Today, we just started our new IT service management project, which involves a new service desk tool and two new processes. We are currently using HP Service Desk 4.5 and have fairly mature incident, problem, configuration and change management in processes. This task is for a large global company, which brings up a few challenges with both tool selection and process implementation. Our goal is to identify our requirements for the new tool and have the requirements approved by the management before the end of the year. Furthermore, we are going to introduce two new processes. Release management, which until now have been a part of change management, and service level management. My part in this project is primarily focused on tool selection and gathering requirements together with the actual implementation and data migration from HP Service Desk 4.5
As a starting point, we expect to look into the following vendors / products.
HP Service Manager 7.1
My primary concern is performance and ensuring customization options are wide enough to support processes which are not ITIL rigid but still ITIL 3 compliant.
Free, open source, PHP Helpdesk Software
You may wonder why a large global company consider an open source product. The answer is simple – no license cost, which easily leaves room for spending a lot more on development. The opensource solution is only a shell and we will develop the actual tool ourselves.
BMC, Remedy
A software solution which includes every aspect of IT Service Management. I you want to play with the heavyweights, you need to take a look at this software package.
The next week or two, my primary task is to identify our current and future needs in service management and our IT department. This is not going to be easy task but is a must if you want to pick the right tool.
Can free php helpdesk software stand up to vendor bought ITIL 3 compatible heat help desk? We will compare them in this help desk resume. Help desk management software is under fire these days. Large enterprise companies are changing to ITIL 3 and vendors are standing in line to sell their software solutions for supporting the IT service management framework, ITIL.
ITIL – Only for large companies (wrong)
While the large organizations are struggling with enterprise products for millions of dollars, the small or midsize companies are trying to find an help desk solutions suitable and affordable for them to implement. It was not long ago ITIL version 2 was dominating the market and the framework was only used by large companies with thousands of clients to support. Today, the market has changed and even relative small companies with less than hundred employees, has open their eye for what ITIL can bring in value. If only the help desk solutions were not that expensive.
The basic ITIL processes
Small or midsized companies can gain a lot by looking as the basic processes like Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and Configuration Management. These processes might seem very complex if you read the ITIL books (which are only guidelines) but if you design your processes to fit your company, they can be very simple to understand and implement.
Service Management Software Experience
I have been technical lead, service management software responsible, on a huge ITIL version 2 implementation, in a company supporting more than 50.000 end-users and more than 200.000 identified CI’s. We implemented the basic processes as mentioned above within 3 years with great success. At the moment we are, as anyone else, moving to ITIL 3 and implementing the necessary changes.
Before my current job position, I implemented basic ITIL framework in several smaller companies. I had great success with using php helpdesk software just for registering changes and approvals but for a full, even small scale, ITIL implementation I would absolutely choose heat help desk. This help desk management software can be managed by a single user and with limited ITIL experience. ITIL can be implemented in a few basic steps to get your started thinking about your future processes, but more about that in a later post.
Help Desk Software and ITIL processes – Where to start
From my experience and help desk resume, you should, even if you are only a small company, implement the basic ITIL processes and start registering incidents, changes and problems as soon as possible. For this purpose, I suggest you use heat helpdesk as your first help desk management software solution, both because of the cost and the easy of implementation, and develop your more complex processes at a later stage. Remember it is absolutely vital that you have designed your basic processes before starting to configure your selected tool. One of the biggest mistakes is to let the ITIL software limitations dictate how your processes are designed (this counts for tiny to large enterprise businesses).
There are many advantages of using PHP Helpdesk software or any other open source helpdesk solution. The advantages is in the ability to adjust everything yourself to fit your company instead of spending thousands of dollars on consultants.
These are my top 5 reasons to look for open source helpdesk software:
- Free product
- Easily customized to fit company requirements
- Scalability – it is basically just a webpage
- Not processes limited
- Expensive education is not needed
Like mentioned in an earlier post, it is very important that your newly developed PHP Helpdesk Software, supports all your ITIL processes but also that it supports your future ITIL processes. Things like configuration management, might be an issue with PHP Helpdesk as the software usally is server based.
You should be able to make an easy integration with software like SMS or SCCM and gather those CI’s for your help PHP based Helpdesk software. That way you make sure atleast an CMDB is up and running. Once again, I will remind you to use backup software. You could also take the alternative route and use an internet backup service. Please take a look at this site for more information about PHP Helpdesk software solutions.
The most power full options about PHP Helpdesk Software is the posibility to modify everything without paying for extensive training. It is easy to corporate it onto your existing website. All you have to be sure about it that the helpdesk software you are implementing are supporting your existing and future ITIL processes. PHP Helpdesk Software can be very addictive because you can not find a more customizable helpdesk tool than PHP Helpdesk Software because it is usally open source and you are able to modify everything yourself.
PHP Helpdesk Software is about to explode. Helpdesk software is usally very expensive, but now PHP Helpdesk software is on the move and also almost free. Take a good looke at this site as it shows alot about Free PHP Helpdesk Software in general, but also tell about Helpdesk software in general as well as IT Service Management and ITIL ver. 3. PHP helpdesk software is very easy to implement on your own site and will be of great benefit to your company