Is there still active development on Cloud Helpdesk

spiceuser-yh5p9 · 2020-02-11T01:34:12.000Z

We are looking at moving from the on prem helpdesk to the Cloud version since on-prem development seems to have died a slow agonizing death. The main driver for moving is a desire to want to utilize the Cloud Inventory tool. Documentation says that they recommend the cloud version for more that 100 clients.

In trying to do some feature comparison, there are still lots of gaps between the two. (capability of the ticket rules is one in particular that spurred this question). When I look at the feature request log for the cloud helpdesk, the last thing that was implemented was “1 year ago” with Canned Responses. That doesn’t give me much confidence that the feature gaps I’m seeing are going to get addressed anytime soon. Can anyone share any looks behind the curtains?

Specifically some things that I’m seeing as gaps for us

Requirement for the on prem agent to tie to AD for SSO; this works, but would prefer that we could tie to other cloud resources like Azure or Okta
Inability to automate data export for our weekly statistics reporting
Ticket rules are ‘case sensitive’ and cannot leverage Ticket Anywhere commands like mute

The list seems short, but they are things we need to consider. Thanks for any insight you can offer.

scheff1 · 2020-02-16T21:18:50.000Z

weigh2tall:

We are looking at moving from the on prem helpdesk to the Cloud version since on-prem development seems to have died a slow agonizing death.

That depends on what you understand by on-premise development. And there are known facts and announcements, not just impressions. According to the announcement last August, active development of installable on-premise version has finished. It’s unlikely to resume. Only serious security updates may still come.

Active development of on-premise solution is paused, not finished. According to the same announcement, expressed in my terms, focus is currently on code consolidation of the cloud code in order to use the same code for public cloud as well as private cloud. Private cloud means on-premise. This has been achieved for the help desk. Focus of development seems now to add migration support of installed help desk (on-premise) to private cloud on-premise.

weigh2tall:

That doesn’t give me much confidence that the feature gaps I’m seeing are going to get addressed anytime soon.

That’s my impression too, on the base of different observations as mentioned above. Didn’t check the feature set between public cloud and private cloud solution for help desk (as my interest is in inventory). Active development has been paused. Don’t know which priorities Spiceworks has after implementing their intended migration assistance.

spiceuser-yh5p9 · 2020-02-17T14:33:07.000Z

@scheff1 Thank you for taking the time to respond. I’ve not seen the official announcement that on-prem’s current branch was dead, but that’s what I’ve taken from different forum posts that have essentially asked the same question I’m asking.

Is Spiceworks dead? Spiceworks Support

It seems like the development of Spiceworks core app has slowed to almost nonexistent. New versions used to roll out on a continual basis. I can't even remember the last time they rolled out a new version. This makes me sad. Are there plans to continue to improve the core app, or has Spiceworks abandoned it in favor of all the other minor apps?

I did find this thread

https://community.spiceworks.com/support/help-desk-cloud-edition/release-notes

So it seems like they have been doing ‘something’. (Last post was January) regarding some performance improvements.

And further digging I did find that this thread is still active, even after multiple years

State of Desktop app v8.0 Spiceworks

Hi everyone, we’ve been working hard on our Inventory products, but have not provided a recent update on the status of the Inventory 8.0 beta or the general future of the Desktop app (Help Desk and Inventory). Below are details around where both are headed, and how it ties into what we’re working on for Help Desk and Inventory products. Inventory 8.0 beta The 2017 beta releases of Inventory 8.0 made it apparent that application performance would be a challenge for both Inventory and Help Desk.…

scheff1 · 2020-02-17T15:29:37.000Z

weigh2tall:

scheff1 Thank you for taking the time to respond. I’ve not seen the official announcement that on-prem’s current branch was dead, but that’s what I’ve taken from different forum posts that have essentially asked the same question I’m asking.

Is Spiceworks dead?

There seem to be several topics like that. I didn’t read those years before I started with Spiceworks. I’ve got a good summary on those by some Spiceworks community veterans. Essentially, the value of those posts depends on your definition of development and the users satisfaction. Different users have different definitions and expectations of development and many are not satisfied with the (slow resp. lacking) dynamics.

But the official announcement is something different. I don’t know what is considered an official announcement and how many versions exist in which places. But the one integrated into Spiceworks product roadmap is (most) authoritive and the most up to date, especially the section end of life close to the end of that roadmap. It has been entered close to end of August 2019 with a few updates and clarifications since. With my experience with languages and life, I can only emphasize what this product road map says and what it doesn’t say. Although I’m a non-native speaker, I understand also what they didn’t say resp. announce. There has been some kind of FAQ on this too for clarification. But that’s not referenced nor integrated well. Many people don’t understand what this announcement doesn’t imply.

weigh2tall:

I did find this thread

https://community.spiceworks.com/support/help-desk-cloud-edition/release-notes

So it seems like they have been doing ‘something’. (Last post was January) regarding some performance improvements.

I didn’t know as I’m interested only in the on-premise edition with focus on inventory. So I only got a notice about some maintenance at the backend in January. Interesting to notice that progress is going on on areas out of my scope too.

weigh2tall:

And further digging I did find that this thread is still active, even after multiple years

State of Desktop app v8.0

That’s interesting as it includes official statements going beyond what has already been announced and to address some aspects not addressed before. But again confirming of no schedule resp. timeline.