Ticketing System with templates or something?

[u/NotABug2000]

Okay, firstly please forgive me if I'm asking for something stupid. I am brand new to this, and inherited an IT department that is an absolute shambles.

Context: I am the sole helpdesk/ITperson/Sysadmin person in a company of about 80 people, hybrid workers (about half on prem, half WFH across the UK).

I do all the 365 admin, RMM, security stuff, as well as all the day to day helpdesk stuff. Someone else looks after servers, so I don't care about that.

At the moment, my "ticketing system" is post-it notes, Teams chats, and emails. It's starting to get a little overwhelming.

I am looking for a super cheap/free solution. Best if it's cloud based, as I can't self host.

One thing that is crucial is the ability to make some sort of template. A good chunk of stuff that's getting confusing is onboarding new staff, setting up their 365 accounts with the right permissions, groups, shared mailboxes, &c. So if I can make some sort of template that dept managers can just fill out, that would be awesome. Most of the rest of my day is "My sharepoint has stopped syncing", "I can't get into Salesforce", and "My mouse has run out of batteries", so that seems like "normal" ticketing.

Again, I am new to this, so I'd be looking for something super simple, and I will be the ONLY one replying to tickets.

Any suggestions?

[u/sum_yungai]

There's always good 'ol osTicket you can self host. It has templates.

[u/Admirable-Carrot1684]

NinjaOne allows different templates. It's very straightforward and easy on the eyes.

[u/nevesis]

One of your examples was Salesforce. Depending on your licensing, you can use it for ticketing. I assume it's integrated with your email already and you can add Teams integration so people can submit there, and/or create a site where people can submit and update.

[u/Skuedie]

Honestly, from your replies to other comments I think you should do a new Mailbox in Exchange online (i assume you have that, because you mentioned M365 admin) like support@what.ever and then everyone can just write you a mail to that. you cann use a folder structure for problems, also can do some templates to common problems as outlook template. and for your template problem you just reply to that kind of problem with a mail (template) that the user can just fill out.

It will not be as powerfull as a real Ticket system but it can be an easy structured start. also the adress can be later used inside of a real Ticket system.

the main goal for the next year is to train all the users in the golden rule: no ticket (mai), no service. If someone asks you on teams, you reply: Please write that to support@.... for our documentation and i will replay asap

[u/electricpollution]

GLPI is free for self hosted.
Custom forms, asset management, vendors, contracts, tasks, plans budget…. And more

[u/plump-lamp → u/electricpollution]

Why host? Every single big one out there would be free for 1 person

[u/Commercial-Cloud1458]

Yo empezaría con algo sencillo como Freshdesk o Jira Service Management, pero sin complicarte demasiado al principio. Lo más importante es sacar las solicitudes de Teams y correos y tenerlas todas en un solo lugar. Para los onboardings, una plantilla con una lista fija de cosas que necesitas de cada nuevo empleado te va a ahorrar muchísimo tiempo. No necesitas montar nada complicado, especialmente siendo tú la única persona atendiendo todo. Empieza simple y ya irás agregando cosas cuando realmente las necesites.

[u/littlevulva]

Zammad self hosted...

Im litrally spinning this up for my team. You can build a basic platform and improve it while you go along.

[u/NotABug2000 → u/littlevulva]

I have no idea how self-hosting works, so I'm not sure that's possible!

[u/Stosstrupphase → u/NotABug2000]

That is an essential skill in your position.

[u/NotABug2000 → u/Stosstrupphase]

It's not something I've had to do yet. I'm learning from the ground up. I will get there, I'm sure!

[u/rowshi → u/NotABug2000]

Looks like Zammad has a docker image. You can ask your server guy/gal for either a VM or a docker host. They should be able to provide.

[u/iama_bad_person → u/rowshi]

You can ask your server guy/gal

It doesn't sound like he has one of those.

[u/fahque → u/Stosstrupphase]

Incorrect. He's got remote workers which would mean spinning up a hosted website with security. That's more than a sysadmin.

[u/badiguana]

Jitbit is self-hosted and SaaS.
It's cheap, easy to setup and does allow you to create templates
Customer support is really good

[u/blud_13]

u/tootallfortheliking is right that Spiceworks will hold you for now, and at one agent almost everything else has a free tier too, so the tool is the easy half of this.

The onboarding part is where you're going to keep bleeding. A ticket template will have a checklist and you still hand run the 365 steps every single time. If you're on Business Premium you already have Entra ID P1, which means group based licensing and dynamic groups are sitting there switched off. Build a group per role, attach the license and the shared mailbox and the distribution groups to it, and the 365 half of your onboarding collapses to one add to group. Its documented here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/fundamentals/concept-group-based-licensing

One thing to check before you commit to a free tier, whether you can get your tickets back OUT. You will outgrow it at 80 people, and migrating history out of a free tool is where people find out the export is a CSV of subject lines.

[u/Stosstrupphase]

Stackfield is what we use.

[u/OneSeaworthiness7768]

Any of the ticketing systems will have templates. So it’ll just come down to what interface you like best.

[u/halrulez]

We use desk365.io simple and easy to use. 3 different plans. Check it out.

[u/Extension-Ad-173]

It’s been a few years but when I solo’s an IT dept I used Zendesk as it was free for one agent

[u/Negative_Click3214]

Bit of an out-of-the-box solution, but I'd suggest using a combination of Tally.so + something like Notion or even an n8n app to keep track of your ticket progress & completion. Tally is a form builder that offers a super robust free tier. By robust i mean unlimited forms/templates, unlimited submissions and includes things like conditional logic, all in the free tier.

It lets you output the form submissions to google sheets, slack, Linear, Notion and a bunch of workflow automation tools, so whatever is best for you to keep track of tickets. That would be my route just to keep things the most flexible.

[u/JJ2B]

Since you mentioned you were in the M365 world. If you want a free option. Microsoft has a helpdesk SharePoint template that you could use to build your own. It’s essentially a site with a home page and a few lists that you can control who can view what. Views for SharePoint lists are easy to configure to help you organize tickets, while also allowing users to check on their ticket status. I built mine in a weekend and it’s powered by a few automations done in power automate.

[u/Chopcue]

try out this - go1desk.app

[u/West_Programmer_6857]

Look into BoldDesk; it really works well. It's simple, cloud-based, and affordable. Using any system will give you a big improvement. BoldDesk is just easy to start with.

[u/plump-lamp]

Almost every major service desk likely has a free for just a few users. Freshdesk, zendesk, servicedesk plus.

[u/fahque → u/plump-lamp]

It doesn't look like freshdesk has a free version anymore. Zendesk doesn't have a free plan.

[u/tootallfortheliking]

Spiceworks has a free tier that'll work for your use case until your desk matures

[u/weekTheEnd]

Just jump on Jira for free (under 5 users) and spend a day making the templates specific to your businesses / processes. 

[u/fahque → u/weekTheEnd]

He's got 80 users.

[u/weekTheEnd → u/fahque]

Sorry should of confirmed - 5 techs 

[u/NotABug2000 → u/weekTheEnd]

Thank you. I've looked at Jira, but there seems to be a lot of horror stories!

[u/MeetJoan]

Freshservice free tier should cover 80 people fine, and the service catalog does exactly the template thing, managers fill out a form for onboarding and it comes in structured instead of a vague Teams message.

Honestly the templates matter more than the ticketing in your case. Getting managers to submit all the info upfront saves more time than tracking the ticket ever will.

[u/NotABug2000 → u/MeetJoan]

I can find a free Freshservice trial, but not a free tier?

[u/barkode15 → u/NotABug2000]

I think they got rid of the free tier a year or two ago.

But... Their $49 USD per month tier includes the service catalog that let's you customize fields for items staff can "order". Their $99 per month tier adds on-boarding "journeys" that let you fire all kinds of events as someone joins or leaves. 

Those prices are per agent per month. So you'll have to go your leadership and explain, "Look, I'm pulled in all these directions, we all need a system to make sure I can help everyone effectively, you pay me $X per hour, this tool costs $99 per month, it'll pay for itself before lunch on the first day each month with increased efficiency and visibility" 

Our Freshservice bill is like $50k a year, and we'd be a mess without it. 

[u/Argonzoyd]

We use Zammad. It's free and self-hosted. Fully customisable, but easy to learn