management.
I would like to be able to aggregate a list of previously used tags so we can more easily standardize tags that have been used across all IT users creating tickets. Other than that, it helps us keep tabs on what has been done and what still needs to be resolved.
BeyondTrust Remote Support (formerly Bomgar), Zabbix
4
The four of us that mainly use the Service desk are Technology Infrastructure, also known as Desktop Support. We provide support for the university library faculty and staff. We have one department lead, a supervisor and two non-exempt staff and all of us use Solarwinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) equally.
3
The three of us that support SolarWinds Service Desk are the department lead, supervisor and our dean. I, the supervisor, uses the service desk to manage in-house issues that need to be resolved, ongoing projects that require long term or semi-long term support and just daily tech issues that we resolve. This project lets me keep an eye on what my staff are working on and how they are progressing.
  • Inventory Control and Management
  • Project Management
  • Service Desk tickets
  • Project Management - I use this to keep track of ongoing issues and orders such as our annual budget request
  • Inventory Management - The service desk lets you tag physical computers with issues they've experienced so you can see trends in issues a particular item has had
  • Replacement Schedules - I can set purchase dates and FY refresh dates so I can easily sort all of our inventory to see what is the newest and oldest so I can find out which computers are due to be renewed
  • One of the things we have not yet utilized is tracking of overall software usage across the organization, It would be useful to see for instance, how many installs of Adobe Creative Cloud we have and within that which CC programs are being used.
Solarwinds Service Desk, formerly Samanage has changed my quality of work. Prior to having this product I was managing all of our inventory with an Excel spreadsheet that I had to manually update. The Service Desk and Inventory Management aspect has made my job easier and also allowed our Business office to do the annual inventory much easier as well. I appreciate that there is an agent that works on both Mac & PC and it is so much easier to use now than when we first subscribed to this product. I compared several similar products when initially looking for a solution for what we needed and this was by far the easiest to deploy and at the time even had a Linux agent. Thankfully, we only have a handful of Linux machines so I can manually enter those into the service desk and Inventory to keep track of them as well.
Yes
When I first started all of the computers were tracked in IRIS (SAP) as inventory assets, but changes were made so that any item under $1500 no longer counted as an asset and was dropped off the official campus inventory which left me to track all of the hundreds of computers, tablets and devices manually using Excel. This was cumbersome and had problems if users moved computers without notifying us. Even before when all of the computers were official assets that had to be manually changed as well if an item got moved. It made doing inventory a nightmare every year and I never want to go back to that!
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Third-party Reviews
For me, the single most important factor in my decision to choose this product was having an agent I could install on every computer and tablet to track who last logged in, what software is installed, which printers are connected, serial numbers and more. I tested out a number of products in my search and found that Solarwinds (Samanage) fit all of my needs perfectly and more. There are options to create your own custom fields for your inventory items, I can add in asset tags for those items that are official university assets, and being able to add in the purchase date of an item is fantastic. Other products claimed to scan the network and find all of your computers, but in my case even limiting to the IP Ranges of the buildings wouldn't work because we share buildings with other departments. I needed something that I could install on our devices to track just our items. It works beautifully both in manual install and AD Deployment of the agent.
I don't think I would change my evaluation or selection process for anything if I had to do it over. Unless there are other newer products out there that do the same thing that might have made my decision harder, but all of the changes that have come to Samanage since becoming SolarWinds have been mostly good improvements. It is harder to search by MAC addresses now, but there are work around for that and you can use wildcards to search for that string. I have been very happy with this product and hope it stays around for a very long time!
  • Don't know
No
Change management was minimal
When we implemented Samanage we had help from the Samanage team at the time to get us set up. As we were using manual tools before there were only good changes. They helped us with writing the AD Group Policy script to deploy the agent to all of our windows machines and then we had to manually install the agent on the Mac machines. This has been a live changer for us and I never want to go back to manually tracking our equipment again.
  • At the time there was also a Linux agent, trying to get that installed on the various flavors of Linux we have was not intuitive based on the directions they provided. There is no longer a Linux agent so we do have to manually track those few computers.
I appreciate the help from the Samanage team in helping us get started using this product years ago and their continued support in helping us try out all of the other features we never thought to try at the time. They regularly check in with us to see how we're doing and see if there's anything they can do to assist us further.
  • Online training
When we first purchased Samanage (now Solarwinds) they provided us with an informational training session to show us all of the basics on how the service works and showed us everything we were interested in using. There are still some areas of Solarwinds that we do not yet utilize but I know if we choose to use them in the future we would be able to schedule another session with our representative to have them show us what we need to know.
Yes
The problem was just a minor annoyance and it did get resolved. It took a while to resolve probably because it was just a minor issue and nothing that actually caused a problem. It was an issue with custom text boxes where if you hit enter it just saved rather than moved to the next line.
I have had several video chats with representatives so I could show them what we were doing and they were able to show me other ways of doing that and provide insight on other functions that we were not yet using and how they might help us as an organization. I have appreciated the hands on help from support and our representatives and it shows me they care about us as more than just a customer.
