ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

ManageEngine ServiceDesk

ManageEngine ServiceDesk ManageEngine is part of Zoho Corp, the same company that owns a bunch of cloud enterprise apps. The helpdesk component of ManageEngine is called ServiceDesk Plus and is among the most feature-rich customer support platforms you will find. According to their website, ServiceDesk Plus is used by more than 100,000 organizations across 185 countries.

Features

ServiceDesk Plus is specifically targeted at IT companies and so if you run a business selling commodities or other forms of services, this may not be the right product for you. The ManageEngine help desk tool is ITIL ready (similar to FreshService) and comes equipped with advanced ITSM functionalities. Some of the product’s core features include project management integration, automatic ticket dispatch, rules/macros to easily categorize and assign tickets, data archiving, email based ticket management, notifications, SLAs, report management, knowledge base, mobile accessibility and customer survey management. Given that this is an ITIL-ready tool, the product also includes CMDB, asset management tools and modules for change management, incident management and problem management.

Pricing

The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helpdesk software can either be hosted on-premise or may be accessed from the cloud. The Standard edition of the helpdesk software includes the self-service portal, knowledge base, multi-site support, SLA management and help desk reports and these are available for free. Integration with project management, change management and fail over service are add-ons that are paid packages. The Professional plan includes the previously mentioned Standard package with asset management tool while the ‘Enterprise’ edition also includes project management.

The pricing for your product completely depends on the tools and features you pick. For example, change management tools cost an annual subscription fee of $1995 while project management cost $995. You can take a look at the complete pricing structure or request a custom quote by visiting the website page here.

Reviews

Oliver Haslan from PCMag says the ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is among the most mature of all helpdesk products he has reviewed thanks to the sheer number of features and its adherence to the ITIL standards. However, one reason why this may not be a hit among everyone is the relatively outdated and complex interface which is not as easy to use as newer tools like Freshdesk. Although their free base helpdesk software is pretty comprehensive, Oliver feels the support for remote desktop sharing could have made the tool complete.

While the standard on-premise software is free, Oliver points out that the actual price may be different given that you will have to host the system on your own server. This may not be a tool targeted at start-ups and small businesses. The PCMag review for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus rates the product 4 out of 5 stars.

More than one user on Capterra have bemoaned poor technical support from ManageEngine for their helpdesk tool. For one user, work to fix the glitch with profile updates has been going on for over a year. Another problem pointed out by a user has been ManageEngine’s inability to discard spam which has also occasionally slowed the entire system down. However, ServiceDesk Plus has its share of fans as well. One user feels the various issues raised by him were instantly acted upon and given the breadth of features on offer, ServiceDesk Plus is actually far better than what the price suggests. The overall rating for the product on Capterra stands at 4 out of 5 stars.

According to The ITSM Review contributor Rebecca Beach, the ServiceDesk Plus solution heavily depends on manual operation to input the proactive problem management area. Because of this, it could get extremely complex if you are migrating from a well-set IT infrastructure since you could be spending a lot of time mapping the relationships and services. This means organizations with basic IT infrastructure; namely small organizations with low proactive problem management, may find it easier to use.

On G2Crowd, users feel the tool’s integration with other aspects of ManageEngine like Desktop Central provide a pretty comprehensive tool. However, some features may be lacking even in the add-on features like asset management (WOL, remote desktop and software installation). Other issues reiterated here are poor support and manual inputs. Overall, the reviewers at G2Crowd have rated ServiceDesk Plus 4.2 out of 5 stars.

On CNET, a few users have reported bugs in the tool. For instance, one user has had problems with a few functionalities when the desktop firewall was turned on. Others report slow UI and rudimentary active directory support. These reviewers have cumulatively rated the product 3 on 5 stars.

Bottomline: ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus comes with a reputation – being one of the products owned by an established player in the cloud space like Zoho. However, it may not be for everyone. Analyze the features, try out the demo and if you believe the product is worth the price, go for it. Here is a summary of the ratings provided by various reviewers.

Reviewer Ratings (out of 5)
PCMag 4
Capterra 4
G2Crowd 4.2
CNET 3

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *