Issuetrak vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)

If someone is looking for a ticket management system or something to keep track of records in a cloud environment, IssueTrak is well suited to handle this need. It's a very simple and basic approach and after using it for 10 years, it is still just as easy to find what I'm looking for on previous tickets from years ago. The setup can get a little bit of a challenge and if you have a need to segregate users/employees into their own areas for workflow, it can be a little daunting trying to get it just right. Where I feel that IssueTrak falls short is if you need to keep track of CUSTOM FIELDS (fields that you input as searchable and trackable information) in the Dashboard area, where you spend most of your time looking to see what your workload and flow are like, is very limited, requiring you to dig a little further for what you want to see. Also, no ability to input physical addresses / GPS coordinates to be displayed on some sort of real-time map is also missing and could really boost what IssueTrak has to offer.

Incentivized

[SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)] works well in education, I'm responsible for over 500 classrooms, thousands of users and computers. Using WHD to keep track of who has what devices and which devices need to be retired has helped the user experience. I'd recommend this product to anyone managing an IT department.

Incentivized

• Keeps expansive records over a large period of time.
• Provides a simple way to look at your workload with dashboards.
• Can be used on a company level with employees, but also can be set up to have customer interaction.
• Additional modules are handy as well (Inventory tracking, Surveys, etc.)

Incentivized

• Email notifications are pretty good; you can add hidden notes, close/resolve/update tickets just by selecting the appropriate link in the email that is sent when a ticket is created or edited.
• It provides a great deal of information to both the user and tech.
• It allows us to automatically update asset information with our mobile device management system by using an extension.

Incentivized

• No place to physically MAP out your tickets (IE: Google Maps / Address Fields / GPS coordinates).
• Dashboards and ticket items do not update in real-time, making users need to REFRESH to for the latest updates/dashboards.
• Mobile app not as good as the desktop experience, especially for Dashboard views.
• Can be a bit complicated to setup and get going. Segregation of departments / users can also be a little on the complex side.
• Dashboards could GREATLY use the ability to display and track CUSTOM fields for quicker access to the information you want the most.

Incentivized

• I have been a user for over 8 years and the product continues to exceed my expectations!
• I am amazed at the fact that the users have an impact on how the product continues to evolve
• Continued efforts put forth on the security of all the SolarWinds products have been amazing

Incentivized

IssueTrak is good at what it does, but we really needed some expanded functionality out of it that just hasn't organically happened. Having a 'real-time' update of Dashboards and tickets is a piece that is lacking, especially as our organization continues to grow. A lot of times you go to update a ticket and find out it has been altered/closed before you even hit the submit button. Being able to make charts/graphs of custom fields for Dashboard is a feature (that I feel) is long overdue. Also, the ability to capture address information / GPS coordinates to be displayed on a live map is also a feature we really wanted to see.

Incentivized

We are definitely going to be sticking with Web Help Desk for the foreseeable future since the product is very inexpensive for the features that it provides, the integration that it has with our existing systems, and the ease for managing users, assets, locations, and tickets. Web Help Desk is a great product that is backed by even better support, which is well worth looking into if you are considering moving to a new ticketing system.

Incentivized

It's not cloud based so users have to be on the network to submit a ticket. It doesn't plug into Google or Microsoft Azure so all inventory has to be manually entered. It seems like solar winds is allowing the product to slow fall into obsolescence

Incentivized

They were always very good at getting a timely answer to any questions I had and in cases where I actually needed support to step in and help, they always delivered. I was very happy with the support I received from them.

Incentivized

SolarWinds is a great customizable and affordable ticketing system. We use SolarWinds Web Help Desk for IT and Software
Development trouble ticket tracking and resolution. The reporting that
SolarWinds provides is great since it helps us discover problem areas and fix
those areas so they don't keep reoccurring

Incentivized

Take the time to roll out a test VM to configure and make changes to before doing a live deployment, this way you don't end up with a VM that has been tweaked and re-tweaked until it's perfect and instead end up with a final, polished product. I would also recommend taking the time to read through the support forums for figuring out minor issues that may pop up, chances are that you aren't going to be the first one to encounter them. When all is said and done, SolarWinds Support is VERY responsive and you shouldn't hesitate to contact them.

Incentivized

IssueTrak shines for basic ticket management and the format in which they display all the information is very well done. I'd highly recommend it to someone that is looking at trying to track information at a ground level (just starting out). While other solutions are not perfect by any means, we just find that it is lacking some key features that we had hoped would have been implemented over the years (IE: More flexibility with Dashboard reporting and custom fields, a way visually look at addresses and GPS coordinates on a display map, more of a real-time approach with data and completion, etc.) This need caused us to look at some other solutions that may fit the bill a little better in the future.

Incentivized

I used ManageEngine ServiceDesk and ServiceNow at previous jobs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk was in place when I came to this job and I was disappointed when I started using it as it has a more clunky, less intuitive interface, and lacks the features of those products. And it gets frustrating because sometimes it doesn't work right. Like I will open a ticket and click on the button to add a note and instead it will close the Notes section. So then I have to close and reopen the ticket and try again. Same with closing a ticket. I change the Status to "closed" and click on "Save" and it doesn't save. So I have to keep repeating this until it works. Also, it's lacking features like the ability to unmerge or split tickets, that I had in other products. And sometimes when users reply to tickets it creates another ticket instead of adding it to the existing ticket and then we have to merge tickets. Also, it's lacking the integration with users and assets that those other products have.

Incentivized

• Made tracking individual service changes, adds, deletions, and trouble-ticket very easy to manage.
• We migrated from a paper-based work order system to completely digital and online, thus cutting down on a lot of unneeded printouts.
• Was able to actually validate and see the performance of users and what they were contributing to the department on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis in terms of work performance.

Incentivized

• Overall we have become more efficient using this tool and our ROI for implementing this has been great. By having a service tool that can manage inventory, tickets, as well as change management just to name a few, our company is better off in our support.
• The core business community has seen quicker responses to tickets through use of the ticketing tool. Business continuity has had less disruptions as we are better able to anticipate or respond to issues.
• Finance has been happier with our ability to do cost analysis by using the various tools in SolarWinds help desk.

Incentivized