Streamlined IT Support Excellence
Spiceworks ticketing tool has great advantage to track day to day issues related or service request related tickets, User interface was …
Overview
What is Spiceworks Help Desk?
Spiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management. The Spiceworks Network Monitor provides information on observed IT for problem tracking…
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Popular Features
- Ticket creation and submission (53)9.292%
- Ticket response (52)8.989%
- External knowledge base (47)8.888%
- Organize and prioritize service tickets (53)7.575%
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- No setup fee
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- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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What is Spiceworks Help Desk?
Spiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management. The Spiceworks Network Monitor provides information on observed IT for problem tracking and server performance monitoring. And finally, the Spiceworks Help Desk Software lets IT personnel stay on top of issues across the network with a ticketing system. Help desk roles with role-based permissions and notifications allow tasks to be allocated across team members. If the user wishes to host Spiceworks apps and tools locally, then they are free. For cloud-based service, Spiceworks bills $12 per IT user per month, or $10 monthly per user if paid annually.
Spiceworks was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, also with a European headquarters in London (since 2012), and was backed by multiple investors, notably Goldman Sachs. In 2019 Spiceworks was acquired by Ziff Davis, a division of J2 Global. It is now a J2 Global company, operating under the name Spiceworks Ziff Davis.
Spiceworks Help Desk Video
Spiceworks Help Desk Overview
Spiceworks Help Desk Competitors
Spiceworks Help Desk Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Spiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management. The Spiceworks Network Monitor provides information on observed IT for problem tracking and server performance monitoring. And finally, the Spiceworks Help Desk Software lets IT personnel stay on top of issues across the network with a ticketing system. Help desk roles with role-based permissions and notifications allow tasks to be allocated across team members. If the user wishes to host Spiceworks apps and tools locally, then they are free. For cloud-based service, Spiceworks bills $12 per IT user per month, or $10 monthly per user if paid annually.
Spiceworks was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas, also with a European headquarters in London (since 2012), and is generously backed by multiple investors, most notably Goldman Sachs.
BMC FootPrints, BMC Helix Remedyforce, and Pulseway are common alternatives for Spiceworks Help Desk.
Reviewers rate Ticket creation and submission highest, with a score of 9.2.
The most common users of Spiceworks Help Desk are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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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!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
Spiceworks Help Desk has proven to be a versatile and valuable tool for various organizations. Users have utilized this software to efficiently manage their IT support requests, providing a solid interface and quick communication with both users and the IT team. The built-in help desk facilitates smooth communication with vendors and resellers for quotes on hardware, software, and services, making it a convenient one-stop solution. Additionally, Spiceworks Help Desk serves as an asset management discovery tool for networking and computing equipment, offering a primary inventory for desktops, mobile PCs, tablets, and software licenses. With its scanning capabilities, it can even identify security vulnerabilities in the network infrastructure.
The community forums within Spiceworks Help Desk provide a valuable resource for IT professionals to share advice, support, reviews of software and hardware, and user-generated scripts and plugins. Users have reported solving computer problems from start to finish by utilizing features such as inventory comparison, advice from the community forums, and vendor quotes within the platform. The software also allows for analytics on types of requests, time to resolution, and request volume, enabling users to track trends and optimize their support processes.
Spiceworks Inventory is another essential component of the Spiceworks suite that enables users to discover and inventory network-connected devices like iLO, Windows, Linux, Macs, printers, routers, switches, etc. It provides detailed device information such as make, model, warranty info, RAM, CPU, disk space, hardware components, and applications. This feature allows for effective system management within the organization.
Overall, Spiceworks Help Desk has been praised for its ease of use during setup and its clean interface. It offers incredible monitoring features along with a variety of customization options that cater to individual needs. With its wide range of functionalities encompassing help desk management, inventory tracking, security monitoring, and knowledge base centricity - all backed by excellent customer support - it has become a go-to solution for IT professionals across industries.
