Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued) vs. Freshservice

Agiloft is a fully GUI based system that requires very little or no coding. That allows for a very quick deployment of a new install and for adding new features. Therefore, it works great for companies that don't want to write a new system from the ground up.

Freshservice is a great all round product with many features. Asset management, Reporting, ticketing, automatization. It was much easier for us using the Freshservice app to scan barcodes for our new devices to get them in the asset management tool, automating certain tasks such as service requests for new devices automatically making a ticket and assigning assets to certain people and getting reports from this afterwards. For a medium to large size company this is great value. For a smaller business there are smaller bundles they provide which are much more affordable in case you do not need all of the features they provide. In summary, lots of features for a snappy, responsive piece of software.

Incentivized

• Agiloft's performance has been excellent. This includes 1) Scalability, 2) System response, and 3) Reliability. We have not had a reported issue with the system for at least 2 years.
• Professional Services. When we had an issue interfacing with an external data mart we brought in Agiloft's Professional Services and got a quick, cost-effective solution.
• Strategic Planning. As we look to the future we are hoping to move to the ITIL model. We love Agiloft's solution and have embraced it as our future direction.
• Flexibility. This includes 1) Custom form design, 2) Routing based on just about any criteria, 3) Addition of attributes, 4) Search capabilities for end users.

• Asset Management Module: The features I like most in this module are the discovery agent software, which allows us to collect device information without manual intervention, and the simplicity and robustness of the module itself.
• Service Catalog: This feature allows us to create forms tailored to specific service requests based on group requirements. The ability to customize forms greatly helps both us and our end-users provide the necessary information to fulfill their requests.
• Workflow Automator and Business Rules: These two allow us to have some automation in place, eliminating some of the manual steps and decreasing the number of human errors that may happen due to manual changes.

Incentivized

• They could build a slicker look to the graphical charts output for the reports. These look a bit dated, and I would like the ability to customize them more.
• I find that some features of the tool are difficult to find, and aren't necessarily in the most common sense of places. This definitely eases with experience with the tool, but initially it will take some time just to figure out the setup of the tool and where things are located. For example, permissions can be set on many different levels, which is great, but logically finding where to find the differing permission levels is difficult at first. I would suggest attending their admin training session to initiate yourself with the tool at first, so you're not as reliant on Agiloft initially to guide you in building the tool, which can get expensive.

• Workflow management is hard to troubleshoot
• Some default fields can't be changed
• FAQ has no history
• Work flow management can't be managed via API or a command line
• Service Requests and contracts have no possibilities to choose how pricing will be calculated, like per month, per user, per year, per lifetime...
• Automatic backup of assets and FAQ is not possible

Incentivized

We have invested a lot of effort in tailoring the solution to our needs. Our users (both internal and external) are comfortable with it and we have aligned it with our workflow. We have also integrated it into our implementation processes and are working to connect it to our SDLC.

We are pretty invested in Freshservice right now and have integrated it pretty heavily into our environment, so it would be hard to move away from it. For the most part, we are happy with Freshservice and the ease of use it gives us in managing tickets through the system. The only complaint we've had is customer service.

Incentivized

For the most part, it is an easy and intuitive system to use. There are many small things that could be improved to make the system work even easier. However, overall it is very easy to use if you have a good grasp on computer programs and using them to build things. I do not have any computer science or programming background, and I am able to use this system with few problems.

Easy to navigate and use GUI. We have many infrastructure team members from various departments using Freshservice and their on-boarding and training was very straightforward and we have not received much, if any negative feedback from non-technology users in regards to overall usability, interface or functionality.

Downtime is minimal (it does happen but not often)

Incentivized

Most reports are quick, however, it can take some time for emailed exports to come via email. It would be helpful to have the exports live in the system rather than having to wait on emails.

Incentivized

We often hear back very quickly with answers to our questions. They also support their answers at times with screenshots and videos to help further explain their advice and suggestions. The only reason it isn't a 10 is because sometimes using only the online support system, sometimes things aren't communicated as well as they would be over the phone. However, we know if there is a major issue going on, we can call Agiloft for support.

Support from OEM is decent but needs improvement. Sometimes OEM also needs to understand the criticality of the customer and help as an Ad-hoc, which is somewhat lacking at Feshservice. Although the normal support team is well-equipped and helps according to the matrix, if something critical for the partner or customer requires immediate attention, it still goes through the L1-L2-L3 levels, which wastes a lot of time.

Incentivized

Training was enough to use the base website

Incentivized

Their documentation is pretty good, but only available in English. This makes it difficult for some of our users to understand. There are also some basic video courses available.

Incentivized

Creating the correct groups for the stakeholders and enabling the right notifications are one of the most important aspect of the implementation. Creating Change templates will also help in the long run and it's a good practice to create one, if applicable.

Agiloft's singular advantage is its ease of customization that allows you to capture automation requirements right at the point of use. We knew our company would always be developing new requirements for its customer-facing processes and any tool that made customization difficult was an inferior choice for us. Other vendors offered similar levels of customization, but when we dug deeper, Agiloft was the only one that delivered it. Our management team came from the IT and development side of NetSuite and we have used it to manage our business almost since inception. However, its support, marketing, and sales functionality was too difficult to modify and built to meet too broad a set of requirements, so we could never get full adoption or utilization, and it stood in the way of delivering the service levels we needed to provide our customers. We still use NetSuite for back-of-the-house financial functions which don't need that level of customization, but for everything else, the way forward has led us to choose Agiloft.

Freshservice is ahead in some areas, behind in others. For example, workspaces have been part of other products for many years. Freshworks just introduced it in 2023. Integration with productivity tools is better than past products we have used. Apps continue to be added as well. We selected Freshservice as it was the best mix of functionality and cost. We don't need solutions as robust as ServiceNow, for example, but found that Freshservice had some comparable advanced features.

Incentivized

The software is very scalable from a small to mid sized team. The features have seemed to scale exceptionally well.

Incentivized

• Helps us organize tasks and projects and the data associated with each project
• Helps us organize our resources to meet the demand of issues and events
• This has helped us keep moving forward during times we otherwise would have pulled back.
• Completely revolutionized our way of work life. Upwards of approx 300 percent productivity and complexity..

• Alleviate our support team by providing knowledge directly to the end users.
• Better response times from our IT support team, thanks to automation and dashboard use.
• Better tracking of our assets by assigning them to users so we know which device was handed out to who. During off-boarding, we know which devices to ask back.

Incentivized