Item: SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Rating: 9
Author: Dave Pekol

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The application is primarily used for handling inbound IT requests from across the Enterprise. We also have other non-IT related departments that have been able to use it to manage their own business requests. We find that Service Desk helps us to organize our work, utilize skill based routing, manage priorities, provide greater visibility and coverage (from management and other team members), and provide reporting and metrics that we didn't have before.

Pros and Cons

Very easy to setup.
Training end users and people working requests is easy.
Good customer service and support.
Lots of features.

Service catalog forms are limited, it would be better if you could do some formatting or arranging to make it look better to the end user.
Today there is an agent that is deployed to every workstation, which provides asset inventory. However we don't know what we don't know. I would prefer agent-less integration to see all of the workstations on my networks. Right now I don't know what I am missing, and agent versions change.
Ability to integrate any remote support application into Service Desk, so and end user could connect from the ticket, chat, or portal to start a remote session.

Return on Investment

Affordable and competitive pricing
Fast and easy to train and start using within an hour
Good reporting and metrics

Alternatives Considered

We evaluated several vendors like ServiceNow, Track-IT, Footprints, FreshDesk etc. Service Desk had a lot of the features that covered our IT processes/needs, and enough features for us to grow into. Service Desk implementation was well organized and fast. Price-wise, Service Desk has a lot of features at an affordable price.

Support Rating

The support staff is quick to respond and knowledgeable. There are several ways to interact with them, such as email, portal, chat. They provide really good customer service and I always have access to my AE who can bring an engineer on the call.

Key Insights

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

Likelihood to Recommend

For an IT helpdesk application, it is fantastic. We were able to deploy it across all of our IT teams at different companies and it was easy for them to learn and was adopted quickly by the end users. We have used it for other business segments that were not IT. Service Desk works great, but there is no escaping that it is an IT tool built on the ITIL process. If you could turn off Problems, Changes etc, for some of those folks it could look better for them.

Service Desk: great features at a good price

Overall Satisfaction with Solarwinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage)