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Hello I just started a new IT Business. I have been trying to find good software for my business and was looking for some suggestions. For RMM I thought about getting LabTech. For my ticketing system i’m trying to decide between spiceworks and osTicket. Any ideas would be appreciated. I providing support for residential and business.

24 Spice ups
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Spiceworks is free and a great tool.

I also use Labtech and Connectwise, but that costs monthly to run.

Do you have a budget in mind?

3 Spice ups
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I’m using Spiceworks for managing tickets for my clients. The app is pretty handy too. :slight_smile:

@Spiceworks

1 Spice up
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PDQ Deploy and PDQ Inventory is the best tool you must try.

@PDQ

1 Spice up
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We use SysAid for our ticketing system as the Free version allows upto 100 end users and has a friendly end user portal. We use Spiceworks as our desktop monitoring tool. We also have LabTech (with Connectwise) for monitoring of our servers, however, we dont use Connectwise as its end user portal is not very user friendly.

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What kind of IT business are you running? Break/fix? Network support? Systems consulting? Business analysis? Web development?

“IT” gets painted in very broad strokes, and you’ll get different suggestions based on our experiences. These may have nothing at all to do with your business needs.

8 Spice ups
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If you’re looking at a “typical” support-oriented business, give serious consideration to finding an MSP partner, like GFI Cloud or Continuum. Your competitors are doing this. If you’re not, you’re already behind the game.

5 Spice ups
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Spiceworks, free, good user community.

1 Spice up
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If you’re doing home user break/fix:

  • Stop. This is a horrible way to make money. I know - I offer those services.

    Home users are, bar none, the absolute worst people to work for. Their systems tend to be old and are generally horridly maintained (otherwise, they wouldn’t need you!), they’ll want to chat you up for tons of free advice (don’t get sucked in - offer paid “training” instead), often have unrealistic expectations regarding the cost of your services ($150 to reload a computer? Can’t I just do that myself?) and how long it takes (Three days? My brother’s cousin has kid in college who says he can do it by tomorrow for $20). The Geek Squad is both your best friend and your worst enemy.

12 Spice ups
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Continuum is a good RMM for a small MSP.

It is easy to setup and the pricing is decent.

I would use Spiceworks for ticketing.

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Continuum is a bit pricy to get into ($250/month for the first 3 months), but that cost covers a boatload of product training and sales support. After that, you only pay for what you use.

Ticketing depends entirely on how you plan to use the ticketing system. Continuum’s NOC services include a (mostly horrid) ticketing system, but there’s no Android app to connect to it (!). I actually like ZenDesk … and their mobile app is great.

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For remote management I like team viewer. Easy setup and use. Never had any issues. Also Fast support can be handy.

3 Spice ups
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Spiceworks for ticketing and helpdesk totally. The new hosted helpdesk should be out of beta soon and might work great for you if your based on a traditional MSP model.

@Spiceworks

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I use ZenDesk for ticketing and TeamViewer (paid version) for remote support. Neither does everything I would wish, both have their annoyances, but I’ve trialled many different alternatives and am fairly happily settled.

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As an employee at a IT consulting company, I was in love with SW a few years back, but it has faded.

The Spiceworks helpdesk is a big fail for a MSP in my opinion. I tried it for a year or so. Just too many limitations. I have switched to ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus for that. There is no charge for only the helpdesk functionality. You can install it locally or use their hosted version.

For remote monitoring, I still have SW installed at all of my clients but I am using it less and less for that because the scanning seems to not work as good as it used to. I am currently evaluating Monitor.us (not free) as a potential solution.

For remote support, we purchased ScreenConnect and installed it on our Hyper-V server in a co-location space.

1 Spice up
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I use Zendesk in many different companies. It is a great tool, mobile friendly, and easy to use/manage. Pricing is great to.

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First off, welcome to the community @matthewsearce ! As others have already asked, what type of IT business are you starting? Will you be a one-man shop? What is your budget (if any) for the software that you plan to use? More details will help define what the best software for your new business will be. Looking forward to hearing more from you.

2 Spice ups
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Matthew, I’ve been in business for about 5 years and doing IT work a lot longer than that. I’m recently switching my business over to an MSP, but otherwise am straight forward Break-Fix at the moment. I’ve checked out a lot of different RMM and PSA “SaaS” offerings. Let me first say that I was dissapointed with AutoTask as a PSA. They recently bought CentraStage which seemed like a good idea but with hands on I found it lacking in both features, price and user interface. With that said, myself being huge into the usability of software the two SaaS options I’ve found and really like are Capzure and Continuum.

I’ve been using a Trial of Capzure for about 2 weeks and really love the interface, VERY clean, straight forward… does what it says, period. That said its fairly new and some functionality isn’t there yet but will be very shortly, mostly tickets having visibility for customers. The other thing being most features are manually done and not automated like IT asset discovery, but I’m sure as they integrate more with other vendors that won’t be a problem.

Continuum, I’ve been looking at for about 2 weeks as well, received lots of information on them, watched tons of videos, just finished a 1 hour live demo and about to start my trial. Their interface is about as good as it gets for RMMs, and functionality is totally there. With a NOC service, you should be able to expand your business out easily without the need for adding staff. I’ve been in business for 5 years and never added staff and its killed me. I’m anticipating adding the NOC service will help reduce and extend out my need for staff unless its something on-site.

Ideally Capzure would jump heavily onto integration with top tier RMMs like Continuum or even simpler RMM like offerings that have open APIs like LogMeIn Central. If I were starting over again, and something like Capzure existed, even in its current state, I’d be all over it. Tickets, Asset management, expiry information, Quickbooks integration, TIME TRACKING (huge one) on tickets and so much more… all features are available in a very well laid out working Android/iOS app… yeah that’s awesome. Even the big guys like AutoTask don’t have an app… I’m dead serious they tell you to just load it from the browser and it runs terrible, native apps all of the way. Try out Capzure since its free for 30 days, and from my understanding it will be over 30 days for your trial since they aren’t accepting payments yet. Ohh and their staff is great about responding to emails no matter what your message is about (suggestions, bugs, general help).

Best of luck to you, and welcome to the world of IT business ownership… its a heck of a ride :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Spice ups
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Thank you for all of your replies. I’m basically doing a break-fix type of work. This has helped me out alot

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For remote monitoring and remote management of machines one can use Symantec PCAnywhere tool. This tool has a solid track record in handling remote admin.