No more hiding in the server room

Open Source Helpdesk software?

I have been tasked to explore the option of a Helpdesk software solution.

I would prefer Open Source, and since we are a Windows shop here, the solution would have to be compatible with Windows 2003 Server.

What do you use, or have experience with? I am open to closed source solutions, also.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rob Atkinson on March 20, 2009 at 3:29pm

two that i would recommend as follows.

1) www.liberum.org (something I had a big hand in helping to develop)
or
2) http://www.spiceworks.com/

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Permalink Reply by John McGrath on March 20, 2009 at 4:44pm

Thanks for the fast response, Rob!

I'll check these out.

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Permalink Reply by John McGrath on March 20, 2009 at 9:17pm

Thanks Paul.

Unfortunately, we can not run a *nux version here.

I will look into running it on Windows (I believe I saw a link to a guide in the wiki...), and anything else is rejected for this exercise.

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Permalink Reply by Gareth Marlow on March 24, 2009 at 9:30am

Another vote for RT - I've commissioned it in the past, and we were up and running pretty quickly. It's certainly comparable to the commercial software (Hornbill Supportworks) that we use at the moment.

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Permalink Reply by Thomas Stensitzki on March 24, 2009 at 11:17am

Did you take a look at SmarterTrack from SmarterTools?

http://www.smartertools.com
http://www.smartertools.com/SmarterTrack/Features/Customer-Service-...

We use SmarterTrack since its previous version (SmarterTicket). The free version supports one agent and offers all functionality of the enterprise version.

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Permalink Reply by Raj Patel on March 24, 2009 at 9:02pm

Best helpdesk / issue tracking system I've used was written in-house (ping Rob Butterworth on the members list) - it was on a LAMP stack but could probably just as easily run on WAMP. There was some discussion about open-sourcing it - not sure where that got to.

Features -

Email call logging and automatic receipt notification to the client + tracking url
Email updates automatically tracked in the web interface
Tech & Public fields
Multiple Techs & Group assignment (updates goto whoever is in the assigned group)
Sub-calls (ie for starters & leavers - new starter call from HR spawns jobs for IT, Business Services etc)
Browser based interface - works with multiple tabs
Easily create multiple instances (ie Business Services or Comms can use it to track work requests as well as IT)
Basic reporting
Clients can see their own calls and call history via browser

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Permalink Reply by Rob Butterworth on April 15, 2009 at 4:42pm

Sadly the OSS release of CT never happened, changes in management, etc. The system is still in use, but not by me as I moved on. The system had lots of areas that would benefit from improvements, but the day to day use was, IMO, very slick and low overhead, as we wrote it ourselves for our own use.

Since moving on, I've aquired an already established AdventNet ServiceDesk+ installation, which runs on Windows (or Linux) and to be fair isn't too bad. It actually has a lot in common with CT, and several refinements that would have made it into CT had we every carried it forward as an independent project. It's just not as slick with it's email integration (though it *is* kinda ok) and I can't get through half as many call updates as I could in CT. At first I thought this was just because I was less familiar with SD+, but after almost a year I know it's because SD+, and many other systems like it, are not carefully optimized for use in high throughput, low overhead helpdesk enviroment. Just IMO, of course ;-) Ho hum.

SD+ does have the advantage that it does hardware and software tracking too, though it's not the slickest of products for that either. It's good enough, though, and not too costly.

I've tried RT, and liked it, though it was a little picky to get working, and whilst it can be made to run in a windows environment, it's spiritual home is really *nix, and that's where it will work best.

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Permalink Reply by Glenn Rice on April 2, 2009 at 12:18pm

I did a comparison a few years ago of quite a number of open source packages and ended up settling on a commercial package: HelpSpot from UserScape software (www.userscape.com).

You can get a free trial version to test on your own servers. Well worth a look.

Glenn

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Permalink Reply by Keith Pawson on April 8, 2009 at 11:10am

I've used Liberum for some not-for profits and it does the job, but does have some limitations.

I think you will really need to go with commercial if you want all the features, and I've heard some good things about Livetime http://www.livetime.com/webservicedesk/HelpDesk.html

Hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by ITservices on April 8, 2009 at 4:34pm

SpiceWorks
www.spiceworks.com

Spiceworks is more than just Helpdesk software. It has the capability of network scans, troubleshooting, reporting, vendor purchases.Customizable to your needs. I have been using it for several months now on a Server 2003 platform, It has been a very useful tool.

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Permalink Reply by Rob Pannell on April 24, 2009 at 10:26am

I haven't really used the helpdesk facility, rather the software auditing capabilities, but we use GLPI which seems to have a pretty comprhensive system for helpdesk.

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Permalink Reply by John McGrath on May 7, 2009 at 1:51pm

Thanks for all the replies, everyone.

I will be looking into your suggestions.

Thanks again!

John M.