Solarwinds Service Desk Review
Updated September 09, 2021

Solarwinds Service Desk Review

Allan Eisenhauer | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)

Solarwinds Service desk is being used as our HelpDesk and Knowledge base portal. When staff need IT assistance they create a ticket or browse through the knowledge base articles to find a possible solution. We have made it mandatory for all staff to utilize these services if they need support as we no longer accept phone calls, text messages, or emails requesting support. Having the entire agency use Solarwinds Service Desk allows us to centrally manage and see what tickets are needing to be addressed, whereas the old way of emailing an issue to a tech does not allow the rest of the team to know that there is a problem or what has been done to correct the issue.
  • Love that it is cloud-based, so even when I am not in the office I am still able to log in and assist and or see what is happening.
  • It allows the techs and staff to communicate within the portal and provides the techs the options to do "private" messages that the other techs can see but not the end-user.
  • Makes configuring the layout simple and allows us to "brand" it the way we want and not just another cookie-cutter version.
  • I would love to see the ability to change and move sections around on the forms to help prevent wasted space and lengthy scrolls.
  • I would also like to see an addition to the inventory section to include depreciation values and have itself calculate based on purchase criteria.
  • For the checkbox option, it would be nice to be able to control how many checkboxes are per section and have other things triggered if the checkbox is checked.
  • We were able to get this system set up and implemented in less than one day so there was very little time needed to transition.
  • The ROI we easily made up within a couple of months' time with the ease of integration and less time spent trying to contact techs to see what is happening.
  • By having the Knowledgebase articles we no longer need to hunt and find prior solutions to send the staff. We can easily create a solution and link it to any of the help desk requests.
Prior to Solarwinds we had been using Spiceworks that resided on a local server. They both had the basic items that I needed to have but Spiceworks was local so I would only be able to connect when I was in one of the offices or connected through my VPN. Spiceworks was not as easily managed and configurable as Solarwinds and for the Spiceworks configuration, we spent a week or 2 getting it configured. Several times we had the Spiceworks service fail, which caused us to have to troubleshoot and search forums for answers as it is freeware so no true support.

WebTitan we only watched an online demo so we really never got any hands-on time with it. From what I saw it was very similar but since it had a higher price-point we haven't pursued any further any evaluations.
Solarwinds offers a chat feature on the website and usually someone is there answering my concern within 5-15 mins at the longest. I have done the email support as well and I always receive a response, same business day. Support staff have always been very knowledgeable and have resolved my issue/concern first contact and normally the issue is resolved the same day...I think there was an only one time that an issue/question I had took longer than a day to get a response and that was because it had to be escalated to the next level as it was not an issue that could be resolved on the front end.

Do you think SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)'s feature set?

Yes

Did SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) again?

Yes

Snagit, Kaseya Virtual System Administrator (VSA)
This package offers more features than I am currently using. With Solarwinds Service Desk, you have the capability of managing your inventory, invoices, vendors, contracts, and asset management. This is ideal for anyone looking to consolidate multiple packages into one. This is great for IT departments ranging from small to large businesses. There is also a spot in which you can create invoices and have them billed out based on the amount of time spent by the techs to resolve the issue.

If you are needing to do depreciation on your inventory, then the inventory portion will not work for you.

SolarWinds Service Desk Feature Ratings

Organize and prioritize service tickets
10
Expert directory
Not Rated
Service restoration
Not Rated
Self-service tools
10
Subscription-based notifications
Not Rated
ITSM collaboration and documentation
Not Rated
ITSM reports and dashboards
10
Configuration mangement
Not Rated
Asset management dashboard
Not Rated
Policy and contract enforcement
Not Rated
Change requests repository
Not Rated
Change calendar
Not Rated
Service-level management
Not Rated

ROI

Yes - Prior to procuring Samanage/Solar Winds we were using SpiceWorks as it was totally free. Since the product was no cost there was no real support except for asking in their community and hoping other members would respond. The reason that we decided to replace it was because of a recent server updates there were some issues that we were having and loss of access to it seemed to be happening a couple times a week and would result in us having to reboot the server that it was installed on to get it running again. While the package was free it was costing us more in time of my techs and myself to troubleshoot the program that is being used to track issues for staff resulting in staff not being able to put in a ticket and when they didn’t have access we would have to revert to the old way of just email me directly with their issues. The old way wasn’t working as staff would not provide all of the required information that we require for support requests.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
As we are a nonprofit agency price is the number one factor that usually determines which product we can go with. Even though this package was the least expensive option that we were deciding between it is not lacking in features or functionality as compared to the more expensive options. With a limited budget we have to make sure that we are getting the best product for the amount that we have to spend and I feel that we have received a product that has exceeded what we thought we would get at that price point.