Intuitive and User-Friendly Interface: Users have consistently praised the intuitive and user-friendly interface of Spiceworks Help Desk. Many reviewers have stated that the clean and efficient design of the ticketing system makes it easy to navigate and manage support requests. This user-friendly interface contributes to a smooth and seamless task completion, enhancing the overall user experience.
Convenient User Portal: The user portal in Spiceworks Help Desk provides a convenient landing page for end users to create and update tickets. Numerous users have expressed appreciation for the accessibility factor, as the user portal can be accessed via a browser without requiring specialized software. This accessibility adds to the usability and convenience of Spiceworks Help Desk, allowing anyone to submit help requests easily.
Customization Options: The ability to customize workflows, inventory management, and response management in Spiceworks Help Desk has been highly valued by users. Many reviewers have mentioned how they appreciate the flexibility provided by this software, as it allows them to tailor it according to their specific business needs. The customizable aspects contribute to its adaptability and usefulness for different organizations.
Loss of desktop functionality: Several users have reported that the replacement of the desktop version of Spiceworks with the online version has resulted in a loss of core functionality.
Limitations in cloud email integration: Some users have expressed dissatisfaction with the cloud version of Spiceworks, specifically regarding its limitations when receiving emails from specially made applications. This limitation negatively impacts the overall user experience.
Resource-intensive and occasional hanging: Users have experienced issues with Spiceworks using a significant amount of system resources, particularly on Windows systems. Additionally, some users have mentioned that they encounter occasional hangs or freezes while using the software, although a system reboot usually resolves this problem.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
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January 15, 2020
Great Free Product
We are mostly using Spiceworks to complete auditing and reporting across our network. IT automatically inventories all of our devices and lets us see at a glance the key metrics and measurements that we need to know. We can also put specific notes regarding each device to help us to keep track of things such as hardware faults/fixes/upgrades. We have over 250 devices and counting so it is critical we keep track of these types of things in a central location.
- Inventory.
- Reporting.
- Application deployment.
- Windows updates.
December 12, 2019
Spiceworks - if I can use it, you can too!
We use Spiceworks as a help desk/ticketing system for tracking problems, questions and feature requests throughout our entire organization. We have a few users that manage the ticketing system (myself included) and we encourage everyone at our company to submit all IT related concerns through Spiceworks. It helps us to address anything from a question on system usage to requests for new hardware, or software troubleshooting as well. It also gives us the opportunity to track these requests and see what issues are trending, and time spent on certain issues as well.
- It's easy to set up
- It is very user friendly
- Reporting is a bit difficult to figure out at first
- Categorizing for trends can be a bit daunting/excessive if it isn't used properly
December 10, 2019
The good way to assess your enviroment
Spiceworks has been used to assess our domain network of the whole organization. With its free license up to 100 devices has been useful to:
- Understand vulnerability on our network devices
- Patch level of Windows OS
- Understand vulnerability on our network devices
- Patch level of Windows OS
- Simple web interface.
- 0-day checks.
- A lot of "premade script."
- Better management of scan exclusions.
- Implement a more modern interface.
December 05, 2019
Spiceworks: Need to know, Need to go
I use Spiceworks to help get answers on questions that I cannot seem to find answers for elsewhere. Spiceheads get together and help each other out and it is a wonderful thing. There is so much knowledge between the users that it is priceless. I use it here in the IT department.
- Helps answer questions you may have a hard time finding.
- Helps with training and education.
- Has software that you can use to help in IT.
- I can't think of any.
December 05, 2019
Spiceworks Rulez!
We are using Spiceworks for IT helpdesk ticket submission, reporting, and as a knowledge base repository. We are also using it to track purchases. It is used solely in IT as a way to keep IT issues at the forefront and as a way for users to keep in constant contact with the ticket owner.
- A great way to track communication on IT tickets between the owner and the user.
- Ease of use.
- Reporting.
- Better integration with SSO.
- Integration with MFA.
December 05, 2019
Free can be better!
