Inside Help Desk Software

Ever since FrontRange announced their shift from CRM software to IT service management software, we’ve been interested in what they’re releasing. Luckily for us, 2010 has started off well for the company, as FrontRange won a customer service award and launched the ninth version of FrontRange Discovery, a solution for finding and tracking all physical and virtual assets across a corporate network.

Seems refocusing on ITSM software is boding well for FrontRange, as FrontRange Customer Service Management received a 2009 Product of the Year Award this January. The award was given by Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, which is published by the Technology Market Corporation (TMC). Considering FrontRange’s mission to optimize customer interactions, they were highly pleased with the award.

Whether the ninth iteration of FrontRange Discovery is as pleasing remains to be seen, but surely it’s a deftly crafted update and a product of their reconcentrated efforts. Discovery 9 allows users a multi-faceted approach to network management, and they now also have the ability to automatically detect and then audit virtual assets, from servers to desktops to thin client applications. The underlying objective during development was to help users efficiently maintain their virtual assets—something many companies want to do, but fail.

One interesting tidbit to come out of the Discovery 9 press release: FrontRange is repositioning as the “Swiss Army knife” software company—with the ability to offer varied solutions for myriad issues. With that in mind, we’re curious to see what other multi-function tools they add.

Technorati Tags: Awards, FrontRange, FrontRange Customer Service Management, FrontRange Discovery

Matrix42, a company providing client lifecycle and IT service management, announced a survey study of theirs concluded that 80% of companies would be deploying user-self-help portals for software requests and/or IT services.

The survey specifically asked participants whether their organization would allow end-users to begin Windows 7 migration themselves, through a self-help portal, and of the 126 participants, 101 answered in the affirmative. Self-help portals would offer companies cost savings, yet their deployment is currently not possible in Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

Microsoft SCCM is typically employed for inventory, software distribution, and management of end nodes, but survey respondents suggested their IT departments need more flexibility and functionality. Martix42 announced survey results through a press release, and though their motivation in doing so is to hawk their IT-Commerce suite—which allows users to “redefine” how IT departments interact with their customers—the survey findings are still interesting.

Matrix42 was founded in 1992, and by technology standards is not a young company, and they seem to have carved a decent niche in the self-help portal market. We’re curious to see if they generate some serious competition this year with these kinds of surveys. Only time will tell!

Technorati Tags: Matrix42, Self-Help Portal, Surveys

Alloy Software, a company providing service and asset management solutions, is a young company that’s starting to make a big impact on the IT service desk market. This week it was announced that, for the second consecutive year, Alloy was named one of the fastest growing private companies in America by Inc. Magazine.

Plenty of companies struggled to stay afloat in 2009, but thanks to Alloy’s Navigator, and Discovery, products, they did not experience the same crushing amount of stress. In fact, the company noted that most of their growth can be attributed to Alloy Navigator, the comprehensive IT service management solution that is also the company’s flagship product. Last year, Alloy extended Navigator by offering a Navigator Express product for SMBs; the express platform gave users help desk, hardware, and software management tools.

The other product contributing to the company’s success is Alloy Discovery, a network inventory solution offering accurate and up-to-date information for every computer connected to a particular network. Alloy has also successfully maintained a good rapport with existing customers, in part through their JumpStart program, which is a free and intensive technical tutorial service offered to all new and prospective customers to help them become acquainted with the program quickly.

This recognition from Inc. Magazine is not the first Alloy has received. Last year they were also awarded the CRM Excellence Award by Customer Interaction Solutions magazine, and Navigator Express was named “Best New Product” at the American Business Awards. Considering Alloy Software isn’t one of those companies trumpeting the benefits of cloud computing on every turn, they must be offering a really sharp product to have gained such ground in 2009, and we are certainly curious to see how they’ll do in 2010.

Technorati Tags: Alloy Discovery, Alloy Navigator, Alloy Navigator Express, Alloy Software, up and coming solutions

Israeli help desk vendor SysAid drew attention earlier this month when they announced a live chat integration for help desk software, and today they announced that their customer growth in 2009 was 43% compared to that of 2008. The deployments referenced include not just the company’s help desk solutions, but also their customer service support (CSS) software. The total number of new organizations to deploy is a whopping 16,400, and the company itself has grown 40% over the year.

It’s really no wonder SysAid has experienced such a high growth rate: they’ve launched four new releases this year, and as their platform is web-based, it is more affordable than some of the clunkier, on-premise versions on the market.

Two of the company’s newest releases were internal help desk solutions: SysAid IT 6.0 and SysAid IT 6.5 The latter is the one we noted has the live chat integration, which allows technicians to handle more tickets at one time; it also included an IT benchmark module designed to measure and evaluate IT performance and compare it with other SysAid users globally. The other two major releases were of SysAid’s CSS solution.

Some of their customers are big names, like Xerox, Adobe, and Dunkin’ Donuts. It’ll be exciting to see what they roll out in 2010, for sure.

Technorati Tags: Company Growth, Live Chat Integration, SysAid

The slow economy has left many IT departments having to “make do” with help-desk software investments that are becoming antiquated. Luckily, there are companies like the Israel-based help-desk software vendor SysAid, which recently launched integrated IT help desk live chat.

The latest version of their help desk platform, SysAid 6.5, will feature the live chat integration. This newest addition will help IT departments make their technology last longer, and more specifically, will help them manage the influx of inquiries via phone and email. SysAid surveyed customers globally, and found that a large percentage weren’t utilizing a live chat platform for their help desk needs. However, the vast majority of users are familiar with SMS services, so the integration allows IT technicians to support multiple channels and end users much more easily.

