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…
Recent Reviews
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
- 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%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
All Tiers
Free
Cloud
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Spiceworks Help Desk Demo
YouTube
Features
Return to navigation
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
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).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(246)
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
(51-75 of 82)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
April 17, 2018
Spiceworks - Cheap and Easy Solutions
I currently use Spiceworks as my helpdesk application, my network inventory manager, and to host a company portal, where employees can access information that has been shared by IT. Spiceworks has made it easier to manage the devices on my network and to evaluate their relationships and configurations. It also provides a great platform for communication from IT to the rest of the company. In addition to the services provided by Spiceworks, I also utilize the Spiceworks community, for tackling issues that I haven't been able to wrap my own head around. The Spiceworks community is a GREAT place to get feedback on ideas, answers to questions, and help with overall challenges.
- Network Monitoring -This application works pretty well, is lightweight, and not very intrusive. It does lack a bit of detail, and you can't do anything with MiBs, but for simple up-time monitoring, it works great.
- Spiceworks Helpdesk -This application is great. I use it to manage tickets submitted by our employees. This allows me to not only maintain an easy line-of-communication, but also allows me to see trends in ticketed issues.
- Spiceworks Community -Great group of people. There's always good discussions taking place in user threads. Whether it's troublehooting, problem-solving, or just throwing ideas around, the Spiceworks user community is a great place to get some feedback on your thoughts.
- Spiceworks Portal -I use this to communicate important information to our employees. I also host a lot of FAQs and How-Tos on the portal.
- Spiceworks Network Monitor -Could use more integration of MiBs and also a more flexible implementation of SNMP versions.
February 15, 2018
Spicework the hot chilli to help give you a kick.
I use Spiceworks to perform an inventory of my network and devices. I also monitor security and track issues and apply patches within the different apps it uses. it lets me control IP addresses check on tickets that clients generate using the client portal. The appearance can be changed to show what tools are being used to monitor issues.
Overall a good application to use.
Overall a good application to use.
- Monitor devices. it collect all devices using ip address.
- Monitor application licenses.
- It shows everything at a glance.
- Have a larger knowledge base
- Have a better list of security applications on the market.
December 12, 2017
Spiceworks- free but worth so much more
I use Spiceworks to manage all of the networking equipment to ensure uptime. The software is currently only being used within the Information technology department. I searched long and hard to find a single product that would do both monitoring and inventory control. Spiceworks does all that I was looking for to do with multiple products all in one.
- It gives accurate alerts for down systems and eliminates a lot of false positives.
- I like that it has never crashed or given me a single problem in the 7 plus years I have been using it.
- The full-featured suite gives any IT professional the ability to use one module, several modules, or all the modules to meet their needs. New versions come out at least once a year with updates more frequently.
- Creates too many tickets for one task.
- The only downside is that it’s heavily IT based, so using it for other team types is not adoptable.
- There’s no source code so you are stuck with its look.
August 09, 2017
Spiceworks is a great tool for any system administrator to automate their labor intensive jobs
I am using Spiceworks to inventory hosts, get details on servers connected to our network and monitor up-time. We also use Spiceworks to monitor cloud activity from within the enterprise on a user level.
- Inventory capabilities are very good. The detail provided makes my job easier to monitor what hosts we have, the OS they are running, software installed, upgrades available and more....
- Printer alerts for connectivity and ink levels is a plus.
- Antivirus installations are checked and monitored for updates. I get a report daily on updates that are available as well as any systems with more than one installation of antivirus software.
- The networking feature needs to be more automated.
- The graphical network diagram needs to be more flexible and easy to segment.
- It needs to offer more features to monitor new devices that get plugged into the network on a live and or daily basis.
September 21, 2016
Spiceworks Review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Our team solves tickets everyday using Spiceworks. Love the fact that users can log in and check on the status of their ticket. The email notifications for incoming tickets is also very good. It greatly increases our company's performance without costing anything. This is easily the best ticketing system available on the market.
- Very easy to use
- Great UI
- The inventory management tool is the best i've seen, works flawlessly.
- The only thing I dislike is that spiceworks only supports Windows Servers. I hope in the future they start supporting Mac OSX
September 16, 2016
Spiceworks: The Basics & More
We use Spiceworks across our organization. We primarily use it as a help desk and ticketing system. We also use some of the other inventory and reporting features and have considered using other third party applications with Spiceworks. It has provided users with a single point to report IT issues and provided us in IT with a great way to track ticket issues and our time spent in different areas.
- Help Desk
- Reporting
- Inventory
- Vendors
- Ticket templates for when users submit different types of tickets or a different template with different questions/fields could be used.
