Item: SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Solarwinds ServiceDesk for our technical support agents, including network operations and developers. We also use it to manage our onboarding and purchasing requests. It is generally used by the IT department and HR staff for new hires, technical support and purchasing. We have implemented the self service portal, which is showing some corporate adoption. This tool has helped to address ticket management and tracking for all types of requests that come to our team.

Pros and Cons

Asset management is done well with this tool. We can track ownership of equipment and help track warranty for replacements.
Ticket tracking with time spent on requests is also done quite well—we use this a lot to report back to the executive as to how the business is doing.
Building the service catalog is quite easy as well. You can really do a lot with automation and conditions to make sure certain types of requests get to the right teams to be completed.
Adding the ability to update incidents from the problem tickets is a great new feature just enabled this past week! Love this one.

Reporting could be a lot better. Currently, only being able to see PDF files with charts that don't include time spent on calls in any meaningful way. I end up exporting tickets and creating my own reports.
Tagging for automation needs improvement. Smart suggestions don't offer any value. I haven't seen any smart suggestions pop up for known solution articles, so that's somewhat lackluster.
The synchronization between Azure and Samanage has never worked properly. We have worked with tech support and still had to manually update user information.

Return on Investment

Relatively low price point for all the options we get from using this tool.
Being able to track our inventory has been amazing—linking that inventory to the users definitely saves us money.

Alternatives Considered

Ivanti ITSM Service Desk, powered by Heat (formerly LANDESK Service Desk) and KACE Systems Management Appliance (SMA)

Solarwinds ServiceDesk is superior to the above two tools for our organization mainly because of the ease of use. You do not need to have a programming background to set up your ITSM tool. With it, you get automation, reporting options, catalog items, and on-demand chat with the technical staff. It covers many departments in the organization and can certainly be expanded to new teams for adoption with their processes quite easily. The price point is also important. It is affordable.

Support Rating

The support team is one of the best that I've ever had to work within all my years of working in the IT field. They are quick to respond and very helpful with any and all questions. They also offer proactive support! I asked a question about a feature earlier this week that I was told was not available, but the next day, that same tech reached out to me directly to let me know that the feature I wanted IS now available. Great, professional service.

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

Other Software Used

Microsoft Teams, TeamViewer

Likelihood to Recommend

Solarwinds is very easy to set up from the start. We have added groups and technicians to those groups for easy ticket assignments, and asset management tracking is very useful. It's a young tool with a lot of room to grow in terms of automation, but I really like it.

Why I would Choose Solarwinds ServiceDesk For My ITSM

Overall Satisfaction with Solarwinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage)