JIRA Service Desk - Internal Ticketing system of choice
November 29, 2017
JIRA Service Desk - Internal Ticketing system of choice
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with JIRA Service Desk
JIRA Service Desk is currently being used for all IT related requests or issues via email which automatically creates a ticket for the IT department. Service Desk is very reliable at creating appropriate channels between end users and the IT department. It allows for automatic creation of IT or other department tickets via email and able to use simple or complex scripting to handle the different kinds of emails. JIRA also supports a large number of extensions through plugins.
Many of the problems it solves for our company is to allow the IT department to handle a large queue of requests at the same time. It can also allow for a more friendly and easy to use "customer" portal for end users to submit requests using a decision tree that can help categorize requests further; certain examples include requests for a new workstation or VPN setup or needing a password reset. The front end is reliable and has been effective at reducing the turn around time on solutions.
Many of the problems it solves for our company is to allow the IT department to handle a large queue of requests at the same time. It can also allow for a more friendly and easy to use "customer" portal for end users to submit requests using a decision tree that can help categorize requests further; certain examples include requests for a new workstation or VPN setup or needing a password reset. The front end is reliable and has been effective at reducing the turn around time on solutions.
- Extensions through plugins that help improve JIRA Service Desk make it competitive with other ticketing based systems like OTRS or FreshDesk. A specific plugin which I use is "Email This" and helps strip out unwanted images or signature files from tickets, creates the ability to email a ticket to other end users (as a means to provide full updates to the end user who may or may not want to login to find the solution put into place)
- It works very well with JIRA Core and Confluence which allows for great integration with a knowledge base to work in tandem with Service Desk.
- The built in workflows are very good, and often doesn't require changes through a standard ticket workflow.
- JIRA does have some great functionality but it does lack in email communications to the customer when it comes to non-sensitive materials. Many of the outbound emails to customers within the ticket (as you can comment or log work which can be made available to the customer, or not) require the customer or end user to login in order to see the updates made. This could be dealt with by having a switch between sensitive and non-sensitive information that will include the updated information within the email rather than wait for the customer to log in to see the update. It can be a barrier, which is why we use "Email this issue" plugin.
- A better filter for reducing junk email or automated emails that may be sent to the designated ticket email that auto-generates a ticket. The current controls require some knowledge of java scripting or other scripting languages to accomplish. Something more user-friendly would be appreciated.
- Separation of incoming tickets to different departments or auto-assigning could be a lot more user-friendly.
- The licensing was limited to Service Desk Agents in our company as having each end user licensed as a Jira User simply to be able to read (or in most cases, not read) the updates or resolutions provided became a challenge. For this particular reason, we could not justify the added annual cost but at the same time, we saved quite a lot of money to have a great system that increases the IT Departments inefficiencies.
I've tried many other systems and used them extensively in the past including GLPI with integrated software and computer inventory systems. Used OTRS for customer related ticketing (in comparison to using Service Desk for internal ticketing) and found the system not geared towards the end users or requests around IT. OSTicket is also a great choice as it also provides an open source version for doing the initial testing and trying out new software however it was pretty lackluster.
I found that JIRA Service Desk can do a lot for the company and the setup was very easy. It looks and feels professional which helps build confidence within our end users.
I found that JIRA Service Desk can do a lot for the company and the setup was very easy. It looks and feels professional which helps build confidence within our end users.