# Recommendations needed: Help desk software **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 28, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483 "2007-12-28T16:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483/1 "2007-12-28T16:52:21Z")
I work for a small organization and we’re looking for new software for our tech support and customer service emails. We currently use Kayako. Unfortunately, we’re locked into an old, unsupported version because we don’t want to require account signup to send us email, and we’re looking to see what is available out there. We’re looking for something appropriate for a small department (let’s say 5 people) that has the capacity for multiple email queues. It needs to be able to handle attachments as well, and have the ability to set predefined responses, but our needs are generally basic. Anyone have any good experiences with such software? ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2007, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483/2 "2007-12-28T21:21:59Z")
Just as a reference point for you…we used [SmarterTicket](http://www.smartertools.com/Products/SmarterTicket/Overview.aspx) because it came free with our server package, and while it worked decently for a few years for us, we stopped using it because of some kind of glitch…which now I don’t recall :smack: Anyway, SmarterTicket does everything you need but I would not recommend it. It didn’t stop running or anything but there was something weird about how it ran and it just drove us bonkers. I think it was random slowness, which we decided probably came from some memory leak or badly-written queries. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2007, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483/3 "2007-12-29T03:18:46Z")
Best one I have worked with is [Track-It](http://www.numarasoftware.com/Track-It.asp) . ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2007, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483/4 "2007-12-30T06:04:50Z")
[OTRS](http://otrs.org/) is free, open source, and should meet the requirements you’ve listed. I recently set it up for a ten-person department and found the configuration to be very friendly. You can tell that the documentation was written by people for whom English is not a primary language, but all the important information is there. Various levels of non-free [technical support](http://www.otrs.com/en/support/) are also available. ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483/5 "2007-12-31T14:51:06Z")
My organization uses RT. We installed it about a year ago and are still working on configuring it to our needs. I am not involved in installing or maintaining it, so I can’t speak to those aspects. We have about 100 people using the system to support a “customer” community of around 5000 people, and are very pleased with it. The software itself is open source and free, but we do contract with Best Practical for various things. More information here: > **[Request Tracker... So much more than a help desk — Best Practical Solutions](https://bestpractical.com/request-tracker)** > > Request Tracker is the open source, enterprise-level ticket management system. Organizations of all sizes use Request Tracker to track and manage workflows, customer requests, and internal project tasks of all sorts. With seamless email integration,... > **[Request Tracker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_Tracker)** > > Request Tracker, commonly abbreviated to RT, is an open source tool for organizations of all sizes to track and manage workflows, customer requests, and internal project tasks of all sorts. With seamless email integration, custom ticket lifecycles, configurable automation, and detailed permissions and roles, Request Tracker began as ticket-tracking software written in Perl used to coordinate tasks and manage requests among an online community of users. > RT's first release in 1996 was written by ... I think the best aspect is the name of their knowledge base feature - RT FAQ Manager (a.k.a. RTFM) ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommendations-needed-help-desk-software/431483/6 "2007-12-31T19:40:03Z")
Thanks for the suggestions. I will be checking them out when I’m back in the office; one I found, that seems reasonably priced and very feature-rich, is Cerberus. Has anyone used it?