- Recurring tickets on a schedule for maintenance type items.
- Ticket workfows (not just checklists) for things like employee onboarding and exiting where different tasks & steps are preassigned to different techs with parallel & consecutive processing flow options.
September 06, 2016
Spiceworks IT Department review
We chose Spiceworks as a help desk ticketing system for our IT team. It works amazing, is easy to use and set up, and does everything we need it to and more. We use it as a way for users to submit tickets to our IT Department by email; assign the tickets, track the ticket history and even look at past ticket history. It does a lot more but we do not use most of the features or are not currently utilizing them. The best thing about it is that it is free and the support is free too! Another great feature is the forums and articles where lots of other IT professionals get together to talk and answer questions. We use this quite often to help with issues that we might be facing or read how others are using technology in their workspace.
We highly recommend it, in fact we have to many other professionals, even in our own organization.
We highly recommend it, in fact we have to many other professionals, even in our own organization.
- Help desk
- Forums for IT issues
- Articles
- Scanning of network devices
- Purchasing piece is a nice try but found it is not very useful
April 04, 2016
Spiceworks Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Spiceworks is being used by our IT department only, currently. We installed it initially to use it to inventory our network. We have recently started using it for service monitoring and various other uses via plugins and add-ons.
- Network device inventorying.
- Locating new devices and rogue devices.
- Inventorying installed software to maintain compliance with guidelines.
- Keeping up with hardware specs for life-cycle management.
- Identifying unusual network traffic.
- Keeping up with server up-time and alerting if a server or cloud service is down.
- Asset location tracking.
- Verifying Warranty information on brand name PCs.
- Their help desk feature, while robust, tends to be a little quirky for end users.
September 16, 2015
Strong community and the price is right!
Spiceworks is used over the entire organization. Unfortunately, when I was in the construction retail business, not many users were very technically adept. Having to log onto a website, log in using domain credentials, submitting a ticket via the portal and following/tracking their ticket via the portal was not really too user friendly. Our users did not have the patience to learn to use it, rather opting for phone calls or direct emails.
Our IT department on the other hand used Spiceworks much more thoroughly, and it helped us audit machines, track reboots, update the knowledge base, and more! I enjoyed using it for the short period of time I did so.
- Lots of community support
- Easy to navigate GUI
- Lots of free features that are fully built and worth using
- End-user ease of use
August 19, 2015
Spicetabulous
Within our organization, Spiceworks is being implemented as a ticketing and inventory solution for the helpdesk team. It has been instrumental in providing my team with the tools required to quantify our achievements, simplify our job, and give us a level of transparency that our branch managers appreciate. The ability to generate monthly and quarterly reports and show our productivity levels is definitely a tremendous asset, in addition to having the ability to quantify our daily/weekly workload.
- Allows my team to quantify their daily workload and predict heightened workload based on trends.
- Allows me to provide my employer with solid tangible data when it comes to proposals, or requests for additional budget/head count.
- Provides a simpler means to inventory our hardware.
- Better ticketing views. I would like to see nested ticket attributes and categories.
- SpiceWorks as a non web-based app would be nice to have.
- More bandwidth, network, and hardware monitoring features would be a big plus.
August 19, 2015
Spice Up Your IT Department with Spiceworks.
We use Spiceworks in a variety of ways: helpdesk ticketing and tracking, inventory tracking and management, as well as a trouble shooting tool and to submit purchase requests.
- Helpdesk ticketing. Spiceworks does this very well - plenty on modules and plug ins to support just about anything you want to do. You can also write your own!
- Inventory management is another thing thing Spiceworks does pretty well. Right down to what software and software keys are on each machine. It's not the end all be all but it does a good job and it's free.
- The community! Wow the community is amazing. Supportive quick and quick to respond with valid answers. I rarely wait more than an hour before someone has responded with something valid.
- The network map isn't the greatest. You need to spend some time to lay it out correctly. It also seems to be wiped out with each new update.
- Can be sluggish when using IE.
July 15, 2015
SPICEWORKS is Great for Hardware Asset Management
Spiceworks is a great tool to use for everyday network management. It can scan network for devices and gives great detail on hardware/software. I use this tool daily to check for any unwanted software users may have installed or to check the health of a machine in question. I would recommend Spiceworks to anyone who doesn't already have this in place. It is very easy to set up and very easy to manage.
- New hardware added to the network it alerts me
- New software added to any machine it alerts me
- Any printer issues or even if a printer needs toner it will alert me
- When scanning a network for new machines it rescans each device. I wish it would know to skip and move to next item and only scan new items.
