Item: SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use the Solarwinds Service Desk in the capacity of incident management, change management, issue tracking, asset management, and technical information repository. Other departments within our organization use it as well for non-technical issue tracking and workflow/process management. The main business problem it addresses for us is in the efficient tracking and management of trouble tickets within the organization.

Pros and Cons

The platform is pretty easy to use by non-technical staff.
Setting up and managing things like single sign-on and automatic user-provisioning is straightforward when coupled with Azure AD.
Customizing categories and workflows was fairly simple.

Asset management could be better.
Using the platform to track orders could be better as custom PO numbers cannot be entered in a searchable way.
Integrations with other service desk applications still could be improved, but has gotten a lot better with the Solarwinds acquisition of Samanage.

Return on Investment

Setting thresholds for ticket aging and policies around SLA has helped quite a bit.
The email functionality helps with end-user engagement much more than a help desk portal.
Reporting wizards could be better. We’ve had to engage support a few times in trying to understand how to get the data we wanted.

Support Rating

Prior to the Solarwinds acquisition, the Samanage support desk was very good and seems to still be good. Oftentimes, when a bigger fish eats a smaller one, the service levels plummet. But they’ve done a very good job of keeping their current standards and not changing too much about what worked in the platform.

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

VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation, Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Likelihood to Recommend

Solarwinds Service Desk works pretty well for an organization of our size. We moved from an internally-hosted solution to this and found it much easier to manage and much more feature-rich than many other entry-level solutions. In the less appropriate sphere, I could see this being a platform some organizations could outgrow as reporting needs and user counts expand.

Good things from the Solarwinds acquisition of Samanage

Overall Satisfaction with Solarwinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage)