Today, many organizations use ITSM tools to facilitate automated workflows and aid in the management of end-to-end delivery of IT services. Managing IT operations is no more restricted to fixing short-term solutions but emphasizes automation and improvement through forward-thinking. 

As the world becomes more and more digital, there is a growing need for ITSM technologies. People can now get information anytime, anyplace in our digital age. Since it guarantees that the users always have access to the data, a system that can be accessed from anywhere has become essential.

IT service management solutions make it easier to effectively manage an organization’s IT infrastructure. ServiceDesk Plus is one such leading IT service management suite that helps organizations with ITIL-aligned workflows, automation, and intelligent self-healing to manage their IT services.

We will go into great detail about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, its pricing plan, strengths, limitations, and supported integrations in this post.

Further, learn how using ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus can help streamline corporate processes. 

What is ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a fully functional support desk platform following ITSM standards to manage IT processes and changes. Overall, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus stands out as a competitive tool compared with other IT support solutions and is recommended for any business needing help desk management, incident handling, and resource management. 

Key Features:

• Knowledge Base
• Ticketing system
• Change management
• Configuration management
• Problem management 
• Asset management and discovery
• Advanced Analytics
• Sandbox
• SLA management
• Automated and Visual Workflows
• Incident management

It is a trusted and one of the most popular ITSM tools in the market that provides everything you need to optimize the handling of Customer Support tickets. Further, it allows your Support reps to quickly solve user problems. Additionally, it offers excellent visibility and centralized control that helps prevent business downtime from occurring due to IT issues.

RBS, Greystone, ABC, Disney, Honda, etc. are some of the world’s best organizations that trust ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus for its services.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus integrated central management console allows technicians and systems administrators to effectively solve complex issues and track the needs of their organizations while providing continuous availability. New releases and patch management tools work in tandem with the ServiceDesk offering as well.

When ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus detects changes, release management tools let you run things like user scripts or notifications. Service Request Management and License Management are all value-added features. Be it IT professionals, end users, or stakeholders, the product has been useful in various fields. You can install on-premises or deploy it via the cloud, ServiceDesk Plus helps prevent downtimes.

For customer support, it has an integrated knowledge base and a customer portal. Additionally, the program offers functions like user feedback, self-service portals, and automatic notifications.

It is a comprehensive platform that streamlines operations by increasing agent productivity, decreasing outages and recurrent events, implementing changes through automated workflows, avoiding vulnerabilities, and doing much more.

Why Choose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is an award-winning IT service management suite that helps enterprises align their IT processes with the best practices of the ITIL framework. It provides an intuitive interface for managing all aspects of your IT services, from end to end. 

Let us discuss a few more essential features supported by the tool. These features will help convince you why choosing ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus over other software is a better option.

• Incident Management With Incident management, an organization can reduce the impact that a security breach or any other type of incident has on the business and its customers. ServiceDesk Plus Incident management feature offers multi-channel support that helps create tickets using email. Security breaches can be caused by internal employees, external hackers, or malware. The incident management feature automates ticket workflows, reduces repetitive incidents, and improves resolution times. It allows response teams to quickly assess the nature of the breach and take steps to mitigate any potential damage it could cause. It also runs user surveys at predetermined intervals to track end-users’ feedback and gauge satisfaction levels.
• Change Management Service Desk Plus Change Management is a cloud-based service desk solution that simplifies the process of managing PC update requests by eliminating manual processes, tracking and reporting on all changes, providing an audit trail of all changes, and much more. Further, it allows users to track the lifecycle of log changes resulting from incidents. It is an easy-to-use, cost-effective and efficient tool for managing PC changes and updates. It also provides IT teams with a detailed audit trail of all changes that have been made to easily identify any problem areas or potential security risks.
• Problem Management The problem management tool that can be used to create and manage service requests. It is a web-based solution that has been designed to help customers and IT professionals improve the way they handle service requests. It is designed to be simple, intuitive, and user-friendly, which helps analyze the root cause of problems and reduce repetitive incidents.
• Asset Management Service Desk Plus is a service desk management software designed to help companies streamline their IT service desk processes. It has a built-in asset management system that helps companies keep tabs on their hardware and software assets. With an asset management solution, you can isolate vulnerabilities, and track software usage, compliance status, and license expiration. It further helps manage the life cycle of purchase orders, compare prices, analyze trends, and maintain the product catalog of all assets. It also helps maintain IT contracts and notifies when they are ready to expire.
• IT Project Management Service Desk Plus is an IT project management software that supports the entire lifecycle of a project, from planning and estimating to design, development, testing, deployment, and support. It’s also a powerful helpdesk solution that can be used to manage your IT projects as well as your service desk. Using this tool, administrators can identify dependencies and associated risks in real-time. It further allows team members to create milestones for each project and categorize them into small tasks. You can also assign roles and grant permissions to each member added to the project group.
• Service Catalog The Service Desk Plus Service Catalog is a service desk solution that helps to simplify the process of managing and tracking customer requests. A service catalog is a document that is created to show the services your company provides. This directory can be used as an internal tool to keep track of the services, or it can be shared externally with potential clients. The main goal of a service catalog is to help you and your customer better understand what services are available, what they offer, and how they are priced.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Editions and Pricing

If you are planning to invest in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, you can try the 30-day free trial or choose from the quote-based plans. The platform offers various paid plans for cloud users. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is available in different packages – Standard, Professional, and Enterprise.

The standard package includes IT help desk services and costs USD 10 per technician each month. It costs US$ 0 if you need 2 technicians and 250 nodes or 5 technicians and 500 nodes. However, if you need 10 technicians and 500 nodes, the price is US$ 1195. The IT help desk software includes features like incident management, SLA management, Knowledge base, and self-service portal. The package also offers multi-site support.

The Professional plan includes asset management in addition to IT help desk services and costs US$21 per technician per month. If you need 250 nodes and 2 technicians, this plan will run you US$ 495. You could pay US$ 1195 for 5 technicians and 500 nodes, and US$ 2295 for 10 technicians and 500 nodes. It further includes features like Asset discovery and inventory reports, contract management, and help desk management.

The most expensive option is the Enterprise one, which includes IT help desk services, asset management, change management, and project management and starts at US$ 50 per technician each month. If you need 250 nodes and 2 technicians, this bundle will run you US$ 1195. You might pay US$ 2995 for 5 technicians and 500 nodes, and US$ 5995 for 10 technicians and 500 nodes. You can also access incident management, CMBD, Service catalog, release management, and other features under this package.

In the end, how much you have to pay for the tool will entirely depend on its edition, how many technicians you want, and your preference for IP-based assets. The more nodes and technology there are, the more expensive your package will be. We recommend you to contact the sales team for further information.

Integration

ServiceDesk Plus enables integration with a variety of trustworthy third-party applications and cloud storage services. Zoho Docs, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, and Evernote, are a few cloud storage services that support integration with ServiceDesk Plus to facilitate document attachment.

Other ManageEngine applications like ADManager Plus, OpManager, Application Manager Plus, and others can also be integrated with this tool. 

In order to integrate the email experience with ServiceDesk Plus’s tools and ticket generation capabilities, the software also enables Office 365 connectivity. Despite the fact that we think ServiceDesk’s integration options are quite constrained. Any integrations it does permit are skillfully carried out and profit from the software’s affordable price.

Strengths of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

With intelligent self-healing capabilities and built-in automation, it enables you to scale up your operations without any downtime or loss in productivity. Here are a few strengths of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus.

• Straightforward User Interface and Easy to Set up At first look, a user may find that the software has a complex user interface, for it supports several navigation tabs. However, the primary dashboard display is clear and simple to understand. Any new user will probably require training for navigating tickets and tasks. But, overall, it is easy to set up and use. You can create new Helpdesk instances in a matter of minutes with a simple procedure. Also, it allows users to view graphs and table overview of requests. It also has a search bar if you need to look into something in particular.
• Live Chat Options The live chat feature allows customers to communicate directly with technicians and generate new tickets. It also allows customers to share their concerns and find a resolution to the issue faster. From sharing simple messages to attaching files and other documents, you can do it all with the live chat option. Using this feature, a user can highlight his condition better.
• Detailed Reporting More than 200 pre-built reports are available in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus that you can use to monitor your customer service. Additionally, you can design your own reports. You can filter and group data with graphs in all reports to help you see important patterns. Scheduled or on-demand creation of information is also possible.Another best part of the tool is you can export the files in CSV, XLS, HTML, or PDF format. Additionally, it supports drill-down analytics displays.
• Self-service Portal Another beneficial feature that comes with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is the self-service portal. This feature allows customers to choose the support services they require, submit issues, track already-opened tickets, subscribe to automated notifications, and more. A user can also access different widgets using the drag-and-extend feature. It also enables customers to be more proactive in seeking solutions to their queries and issues while lessening the workload placed on technicians in managing tickets.
• Knowledge Base In addition, the platform offers the opportunity to build a knowledge-based response that enables you to write articles specifically about a subject that clients may use as a resource. Users can use the knowledge base’s search box to find pertinent information and look up answers to their queries. It is simple to manage and allows administrators to view topics and their statuses easily.

Other Strengths include:

• Enables users to efficiently manage the whole life cycle of IT tickets and minimize outages
• Aids in root cause analysis and better decision-making to increase the efficiency of the IT help desk.
• Customers can access the tool through a variety of channels at any time and from any location. 
• It is multilingual and offers a comprehensive knowledge base for instant assistance.
• Faster and real-time resolution of customer requests and issues. 
• Improved management of all IT infrastructure modifications.
• Assists in producing thorough reports based on performance and gathered metrics

Limitations of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

No doubt, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a competitive product, as long as helping the customer is the primary goal. But it has a few limitations, a baffling price point, and a couple of report weaknesses that leave it lagging slightly. Here are a few more limitations of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus frequently provides more ticket info than needed, but at the same time, it provides confusing navigation options. After spending enough time using the platform, the user can quickly filter through it to find the information he or she needs; it just requires a little initial learning curve.

It has a complex pricing structure that every small business cannot afford.

