What are some great options for helpdesk ticketing systems for a 2-person IT team? (original) (raw)

January 22, 2025, 8:10pm 1

Currently we are simply using a standard support email that goes to both of us and just communication between us on things. However, we have a lot of users that just call or walk up to our desk to essentially put in ‘tickets’. This is all fine and dandy, I have no issue helping people out with whatever they may need but sometimes it can be difficult to keep track of, things fall through the cracks and also logging resolutions and creating a pattern we can follow is sorely missing.

I am somewhat familiar with Spiceworks on-prem from years ago and if I’m not mistaken our company has previously used it though I am not fully aware what happened to it and the full story behind it.

Small IT admins, what do you use and recommend in terms of solving these issues? How is Spiceworks Cloud in function? Any other solutions you recommend? How to get users to actually properly send in tickets?

molan (molan) January 22, 2025, 8:12pm 2

it died LOL. there is a web version now I believe but I haven’t used it.

There are plenty of paid solutions around for this if you have a budget.
We use NinjaOne RMM with the ticketing addon. b
Kaseya has an offering

as do many many others

reenasun (Reena) January 22, 2025, 8:16pm 3

Considering we are just a team of 2, most solutions are far more robust and costly than we need.

ajason (aJason) January 22, 2025, 8:18pm 4

We use Jira Service Management and like it. I am the main IT guy to use it, I have one assistant who works one day a week currently. There is a free tier for up to three agents and some other limitations. The “other limitations” got us since we hit the daily limit on email notifications, so we pay for the service now to ensure that we don’t miss any notifications.

Rod-IT (Rod-IT) January 22, 2025, 8:35pm 5

Something for bedtime
What’s going on with Spiceworks Tools & Apps in 2021? - Spiceworks Support - Spiceworks Community

If you don’d mind self hosting and investing some time understanding them OTRS/ZNUNNY/OTOBO are all about, OTRS is the main product, the other 2 are forks.

titusovermyer (Gorfmaster1) January 22, 2025, 9:43pm 6

Maybe give OSTicket a look, there is a free version you can look at.
https://osticket.com/editions/

computerdave (computerdave) January 22, 2025, 9:52pm 7

We are a 4-person IT team and use the SW Cloud Helpdesk and it works great for us; it may not be as robust or feature-rich as other offerings, but we had been using the on-prem version for a long time. It made more sense to just export our tickets and migrate them over. For our use it works great and setup is very straight-forward; you can be up and running in a short period of time.

clutka (MAINSTRIKE) January 23, 2025, 12:34am 8

The Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk is even more basic than the old on-premises version you used years ago. It does do the job. My users do not even know I’m using it. I’ve turned off all email notifications so I’m the one entering in all the tickets myself. It keeps my formatting consistent. I also use it for time tracking. I am a team of one.
I would suggest that you simply create a Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk organization and test it out. If it doesn’t work for you, delete it.
Regarding getting your users to send in tickets, you will need buy-in from management to make it mandatory. I get people to remind me by email so if I don’t get an email, it’s on them. If it’s a phone call, I do enter the ticket into my system manually under their name.

rtrauth (rtrauth) January 23, 2025, 12:47am 9

I have been using JitBit SaaS version in my work environment since Spiceworks on prem died. There are just three of us in the IT department. I’ve been really happy with Jitbit and I think the bang is worth the buck. For my purposes I needed something more robust than the Spiceworks cloud helpdesk. That said, I do use the Spiceworks cloud helpdesk for personal stuff and it does everything I need. You can check oout Jitbit here: https://www.jitbit.com/

spiceuser-n7w8m (spiceuser-n7w8m) January 23, 2025, 7:32am 10

I’ve used Monday before and it’s pretty easy to use. As far as I know there’s a free version available for small teams.

samsmith631 (Sam Smith631) January 23, 2025, 8:44am 11

I have been using Manage Engine Service Desk Plus Cloud for 8 years now over 3 companies, and before that I was using On-Prem. The free tier gives you 3 technicians and no restrictions on emails etc. It has a solutions area to create How To Guides where each one can be locked to whether only technicians can see it or where you can make it to where your requesters can log in and see the ones you specify. Reporting is quite easy too compared to other systems I have seen.

