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%
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
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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).
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(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
(1-5 of 5)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
September 21, 2023
Streamlined IT Support Excellence
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Spiceworks ticketing tool has great advantage to track day to day issues related or service request related tickets, User interface was much easy and has multiple options to explore for various kinds of tickets. We manage all IT-related support and service management within our organization using Spiceworks Help Desk. The major problem which we had faced was its initial configuration, where authentication methods has been changed so it is little bit complicated for first time users to configure.
- Issues Tracking
- Request Management
- Incident Management
- Reporting and Analytics
- Initial Configuration
- Backup and Restore Method needs to be changed
81.66666666666666%
8.2
75%
7.5
52%
5.2
- Improved Efficiency
- Cost savings
- Visibility and Insights
Spiceworks Help Desk was picked because of its user-friendly design, low pricing, and basic ticketing capabilities that fit our organization's requirements. Its built-in knowledge base and active user community boosted the effectiveness of our IT support operations. While it does not have the complex features of other enterprise-level solutions, its ease of use and low cost made it a viable option for improving our IT service management and support operations.
No
- Scalability
- Integration with Other Systems
- Ease of Use
April 26, 2021
Spiceworks Help Desk Review
Spiceworks Help Desk is used to manage our entire IT helpdesk operation. Users across the entire company access it to submit helpdesk tickets, make purchase requests, and check status. The IT department I oversee works the individual ticket items.
- Workflow
- Customization
- Inventory
- Response Management
- Escalation
- The desktop version has been supplanted by the online version (and a local version of that online version), losing a lot of core functionality
- Ticket collision
- Ticketing
- Reporting
- Inventory
- System Alerts
- The Community
- Spiceworks Live Events
91.66666666666666%
9.2
90%
9.0
72.5%
7.3
- At the low price of free, it has had instant ROI over previous helpdesk tracking, even when including the value of labor spent on ticket management
- The live events are always educational and worth the time.
- The community is top notch
- The product reviews are unbiased and fair, as well as coming from real-world users
[Its] simplicity, [the] easy user interface for both technicians and end-users, and stability, plus the ability to locally control data access (we're highly regulated regarding privacy and records rights), puts it in its own class. While it may not do everything larger systems do, it does all of the things our company needs. It performs well even after five years and two migrations in server operating systems, and the reporting tools are available in both simple and complex (SQL-based) formats for deep capabilities.
The community is top-tier, and their use of gamification principles goes beyond other communities to being an honestly fun system. The live events are worth every second spent watching them, and their annual conference is, in my opinion, the best conference of the year.
The community is top-tier, and their use of gamification principles goes beyond other communities to being an honestly fun system. The live events are worth every second spent watching them, and their annual conference is, in my opinion, the best conference of the year.
900
All business functions. The IT Department are the heaviest users, but the helpdesk is accessible to all staff in order to help them process technology support, project, and purchase questions.
5
We have four technical staff and me (the director). Three are helpdesk support specialists, one is a healthcare informatics specialist.
- IT Support
- IT Projects
- IT Purchases
- We track project timelines in it
- Other service departments - HR, Finance, etc. that are service oriented.
Yes
It replaced an old Excel tracking sheet my predecessor used.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Prior Experience with the Product
Product usability is key - free is great, but if the users can't make use of the helpdesk easily then free has no value.
I would not change my decision at all.
- Implemented in-house
Yes
First phase was IT-use only, replacing the tracking system.
Second phase was taking that data, reviewing it, and setting items like categories and SLAs
Third phase was implementing those items into Spiceworks
Fourth phase was setting up email integration to our helpdesk email
Fifth phase was opening up the web interface
Sixth was launch
Second phase was taking that data, reviewing it, and setting items like categories and SLAs
Third phase was implementing those items into Spiceworks
Fourth phase was setting up email integration to our helpdesk email
Fifth phase was opening up the web interface
Sixth was launch
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation
We had been using a dedicated helpdesk email since before my hire, so staff [was] used to using the email. We added website support, which required notification but not much change management.
- No major issues were encountered.
No, we did not. We had not need of it, and I'm not even sure its available.
No
We had a log and temp file issue crash our database, the team (even though the product is free!) worked incredibly diligently to get us back up and running in a single evening.
- Task and follow-up entry
- Reporting
- Inventory
- Add-ons and plugins (like every system)
Yes
The community and helpdesk are separated, which is smart - we can handle tickets on the go easily, and my team updates in the field frequently.
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.
84%
8.4
95%
9.5
62%
6.2
- Considering that we have a limited budget and resources for security tools, Spiceworks has had a positive ROI in our department because we can use it to perform risk analysis on our network without the overhead cost of purchasing a similar tool to perform this function.
- The reporting feature of Spiceworks is great. You can create your own reports based on the criteria you want on your network, such as searching for workstations that run a particular operating system or systems running an outdated antivirus program.
- The real-time monitoring is an important feature. I do not have to initiate a scan of the network after I have setup Spiceworks to scan a subnet. It will automatically scan the network and identify new systems being attached to your network.
I searched for other free network scanners on the web, but they could not compare to what I got with Spiceworks. Other free scanners I found were:
1. Limited in the number of devices it could scan on your network. This would not work for us.
2. Provide a trial period for their scanners. This would not work because we needed something permanent with all the features working.
3. Were difficult to install. You needed a high level of linux/unix experience to get their solution to work.
4. Required a small agent installation on every device you wanted to scan. This was out of the question since we couldn't touch every desktop to install their agent.