Spiceworks is being used as an inventory management system for us. We use it to both track our count of devices and if devices are online. This has made life much easier with monitoring switches and servers without having to pay for a service. We have tried some paid services, but have found that this meets our needs currently. We also use this as our ticketing system since it pulls in all the inventory automatically.
- Free.
- Simple to use.
- Scans network on its own.
- Has the ability to group.
- Can arrange dashboard for your needs.
- Simple ticketing system.
- It's unable to notify if network goes down as it is on your network.
- Doesn't have tons of bells and whistles, but that's because its free.
October 23, 2019
Spiceworks for Spiceheads
We use Spiceworks to manage help desk tickets and prepare KPI reports on the type of issues faced by our internal users as well as the time it takes to resolve and the notes on the resolution. We also link KB articles where relevant. In addition, we also use Spiceworks to manage Contact Us tickets we receive from our website and combined with ticket rules, assign them automatically depending on the issue subject and category
- Free version works brilliantly
- Ease of customization for easy adoption
- Web interface makes it easy for multiple users to work concurrently
- Reports are easy to prepare/customize to gather KPI
- Agents can be intrusive
- Limited installation option is missing e.g. if we only want to use one feature, instead of all
- On-premise version constantly wants to go to the web for dashboard
- Changing a password is quite cumbersome
WE have been using Spiceworks in our environment for about a decade to inventory hardware and software. We also rely heavily on the Helpdesk for internal users to open tickets for help with IT needs. This has been a great software to use in this way for multiple reasons. It has been great with getting more people in the IT department to be able to assign tickets and leave notes and other things that email just doesn't do.
- I love the help desk portion of the software, it works to streamline our department to not step on each other's toes and we know what is being done at all times.
- Hardware inventory is really nice, it scans regularly and updates what we have in the environment. Keeping us aware of changes.
- The software inventory is great as it scans regularly and updates us on what changes and what has been updated and installed.
- The community is great. If I need help, I ask a question and usually get an actionable response quickly.
- Upgrades could go smoother. I have bombed out the install at least twice in the 10+ years I have been using it.
- The customization of the helpdesk backend is great but sometimes it leaves you unsure of what to do and how to script things.
- Extracting data from the DB that it keeps for feedback to management on performance is limited.
October 04, 2019
Hey Security Practitioners! Here is the perfect free tool to install for performing a risk analysis on your network!
I use it to scan our entire network infrastructure. I use it primarily as a tool to inform me of our security posture. It identified gaps such as workstations without antivirus installed and even how many workstations running a particular operating system is on our network. This tool is very cost efficient (free to be exact) that a security practitioner can use to perform risk analysis. I highly recommend this for security administrators who have a limited budget but still need an effective tool to help in identifying security vulnerabilities on their network.
- Identify workstations with running various operating systems on your network.
- Identify workstations running various anti-virus programs on your network.
- Identify workstations and servers running low on storage capacity.
- Provide dashboards to easily view the current state of your network.
- Spiceworks uses a lot of system resources and does need room for improvement in this area on Windows systems. Sometimes it can hang and a system reboot will clear up the issue.
- Spiceworks should be able to be installed on non-Windows systems such as Linux, Apple MAC OS, or other flavors of unix. So it should have a Linux install available for servers running this OS.
- Running Spiceworks on a workstation along with other programs is not recommended. I would advise installing it on a dedicated server.
August 01, 2019
Just a thought
Well, we used it for monitoring device switches. We were in the process of looking around for something to use. This free version was a good start. The problem we had was just finding something to do what we wanted since our network is pretty large.
- Network Monitor was good. It did your basic stuff like CPU utilization, memory stuff, etc.
- Also, the fact you can use it on most operating systems of today that was plus.
- Dashboard was easy to get around with.
- Alert thresholds
- Email alerts
We use Spiceworks to manage all IT support requests for our team. Since we recently expanded our team and users are across the entire United States, we needed a better solution to manage these requests. Previously users would text, email, AND call for assistance which did not allow for easy tracking of requests for the IT team.
- Very easy to use and enter a support request
- Email functionality allows quick updates to users of status/updates to support requests
- Allows IT team to triage and assign out tickets very quickly
- As a user, I would like to have a login where I can track my specific requests in one place
- We currently have a link that we access to enter our requests-it would be cool if we could initiate via email plugin
July 15, 2019
Most effective and powerful ticketing platform
I would say Spiceworks is very easy to set up. It is no doubt simple but most functional tool. It's clean, clear and polished interface is highly appreciable. It consists of incredibly amazing monitoring features. It is indeed incomparable free IT software with plenty of benefits. It works more than our expectations. It comprises of a variety of customization options with wonderful performance.
- It is super duper easy to use.
- It is extremely easy to implement.
- Best ways for handling tickets.
- It's could version needs some improvement.
- The email notifications do not have that much unwanted stuff.
June 21, 2019
Spiceworks Help Desk -- a basic ticketing system
We use Spiceworks (on premises, not the cloud version) as a ticketing system across our entire organization. One of our locations is also using Spiceworks Inventory to keep track of workstations, printers, and other devices. We have more than 10+ IT support techs, 1000+ users submitting tickets, and 10000+ supported devices (1 for 1 school district). Users submit tickets via email. IT support mostly uses the web interface; the mobile app is used less often. Management tracks time spent on tickets via reports. Nothing groundbreaking --a normal ticketing system in a mid-size organization.
- Price: it is free.
- Ease of installation: all components (web server, database) are included in a single package. The entire ticketing system can be configured in 5 minutes.
- Email integration: we can submit tickets, add time, comments, and close over the email.
- Performance issues. With tens of thousands of tickets and thousands of devices in the Spiceworks database, reports can be very sluggish. Throwing more hardware resources does not help.
- Customization is limited. We use a custom script to control our ticket assignment, as rules inside Spiceworks are not adequate. Spiceworks implementation of Apache does not work well with configuration changes. The database server used is SQLite, which is quite limited -- working with the database directly is not advisable.
- Support and documentation are what can be expected from the ad-supported product. Most of the time forums are the best place to find answers.
April 10, 2019
Spiceworks works best for smaller MSPs.
Spiceworks was used as a help desk system, inventory management, as well as a knowledge base center. It helped us manage customer tickets as well as assign workflow for each tech. Techs were assigned a ticket, they commented on each ticket, and they provided documentation for that particular issue. We were able to discuss tech issues with other people using Spiceworks which helped us solve issues faster.
- Creating a ticket and assigning a tech in Outlook was simple to use.
- Ticket management for each tech was easy to use.
- Inventory management was well paid out and easy to access.
- Upgrade the ticket search feature so it doesn't feel like tickets are so clustered together when doing a search.
- Improve upon features for the tech. Maybe an antivirus or online status of computers on the main page.
- A feature to record time would help improve tickets being worked on.
December 14, 2018
Spiceworks - build your IT HelpDesk services in minutes
We are a growing company and looking for better solutions for the IT department. Reviewing functionality for our needs and solutions on the market we stopped with Spiceworks solutions from HelpDesk and network monitoring.
The Spiceworks HelpDesk application allows us to control, analyze and improve performance of IT HelpDesk team.
The Network Monitoring tool gives us enough information on the network state, servers and network resources up time and sends alerts once things going wrong.
The Spiceworks HelpDesk application allows us to control, analyze and improve performance of IT HelpDesk team.
The Network Monitoring tool gives us enough information on the network state, servers and network resources up time and sends alerts once things going wrong.
- For small and mid size companies - very good solution. Low prices or free solutions.
- Easy deployment, fast start, not additional training is required for personnel.
- user friendly web interface, great performance, easy integration.
- It would be great if different SpiceWorks solutions had a single web management console.
- Integration between solutions to have all the data available in all solutions.
- Give more options for alerting and more flexible options for monitoring.
