Asset Management and Help Desk Software

What products do you use for Asset Management and Help Desk? My organization has 2 main locations, one of which is a large campus with 12 buildings. We also have 14 group homes in surrounding communities. I am looking for a system to help us keep track of the devices in use at these located (networked, such as PC's, printers and servers, and non-networked, such as monitors and cell phones). Is anyone using asset management software such as Track-it? What has been your experience with the software?

One feature that I think will be helpful is the ability to barcode non-networked assets.

We are also in need of a help desk solution that allows our users to submit tickets. Ideally, this would be intergrated to the asset management system so their hardware and software information accompanies their trouble ticket.

We have multiple levels of approval processes in place depending upon the type of request and need a ticketing system that supports workflows.

I know that Track-it has a Help Desk module built-in, has anyone used it?

Any feedback or guidance is greatly appreciated.

We use Altiris for asset management (now owned by Symantec) - Altiris has an inbuilt Help-Desk but we didn't find it customizable enough for your requirements, so we went with Sharepoint and the MS Help Desk Template for Sharepoint for a Help Desk solution. In our case we didn't see a need to have the Help Desk and Asset management functions combined.

FYI on Track-it.  If your Techs use any Macs on premise, you'll have to buy a Mac-module on top of the regular package.  Also, if you want the solution to be web-based so your Techs can check tickets remotely from your 12 buildings, etc...that is another module you have to purchase...and the web-based module is not 100% feature complete. I believe it to be quite pricey myself.

Have you taken a look at Web Help Desk Software yet?  Since you mentioned "campus", they have quite the impressive higher education and K-12 customer list.

It has Asset Management built-in and integrates with Windows SCCM/SMS, Apple Remote Desktop, JAMF Casper, or LANrev.

Hope this helps. :)

I agree with Bill on the price of Track-It.  To get it to do all of the features you want, its not so happy.

I use [ HelpSpot by UserScape ] for my help desk software.  It does not have an asset tracking integration.  It is cheap, totally web based and comes with all of its features in the single price tag.  I understand your reasons for wanting to combine the two systems.  However, I have found that there are great asset trackign systems and great Help Desk systems and usually they don't exist together.  So long as you can track issues to people, maybe that is enough.  HelpSpot does have a live lookup feature, so if whatever asset tracking system you settle on uses an accessible database, your tickets can be tied to actual people inside your asset tracking system as well.

For inventory I actually settled on [ DameWare NT Exporter ] to export data into a text file that I then import into my own database in Access.  I found this to be sufficient.  DameWare has a lot of tools, we actually bought the entire tool suite with Mini Remote Control, Exporter and Utilities.  Of course, this only works on Windows machines.  I inventory Linux and Mac manually.

I also added a monitoring system to my setups.  [ HypericHQ ] - they have a free community edition.  By having HypericHQ email my HelpSpot system, I can have HelpSpot auto reply to users with some knowledgebase entries on things they can try themselves based on the context of the HypericHQ error message.  Then just follow up on the issue and see if the user was able to do the steps or needed assistance.  There is a learning curve to this system.  Hah.  I'm still learning about it.

Hi there!

I am managing 12 sites and about 150 PCs for my employer (Contra Costa County's largest non-profit).  I have been using Spiceworks (FREE!) now for about 2 years.  Great Helpdesk software, with an asset management module.  You can even set it up to allow users to submit tickets via an e-mail message.  I have mine set up with a gmail account that forwards the ticket to my cell phone so I get alerted even when I'm not at my desk.  If you have the means to set up a server and configure your router to allow inbound requests to port 8000 (default, but configurable) people can submit a ticket from the portal webpage, and you can log in remotely to manage tickets and assets.

Although the asset management component of Spiceworks has an excellent feature set, there are 2 things that it lacks which would make it the perfect IT tool, especially for one man IT shops like mine: an inventory agent that runs as a service on each PC and server, and a bulk import tool.  I am in the process of giving SAManage (also has a free account option) a go for the asset piece, particulary for the installable agent aspect.  It's also appealing because I don't have to manage the asset database server, and the agent runs the inventory pretty much daily.  It uploads the data to SAManage's web-based console, where you can view and report on a number of different aspects of your inventory, including software.  It will even assign an asset tag number to each item, although it oddly lacks that field in any export of records that I've been able to find so far. 

Their software is based on the open source OCS NG Inventory suite (which ALSO boasts an agent AND a software deployment facility, but requires a significant server management effort).  SAManage has a limited bulk import tool, and has a means to collect inventory data on non-networked PCs as well as other assets.  SAManage has a helpdesk feature, but it's not part of the free toolset, and is severely lacking in comparison to Spiceworks.  It would be great if SAManage bought Spiceworks and incorporated all their features.  Of course, it probably wouldn't be free anymore.

