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Hi SpiceHeads,

While we’ve been posting various updates as of late, we know many of you are curious about the direction of the Spiceworks Tools & Apps. We want to make sure you’re not just aware of our plans but are also a part of the conversation.

The road behind us

Our primary focus this year is on helping our members migrate off of the legacy Desktop application. Back in 2018, we announced that we were no longer going to be improving Spiceworks Desktop after version 7.5 and that version 8.0 was placed on hold. Instead, we decided to invest time in enhancing the Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk (CHD). We’ve also continued to see IT professionals find value in our Inventory online and Connectivity Dashboard products, even while most of our focus has been on our help desk solution over these last months.

The road before us

This year, we’re planning to deprecate or “end of life” the Desktop solution. Specifically, this means we have set a date after which we will no longer maintain or provide support for version 7.5, including addressing security vulnerabilities or issues with the Desktop app related to external services. To begin this transition, the Desktop 7.5 app will become unavailable for download at the end of June. Then, at the end of the year, we’ll fully end of life the product.

We are committed to having a great experience in our Cloud Help Desk solution. Not only are our tools and applications a significant part of Spiceworks, but they are also vital to the success of many IT professionals in their organizations. This year we’ll continue to make progress on our commitment to provide a mobile-friendly experience while improving and adding features and functionality. During 2020 we put a large amount of effort into modernizing the CHD backend and researching the first stage of our “next-gen” web frontend for the CHD, which you can check out in the “Reports” tab of CHD. Recently we’ve made a variety of updates, including New Reports (the mentioned overhaul for built-in Reports and creation of our advanced reporting integration with Power BI), a brand new mobile-friendly User Portal, refreshed Settings, and updates to the mobile version of the Tickets view. Next, we’ll be focusing on the “desktop browser” (non-mobile) version of the Tickets view, as well as some additional performance enhancements.

We have a variety of other updates planned for this year. But, the further out we go, the more we “build with Play-Doh,” meaning the remainder of our planned updates are subject to change based on your needs. This is why your feedback is important to us - so make sure you continue to let us know what you like, what you don’t, and what you feel can be improved. We read all of the feedback you send us when responding to our blog and topic posts, replies to our emails and Feature Requests , and various other ways we communicate.

Why are you deprecating the Desktop app this year?

Spiceworks Desktop is an older codebase that has deliberately received minimal attention and development effort since 2018. We’ve diverted engineering efforts to our cloud tools, investing in our future with the Cloud-based CHD, Inventory online, and Connectivity Dashboard. In addition, as we communicated last year , both Microsoft and Google are making improvements to the security of email mailbox authentication. These changes will make GSuite and Office 365 mail services unusable by users of the Desktop 7.5 application. Following deadline extensions from Microsoft and Google because of the COVID-19 crisis, there are currently no published firm dates for the final “cut-off.” But Microsoft and Google have already begun the transition for new email accounts, and they appear to be targeting a complete transition later in 2021.

What is going on with Help Desk Server?

Some of you may have noticed we didn’t reference the Help Desk Server (HDS) above. Unfortunately, we do not see substantial interest or adoption of HDS, especially when compared to CHD. When we look at what we need to accomplish this year with CHD, we’ve come to the hard decision that our best path forward is to concentrate our efforts there. This means we’ll discontinue development on HDS during 2021 following the release of v1.3 and re-evaluate our position at the end of the year.

For those of you who are currently using HDS, this leaves you with a few options. You can continue to use HDS. That said, we know some may be concerned about using software that is not receiving updates and has an unclear future. If that is your situation, you can either easily migrate to the Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk or if you need an on-prem solution, read more about other options below in the “Migrating off of your Desktop app” section.

Focusing on giving you a better experience

We understand that the above is a lot to take in and may feel like all we’re doing is taking away. To put it bluntly, we are definitely taking away functionality provided in the Desktop app that will not be replaced in the Cloud Help Desk, Inventory online, or Connectivity Dashboard products. The Desktop app has had a long history, and over the years, we provided numerous features and a lot of customization. We hope to continue proving that what we’re doing is taking a hard look at both our past and the future and making some tough decisions about what you need us to build. Especially over the past 2-3 years, while Desktop has been a “supported” product, we have had more products and technical debt than we can properly manage. We feel that by focusing on fewer products, we can deliver an A+ experience for you, our users, and continually move those products and services forward in ways that positively impact you. For us, that means our focus is on the Cloud Help Desk, Inventory online, and Connectivity Dashboard. We plan to continue focusing on ensuring your successful migration to our cloud-based products this year, including continuing to modernize the CHD and providing features and enhancements that benefit everyone (including those that are migrating and those that started out using our cloud-based tools).