It is interesting that this solutions pretty much eliminates the need for phones in help desk, but an IDC research director notes that live chat capabilities are essential to any company offering a SaaS help desk solution. Having the ability to support five to six users at once—far more than can be helped via phone support—offers a great competitive advantage. SaaS help desk software is very young right now, but live chat integrations could be the innovation that helps it mature, and quickly.

Technorati Tags: Live Chat Integration, SaaS Help Desk, SysAid

Even though this year’s Dreamforce wasn’t as well attended as Oracle’s OpenWorld conference, the conference’s energy level, and the scope of their guests (from San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom to former Secretary of State Colin Powell)—can’t help but lend to the excitement people are feeling about the rise of on-demand services. And yesterday, two IT management heavyweights announced their services would be available via Salesforce.com within the next year.

Salesforce has been hyping up the Force.com developer platform as a means of stepping outside their CRM categorization, and yesterday BMC and CA both announced they’ll soon be offering apps built on Force.com. CA is adding its Agile Planner to the platform, and BMC’s Service Desk Express will be sold, marketed, and available via Salesforce.com. The assumption here is that more companies will be able to partake of these services once they are set in the cloud.

The bigger message in terms of the IT management market is that this is a “back-office” sector that is moving toward SaaS. The CEOs of both BMC and CA were at the conference, and both declined to give pricing details, but the assumption is that these Force.com-based services will be available to those already subscribing to their IT management platforms. Demands for more cost-efficient productivity suites are rising across all technology segments, and this is proof that going forward, IT management vendors are going to need to offer cloud components (at least) to remain competitive.

Technorati Tags: BMC Software, CA Software, Cloud Computing, Dreamforce 09, Force.com, IT Service Management

Today, social CRM provider BatchBlue announced an integration for their BatchBook product with Zendesk’s help desk platform. The integration targets small businesses, and the collaboration came from both vendors belonging to The Small Business Web association.

The integration will allow BatchBook users to connect their contact database into Zendesk’s help desk ticket processing, which ultimately saves time by creating a unified tracking source, and a an extensive reference point that supplies professional, personal, and social networking information. Furthermore, BatchBook’s “SuperTags” functionality can be used to create custom fields that capture individualized data about active support calls.

President of BatchBlue Software, Pamela O’Hara, said she was particularly excited about the venture because it will make their product “even more social,” which is an interesting choice of words for enterprise software. Nonetheless, it is wise partnership, as help desk systems are the enterprise systems that benefit the most from social media; smaller businesses benefit from it as well. Plenty of SMBs will be eager to streamline their customer service, and this enables them to do that and simultaneously bolster customer relationships, which tend to be stronger in smaller businesses.

Technorati Tags: BatchBlue Software, BatchBook, Social CRM, Social Media, Zendesk

Truliant Federal Credit Union announced this week they’re had great success using KACE’s KBOX hardware as, well, software.

Truliant has locations in four Southeastern states, and are using KBOX Systems Management Appliances—“help desks in a box”—to perform mass software upgrades, keep track of inventory, and answer questions. About 500 end users are utilizing six different appliances, and each has been designated a specific help-desk purpose. End users can log in tickets for support of Truliant’s devices, which range from PCs to servers to ATMs; one of their support specialists, Jason Allen, says this KBOX network is for everything but their core system, which is controlled by another department.

The KACE solution is different from traditional help desk systems in that it uses hardware for deployment, and each of the boxes are hardened and self-healing, with applications for remote support, asset management, and other functions. KACE executives say they’ve had great success implementing software systems via hardware packages, and Allen said that once the support team learned to properly use the KBOX system, it was smooth sailing.

Perhaps more importantly, KACE’s package cost Truliant about $20,000 less than their previous help desk software; it’s also saving staff hours, which is an indirect savings. KACE’s VP Marketing, Wynn White, says he expects this system will have even greater success when enterprises shift to Windows 7.

Technorati Tags: KACE, KBOX Systems Management Appliances, Truliant Federal Credit Union

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An instance where Twitter makes an efficient CRM tool: when it’s used to supplement help desk software. Yesterday, Canadian help desk software company Expinion.net launched Twitter capture technology with its version 3.0, giving subscribers to the on-demand service the ability to track support results on the social media site.

Several companies use Twitter for customer service ends (like digital-services provider Comcast), and it is very helpful for finding troubled customers before they come to you. Companies can find out what’s being said about their brand and products, and reach out to them with Twitter directly from the help desk administration, to offer support and find a solution. There’s also a branding bonus with Twitter integration: since the stream is crawled regularly, this method of customer support is good for public relations and for driving traffic to the company’s website.

With Expinion’s Twitter capture technology, relevant tweets are actually stored in the help desk platform, along with other tickets and internal projects. Furthermore, users can track progress made with each tweet over a longer term. Many CRM sectors are finding it difficult to incorporate the unstructured data coming from social networking sites, but it’s nice to see that one such sector can actually make good use of Twitter.

Technorati Tags: Expinion.net, HelpConnection.net, on-demand help desk, Social Media, Twitter

Earlier this year Numara Software released Track-It! 9—the latest version of its popular help desk and asset management solution. Targeting SMBs, there are nearly 50,000 customer sites using Track-It!, and this month, the UK’s Linc-Cymru is another notch in the tally.

Linc-Cymru is a business specializing in affordable housing, social and health care and supported housing, and they selected Numara Track-It! because it offered an effective solution with fewer ownership costs than their last solution had. The company has three branches: one in South Wales dealing with affordable homes, then one that operates across Wales and on in Cardiff that provide social and health care for the elderly.

They found themselves in a tough position as the contract on their prior solution was nearing lapse, and they were going to have to pay a significant sum to renew the licenses—the company raised renewal fees annually. After vetting several products, they chose Track-It! not just for its price point, but for its attractive user interface and easy (and thorough) integration.

Technorati Tags: Numara Software, Numara Track-It!