User Reviews Overview
About SolarWinds Service Desk
SolarWinds Service Desk is suitable for companies seeking a help desk solution that offers IT service management (ITSM) functionalities. SolarWinds Service Desk offers comprehensive service desk functionality that helps businesses...
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- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 10,000+ Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Hossam's SolarWinds Service Desk Review
My overall experience with SolarWinds is very positive, although we have switched to another system due to budget issues, yet i still prefer it.
Pros
SolarWinds Service Desk is easy to use & what i like most about it is its dashboard customization feature, as i can be able to monitor my team's ticket status all day long, without having to look into the tickets of other teams, and being SolarWinds, it gives me the ability to view it in appealing charts, and reporting & notification is well maintained.
Cons
The least i like about it is its cost in relative to other ticketing systems in the market.
Alternatives Considered
FreshserviceReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Because we are already using SolarWinds Network monitoring tools, so it makes life easier to use the products of the same vendor in terms of integration & ease of use.
- Industry: Environmental Services
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Huge Upgrade
Overall experience with this product have been great so far. Our employees use this platform more than our last and they have also been able to find their own solutions more. I really love the support from the customer support a lot. The support is always right on top of any issues and I have experience very quick responses when I do need to contact them. A+ on customer support.
Pros
I like how easy the GUI is, editing the categories and assigning the ticket to a support tech is all very simple right from the first view. I also like how there is a quick view option where you can view the ticket without having to leave the screen.
Cons
We have an issue with Tasks. They cannot be changed once a service catalog item is ran which has made us have to create work around or create extra tickets in order for multiple people to work on one catalog item.
Alternatives Considered
Zendesk SuiteReasons for Choosing SolarWinds Service Desk
We needed a friendlier GUI with more User integration.Switched From
KACEReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Cost to features were a big plus. We got everything out of the box with Service Desk that we need currently.-
Review Source
Support is non-existent and clunky. Interface good, but needs work.
Samanage's software is the 5th HelpDesk software package I have used in my professional career of 20 years. It has some nice features, including the automated inventory for Windows workstations, and the ability to setup custom SLA's. But that is where the positive end.
Things I don't care for are outdated "help" articles in their support portal, written by their own staff, that are inaccurate, and wasted over two days of my time trying to implement something that I discovered didn't work, then when I flag their support, I get a brief apology. Support is terrible, if they cannot write and police their own articles for accuracy. I don't appreciate organizations that cause more work for organizations using their product.
The system does not allow for UNC paths to be set as links in the system. This prevents our organization from sending "clickable" link to help staff add printers, map drives, etc. Only hyperlinks that go to the web are able to be made clickable.
Searches are another headache. While it is nice that it searches across everything to yield results, you have no method to filter the results returned to a date range or the ability to sort the results by a certain field.
We also had to take their supplied agent (for automated inventory), and build our own MSI package for deployment. Unsure why they are not able to do this themselves, but it is frustrating.
No native iOS app is available, for the technicians to use, and using the HTML 5.0 interface is clunky and not very useful on iOS devices.
The software has a lot of potential, but still needs a lot of work.
Response from SolarWinds
Hi Ryan - We're always looking for feedback and suggestions to help us stay agile and keep up to date with our customers. Our community is a great way to engage and find help, however we realize that as the software continues to change, some of the solutions within the community can get outdated. We're always working to update as we go! As your customer success manager, I'd like to apologize if the experience with our support team was challenging. Our goal is always to surpass your expectations.
Our search and filtering functionality has seen some enhancements over the last months and once we connect, I'm happy to take you through some of the enhanced dynamic reporting functionality that comes with the updates. I will reach out to set up some time for us to speak. - Britt, 919-648-0785
Top SolarWinds Service Desk Alternatives
- Industry: Design
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Monthly for 1+ year
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Review Source
my review 16
In summary, SolarWinds Service Desk is a great tool for managing IT operations, but it comes with a high price tag and a steep learning curve. It may not be the best fit for small businesses or those with limited IT resources. However, for larger organizations or those that need a robust and feature-rich ITSM solution, it can be an excellent choice.
Pros
Remote Access/Control feature allows technicians to remotely access and control end-user devices to resolve issues quickly and efficiently.Real-time notifications keep technicians informed of new tickets, updates, and other important events in real-time.Ticket management system is well-organized and easy to use, making it simple to track and manage all service requests, incidents, and problems.Alerts/Notifications feature enables administrators to set up alerts and notifications to be triggered by specific events or conditions.Access Controls/Permissions allows administrators to set up different levels of access and permissions for different users and groups.Dashboard provides a real-time overview of the service desk's performance and key metrics.SLA Management feature allows administrators to set up and track service level agreements (SLAs) with customers.Compliance management feature helps organizations meet compliance requirements by tracking and reporting on IT assets and configurations.
Cons
High cost of the software.Steep learning curve, it can take some time to master all the features and functionality.Some customers report technical issues with the software and support.Limited customization options
- Industry: Nonprofit Organisation Management
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Excellent ITSM tool
Solarwind Service Desk has met all of our requirements. It is easy to use and follows ITIL best practises.
Pros
Ease of use and customisation. Customer services
Cons
Reporting is limited. Even customisation in reporting is limited
Reasons for Choosing SolarWinds Service Desk
Price and lack of ITIL supportSwitched From
JiraReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Price, Ease of use and customisation, Customer services- Industry: Restaurants
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great Product for Helpdesk, Task Management and Software Inventory
Pros
This solution is great for tracking incidents, solutions, problems, etc for company IT departments. It provides an easy to use interface that allows for easy creation of FAQs and a Solutions Database.
Cons
There are some things bulk items that cannot be imported without the use of the API, which is a tiny bit annoying, and some of their python and Ruby API sample code is out of date or no longer maintained.
Alternatives Considered
Zendesk SuiteReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
It seemed to have a more in-depth product that gave us the detail that we needed and the integration that made our lives a little easier.- Industry: Utilities
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
New to SolarWinds Service Desk--Perfect fit for us!
I am Super Happy with this software. I am the administrator and I love having the ability to make changes and customization on the fly. The user friendliness of it is well above our previous software we used.
Pros
Efficiency--There are so many things that can be updated from the main page that lists your incidents. Very easy to learn and to use.
Cons
Integration with Active Directory. We were able to setup Single Sign-On, but it wasn't as smooth as I would've liked. But it does work, so it's not really a con, just the complexity of it was a little more than the rest of the setup.
Reasons for Choosing SolarWinds Service Desk
The previous software was pretty clunky, having to go to several different screens to make different updates on the same ticket. With Service Desk, I can make many of those changes without even having to open the the ticket itself.Reasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Overall, the user interface just seemed easier to navigate. The price was also better than the alternatives. All around, I just had a really good feeling about this software from the beginning. I actually chose this over the software that I had recommended initially.- Industry: Higher Education
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
SolarWinds Service Desk
Pros
SolarWinds Service Desk is an intuitive, robust and dependable service management platform. It is cloud based (big plus) and continually has new feature/functionality roll outs.
Cons
The mobile app could use some work, it is a little cumbersome from a technician's stand point.
Alternatives Considered
FootPrintsReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
SolarWinds offered much more functionality and features as is more in line with what we were looking for.
- Industry: Retail
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
Great Cloud Service with Many Features, Expensive for the Full Version
Incident, problem, and change management are all extremely easy to set up and begin using due to the cloud-hosted nature of the product. As it is fully web-based, low-level training is not required for techs or users.
Pros
Easy to deploy as it is a cloud-based system. Initial setup requires low effort and detail. Branding is easy to apply, functionality is easy to test out of the gate.
Cons
Information on asset discovery, connections, and scanners feels lacking. Connecting to SCCM via the database has very little information, and after a month of attempts, it is not functional. Support has been a bit slow on response when inquiring regarding this issue, even after purchase.
Alternatives Considered
JIRA Service ManagementReasons for Choosing SolarWinds Service Desk
The previous system was not set up or deployed correctly or completely within our company.Reasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Functionality, especially with knowledge base management and self-service portal, is much better. The integrations with other systems promised also allows for much more expansion possibilities in the future.- Industry: Higher Education
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Practically Perfect in Every Way
Pros
It has a clean, easy to use, and intuitive interface. We have only scratched the surface of what it can do.
Cons
I haven't really found anything I dislike. Our previous solution was that bad.
- Industry: Banking
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Good Product for ITIL Best practices
I am the administrator of the application in my Managed Information Services department. I selected this product, deployed this product and administer this product and the setup and use of the product is intuitive and easy to master quickly.
Pros
The ease of creating automated workflows makes the product easy to use and creates efficiencies by automating mundane manual processes. Having the ability to work, escalate and integrate tickets all from a single pane of glass is also a good feature
Cons
Reporting is a downfall for a majority of apps these days. While some of this is mitigated through the ability to filter and export list results, more functionality in reporting is needed.
Alternatives Considered
ManageEngine ServiceDesk PlusReasons for Choosing SolarWinds Service Desk
Cost, and functionality issuesSwitched From
FootPrintsReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
cloud based and better user interface.- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Wish it was my daily driver...
