1

Hi,

I believe I downloaded and setup SpiceWorks possibly under false pretenses. SpiceWorks is amazing software, but I’m not sure I can use it for what I want it for.

I wanted to use SpiceWorks as an alternative to MHelpDesk for my IT business. I do everything from computer repair and network troubleshooting to remote maintenance. I wanted to use SpiceWorks’ Help Desk as a database for my customers, their computers, tickets, past history, set up appointments, etc. I wanted to also print and send invoices if possible as well.

However, it looks like SpiceWorks is designed more for on-site IT since it seems to only organize what it can scan on your LAN.

Maybe I just am not setting it up properly. How can I get SpiceWorks to accomplish what I’m looking for (or can I)?

Thanks in advance,

Matt

6 Spice ups
2

It sounds as if you are supporting other IT environments than your own, is this correct (like an MSP, for example)? If so, then you would probably benefit from setting up a SW install at your clients’ offices. You could then access these installations via some remote access software such as LogMeIn. In a normal, uniform environment, several SW installations could work together with each of the SW instances scanning their assigned subnet and relaying that information back to a central install. In your case, I would not recommend going this route, as it collects information and if you are supporting various, independent clients then you might get some overlap. For example, company A’s device at 192.168.0.112 might be different from company B’s device at the same address. Also, each company’s tickets will be in one large pile. That pile can be organized by ticket rules, but I still think completely separate SW environments would be best.

Of course, you could go for a compromise between completely separate environments and completely merged environments. You could deploy a SW server at each client site, have each server scan its own client networks, and keep that information local to the site. Then, you could have a SW instance at your shop that is set up to handle helpdesk requests. Give this email address to your clients for them to submit tickets. Then, organize the tickets via ticket rules.

EDIT: As for printing invoices, SW is also able to track time spent on a given ticket. You can then run reports that will show how much time was spent on Ticket #XXXX.

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I know a lot of MSPs use Spiceworks to manage their customer records, help desk tickets, and get alerts to customer issues (if you use remote collectors). I’m not sure about invoicing, but maybe some MSPs will chime in with their experiences.

Here’s some information to check out to see how others have used it in similar situations:

http://www.spiceworks.com/free-managed-service-platform-software/

http://community.spiceworks.com/help/Spiceworks_MSP_Guide

http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/23369-spiceworks-for-msp-how-to

2 Spice ups
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If you have more than one customer (and I’m assuming you do) and you installed Spiceworks on a system at “your office” (and I’m assuming that’s what you did ; ), then that’s probably not going to work like how you would like. One of it’s main benefits is installing it on a LAN/WAN and letting it inventory all the endpoints (servers, PCs, switches, routers, etc.) - once that is done then you can do most of what you mentioned (RDP into a box, aggregate switch configs, open a ticket for a given endpoint, monitor servers, etc.).

I do some consulting work for smaller businesses and one of the first things I do is install SW locally on their lan so that I get an idea of everything they have on their network, etc. If I’m supporting them remotely I could configure that local SW instance to email me when tickets or alerts get created; and I could even potentially VPN into their network to access SW, etc. - but I have a separate SW install account for each client/network.

Not sure about invoices - I do those outside of SW.

JM

2 Spice ups
5

Good point by Nellanayrb - I should have mentioned that I’m not really an MSP (I don’t have a SW install at my home office or anything) - so installing Remote Connectors hasn’t traditionally been an option for me.

If it was, I’d want to make sure my clients were OK with me aggregating their data on “my” SW install (might be nice to have some sort of a “waiver” or some form for the client to sign in this scenario?)…

JM

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Again, I would like to point out that one of the problems with Remote Collectors is that it depends greatly on not having two separate sets of the same subnet, which you might have if you have two clients each using the same Class C subnet designation. You run the risk of making a mess of your inventory, if you have two devices, each with the same IP but belonging to different companies, that end up fighting over a space in your inventory.

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But even if they were using the same subnet, wouldn’t you still be able to group and separate them by their collectors? We don’t use remote collectors, but we have some remote agents and instead of being “Central Server” they show the remote agent site’s name.

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I imagine that it is possible. What I’m trying to say is that it seems like a big risk to do this with your Inventory, especially given all of the advantages to having completely separate scanning with, at most, combined helpdesk functionality. I know that there aren’t a lot of tools in a vanilla SW install, but I imagine that some of them depend on the IP address of the device, and I’m not sure how SW would react to two devices claiming to be at the same address when using those tools. At the very least, I imagine that the online/offline indicator would be untrustworthy in an environment such as this, which could lead to problems with alerts.

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Thanks for the replies!

I support some businesses, but mainly home clients. Installing SW at each home might be an option, but I’m not sure that is exactly what I’m looking for since I believe that would be a bit out of my control since the software resides on their computer.

Are there any MSPs that are not incredibly expensive that would accomplish what I’m trying to do?

Thanks,

Matt

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For small or sole-machine networks, there’s also the agent that you can install on each PC. It’s very low in resource requirements.