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Hello,

I really could use some help\guidance. We are working on moving main line of business apps. I currently have Spiceworks on prem. I was thinking about moving to the Spiceworks Cloud or new version of the on prem that looks like we can still do. But, I would like to get it setup so it works and functions better for us.

So right now we have a web form on our website that users can fill out and it collects all the data that i would like. Just on the back end if I look at the table structure it looks like all the fields the form collects just gets put in the description field. The reason why I even look at the SQL file (backup of course) is to help me find tickets from users as I struggle with searching in the front in environment.

I guess, just am used to some of the features of a previous ticket system that I have worked with and just would like to know if there is away to make it more functional for searching (looking up tickets) by facility, users and ect. Also, is there away to make more labels to denote if a ticket status changes with color such as

Waiting on call back

Waiting on provider (Cable, Internet, ect)

Waiting on Parts

Waiting for Purchase approval

ect

then say if a user responds it changes color Kind of like with the current “waiting on user” with the hour glass and it goes away and with the date updated it sort on the view it puts it to the top for me.

*Note we currently do have categories for them to select and that seems to work. Just want to be able to filter against all that.

Just trying to make it more functional or if moving to the cloud get started out of the box the correct way and setup the best way possible to make us the most efficient. As there are two of us for a large number of locations (adding a 3rd Tech) maybe. But, the old staff setup the current one with minor changes from me over the last few years. But, I am to the point where Id like to make it functional and before I went down the rabbit hole of researching or asking the web guy for some help with figuring it out. I just would like to know if some of the things I would like to improve on are possible before wasting a lot of time on research. I know this community is very supportive and helpful. Just looking for guidance and suggestions.

Note* We deal with a bit of everything. Here are some of the current Categories just to give you an idea of scope of tickets.

AOD, Email Support, Census, Copier\Printer Support, End User Support, New Employee/User/Email/Terms(This one comes in from another form and email form of it goes to other departments as well.), PC Support, SmartLinx Support, Phone Support, Petersen Website Issues, Vehicle Support, Internet, Cable, Background Checks, Tablet Support, Ciscor Call Light Issues, Check Scanner, EPOC,

4 Spice ups
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I don’t know what you mean by functioning better. The supported Spiceworks help desk solutions are Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk (CHD) and (on-premise or hosted) Spiceworks Help Desk Server (HDS). Active development of HDS is suspended since mid-May of last year. So only a subset of features of CHD is available for HDS. Some limitations of the discontinued legacy Windows edition of Spiceworks should no longer apply to the supported editions. But the feature set of the supported editions is and will remain below the discontinued legacy Windows edition. It is your decision when to migrate. If you need to migrate soon, we’ll need to check if the available feature set of supported editions of Spiceworks is sufficient to you or not. If not, you might want to consider migration to 3rd party solution. You may continue to use the Spiceworks community even when migrating to 3rd party solution for help desk.

Customization options are limited although progressing currently for CHD.

I don’t know what you mean by web form. The supported editions just come with user portal. If this is sufficient for you, fine. Otherwise, you may setup your own web form and use the email interface of your considered and supported Spiceworks help desk solution. There exists a feature request for CHD for other kinds of web forms . But that is not yet implemented. Feel free to vote up and comment that feature request. And no, not all data is entering the description field upon ticket creation. But IT should be able to complement data of description or other resources to fill further fields while some are already filled upon ticket creation.

Yes, CHD supports to use custom categories and custom attributes. But it is not yet supported to use multiple categories for a ticket although some Spiceheads have cases where a case may simultaneously be of two or more categories. There exists a feature request to get support for multi-category tickets . There exists a feature request to support color coding . But the proposed color coding is different to your intended color coding. There exists a feature request to get more waiting states . And here is another feature request to get more waiting states. Feel free to comment and vote up such feature requests. Searching on tickets is supported. And there exist several feature requests to improve searching. There exists at least one feature request for filtering. And sorting according to many properties is already supported.

So parts of what you like is already available with CHD, a sub-set might even be available with HDS. But for other features, you’ll need to await implementation. By voting up your feature requests, you may decrease the time unto expecting implementation.

1 Spice up
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Wow, there’s a lot to digest there. I’ll try to focus on your questions.

In general, the previous version of Spiceworks, the now-deprecated Spiceworks Desktop v7.5, is generally more flexible and has more functionality than its current Cloud Help Desk sibling. Such features would be the ability to extend the help desk with add-ons/extensions, language support, more configurable user portal, tighter inventory integration, purchasing, child tickets, configurable email templates, and several other options. While you can continue to use it, its life will be limited. It must poll a mailbox for its email integration and does not support modern authentication methods, so most likely that will be the first thing to break.

While I don’t want to dissuade you moving over to the dark side, I do want to be as transparent as possible so that you know what you will be losing with a Cloud Help Desk migration. You need to make the best choice for your company.

The web form you use – is that what’s built in to the Spiceworks user portal options or is that separate? If built in – you would lose some configuration options but you can still submit tickets from a user portal in the CHD. If you’re using a third party form like JotForm or SharePoint, then you will need to go through some additional hoops to populate tickets. The email should be submitted as a Spiceworks administrator, not the end user. This way you can use Tickets Anywhere commands to specify the custom attributes (custom fields) you would like to populate. You would also specify the user who created the ticket so that they would receive the email notifications. We can explore more about this if you’re interested or simply follow the link I posted.

Searching tickets has always been a challenge and Spiceworks continues to struggle in that arena. Many fields are not indexed so you may continue to experience issues searching specific tickets.

There are several feature requests outstanding asking for colour changes to the ticket view grid, depending upon the type of ticket, assigned admin/tech, et cetera. Currently the only colours being shown are when you select the ticket. They are not configurable at this time.

Similarly, the additional statuses you reference, the “waiting on parts” and “waiting for purchase approval”, are not yet supported. There are three statuses – open, closed, and waiting. While you can add a custom attribute to specify the context, it will not be dependent upon any other field. For example, you may not want your substatus of “waiting on parts” to be a valid option when the ticket status becomes closed. Again, there are outstanding feature requests to expand upon the statuses, at least the waiting portion.

While I give my best attempt to assist others in making informed decisions about the Spiceworks product, I am not paid by them or receive any remuneration. So this means that I can give a personal opinion and state that I don’t believe moving to the Cloud Help Desk is right for you at this time. The price of the product is right, however, with the requests you are seeking, you may find other packages more suited to your style and integration needs. And again, using the old help desk is still a valid option, however, you may want to make provisions in case you cannot access email. If you use an on-premises email server, you’re probably good for a long time, but if you use Exchange Online or Google Workspace as your email system, your authentication method will eventually change in the coming years and Spiceworks Desktop will cease to retrieve and send messages.

Hopefully this response helped. Let me know if I can expand upon anything for you.

3 Spice ups