  • I love the ease of sorting columns in the inventory view
  • It is very easy to search for an item or an issue
  • Merging tickets is really cumbersome and doesn't work the way I thought they would. They just attach themselves together rather than actually MERGING the tickets.
  • Also when creating a ticket in the first place there is no way to enter time already worked until after you first create the ticket then reopen it. It's an annoyance but not a deal breaker.
  • When creating a new ticket they've recently changed the layout and adding tags is not as intuitive as it was before. I also wish there was a way to see previously used tags so we could standardize the wording of tags across all tickets.
It is very easy to create tickets and assign them to one of my employees to take care of. Some recent changes have been made to the interface when creating new tickets and it is now less intuitive on where you add tags for the ticket. I wish that previously used tags became an option to select or got automatically added as sub categories to my created categories. Overall though it is very easy to use and I am thankful we have it.
We have over 500 computers and tablets across our organization and this has helped us greatly in keeping track of where computers are and who is currently using it. I can see this product being useful to groups both larger and smaller than us and I really appreciate this product.
Because the data is stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) there are very rarely any outages. There have been some times when the product has been slow to load, but because the interface is web based it could be anything between my computer and AWS that was causing the issue. But also, because the application is web based it can be access from anywhere which makes it very convenient.
We don't integrate Solarwinds with any other software or system so I can't comment on that, but the few times there has been an outage for SolarWinds/Samanage the notification has come quickly that there is an outage and they're working on it. Overall though everything loads quickly and it is very reliable.
It has been several years now since we initially purchased Solarwinds which was known as Samanage at the time. I think the biggest problems were on our end dealing with making sure that all of our requirements were met. I know that as we grew our usage of the product we had to increase the number of licenses for admin users and the number of agents in use and all of that went very smoothly.
We have a representative that regularly contacts us to see how things are going and to check on us. It is nice to know they're there for us when we need help!
My business office handled this part of the sale so I do not know what negotiations were made.
They are people too, so as long as you remember that and talk to your representatives like people and not an organization then you should have no problem talking to them.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are currently using Solarwinds Service Desk as our IT ticketing system. We also use Solarwinds Service Desk for asset tracking. We are only using it for our IT department, but are planning to implement it for other departments in the future. The reporting features allow us to see which problems we have most often and allow us to prepare better to correct them.
  • I think the interface (Incidents Page) is easy to use and very customizable.
  • Reporting is easy to understand, and there are many pre-built reports that can be used without the user having to do much.
  • The asset tracking system allows you to create assets and assign them to particular users or locations. You can also add custom fields to make sure you have all the asset information documented.
  • I think the filters for the Incidents can be a little buggy (sometimes shows closed incidents when on the "Active Incidents" filter).
  • The reporting section was updated recently and is now much harder to navigate when trying to create custom reports.
  • If Service Desk doesn't have a function that other incident systems may have, it can take a long time (or be impossible) to have those functions added.
I actually used Solarwinds Help Desk at a previous job for about 2 years. When I started my current job, they were looking for an incident tracking system. So, I recommended Help Desk. We tried it out for a couple of weeks. Then, the company decided to go for Solarwinds Service Desk because it was cloud-based. We have been using it for almost a year.
Incident and problem management (6)
75%
7.5
Organize and prioritize service tickets
80%
8.0
Expert directory
70%
7.0
Self-service tools
80%
8.0
Subscription-based notifications
80%
8.0
ITSM collaboration and documentation
70%
7.0
ITSM reports and dashboards
70%
7.0
ITSM asset management (3)
73.33333333333333%
7.3
Configuration mangement
80%
8.0
Asset management dashboard
80%
8.0
Policy and contract enforcement
60%
6.0
Change management (3)
80%
8.0
Change requests repository
80%
8.0
Change calendar
80%
8.0
Service-level management
80%
8.0
  • Service Desk is helping us stay organized as an IT Department.
  • We are able to see what every IT employee has been working on and can help without having to be in direct contact for every incident.
  • The reporting functions allow us to see our weaknesses and prepare to resolve those issues more quickly.
For the most part, Solarwinds Service Desk and SolarWinds Web Help Desk are basically the same. Both are extremely customizable, have incident and asset tracking functions and have reporting functions. I believe the kicker was the fact that Solarwinds Service Desk was already cloud-based. Solarwinds Service Desk also has a more friendly interface.
Support seems kind of sluggish. It could be that they are swamped because of the buyout or don't know exactly how to fix certain issues. I also think there should be an easier method of having functionalities added than having to put a request in and hope they like it or hope another company requests the same thing.
19
We primarily use Solarwinds Service Desk as an incident response system. We have it linked to our IT email so that it automatically creates an incident when IT receives an email. We also use the asset management section of Service Desk to keep track of our assets and assign them to users or locations.
2
We have 2 people that troubleshoot and support the Solarwinds Service Desk software for our IT department. One person from the Network team (myself) and one person from the Help Desk team support the Service Desk software. Supporting the Service Desk software is not difficult. I think a person would need good troubleshooting skills and be able to communicate well with Solarwinds support.