On another semi-related note, I would also like to recommend Echogent's Echoware remote support system, a variation on the venerable VNC remote assistance software.  What sets this suite apart is the server component ($50 for non-profits) which allows the management of outbound VNC agent connections on remote PCs through a server inside your LAN (via port 1328), or you can use the free echo-service server.  This is an OUTSTANDING option for support situations where networks are not connected by VLAN or setting up router port forwarding is not feasible.  Additionally, the system includes a "one click", customizable "instant VNC" executable that allows immediate setup and connection to a client no matter where they are (assuming a broadband connection is available), with zero configuration.  It is much like Crossloop, but doesn't require an installation or sharing of a "code" to enable connections.

Sorry if this is a bit long-winded, but I have spent a lot of time trying to find a free or low cost toolset for the Non-Profit Lone Ranger IT and I am eager to share my experience and discoveries.

Cheers!

-Jack

Just got an emailed notification that there was a reply to this post, which sparked some info about the Web Help Desk Software that we use and thought was significant enough to share.

I get an RSS feed on Web Help Desk for new features and versions from them.  They just released an Asset Manager mapping plugin that allows you to map any field from an external sql db & 3rd party asset discovery app into any fields in Web Help Desk!  

Looking forward to testing this with our Zenoss asset and network monitoring app!!!

I'm telling you, if you haven't looked a WHD, you're missing out.  What a jewel!

Very nice additions to the discussion!  Thanks for sharing them with us.

Hi, 

I saw Your post for this and I would suggest looking into IBM Tivoli Asset management.

You can do all of what you are looking for and more with the Tivoli Asset Management software. 

Here is a link to check it out and get more information.

http://tiny.cc/XVIeQ 

I hope this helps guide your research.

Cheers, 

Steven

In our company we use Help Desk Authority

This tool is a perfect solution for ticket tracking as well as asset management (without needing to buy another software).

The asset piece collects asset information for installed hardware and software which can be added to a trouble ticket. It seems like it's the exact feature that you was looking for. 

Well James, I went to the Script Logic website and there's no pricing information for Help desk Authority to be found anywhere I looked.  I was checking the purchase page and couldn't find it.  How much did you have to pay and how many licenses do you use?  I like that it uses a named technician licensing model.

Hi, Chris!

I had to a quote for the product. I know I paid around $1500 for 5 users and the asset tool, but they gave me a number of quote options depending on what functionality I wanted. 

That's not a horrible price ;)  Was the asset tool based on the number of PCs being audited - or still based on the number of named staff accessing the software?

We picked up the Pro Edition of Web Help Desk, with all of the bells and whistles, for about $450 per support staff login, if I remember correctly...it's been awhile :)  Their pricing page has the Lite Edition much less if you don't *require* the asset tracking bit.  Just an fyi. :)

I'm throwing my hat in the ring for Spiceworks, too.  I've been using it for 2 years after one of our consultants introduced it to me.  It's free, it's easy to set up and use, it has integrated help desk tickets, etc.  Doesn't *always* do a 100% perfect job on the network asset scan but every generation of the software has gotten better.  It also has a great online community & support network.

We're a small organization and I used to just handle all the IT requests via direct email, but since I set up the helpdesk with Spiceworks I have had such an easier time of handling the requests and projects and being able to identify problems with the workstations before the users even know they are having them.

We just started using OCS in combination with GLPI http://glpi-project.org/?lang=en about a month ago and we're loving it thus far. GLPI runs separate from OCS and imports data from it. It provides helpdesk and other functionality, including project management and more. It's not only free and open source, including features previously mentioned (asset tracking, dynamic update through an agent, software push), but it's also one of the better organized and more intuitive products of its type that I've worked with. Compare it to something like RT for issue tracking and it's really quite pleasant to use.

We didn't find setup to be terribly difficult. We do have 1 in house IT staffer and an intern, but the intern is actually the one who handled setup and aside from some version incompatibilities (the project manager system is not yet available for the latest RC), he had no problems. Because of the complexity and flexibility of the system, configuration needs to be planned well. For example we had an issue where everyone in one fo our location groups was copied on all IT ticket communications inadvertantly. Assigning notifications to the IT group instead of the location where the group is based solved that easily. That's just an example anyway of the kind of issues you might encounter, which are in our experience minor and easily solved.

Documentation is a bit scattered, but definitely available. I think the main development community is French, but there is still plenty of English help and information.

All in all we're extremely pleased and frankly amazed at what we got for free. Our primary IT coordinator has been in the business 20 years, he worked at Autodesk where they have 10's of 1000's of assets and were using hefty software to manage the infrastructure, and he was blown away by what this software can do for the price. It's a pretty comprehensive solution. And we haven't thus far found it to need much software management or upkeep, it's very stable and self-sufficient once you have it configured and running. If configuration is a problem then you can contract someone temporarily to set it up. With how easy and fast it is, I wouldn't expect that to cost that much, and it's very easy to use after that.

Oh I almost forgot, it has Win, Mac, and Linux agents, which allow dynamic asset tracking and software push on all 3 platforms, and you can also use the agent in a stand-alone mode to output a report for later import into the system (for non-networked assets).

I'd be glad to answer any questions about use or functionality of the system. I'll keep an eye on this thread...

Regards,

Oshyan Greene