Item: SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Rating: 3
Author: Margaret Auld-Louie

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SolarWinds WHD is used by multiple departments for supporting users. Used by IT, Data (who provides application support), Facilities/Maintenance, HR and possibly others.

Pros and Cons

Easy to view tickets for department and self.
Easy to assign tickets to techs.
Easy to create email in ticket to send to user.
Advanced ticket search capabilities.
Ticket emails show all details of ticket.

Clunky, dated interface.
Interface doesn't always work. Sometimes have to click multiple times to get something to work.
No categories for tickets.
It is not possible to unmerge tickets in the technician interface. You have to go into the database to do this.

Return on Investment

It provides a way to track support requests in IT, Data, HR and Facilities without incurring a huge software cost.
It does not provide a way to manage our IT assets which makes it more difficult to manage the assets.
It is not the most intuitive software for techs to use, which can make it hard for them to come up to speed on it.

I used ManageEngine ServiceDesk and ServiceNow at previous jobs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk was in place when I came to this job and I was disappointed when I started using it as it has a more clunky, less intuitive interface, and lacks the features of those products. And it gets frustrating because sometimes it doesn't work right. Like I will open a ticket and click on the button to add a note and instead it will close the Notes section. So then I have to close and reopen the ticket and try again. Same with closing a ticket. I change the Status to "closed" and click on "Save" and it doesn't save. So I have to keep repeating this until it works. Also, it's lacking features like the ability to unmerge or split tickets, that I had in other products. And sometimes when users reply to tickets it creates another ticket instead of adding it to the existing ticket and then we have to merge tickets. Also, it's lacking the integration with users and assets that those other products have.

Key Insights

Do you think SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)'s feature set?

Did SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) again?

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), Synology DiskStation, ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect)

Likelihood to Recommend

SolarWinds WHD is well suited if you have a limited budget, as it costs less than many help desk software packages that are more full featured and modern in their design. It is not well suited to an environment where you want to manage inventory, users, purchases and tickets all in one package. It has an asset feature that we don't use but that looks quite limited. We track our assets and users separately from this.

Clunky and dated

Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)