May 11, 2015
Spiceworks Helpdesk & Inventory Review
Spiceworks is being used by the LCCA IT Department. It was determined that we needed an easy to use, fast and ultimately free help desk product that didn't take a lot of install time or agency resources to deploy. Since the usage of a help desk system allows users to regulate their level of interest in participating with IT on receiving technical support, it also allows them the ability to update and learn from the information the Technical Support staff supply them to resolve their issue. This ultimately makes it easier for the technical staff because the end user can reference the ticket if it occurs again. It also helps the end user by saving them time to search for a technician.
Without the Spiceworks support portal, I would have people come into my office all the time for support or to ask simple questions about none critical issues. Not only is this time consuming for the end user, it interrupts the technicians if they are working on other projects or managing network resources at the time. Since we are a 911 Dispatch Center, the dispatchers don't have the time to leave their stations, so once again the help desk system helps a lot because they can visit the portal, leave a ticket and I can evaluate the severity of the request based on others in the queue, well worth the price of free.
I also want to mention the support forums and the in-house support that Spiceworks has. If you are having issues with Spiceworks, the install, updating or even having issues finding a resolution for a support ticket that was submitted, someone else has probably already encountered it and asked on the forums. The support forums are built into the ticketing system so it's easy for the administrator and the end user to research issues if they desire or require it. The in-house support is also great, they are there and answer very fast, they also participate in the forums a lot.
Without the Spiceworks support portal, I would have people come into my office all the time for support or to ask simple questions about none critical issues. Not only is this time consuming for the end user, it interrupts the technicians if they are working on other projects or managing network resources at the time. Since we are a 911 Dispatch Center, the dispatchers don't have the time to leave their stations, so once again the help desk system helps a lot because they can visit the portal, leave a ticket and I can evaluate the severity of the request based on others in the queue, well worth the price of free.
I also want to mention the support forums and the in-house support that Spiceworks has. If you are having issues with Spiceworks, the install, updating or even having issues finding a resolution for a support ticket that was submitted, someone else has probably already encountered it and asked on the forums. The support forums are built into the ticketing system so it's easy for the administrator and the end user to research issues if they desire or require it. The in-house support is also great, they are there and answer very fast, they also participate in the forums a lot.
- Easy installation. You can pick any server that is on your network and Spiceworks will install and configure itself without much input from the admin.
- Support Forums. There is nothing better than having access to experienced users of the systems along with the developers of the software that you are using and Spiceworks provides just that.
- Company support. If you can't find the issue on the forums, the Spiceworks team is ready, fast and affective in resolving issues with their software, giving you ideas on how to improve the system and customize it to your needs.
- Last thing I have found using the system is that along with Desktop Support the Spiceworks package also helps you get a handle on your entire networks needs, inventory and asset management. It's all included in the package and perfect for year end asset management.
- One of the issues I found with the Spiceworks software is the network management. A lot of the time it is discovering items that you have no interest in managing remotely and yet it keeps finding stuff and bringing it to your attention.
- Too much of a good thing? Some would say that because of the nature of the product, being free, the marketing and the software might be considered feature rich, too rich, I think the best thing they could do would be to make it easy to remove features you don't want to use a little easier.
April 08, 2015
Spiceworks - A Simple Review
Spiceworks is currently being used by our entire organization. We are using it for hardware and software inventory purposes, as well as using it for logging of our trouble tickets through the Help Desk. Our IT department also uses it to log the IT related purchases we are making, and who the purchases were made for.
- Spiceworks does an excellent job of keeping track of our tickets, and provides a great search tool to help you search through your old tickets for existing solutions to problems.
- Spiceworks is very customizable in the type of fields that can be filled out for both tickets and purchases
- Provide better way of deleting multiple tickets from the HelpDesk menu
April 08, 2015
SpiceWorks Keeps My Work Spicy!
We use Spiceworks in our IT Department and in our Maintenance Department. Users email work to separate email addresses which then are deposited in a ticket inside of Spiceworks. End users can also jump on our Intranet site and submit a ticket through the Spiceworks Portal. It's helped both of these departments to stay on top of work and helps end users feel like their work is in the schedule.
- The price for sure, who doesn't like free?
- Great community of users who are constantly improving the product.
- Once you get used to the customization in Spiceworks, it's really easy to make the program do what you want it to do.
- Searching could be improved, where there are a lot of work orders in the system, it can be hard to distinguish between open and closed items.
- The ability to prompt for "Are you sure you want to change screens without saving first?" Sometimes I do a lot of documenting in a Work Order then have to look at something else, and I lost everything I've written. The beauty of Spiceworks though, is that someone might fix this soon.
February 25, 2015
Why Spiceworks works: Your personal help desk minion
Spiceworks is currently being used company-wide in many ways. For us, it's our means of inventory and monitoring. For our users, we use the help-desk ticketing system to track problems and respond in a timely fashion. It allows us to document and keep a history of issues, which is invaluable in IT.
- Free, aka not a penny!
- Easy to update and maintain
- Customizable reports
- Email notifications
- Deletion of tickets could be easier
- Customizing GUI
- Ability to manually add inventory items
February 04, 2015
Simple to understand with countless options!
As Medical Management Company we support multiple hospitals and assisted living facilities. We use Spiceworks to track inventory, security settings, ink and toner, as well as track and log tickets. Spiceworks helps us stay organized and gives us the ability to handle multiple issues at once.
- Gives our company the ability to track the progress on all outstanding and resolved issues.
- We are able to monitor any unwanted programs on all computers.
- Allows our company to communicate with other IT professionals on software or hardware.
- A way to categorize submitted tickets with the ability to search closed issues.
December 30, 2014
It's okay for SMB but not great
Spiceworks was used as a ticketing/helpdesk and networking inventory software. We used it for our only location for the network portion but the remote users, in addition to local users, used the ticketing portion. This helped us track issues that were arising, see and also anticipate potential problems and assisted when urging those with the credit cards to make, what we knew to be, very much needed purchasing decisions.
- It's free. No other ticketing system, that I know of, can say that (at least any good ones).
- It integrates nicely, as a whole, with the ticketing in trying to find an answer to the ticket by including links to possible solutions from TechNet, the Community and the manufacturer's website.
- The inventory portion isn't bad. It often has a good deal of scan errors but, once remedied, it does a nice job giving you lots of relevant info.
- The ticketing system is basic but lacks many features of bigger players. Spiceworks was designed for the SMB that didn't/doesn't have the money for a large $$ ticketing system. I currently use Autotask at my current employer and it is far superior in it's tracking with tickets and the like.
- Spiceworks could stand to open up their code a bit more. I often hear of people who have specific needs that wouldn't be difficult to integrate/allow but that aren't done.
- The interface needs a bit of an overhaul. They keep adding features to the product that, while they are good, they need to be addressing previous concerns first. It often feels like, with the product, they're trying to be flashy and show off what it can do now vs address the issues of long-time users/attempted users.
- No projects! Users have been requesting multi-tiered tickets for awhile now or a projects-like ability. Having a task list under a ticket would be awesome as well. I've been using Spiceworks over 2 years and it's been requested since before I started and still hasn't been implemented.
December 18, 2014
Spiceworks - don't leave work without it!
The main purpose for selecting Spiceworks was for improved communication among IT department members in regards to ownership and updates of open IT tickets. Spiceworks is so well integrated that we can manage any IT tickets from anywhere in the world that has access to e-mail. The ability to use command prompts by way of e-mail makes us available virtually 24/7. For a small company it allows us to service our internal customers as if we were a 50 person strong department.
- Communication - all users can track and update their tickets so it minimizes errors or assumptions on issues being resolved.
- Accountability - a problem is not resolved until the end user agrees that it is - having the ability to reopen tickets is a plus that users appreciate.
- Reliability - it works well for technical staff as well as novice users.
- Affordable - free - In my 20+ years of experience I have never encountered a full working product for free.
- Inventory Scan - even though the scanning is set with a schedule, it tries to scan during the middle of the day - a little annoying but it can be stopped manually.
June 17, 2014
Spiceworks - IT Everything at a glance.
Our company uses Spiceworks to manage computers and in a help desk function. Spiceworks is currently being maintained and used by our technicians. Additionally, we use it to allow users to submit computer and technology issues. Their alert system is awesome and their ticketing system addresses our need for for issue tracking and management.
- Spiceworks has an excellent built in monitoring and operations dashboard that is being updated often to add more features.
- Spicework's help desk panel is awesome. Many features are just a click away when you need them.
- Spicework's ticketing system is the best free system we've ever used.
- There could be more scanning features for network traffic.
- Spiceworks has an awesome community. I'd love to see news articles and forum conversations related to my equipment.
- Spiceworks could use more options for the help desk GUI.
June 16, 2014
Spiceworks for the win!
We are currently using it company wide as a help desk ticketing system to help with logging of issues and to make sure users get the support they need in a timely fashion. Spiceworks addresses the issue if some of our support team is out or busy with something else they can log a ticket and we will see it right away and asses how urgent the issue is.
- Spiceworks has a great community of like minded folks, that always try to help each other out and are there to answer questions when needed.
- Spiceworks provides a very simple but effective ticketing system for our IT department to keep track of all support issues.
- Spiceworks provides an inventory system that indexes all systems as well as devices that most would not worry about until something went wrong.
- Spiceworks does a lot of things well, but something I would like to see is a wiki type solution that is secured from the rest of the community to use for internal documentation.
June 16, 2014
Supremely useful AND it's free? Yes, please!
Spiceworks is currently used by the IT department to track help desk tickets and manage PC/server/printer inventory. Users submit trouble tickets via email which generates a ticket within Spiceworks and notifies all IT staff. This process helps prioritize IT tasks based on existing issues and IT staff availability, track trending issues, as well as improve user satisfaction. The scanning/inventory function allows IT staff to view information about a user's PC (software installed, serial number, IP address, etc.) without being physically present. The built-in remote control (RDP) feature is especially helpful.
- The inventory scanning feature has been extremely useful. Because our PC naming convention is based on the serial number, figuring out who a particular PC belongs to can be a challenge. However, the inventory within Spiceworks automatically detects the PC and documents a ton of useful information - serial number, PC name, last logged in user, software installed, hardware configuration and IP address.
- The help desk function is our most frequently used area of Spiceworks. Users can simply send a message to a specific email address and Spiceworks automatically generates a ticket. Each IT staff member is notified and based on who is available or has particular expertise in the user's issue, they can assign the ticket to themselves or admins can assign the ticket to a particular technician. Each ticket includes areas to track time spent on the issue, purchases made (including item, vendor, price), make notes that are visible only by IT staff for documentation purposes, and respond directly to the user. Ticket information is searchable which is especially helpful when researching a problem that has come up in the past.
- We don't use the reporting feature very frequently, but when we do we are always pleased. The canned reports cover a lot of common needs, but if you need a custom report, it is easy to create your own from scratch.
- The help desk does not allow you to add time spent to tickets after they've been closed. The Spiceworks app does, however.
- The Tickets Anywhere hashtag (#) commands either work very slowly or only sometimes.
- The inventory view will randomly switch between icon and browse views instead of keeping the last setting.
June 13, 2014
Spiceworks = Hot Stuff
I am currently using it as a backup to our Dell KACE appliance. Since it's agentless scans can collect more data than KACE's, it is a great way to monitor and collect information about systems that we do not want to install an agent on, such as servers. Plus, due to it's low system requirements and the fact that I'm the only one using it right now, I have it running on a spare laptop on my desk.
- Agentless scanning provides complete system details, including things like license keys for Microsoft software and toner levels on printers.
- A full-featured help desk system, rivaling some the best paid solutions.
- The ability to manage Active Directory users.
- A purchase tracking system. See where all your money is going and who the big spenders are.
- Windows only install. A nitpick point, I know, but it would be nice to be able to install it on a Linux box.
- While an agent is provided (say, for your laptop users who are not always in the office), there is no built in option to deploy it across the network. It must be downloaded and installed manually.
- No Mac version of the agent, making it difficult to manage MacBook users.
- A Dell KACE feature, the ability to run scripts and installs directly from the Spiceworks appliance.
June 13, 2014
Spiceworks - Great IT Tool
Spiceworks is being used by our information technology department to better service our county. We use it for its ticketing system as well as its inventory system. The ticketing system allows for easy customization and allows user to enter tickets through a ticket portal that ties into their window's credentials. The Inventory system does periodic network scans of many devices from PCs and printers to network switches.
- Great Ticketing system
- Great Inventory System
- Awesome Community of IT professionals willing to help you with issues.
- Because this is a free software there are periodic required upgrades that have to be done.
- Some required updates change how the program reads some code so custom codes may have to be re-done
June 06, 2014
Spiceworks, Where IT goes to work
The IT department uses Spiceworks as our ticketing software for internal support. We were looking for somthing to replace the very bulky ticketing software we had been using.
- But it's created and supported as if it was a very expensive program.
- Web-based. Got a browser? You can get your tickets.
- MUCH. INFORMATION. If you know a little SQL, you can get it to tell you just about anything about your network.
- Community. Adjacent to the program is a flourishing community of, I think at this point, over 5 million users. Reviews, how-tos, vendors, anything you could need in a forum, plus a plate of bacon.
- Access to devs. Not only is their support great, but through the community, you can get some access to the developers. I'm currently bugging them over some feature requests. :)
- Plug-ins. There are a few features, like nesting sub categories when creating a ticket that you would expect to be standard, but are only supported by plugins. It's not fun when you depend on a feature you get from a plugin, and the creator stops working on it.
- SQLite isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it's what I have to fight to write custom reports.