Ticket System
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For simple ticketing you'd go with Zoho?
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@BRRABill said:
For simple ticketing you'd go with Zoho?
No, for complex ticketing I would go with ManageEngine. I don't believe that Zoho is free.
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@scottalanmiller said:
No, for complex ticketing I would go with ManageEngine. I don't believe that Zoho is free.
It appears they have a free tier.
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Oh, definitely worth checking out then.
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I set up ManageEngine at my previous office and was pretty impressed. There are a number of options in the free hosted version. The office had two different ticket systems, one for IT work, and the other for Building/grounds maintenance. The plan was to merge them using the ME Service desk, and then implement automatic routing based on the email address (Help Desk and Facilities).
It does offer a pretty decent set of options
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
ManageEngine is a division of Zoho.
But it is two separate products, correct?
I mean, obviously it looks like it is, just want to be sure I'm not missing something here.
Yes, just like a Buick and a Chevy are different products, but both GM.
That really confused me. I believe they have two similar products called "Support" and "ServiceDesk Plus". The latter seems more geared towards IT departments whilst the former is more general customer service. Both have a free tier. But which is better? I'm trialling both. "Support" seems more user friendly at first glance.
I'm also getting a Zoho salesman leaving me a voicemail every two hours
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
ManageEngine is a division of Zoho.
But it is two separate products, correct?
I mean, obviously it looks like it is, just want to be sure I'm not missing something here.
Yes, just like a Buick and a Chevy are different products, but both GM.
That really confused me. I believe they have two similar products called "Support" and "ServiceDesk Plus". The latter seems more geared towards IT departments whilst the former is more general customer service. Both have a free tier. But which is better? I'm trialling both. "Support" seems more user friendly at first glance.
I'm also getting a Zoho salesman leaving me a voicemail every two hours
Support would be the Zoho branded one and has a free tier. ServiceDesk Plus is the ManageEngine one and is fully free without tiering. You can add on other products, but there aren't tiers. One uses the add on model, the other a tiering one. With SD+ you can have unlimited tickets, users, etc.
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@scottalanmiller said:
One uses the add on model, the other a tiering one. With SD+ you can have unlimited tickets, users, etc.
You can with Support as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure what the difference between tiering and add-ons is.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
You can with Support as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure what the difference between tiering and add-ons is.
Well it's kind of conceptual to my thinking, but with tiering features are unlocked - like bigger scale, more users, and stuff like that. It's "removing limitations."
With add ons, like with SD+, the product itself is completely free, no limitations. There is nothing to unlock. If you are going to pay for something, it's another product that is not part of SD+ itself.
For example, Windows 10 to Windows Server 2016 is tiering. You are paying more to features to be unlocked (like the right to access by more than one person at a time.) It is tiered, they are the same product available with different licensing options.
But CentOS 7 doesn't have tiers, everything is free and unlimited. But of course someone sells third party add on software for it that isn't free. That's an add on. It's not part of CentOS, so it is not a tier of CentOS that has that software, it's something that works "with" it.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
One uses the add on model, the other a tiering one. With SD+ you can have unlimited tickets, users, etc.
You can with Support as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure what the difference between tiering and add-ons is.
You appear to be correct. I had no idea that they had an unlimited agents plan. I feel like this is new since the last time that we looked at them.
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It looks like if you have an email account with Zoho you only get the trial for Enterprise. I clicked the free version and it took me to the 15 day trial for Enterprise.
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I signed up to try it. Sadly it does one of those forced "enterprise trials" when you sign up. So for fifteen days it is showing me the top tier rather than the one that I signed up for. That's BS, I hate that. So now I have to wait over two weeks before I start to look at it to know what it is that I am evaluating. I'll have forgotten about it by then.
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@johnhooks said:
It looks like if you have an email account with Zoho you only get the trial for Enterprise. I clicked the free version and it took me to the 15 day trial for Enterprise.
Same here using Office 365. It's just their marketing crap. No impressed. Generally I like Zoho quite a lot, but this is super annoying. It's one of those really obvious "never do this" marketing moves. It really encourages people to avoid your product. It basically makes it impossible for me to use, trial or share this for more than two weeks. By that time, I'll have moved on. In fact, I already have. This wasn't important enough to trial to put on the calendar to investigate in two weeks, that's ridiculous.
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I don't have a problem with it. The extra features that come with the Enterprise version I'm unlikely to use anyway, and if I was, I'm very unlikely to get round to using them within 2 weeks. I'll only be trailing the basic features which are included with the free version anyway. And it's a common marketing strategy.
At the end of the day, if I get a cool product for free, I'm happy.
I could do without quite so many sales calls though.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I don't have a problem with it. The extra features that come with the Enterprise version I'm unlikely to use anyway, and if I was, I'm very unlikely to get round to using them within 2 weeks. I'll only be trailing the basic features which are included with the free version anyway. And it's a common marketing strategy.
Problem is, I don't want to take a bunch of time determining which parts are free and which are not and figuring out what to set up and what to not and I sure don't want to expose it to other people on the team and have to explain all of that and hope that they don't start using something that will disappear. If it was only me, maybe I'd take the effort if I was really in need of a new product. But just to casually try it in a multiple user environment, nope. It's the same as not giving us a trial at all.
Yes, it is a common strategy. So is spam. Doesn't make it good and doesn't mean that they shouldn't expect upset potential customers.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's the same as not giving us a trial at all.
Eh? It is a trial.
As you mentioned, it would be awesome if you setup the free product first for something like 2 weeks, then they enable the extra features so you can try them out (granted it would be better if you could choose when to start your trial of the extra features and turn them off on your own schedule).
This would allow you to build up the free, low cost option first - make sure it's working as good as it can be before you add the extra cost features. Then see if you really need/want the extra features.
I think they won't do this because they now that many people will just opt to be cautious and just keep the more expensive package, even if they could have lived without it.
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@Dashrender said:
Eh? It is a trial.
Yes, A trial, but the trial that I requested. I can't see what it will look like, act like or function like. It is a trial of something different, related, but different. So I can't test what I need to. It's A trial, but not the trial we agreed to.
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@Dashrender said:
I think they won't do this because they now that many people will just opt to be cautious and just keep the more expensive package, even if they could have lived without it.
I doubt that that is true. People do not consider a free trial and just say "oh well, $500/month, that's not that much."
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I think they won't do this because they now that many people will just opt to be cautious and just keep the more expensive package, even if they could have lived without it.
I doubt that that is true. People do not consider a free trial and just say "oh well, $500/month, that's not that much."
From free to $500/month, no you're probably right - but then the free product wasn't a trial - it's free.
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@Dashrender said:
From free to $500/month, no you're probably right - but then the free product wasn't a trial - it's free.
Right, I'm not attempting to get a trial, I'm trying to try out a free product. I did not request a trial nor agree to one, it's a forced thing to new users of their free product.
Or should I say "prospective" new users. I'm no longer a potential customer, that kind of tactic means that they and I do not agree on how our relationship will work. They think that they can treat me poorly and I don't agree. Relationship done. I've looked at Zoho for a number of things in the past, but if this is what they think of their customers, I don't need the headache. There are plenty of competitors and I will just work with them. It's not evil, it's just bad customer service and not something someone who genuinely cares about their customer relationship does.
I just consider my time and my team more important than Zoho does. It's their prerogative to only allow free use to people who agree to an enterprise trial. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with us no longer considering them a vendor option because of it.
