Spiceworks in the Enterprise - Reports
(Page 3 of 4 )
As with all software like this, you need to be able to get some meaningful information out of it, be it a list of help desk calls or a list of all un-licensed software. To access the reports, simply go into the reports tab at the top of the page.
You will see a list of all the reports Spiceworks has available. The package comes with quite a good array, but you can create a new one from scratch or import one created from another machine. To start with look at the applications computer report, select it and hit run.
Once it is run, you will see a list of all the computers and the installed software. Here we come to the problem with the reporting. All of the reports look the same, and while the data they return can be customized, their look and feel can’t.
This is probably down to the fact that because the interface is web-based, it would be quite a bit of work to build a fully-featured report editor into the package. However, there are ways around it. The database is SQLite, so it would be possible to query it (with a bit of work) with a third-party reports package such as Crystal or Microsoft Reporting Services.
You can also export the reports into PDF, CSV and Excel formats, so you could probably re-format them better using Excel. It's not an ideal solution.
Helpdesk
As well as the other auditing and logging tools you get with Spiceworks, there is also a helpdesk system. As with most helpdesk systems, there is a section from which your users can log tickets and a section for the IT support team to see all the outstanding jobs.
The helpdesk system is by no means a fully-featured enterprise level system, but is will probably be good enough from most small IT teams supporting a limited number of clients.
To log a call, users simply go to the helpdesk portal page, and enter their email address (there is no Active Directory integration). Once they have done that, they can then log new calls (along with file attachments) and see what outstanding issues they already have open.
When a call is logged by a user, the call will appear in the Support section of the helpdesk. From here your support team can pick them up, and do various things to the call such as set its priority, respond to the user, close it, and so forth.
While it may be lacking in some of the more advanced features, the Spiceworks helpdesk will work very well for smaller organizations, and is very easy for both the clients and the support team to use.
Next: Application Speed >>
More Server Administration Articles
More By Luke Niland
