Slashdot Mirror

I've looked and looked. Most OSS tools only provide 'tickets' and maybe 'inventory'. In my book a (ajax web-based) helpdesk application consists of a little more:

-user management, including imports
-problem management
-change management
-configurable email responses (get mail when you report a ticket, when you get a ticket on your name, ...)
-good comprehensive overviews
-reporting
-searches
-some sort of wiki which is integrated.
-selfservicedesk where a user can review and update incidents

There were only two (below 10k$) commercial options I could find (and I used to work at the second shop):
-ManageEngine
-Topdesk Mind you, Topdesk has a codebase which is a mess which makes development a bitch. It is however very slick to use.

In general I find that in niche markets only commercial shops provide a comprehensive solution. Maybe there should be a place where software developers with an itch can see what features are wanted for an application of type X (here: helpdesk).

Flame away for un-advising OSS ;-).

Try Servicedesk Plus from Adventnet. They have a free version you can use. http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/service-desk/index.html

I like Manage Engine Applications Manager (although it has a pretty horrible name.) It's a slick, good-looking product that runs as a .jsp inside its own instance of Tomcat, monitors a wide variety of servers from various vendors, and if you have less than 10 servers, it's free.

I like servicedesk from AdventNet. It seems to work pretty well, it's very easy to configure. I have only 2 complaints.. It's perpetually 95% there. They release features, but don't add the next logical step to the feature. For example, they have a nice reporting module, but you have to be a full administrator to access it. Secondly, don't pay attention to any of their release dates for updates. They always miss their own deadlines by a couple months, and tend to promise more new features than they actually deliver. I think they're just overly optimistic.

I remembered reading a news story back several months about the same kind of system. Unfortunately the yahoo! page has expired but there's a mention of it in this blog as well: http://blogs.adventnet.com/weblog_entry.php?e=8977

I'm pretty sure they just use the one built into emacs

Manageengine Servicedesk Plus. Reasonable licensing (and the free version might work for your company). Support is good, and asset discovery is automatic on your network (and easily linkable to users, who are also automatically discovered). So far, it's been an excellent program.

I have just receieved the go ahead to create a proof of concept mesh network with WRT54G routers for a small city. The initial phase will provide coverage for a .5KM radius in a downtown core. I am looking at using the DD-WRT firmware with WRT54GL units. If we can provide seamless roaming across this entire space, then we will try to expand and provide free roaming wifi VOIP. What I am asking the slashdot community is what sort of management tools have you used to monitor things like node bandwidth utilization, link integrity, rogue access point detection, signal to noise ratio, uptime, etc. I am looking at WIFI Manager from Manage Engine:

http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/wifi-ma nager/index.html?tb/

Has anybody used this or other tools to monitor a larger scale deployment?

At the (small) company I work for, we have been using http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/service -desk/. It is a pretty nice tool, with some pieces that we will probably never use. I used to work for a couple really big companies that used really big (read: expensive) tools, and this one covers most of those bases pretty well. For small installs (25 pcs) you can use this one for free.