How to Install ManageEngine Service Desk Plus

In this section, we will show you how to install ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus on Windows and Linux

System Requirements

Inbound Requests Per Day	Hard Disk Type	RAM	Processor
10x - Less than 100	500 GB SSD	16 GB	1.7GHz to 2.4GHz 10 MB to 12 MB Cache 4 cores to 8 cores or Any entry-level server-grade processor E.g. Intel Xeon Scalable - Bronze/Silver Intel Xeon E Family
100x - Up to 1000	2 TB – SSD	16 GB/32 GB*	2.4GHz to 3.0GHz 12 MB to 20 MB Cache 6 cores to 8 cores or equivalent technology E.g. Intel Xeon E Family
1000x- More than 1000	2 TB#/3 TB* - SSD	16 GB/32 GB*	3.0GHz to 4.5GHz 12 MB to 30 MB Cache 10 cores to 20 cores or equivalent technology E.g. Intel Xeon Scalable Gold/Platinum

Install ServiceDesk Plus on Windows

Follow the below steps to install ServiceDesk Plus on Windows.

Step 1 – First, download ServiceDesk Plus from its official website.

Step 2 – Double-click on the downloaded file to start the installation.

Step 3 – Click on the Next button. You should see the License agreement page.

Step 4 – Click on Yes to accept the license. You should see the edition selection page.

Step 5 – Select your preferred edition and click on the Next button. You should see the version selection page.

Step 6 – Select the trial version and click on the Next button. You should see the destination selection page.

Step 7 – Select your destination folder and click on the Next button. You should see the program folder page.

Step 8 – Select your folder and click on the Next button. You should see the web server port selection page.

Step 9 – Define your port and click on the Next button. You should see the database selection page.

Step 10 – Select your database and click on the Next button. You should see the registration page.

Step 11 – Provide all necessary information and click on the Next button. Once the installation has been finished, you should see the following page.

Step 12 – Click on the Finish button to close the installation screen.

Open your web browser and access the ServiceDesk Plus web interface using the URL https://your-server-ip:8080. You should see the ServiceDesk Plus login screen.

Provide the default username and password as administrator/administrator then click on the Login button. You should see the ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus dashboard on the following screen.

Install ServiceDesk Plus on Linux

Follow the below steps to install ServiceDesk Plus on Linux.

Step 1 – First, download ServiceDesk Plus from its official website.

Step 2 – Give the executable permission on the downloaded file.

Chmod 755 ManageEngine_ServiceDesk_Plus.bin

Step 3 – Run the following command to start the console-based installation.

./ManageEngine_ServiceDesk_Plus.bin -i console

Answer all the questions as shown below:

DO YOU ACCEPT THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT? (Y/N): Y

Choose Service Desk Plus Edition.
  ->1- Enterprise Edition

    2- Standard Edition

    3- Professional Edition
ENTER A COMMA-SEPARATED LIST OF NUMBERS REPRESENTING THE DESIRED CHOICES, OR

   PRESS  TO ACCEPT THE DEFAULT: 2

Standard Edition Panel

  ->1- Trial Edition

    2- Free Edition

ENTER A COMMA-SEPARATED LIST OF NUMBERS REPRESENTING THE DESIRED CHOICES, OR

   PRESS  TO ACCEPT THE DEFAULT: 1

Do you want to register for technical support?(Y/N) (Default: Y): N

Choose Install Folder

Default Install Folder: /root/ManageEngine/ServiceDesk

ENTER AN ABSOLUTE PATH, OR PRESS  TO ACCEPT THE DEFAULT

Enter WebServer Port (Default: 8080): 

Disk Space Information (for Installation Target): 

    Required:  1,284,722,446 Bytes

    Available: 76,329,271,296 Bytes

Step 4 – Navigate to the ServiceDesk install folder and start the ServiceDesk using the following command.

cd /home/user/ManageEngine/ServiceDesk/bin/

./run.sh

Step 5 – Open your web browser and access the ServiceDesk Plus web interface using the URL https://your-server-ip:8080. You should see the ServiceDesk Plus login screen.

Provide the default username and password as administrator/administrator then click on the Login button. You should see the ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus dashboard on the following screen.

Conclusion

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is one of the top-notch ITSM tools available in the market and is well-known for its ITIL tasks, competitive pricing, and generally powerful functionality. Businesses of all sizes can gain benefit from the tool. In fact, if a small organization with few technicians is ready to forego ITIL and asset management features, it can choose an appropriate plan. 

ManageEngine provides a complete suite of ITSM features built to enforce best practices and improve the acceptance rate for your service desk and team performance. The software ultimately builds a service that meets the needs of your business. 

It’s easy to set up ServiceDesk Plus and start working on your tickets within minutes. The intuitive interface lets you manage your tickets from start to finish – from assigning them to users and teams, managing the response time SLA for each ticket type, tracking the status of tickets in real-time, resolving them automatically with intelligent self-healing capabilities, and more.

You can resolve IT incidents faster and improve the quality of service by integrating the incident handling tools with the ManageEngine Knowledge base.

Its offerings go beyond a standard Help Desk. Today, more than 100,000 enterprises rely on ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, a help desk software designed to build a more efficient IT department.