Migrating off of your Desktop app

If you are eager to take the migration plunge, we’re thrilled and ready to support you. First, we have documentation to help you get migrated.

Moving to Inventory online and Connectivity Dashboard for your inventory and monitoring needs is simple - remove the old agent from devices on your network(s) and install the new agent. Read more here .

While we’d love to keep everyone in our ecosystem, we know our products will not always be the best fit for everyone, especially as your team’s needs evolve. Luckily, we work with a lot of great brands, so chances are you’ll find a suitable replacement through Spiceworks. Just ask the Community, and you’ll get a lot of great recommendations.

For those of you dialed in and ready to stick with the Spiceworks Help Desk, we are so happy to hear it. What is holding you back from migrating? While the end of the year still feels like it’s a long way away, it’s a good time to start doing your research and making plans. And we’d love to know what we can do to help with that, so let us know below!

Update [Jun 21, 2021]: Due to how challenging it can be to find specific responses in a long topic, I am doing my best to keep this particular post up-to-date with my replies and updates:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/post/9203647

Update [Nov 9, 2023]: As a part of the continued degradation of supporting services for the Desktop app, on Dec 1, 2023, we will take services offline, impacting the below functionality on all Desktop apps.

  • Desktop apps will be unable to generate alert notification emails or any other emails currently being sent by Spiceworks mail services.

  • Desktop apps will be unable to authenticate using Spiceworks authentication services (you will be unable to add new Desktop app users, register new installations of the Desktop app, manage/reset user passwords with Spiceworks authentication services).

  • Desktop app will be unable to install shared plugins, shared reports, or shared language packs from the Spiceworks App Center.

  • There may be other unanticipated effects on Desktop apps, potentially including impacts to core functionality. As we communicated in Dec. 2021, we recommend migrating off of the Desktop application.

67 Spice ups
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We are hanging in and blocking cloud access because of the need for the checklist functionality.

11 Spice ups
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To be clear, you’re talking about being able to reuse a checklist, correct? CHD currently supports checklists, they are just unique per ticket.

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We are on CHD. The functionality that I would like to see (and honestly I haven’t checked lately so… whoops) is:

Azure Active Directory SSO (or at least authentication) for helpdesk and employees of company, and a choice for third-party SSO or normal logins for ‘other’ people. Or, a standardized thing like Oauth or SAML2.0 or whatever is the latest, safest way to do that sorry if thing that works with most of those services like AAD. We are a k-12 academy, so this functionality helps alleviate many issues we could have. I don’t want an agent syncing AD and I would love a 1-time SMTP match when first enabled. We love Spiceworks and already see the Google login…

Sub-tickets. We had just started using sub-tickets prior to moving to CHD. Then we moved to CHD and there are only checklists. Sometimes tickets need to keep the current contact but the ticket really had spawned another ticket that relates to someone else. The original ticket is dependent on the completion of this task but the… well, here is an example.

An office manager puts in a ticket for a faculty member. The office manager doesn’t want to know the ins and outs of things, but they want to know when things are done. We need to communicate with the faculty member (and document that communication). So now we have to create another ticket for that faculty member. When we are done with it, we have to find the office manager"s ticket and then fill them in and close it… anyhow… hope that helps.

Also, the KB section is still mildly confusing as to what audiences can view which section. I know this because I have had other team members ask me.

Anyhow, overall we love the product. Will these stop us from using your systems? No, but they would enable us to provide greater functionality and make use of a larger breadth of your services.

Also, they would increase the security of the system.

11 Spice ups
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This is great feedback and actually echoes not just a lot of feedback we’ve received from others but also a lot of our own internal conversations on what a solid foundation is for CHD before we start building past that (ie, what are table stakes vs really nice-to-haves). I’m, of course, biased, but I think you’ll be happy with some of our upcoming updates.

2 Spice ups
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We just migrated to CHD from an on-prem setup and it seems that our KB entries didn’t migrate along with the ticket import, which was a bummer. Also, I think that some other functionality was part of a plugin, but editing ticket entries was a feature that I used often. That and sub-tickets would make CHD awesome.

7 Spice ups
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It might sound like a small thing, but I’ve spent some time over the past couple of years finetuning and customizing our on-prem setup to better suit our organization. I understand CHD is not as flexible in this respect.

For example, my email notification template has evolved to the point where it’s over 300 lines long, and the end-user portal has become a more robust notification centre.

I would hate to lose the very things that went into the decision of choosing the Spiceworks platform over other competitors.

19 Spice ups
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As a company that has health clients, any vendor that stores data that may contain any identifying information of a client is Protected Health Information and subject to HIPAA/HiTECH regulations. So, if a ticket contains any data that can identify a client, the vendor must be HIPAA-compliant. (i.e. - Ticket like, ‘client Firstname in the Electronic Health Records app is locked.’)

Because of this, we specifically chose your HDS solution as the Desktop solution was old and going to die. Will you be making sure it is HIPAA-compliant and willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) so we can use your cloud product? If not, you then eliminate any and all health organizations where the ticket could contain any ePHI.

37 Spice ups
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From the FAQ about the CHD product:

"Does it meet HIPAA compliance requirements?

No. The Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk is not an approved medical system or service nor will Spiceworks enter into a HIPAA business associate agreement. The application can be used as a help desk service but no protected health information should ever be included or stored in Cloud Help Desk. While Spiceworks actively adheres to security best practices when handling sensitive data (such as Personal Data), our users need to follow common-sense practices when using our service. Make sure to check out our Security Center for more details and information."

( https://community.spiceworks.com/support/help-desk-cloud-edition/docs#faq )

4 Spice ups
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I guess I’ll start finding a replacement now, then. :frowning: That is a bummer that y’all would decide to kill off the OnPrem but not offer a HIPAA-compliant version.

37 Spice ups
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Sadly, the lack of HIPAA compliance in the cloud version is a great disappointment, just as we are setting up the on premise server helpdesk. Back to the drawing board.

26 Spice ups
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So, when will the cloud version actually support same things as the on premise inventory?

Last I checked it a couple of months ago it was missing a LOT of functionality.

20 Spice ups
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Same with us. Im curious what you guys will look at. We have looked at a few. Shoot me a DM if you want.

1 Spice up
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I just got the email notification.

" This year, we’re planning to deprecate and “end of life” the Desktop solution."

Its sad to see this great product disappear. I understand the reason.

I unfortunately cannot switch the cloud version as it would not meet our strict security requirements when it comes using cloud services.

I will continue to interact with the community feed of the site.

Time to move onto another on-prem solution.

24 Spice ups
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I’m not sure Spiceworks actually understands what this move will mean. My organization and every other organization under HIPAA constraints will be forced to stop using it.

That’s what, maybe 10-15% of everyone using Spiceworks today? I’d not gotten the impression Spiceworks was doing well enough to voluntarily drop 15% of their user base. Maybe they are doing better than I thought.

31 Spice ups
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I’ll echo @spiceuser-sojx9 ​ and @ivan . We took the steps to lock down the on-prem solution because operating a helpdesk in a healthcare environment will ​always include HIPPA/ePHI. We’d hate to leave but we’ll also be looking for an alternate solution.

15 Spice ups
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I’ve tried multiple times to setup HDS but it will refuse to import our existing tickets every time. Plus now that you wont be working on HDS there’s not much choice left for us but to move onto some other option unfortuantely.

I’ve used Siceworks in one form or naother for about 12 years now. I’m sure I’ll still frequent forums/discussions, but it will be a bummer to leave behind what I considered one of the best helpdesk options for a small business.

As I write this our 34,518th ticket just came in. It’s been a long run!

20 Spice ups
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This is terrible news (I’ve just received the email too) We always knew we’d have to migrate away from the old codebase, but expected Help Desk Server to be the spiritual successor with most of the features built in. This seems a massive backwards step to force IT Admins to Cloud software, when we were very happy with on prem.

19 Spice ups
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I’m going to miss a lot of the functionality that the desktop inventory provides. The purchasing aspect of it is a huge loss since I think it was really helpful to track IT purchases. Is the goal to incorporate a lot of the desktop features into the cloud version? I tried the cloud version and it doesn’t give nearly the amount of detail as the desktop version.

6 Spice ups
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We ONLY use the self-hosted version for inventory. The last time I looked at the cloud inventory, it was extremely lacking in features and reporting and absolutely not an option. If that’s gotten better, there’s still the issue of it being cloud based and regardless of whatever security claims, there’s still the concern of sending data to the “cloud”, not to mention HIPAA concerns, etc.

So where are we with on-prem inventory? Is it also EOL and the only recommendation is to move to cloud inventory? Will on-prem just no longer be supported, or will it cease to function at some point? Can existing historical inventory data be migrated to cloud?

Thanks…

13 Spice ups