I just noticed a ad on the site for one of MangeEngine’s products, and thought why not give a brief rundown of their helpdesk offering.

We use ServiceDeskPlus as our helpdesk and inventory system. When we were researching, it stood out in that it had a good price point, an active community behind it, and most importantly, had both an online demo and a downloadable evaluation.
Since our purchase, the product, and pricing, has changed. We have unlimited nodes for the inventory, but new customers have to pay by the node.

Overall, we like it. Being web based, we can touch it from any PC in the company, or even remotely. However, the coding of the site is such that it does not work fully with iPhones or Windows Mobile browsers (Opera), so some options are not available.

I think our two biggest issues with it are not really its fault. Initial setup and organization (being new to running helpdesk software) kept us from realizing its potential, and maybe still hinders us slightly from time to time. The other issue is just being thorough and always keeping it updated.

The way the inventory side works is not very straight forward… handling PCs and chasis essentially as two different items, and not in a convienent manner. Also, it does a central sweep to detect hardware/software, which does not seem as reliable and acurate as using remote agents.

Another goofy issue is that the idea of using it to track tasks is inheritantly difficult, as the task is not automatically linked to the issue it deals with.

The last big issue that comes to mind, and it would be the item I urge you to evaluate closely before purchase, is its limited searching. To SDP, a task is different from a note, which is different from a request… basically each element is its own entity. And only a few of these are at all searchable, and even then, only individually… you may need to repeat the search multiple times to cover all the bases. It also does not handle boolean searching… so unless you know exactly what you want, you won’t find it. This, in a helpdesk product meant to aid finding information, is a huge issue.

What we quite like about it is the reporting side. We actually use it for time keeping, and it works fairly well. We are always on the lookout for new software, as this product is not perfect, and its ongoing subscription means each year we are financially motivated to seek out alternatives.

If you have specific questions, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to provide more detail.

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