Item: Spiceworks Help Desk
Rating: 10
Author: William Votta

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

[Spiceworks Help Desk] is used as the primary way for employees to submit requests for IT support, even if they're off site (we went with the cloud solution).

Pros and Cons

Cloud environment requiring nothing more than an email with the right domain is great (no new passwords needed)
Excellent knowledge base capabilities
Integration with remote administration tools like VNC
User portal to act as a kind of IT intranet is VERY flexible

When cloud hosted, AD integration isn't the best, it forces users to log in and stops working entirely when on premise services are unavailable and passwords aren't known
Additional support for direct deployment of things would be nice, a lot leans on manual GPOs and other things to leverage the additional information made visible by the Spiceworks Agent, for example
More workflows available, stuff seen in SolarWinds (tho perhaps this is available now)

Most Important Features

Cloud helpdesk with no new passwords to remember!
IT Asset Management
Extensibility! Can work with quite a few tools, VNC being a good one but TeamViewer would be better :)

Return on Investment

It satisfied a PRESSING need as we lacked in person IT support at many plants
It helped classify all networked IT assets with simple reporting for CFO use
Gave a means to manage and triage critical issues quickly with the internal and external support teams needed for the job

Alternatives Considered

TeamViewer, Ivanti ITSM Service Desk, powered by Heat (formerly LANDESK Service Desk) and Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM)

Cost was the big factor here. While we already used TeamViewer there were some limitations for the helpdesk and some only available with increased cost on the inventory side. Ivanti was used in Europe but very pricey to add to the Americas. While we used Dynamics CRM, we had a mere fraction of the licenses needed to cover all email users (manufacturing has all classes of user!).

Key Insights

Do you think Spiceworks Help Desk delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Spiceworks Help Desk's feature set?

Yes

Did Spiceworks Help Desk live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Spiceworks Help Desk go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Spiceworks Help Desk again?

Yes

Other Software Used

VNC Connect, TeamViewer, Ivanti IT Asset Management Suite

Likelihood to Recommend

I already have recommended [Spiceworks Help Desk], many times. It's such a simple onboarding and very powerful. When you just need SOMETHING this is way, way better than nothing. It has app support, is totally $0 cost and even extensible (especially if used on premise). There's even a lot that can be done on the inventory side which I use along side the cloud piece for inventory purposes alone. It's great to know what's out there (albeit for most accurate info the Spiceworks Agent should be installed).

Spiceworks' Help Desk will SAVE your IT department! And your budget.

Overall Satisfaction with Spiceworks Help Desk