December 13, 2018
My Thoughts!
Spiceworks is a nice site to use when looking for help in the IT industry. They have free tools which can really help when you do not have the budget to pay for these services. I have used their inventory/monitoring tools as well as their ticketing system. The monitoring gives you an easy to understand interface and can show you data that can help your network. The ticketing system can integrate with it and show what past issues you have had on your devices. This can really help to understand when it is time to upgrade/replace.
- Reviews. I can go to Spiceworks and look at user reviews on products that I may be interested in. There is a good mix of vendor/msp/and users.
- Community. They have a large community of users that will comment on issues you might have. It is a great place to start and see if an issue you have has already been resolved.
- Free tools. They have different free tools that can help you in daily tasks.
- The free tools aren't always as feature rich as paid ones but if you look at the price it is still well worth it.
- There are a decent amount of vendors which can be useful but sometimes they are just trying to sell you a product.
- Comments are useful but sometimes go off in a weird direction and can be entertaining but sometimes not useful.
We use Spiceworks for two purposes: for its inventory tracking capabilities to keep track of all our our IT infrastructure, and also we heavily use the help desk feature across our whole organization, which allows us to manage and track support issues and their solutions all within one central place, and to easily recall past issues and their solutions.
- Help desk trouble ticket system, which is great for tracking the status of issues within your organization. It allows users the ability to submit help requests themselves, and it allows teams to update and track the tickets.
- Inventory tracking of all your equipment with lots of details about each piece of equipment, like the patch level of computers and the location for equipment or the last time it was serviced or updated.
- Spiceworks is free!! You can't beat a free solution, and the community behind Spiceworks is huge. Their forums are filled with fellow IT pros willing to help each other out if you submit a question.
- Spiceworks is pretty flexible in the inventory tracking area but it would be nice to be able to create multiple custom fields because sometimes I need more than one customizable field.
- Spiceworks offers apps for managing things from your phone, but it's a very text-heavy app. It would be nice for it to be a little more graphical for some of the lower-end users out there.
- Spiceworks offers 2 different apps, one for their forums and accessing the Spiceworks community, and another for the help desk features. It would be nice to have them combined into one app.
December 11, 2018
Spiceworks: Low cost, versatile and easy to use
We use Spiceworks as a Help Desk ticketing system for our IT dept. We primarily use it for our dept. but have opened it up to some end users.
- Tracks issues
- Allows us to categorize tickets
- Provides some metrics for ticket resolution
- Slow response time when logging in
- Does a better job with windows assets that mac assets
December 11, 2018
Spiceworks is a friend to the small IT shop
We use Spiceworks as our help desk ticketing solution. We tried it for Inventory and the scanning slows down the network. If you scan your network do it during off hours so not to impact your users. However the Help Desk ticket software is great as well as linking to the spiceworks.com site. Spiceworks.com has a great forum to get answers for your tech issues.
- Help Desk Ticketing software. For a small company to keep track of all their issues.
- You can choose between cloud or on premis.
- You can use the dashboard and reporting to get metrics to justify your IT spend!
- No cost solution. Doesn't add to your budget.
- Inventory. The network scan really slows down your network. It's very intensive. Do this off hours.
- Network Monitor also slows down your network. Do this only if you need it. There's another solution Panopta that has a very light weight solution for low cost per machine.
December 11, 2018
Add a lot of Zing to your network with Spiceworks Inventory
We use Spiceworks Inventory to discover and inventory all of our network-connected devices. Spiceworks Inventory is a free software package that works either as an agent or with saved credentials (iLO, Windows, Linux, Mac, Printers, WAP, router, switch, etc.) to collect device information on your network. For us, and for anyone who wants to get a handle on what's really connected on your network, Inventory helps us track and manage systems--mostly end-user systems. Inventory performs a sweep of your devices and displays a lot of data such as make, model, warranty info, RAM, CPU, disk space, hardware components, applications, and version information for all listed components. It helps us track systems by model, by age, and the software inventory is very valuable because we also get notifications if an application has a security vulnerability. Spiceworks Inventory is an essential part of our IT toolbox.