Overall I enjoyed using this a great deal and wish we could move over to this from our current helpdesk solution. The connection time for our current software is absurd, having an external program needed just to remote in is a joke, and Kaseya goes down very...VERY often. This seems like the bar is set pretty low for SolarWinds to succeed, but I'd like to give credit where it's due. Web-based solutions for programs is truly the future in my opinion and SolarWinds is right inline with that. You can basically do everything from the web browser which means less for us to set up or maintain (and doesn't bug you about program updates all the time). I mean it when I say I'd love to move to SolarWinds.
Pros
To give some background, we took on IT services for a smaller company that was getting absorbed by us. While a lot of the IT foundations laid down were pretty flimsy or problematic, one thing stuck out as very well done. They were using Solarwinds for I.T. support and it was definitely a sigh of relief amongst the other mismanagement from before.
Everything such as device enrollment was pretty simple, the feature set for online client management was well-stocked, and my favorite was the ability to remote in without needing an external program to do so. We currently use Kaseya and it's just hot garbage, I sincerely wish we could move over to Solarwinds for our main company's IT helpdesk tools.
Cons
While there is a lot to like about this, some of the UI felt a little "cramped" from time to time. The feature set was nice, but what I was looking for was sometimes a tiny little button on a small option bar. Perhaps some buttons or icons of size would help streamline things, as this can also make training others more difficult, since the task options are easy to miss.
- Industry: Oil & Energy
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
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Review Source
Outstanding!
We needed a solution, and we needed one fast. We had test driven many, but something didn't feel right. Two things made us choose Samanage. The software had every feature we were looking for, and the people were excellent. From the beginning, we were treated like VIP's. We were given professional courtesy, we were given kindness and flexibility, we were shown appreciation, and we were given everything we needed to stand up the ticketing system in our environment. The staff, made us all feel like we were part of their family and we can't thank them enough. The demos were terrific, the trial was awesome, the sale itself went smooth, the implementation was perfect (including the SSO option), the support was phenomenal and the Go-Live went off without a hitch. This was just one of the best end to end experiences I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of. The Samanage team are just a bunch of really cool professionals that truly care about their customers. Every call was a pleasure, and they taught us how everything worked. We have had nothing but excellent support, and we are happily enjoying all the features and functionality as we use it daily. I have personally thanked them over the phone, and in email messages, but I still can't thank them enough. We were on a hard deadline to get everything working in a very short time. The Samanage team delivered on time, and within budget. We couldn't be happier. Thank you, Samanage Team! You ROCK!!!!!! :)
Pros
Ease of use, very intuitive. As described in the demos. Evertyhing worked as expected.
Cons
It doesn't know how to make me coffee in the morning, but other than that, it's hard not to like something that makes your life easier.
- Industry: Higher Education
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Tremendous product that drives efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction
I've had a great experience with SW SD. As a developer the ability to create workflows and use the API has made this tool indispensable. It is also extremely helpful when trying to track down a problem that may have occurred in the past or is similar to something we're currently dealing with.
Pros
I like the easy-to-use interface, the communication history that allows us to keep track of end user needs and concerns, and the API (personally that's my favorite).
Cons
I have very few complaints. I wish the list of "filters" wouldn't show the most commonly used at the top or would at least leave those items that are commonly used also further down in the list. I feel like I'm always searching for the items I want in the list because they're not in the same place if I recently used them! Outside of that I wish there was a ticket prioritization feature (or even project management-related features).
- Industry: Restaurants
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
CHG Review
Overall experience was great! Definitely like better than service now and also works well with solarwinds network monitoring.
Pros
Ticket management is easy to use
Asset management works well
Ticket assignment function works well
Helpdesk monitoring is a great tool
Cons
A little cumbersome to set up, but once completed works great! Had some difficulty adding custom fields.
Alternatives Considered
ServiceNow Customer Service ManagementReasons for Choosing SolarWinds Service Desk
Needed more functionalityReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Easier to use for helpdesk team- Industry: Market Research
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1-5 months
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Review Source
A Great Replacement for Our In House Service Desk!
We've replaced our outdated, cumbersome in-house service desk with Samanage. We're already seeing higher productivity because of the SLAs we were able to set. The automations available within the system help streamline ticket submission and remove a lot of the back and forth when information is missing.
Pros
We've had great support from day one. The support team answered all of my questions about features when we trialed the system, and they've continued the great support after we officially signed up.
There are also improvements made to the platform all the time.
The platform offers way more than we use it for, but it's affordable and it's something we can grow into over time.
Cons
Some basic features are missing. For instance, I can't set the system up to alert the entire team when a trouble ticket is closed. This was an important feature on our old service desk, as it let the team know when someone else sorted out an issue. This also helped share solutions among the team. Now, when a ticket is closed, it simply disappears from queue without team learning.