Cloud IT helpdesk tool, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Cloud

Tyler-Douglas (Tyler Douglas) January 23, 2025, 12:49pm 12

We’re a team of three using Spiceworks Cloud help desk. As others have said, it isn’t as feature rich some other options; but it is free. It also provides the ability to send ZOHO assist links to the ticket submitter to facilitate remote access if you don’t already have something in place for that. The tickets can either be submitted by sending an email to a specific email address, or through the Spiceworks user portal (recommended due to formatting). The way we do this for users is we create a shortcut on all desktops that is named “Helpdesk Portal” which will take users directly to where they need to go. The user will then enter their email and receive a link to sign in. Considering it’s free, you might as well test it out and see if it works for you.

simpsonj (simpsonj) January 23, 2025, 1:08pm 13

For a Team of two, Freshdesk is worth a look. The free version is now capped at two agents, but is fairly feature rich, with options to expand to paid versions if you need extra functionality.

sparkfist (Sparkfist) January 23, 2025, 1:32pm 14

For the number of people you can manage with a mailbox, helpdesk@mycompany[dot]com
Pick a color and when one of you take an email mark it with said color. I started this when I was working IT last position. It was picked up by the others when I explained why I did it and it helped make for a more organized system.

You may consider Zendesk, Spiceworks or OSticket for a ticketing system. All three have the option of being hosted. I only tested the first two and used the third at my company until we were forced to move to ServiceNow and then SysAid. The benefit I saw with OSticket was if you want to host it yourself you can, as well it has a webportal users can use if they are locked out of their emails.

The next thing if you want to keep the walk-ups from not submitting ticket. Find an old tablet or laptop. Set it up as a kiosk to go to the web portal or just send an email to the mailbox. Users have to do at these this before they can talk to you about their issue. This way you can prove they came to get your help, you have a record, and this is just a small thing that any user can do if they need help ASAP.

Here’s hoping you find something that help.

re-boot (Re-boot) January 23, 2025, 2:07pm 15

Another vote for Jitbit here, though it may be more than you need for your 2 person team. Had never heard of it before my current role (been here >5 years) but it has become one of my favorite Helpdesk experiences. Very robust, we use it not only for IT but also facilities and HR. We also have a LOT of automation rules and customization.

mikecyr4 (Mike-IT3) January 23, 2025, 2:18pm 16

Does SW Cloud Help Desk have the phone app for IT to open drive by verbal tickets?
Years ago I used the on Prem help desk and it had a corresponding app where you could just hit a button speak into it and it would auto generate a ticket for you which was great if you were walking around and someone hit you up as a dry buy ticket. Was a very useful ticket

lithiumkid1976 (LithiumKid1976) January 23, 2025, 2:27pm 17

if you have an office 365 license, you should have access to MS lists, fire that up, there is a template there for “issue tracker” that you could use? shouldnt cost you anything, and for a small team, might just do the job?
not sure how users are logging calls, but you could create a MS form, which with power automate, could write to the MS List thats in place…

(im using lists a lot)

K5000 January 23, 2025, 3:08pm 18

You can check out Zoho Desk.

They have a free edition as well as paid. Zoho Desk Pricing & Editions | Flexible free trial

clutka (MAINSTRIKE) January 24, 2025, 3:25pm 19

Spiceworks still has their mobile app but I don’t know if they use that feature in the latest version. I do seem to recall the voice to ticket feature but that may have been an iOS feature only since I don’t remember it in the Android.

You’re welcome to check out the app again and let us know. Spiceworks Mobile Apps: Support Documentation - Spiceworks The store images are broken but the underlying links still work. I’ve got a message into someone who can fix the images.

mikecyr4 (Mike-IT3) January 24, 2025, 5:34pm 20

Yes they did have it for Android because that’s all I use, and the voice to ticket worked great for me at the time, you could even use it just to record random thoughts and notes that popped into your head that you don’t want to forget.

I don’t know about the iPhone app, because I am too old to play with toys! hahaha