- It accurately and quickly gathers device information.
- It consumes very few resources (network bandwidth, CPU, memory, etc.).
- It can be run and maintained on a virtual machine.
- It requires no special extra software and requires no special hardware.
- I wish it were easier to remove and wipe data. Doing it one system at a time is tedious.
- I also wish there were a way to better discover new devices, regardless of available credentials--as soon as someone connects to the network, we would get a notification.
- I would like to see Inventory integrate with AD.
December 11, 2018
Spiceworks is Awesome
I use it for the help desk, the network tools, and remote access tools. It is only used by myself for the administration of Spiceworks. The company sends help desk tickets to me for work needed, really makes everyone's life easier to know I've seen the ticket and status updates. Spiceworks helps me manage support contracts and devices on my network.
- Helpdesk is very easy to manage and user-friendly. Very customizable
- The network tools help me "see" our network and devices on it, need to set some things up but that's part of anything like that
- Remote support is awesomeHelpdesk find the remote support tool to be one of the best features yet.
- Community support is great, people are helpful and responsive
- At times the network tool can be frustrating, but that just shows me I need to do work on my end
- Desktop application can be slow to open at times from machine holding DB, this has been an ongoing issue with IE, ok with chrome
- For a free software there is very little to complain about
December 11, 2018
Spiceworks is worth it!
We are using Spiceworks across our entire organization to manage IT support requests. It provides us with a solid interface, quick communications with users and the team, and a mobile app to manage requests in a more timely and efficient manner. The ability to have an archive or request allows us to perform analytics on types of requests, time to resolution, and who is requesting the most.
- Support request management
- End-user/ requester communication
- analytics
- web page refresh rate
- ads are annoying but I get it
- more customization
December 07, 2018
Spiceworks, Quick!
The tool is providing lots of details about our environment. It's being used by the IT department, but it helps the entire organization. It solves problems as hardware Inventory, management details of the devices, and environment mapping, and lots of reports, like license tracking, for example, or hardware reports. It helps us a lot in daily activities.
- Hardware Inventory.
- Reports.
- Software Tracking - This is amazing. After the scan, they show you already the number of machines and pending updates, not only from Microsoft but other players too.
- Network Scan x Authentication - Sometimes it stops scanning.
- Integration with Spiceworks Pages. It works but I think it's not good to force this.
- The web interface is heavy.
December 06, 2018
Excellent Software, Outstanding Price!
My organization encourages the use of open source software when it can be used to cut costs. We were testing multiple asin set management softwares, and I was asked to test Spiceworks as I had experience with it. I set up a virtual server, installed Spiceworks and began to test. Let me say from the start that scanning in all the devices it in my plans took an incredible amount of time, but now that they are scanned in, it is not that bad. Spiceworks is built and maintained by all of the "spiceheads" on the Spiceworks forums, and they are very proud of what they have built, as well they should be. This software, in my opinion, is second only to PDQInventory for asset management.
- Actively monitors all of the devices on your network.
- Excellent for software inventory
- Outstanding for hardware inventory
- Price. For the low, low cost of zero you get an amazing quality tool
- 3rd party integration
- Scans are very slow.
- Huge learning curve
- 3rd party integration is not really well documented, meaning that it can take a while to find what you need to set something new up.
December 06, 2018
Spiceworks is an Amazing Tool
I use it to network with other IT professionals and to continue learning/expand my knowledge and experience in the IT field. I have also downloaded their Support product, but haven't set it up for use and I have also downloaded their inventory program as a redundant program to what our MSP provides/owns.
- They provide excellent learning tools.
- The provide great webinars.
- They provide interaction with software and hardware vendors in addition to other IT professionals.
- I only use what's free since it is a redundant inventory program - no complaints though.
- I typically use their website which can be tricky to navigate until you get used to it.
- Nothing else to add.