The emails that are sent out can't be branded, and the customization of the emails is very limited. It's nice to be able to open tickets via email, but I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of customization.
Some sorting/filtering options don't seem to work properly. Tickets always sort by ticket number by default - not by status. This can't seem to be changed for some reason.
- Industry: Financial Services
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Great Service desk tool
Well, it was a good value for money.
Pros
It is easy to use and implement, manage and upgrade.
Cons
Well, customer service was not easy to reach
Alternatives Considered
JIRA Service ManagementReasons for Switching to SolarWinds Service Desk
Cost- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Easy to work with, easy to integration but need more thing for workflow
We using Samanage for service desk and inventory, from 2015, we were like the first customer, we give a lot of ideas for them to improve the product. We now using Samanage for IT, Operation and HR department, for the next time we may offer to another department like Business Office. We have the plan to do some application using Samanage API for improve reporting.
Pros
API very good, can do anything with API. We also create some own application to work with the ticket, other assets by API.
Cons
Workflow part need improve more, like we need input step, Samanage should compare with other software for workflow like Kissflow, also, user interface not very friendly for the user.
- Industry: Higher Education
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Expandable as you need it
This software has allowed us to track end user request for issues and see how the responses trend. It also allows us to track ongoing project with task etc. Though it is not a project managment software it does lend itself to easily manage small projects
Pros
easy to implement, easy to build your own knowledge base repository. Support is quick to respond.
Cons
Updates can be tricky, there is no "Test" environment to test if your data and configuration will work as you expect. So when they update you its trial by fire. Fortunately they have been pretty good about responding to any issues that have arisen.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Easy to learn and use
Overall, Solarwinds has been a very easy to learn and use system, with a friendly user interface. It is a great starting point for users that do not have experience with information management systems.
Pros
The processes that are most used by my team are very easy to perform. Ticket creation is assisted by a very user friendly UI, and ticket management after tickets are created allow for tickets to reflect evolving issues.
Cons
Proper ticket management and the ability to provide a resolution at the time of creating the ticket without closing it are just a few quality of life improvements that I can see missing as a low-tier help desk member.
- Industry: Publishing
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
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Review Source
Better than other products but needs some TLC
Pros
The biggest advantage my team has with Samanage is that you can create solutions for common issues, that you can easily attach to a ticket and not have to re-type the solution over and over again. Other then that ticketing system is fine, does what we need it to but reporting could use some enhancements.
Cons
Would like a more in depth reporting mechanism, could be that my company doesn't use the tool to the best of it's ability but there needs more vision on software/hardware we have.
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
A solid ticket management web app
We are getting much more accurate reports for identifying trends in end-user troubles. We have improved incident tracking and overall customer satisfaction.
Pros
I really appreciate the ability to organize columns in my ticket queue according to my preferences. This has greatly improved my ability to review a very active ticket queue and quickly assess what needs immediate attention.
Cons
I lose a lot of time waiting for ticket category suggestions to populate. When the suggestion pops up, it moves it from its normal place in the list of categories. By the time this happens, I could have selected the correct category and moved on already.
- Industry: Information Technology & Services
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Samanage - A seriously good help desk solution
Very good. 5/5 experience, overall the software works exactly as advertised.
Pros
The features work as advertised. We have used Dell Kace in the past and dumped it because of a lack of features; we switched to InvGate. InvGate was a really poor experience, and though it had a lot of features nothing operated properly and support was slow. Samanage has been the total opposite, when we run into an outage it is very quickly resolved and chat support is very responsive.
Cons
Improvements could definitely be made on the built-in reporting side of things; especially when it comes to computer inventory.
- Industry: Financial Services
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
Great Service Desk and Inventory system
We improved our SLAs using SAManage as an Incidents platform.
We also now have a better understanding of the number of endpoints we have, the software installed on them etc'.
Pros
The easy deployment of the agent to all of our endpoints, that help us keep track of hardware and software inventory with great accuracy.
The Service Desk feature, allowing us to maintain a productive Help Desk environment and assist our users.
We also use the service desk in our billing procedure.
Cons
The UI can be improved, as sometimes in the incidents view we encounter bugs that require us to refresh \ clear the cache.
- Industry: Consumer Services
- Company size: 201–500 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
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Review Source
User Friendly
Easy to upload a Solution Article and based on the employees that are using this on our company it's very interactive because all of the information is already displayed on the interface.
Pros
First of all, I really like the GUI of this Ticketing Tool compared to my previous ticketing system we are handling which is Service Now. This is very easy to use and all of the information is very efficient to find
Cons
The Chat response from an agent on Solarwinds takes time to respond. If there's an outage the email delivery is slightly delayed for the announcement