1. Limited in the number of devices it could scan on your network. This would not work for us.
2. Provide a trial period for their scanners. This would not work because we needed something permanent with all the features working.
3. Were difficult to install. You needed a high level of linux/unix experience to get their solution to work.
4. Required a small agent installation on every device you wanted to scan. This was out of the question since we couldn't touch every desktop to install their agent.
1
I use it in the information technology department here on my job. I am responsible for cybersecurity at my institution and Spiceworks is a great tool for performing risk analysis on our network. As a security practitioner, we are under staffed and we have a limited budget. Spiceworks is a great complement to the tasks of knowing what is on your network. If you don't know what is on your network, how can you protect it?
1
Currently, I am the only person in my organization who is supporting Spiceworks. I have over 25 years working in information technology, but I believe any computer professional who understands Windows operating systems and software installation could easily use Spiceworks. This tool would easily help any IT shop, large or small. It would especially be usefull for security practitioners who need a tool to perform risk analysis so that they can protect what is on their network.
- Risk Analysis tool
- Cost efficient
- Easy to use
- Easy reporting features
- Easy to install and get up and running.
- I never heard about Spiceworks being used as a security risk analysis tool, but I quickly recognized it and am glad that I did.
- I like the fact that I can create custom reports that I can show my supervisor.
- The fact that the tool is free is a great plus. I know that it has saved our department $$$ because we don't have to pay for a similar product along with subscription fees.
- Spiceworks can identify workstations and servers that are running low on disk drive capacity. We could eventually use it as a means of identifying systems that need to be upgraded.
- We could also use Spiceworks to identify outdated applications which could require an upgrade.
Yes
Before Spiceworks, we had a manual process of performing a security risk analysis. We used an Excel spreadsheet and and had to record what we had on our network. This proved to be next to impossible since we have many subnets and hundreds of computers on our network. We basically didn't know what we had on our network until we installed Spiceworks. Now we are able to make better decisions on what needs to be upgraded in terms of workstation that are obsolete, resulting in a more secure environment.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
Price was the most important feature, after that would be product usability. We have a limited budget for security tools and we have limited personnel with security experience, so we were tasked to find a free tool with great usability. That was a hard task because you can't find many applications that would fit that bill, but fortunately, Spiceworks did fit that bill and we are glad for it.
Well, if I had to do it all over again, I would make sure that the product I was evaluating could be installed on a dedicated server to test and not on my workstation. Because I enjoyed the functionality of Spiceworks when I initially installed it on my workstation, it was using a lot of my system resources because I use my system for other tasks. I should have installed it the first time to a dedicated server like its on now.
- Implemented in-house
No
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled
When I initially installed Spiceworks, it was on my personal workstation. After getting used to working with the application, I discovered that it needed to run on a dedicated server instead of my workstation. I was able to coordinate with our server administrator to install Microsoft virtual server with dedicated CPU and RAM resources so that Spiceworks could run successfully. Once the server was setup, I reinstalled Spiceworks and it has worked for us ever since.
- I had to backup my existing Spiceworks installation from my workstation and install it on the dedicated server we setup for it.
- No other issues came up once we ported the installation to the dedicated server.
- Installation is very easy to get the system up and operational within an hour!
- Scanning your network is a breeze with this tool.
- Dashboards are great so you can visually view your network.
- You really should install this on a system dedicated to Spiceworks only, preferably on its own server.
- I would recommend a system running 16GB of RAM or more.
- You may have to tweek the report functions to create the output you want to see.
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.
75%
7.5
85%
8.5
80%
8.0
- Most parts of Spiceworks are Free, so how can one complain about that!
Footprints, Zendesk, and TrackIt.
IT, Administration, Inventory, Security, Helpdesk, Technicians
4
Sys Admins, dba's, repoting, techs
- Device Inventory management
- Rogue Device detection
- Network Mapping
- Identification of Applications on Workstations.
- Workstation hardware specifications analysis.
- Lifecycle management of Workstations
- Looking into the helpdesk features which appear quite robust.
- Internal FAQ and Knowledgebase.
No
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Third-party Reviews
Trial use of the product.
Would not change this process
- Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
N/A
- The fact that it cannot use Microsoft SQL for its db, but instead it self-install it own little SQL lite.
- This makes it difficult for us to use with our primary reporting server/service.
No
It is vendor and ad supported for most options.
No
Setup
- Overall the product is simple to set up and get up and running in a minimal amount of time.
- I wish Spiceworks would support installation on Microsoft SQL as opposed to forcing the use of its built in SQL-lite which makes reporting outside of the UI difficult at best.
January 21, 2013
Ideal helpdesk tool for SMB
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- Spiceworks is great for tracking helpdesk requests from start to finish.
- Inventory (tracking networked and other assets) suffices for SMB / SME but gets unwieldy in larger environments.
- SMB / SME provider community is very helpful.
- The search function does not support boolean logic and is a bit lacking.
- Knowledge base needs work in search and sharing.
- Saving several thousand dollars per year and accomplishing the same.
60
Two helpdesk personnel and the rest for ticket submission and tracking.
1
Helpdesk personnel
- IT Helpdesk
Helpstar
Track-It
- Implemented in-house
- Self-taught
Easy, but the on-line videos are helpful from a how-to-use perspective.
No
N/A
- All SNMP enabled devices.
- Windows servers and workstations.
High-level integration and easy to accomplish.
N/A