  • Incident Response
  • Asset Management
  • Reporting
  • Track which problems we deal with most
  • See who answers the majority of incidents
  • Guestimate average turn around time on incidents
  • Provide more in depth information for inventory and assets
  • Plan more quickly to fix persistent incidents
  • Come up with reward system for technicians
We strongly wish to renew and continue to use Solarwinds Service Desk. We've spent almost a year learning the ins and outs of the system and have gotten used to it. The only thing that may keep us from renewing would be executives. If they decide they want a new system (for whatever reason), we will likely explore other options.
No
  • Product Features
  • Prior Experience with the Product
Prior to starting with this company in 2017, I worked at another company that used Solarwinds Web Help Desk. When I started with this company, I suggested we use Web Help Desk as our incident response system. We got a demo of the product and used it for a couple of weeks. Then, our decision makers decided to go more cloud based. So, we looked in to, and eventually purchased, Solarwinds Service Desk.
I don't know that we could have had a better evaluation and selection process. Most likely, the only way for us to better the process would have been to make the entire department demo the product instead of a select few people. If everyone had been in on the demo, we could have discussed any questions or concerns as a whole and could potentially not have had to deal with them after implementation.
  • Implemented in-house
  • The only thing we had to implement was the email setup for creating and responding to incidents.
The implementation process for our organization was fairly simple. We set up an email address to receive the emails from the system (for incident creation), and we allowed the system to spoof our IT email to respond to requests. Solarwinds helped us with the rest of the implementation, and it took less than a week to get the system fully operational.
  • no training
Working in IT, we were already very familiar with systems like this. Once the system is setup, it is very easy to get used to. The web interface is very user friendly and pretty straight forward. If we did encounter anything that we didn't understand or couldn't figure out, support was there to answer our questions.
I think the amount of configuring you can do with Solarwinds Service Desk is amazing. You can completely customize the look and feel of the interface. You can also set up and manage the incident, asset and reporting systems however you want. The amount of customization for this product is just right.
When we were implementing and building our database for Solarwinds Service Desk, we were not crunched for time. We were able to use trial and error for our customization and implementation. If you have a limited amount of time to get this product implemented, I'd strongly suggest asking support to help implement and customize the system.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
We have not done any customization to change the look of the interface for everyone. The way Solarwinds Service Desk is setup allows each technician to edit the look and feel of their own home screen. The only thing we changed for everyone was to add a company logo to the login screen.
No
I do not have a specific time in mind. I haven't had to use support for Service Desk in a while. Each time I use support, I copy our company's direct Solarwinds contact, and I get a response pretty quickly. I haven't come across any issues that have not been able to be fixed or that have taken more than one week to resolve.
  • Reporting
  • Asset Management
  • Incident Response
  • I do not find the system difficult to use.
Yes
I downloaded the Solarwinds Service Desk app from the iPhone App Store. I typically only use this when I'm working at a remote location and in a hurry. The app has limited options compared to the web interface. But, it does allow you to enter your incidents and fully manage them.
Solarwinds Service Desk has a very "user friendly" interface. Everything looks nice and neat. And, learning how to use the system is very easy. It provides multiple services that are easy for most people to grasp, and allows for great organization of incidents and assets. Support for Solarwinds Service Desk has a good response and resolution time and are easy to work with.
The amount of customization that can be done in this software allows for almost unlimited scalability. I do not know specifically how to do it, but support did tell us that we could create rules and functions for particular users allowing for separation of departments within the Solarwinds Service Desk software.
For the most part the availability is fine. However, every now and then we have an issue where the system is very slow to respond. It can go from 2-5 seconds to load a page to 15-20 seconds to load a page. That doesn't seem like much. But, when you spend most of your day in the system, those extra seconds add up.
When the system is working, the pages load very quickly. We run reports all the time in the system. The reporting can be extremely complex or very simple. Either way, we have not had any issues with the reports. We do not currently integrate Solarwinds Service Desk with any other software.
  • None
We have not integrated our Solarwinds Service Desk with any other software.
  • Microsoft Outlook
The only software that I'd want to integrate our Solarwinds Service Desk with would be Microsoft Outlook. If we could have the Solarwinds calendar sync with the Outlook calendar, that would be amazing.
  • Single Signon
We are planning to implement single sign on for Service Desk. But, we haven't gotten around to it.
I gave this a 5, because we have not integrated any software with our Solarwinds Service Desk. From what I've read, it seems fairly simple.
If you have any issues with integration, reach out to Solarwinds Support. They are always willing to help.
When we were looking to purchase Solarwinds Service Desk, we went directly through Solarwinds. They were very easy to work with and answered every question or concern we had.
After the sale, the vendor is still easy to work with. We haven't had to reach back out to them for much. We typically go to support for anything now.
The only thing that we absolutely wanted was help with the implementation process.
Be straight forward with your vendor. They are trying to make the sale, and they know you are likely choosing between multiple products.
No
  • We have not performed an upgrade.
  • I haven't been paying attention to the upgrades.
No
No
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