Helpdesk have a lot to handle with respect to raising tickets, updating its status and maintaining SLA. Misplacing tickets can be the worst thing to happen as this leads to SLA violations and customer dissatisfaction. Maintaining SLA is one main target that businesses hope to achieve for retaining their clients. While there might be much software which helps in the service desk applications, we consider the top five of them which are free and can help in managing them effectively.
- SpiceWorks: It is a free version which is self hosted and once the setup is done, it is ready for use. The features that stand out are that it is a free service which can be used by many agents and has a fast and easy installation process. It supports multi-site as well as device compatibility features such as mobile. It also has server monitoring services.
Below mentioned services are open source version which is fully customizable and it functions well for unlimited users. Installation needs to be done by ourselves which is just a onetime operation.
- osTicket: It is very easy to use and one can associate SLA’s with help topics or departments. Overdue alerts can be set-up and notifications can be sent across when the due date is missed. Customer portal contains help requests. It enables unlimited SLA agreements and there is a lot of space in the ticket to add all the information you want. It also has dashboard reports and automated responses can also be setup.
- OTRS Free: It offers notifications emails whenever a new ticket is created or when there is a change in the status of the ticket. Ticket lock is another feature which prevents two agents working on the same ticket at the same time. The time taken for processing is automatically calculated and there is a feature to show the out of status for a particular agent. There is a lot of automation work which reduces the overall effort spent on a particular issue.
- Mantis Bug Tracker: It is also a widely used tracker which offers agents to provide them with notifications based on a set of rules. Various levels of access can be provided to different users which is another added advantage and all the changes that are made to a ticket is audited which helps in tracing the change in ticket status. It also has a functionality to send SMS to persons when an issue is resolved. This works fairly well for external project management systems.
- Bugzilla: It is a clean and easy to use interface without any fancy features. It does have advanced search features and remembers your queries. Where there are a lot of user requests to handle, this can be very effective for the ease of use it provides to users. It can be little difficult for installation, which is a drawback but once installed it is the easiest application to use.
When we need to improve the helpdesk application with a better system but not having the sufficient budget to do so, the above mentioned software can be useful which will make life a lot easier. The main idea of having a service desk application is to manage the tickets effectively based on their category, priority and severity. With many features available in the service desk applications mentioned above apart from being free of service, one can choose them based on the needs of the organisation and also on the number of customers using them and the number of requests they receive. With customization available in most of the service desk applications, it can be tailored to meet the needs of the business with ease.
Logitrain delivers the best IT Training Courses, for more information please visit www.logitrain.com.au or call 1800 159 151.
