Spiceworks Intro

Editor's Notes

• #2: IT is complicated - Spiceworks seeks to simplify IT by providing the tools that IT pros in small to medium sized business need to do their jobs
• #3: The questions Spiceworks seeks to answer - Before a single line of code was written, the co-founders spoke to IT pros and asking what sort of tool they felt they needed. From these interviews, they discovered that, for the most part, IT pros where seeking to answer the following questions. What do I have? - Most IT pros are responsible for their physical hardware from workstations and servers to phone systems and PDAs. They wanted to know how to keep track of these things as well as the software running on them. How do I keep track of everything? - Not only did IT Pros want to know what they had, but they wanted to know when things changed? How could they have a central record of everything that they could easily keep up with when devices where added/removed. How could they keep all of their software in compliance. Is everything working? - It pros want to know when things stop working - from machines going down to servers going offline. It’s important for them to be able to quickly access the overall health of their network. How do I fix things? - When things aren’t working. IT pros need a place to go for answers. They need some means of easily accessing the resources they need to resolve issues and keep things running smoothly.
• #4: Enter Spiceworks - With a new respect for the daily woes of the average IT Pro, the Spiceworks co-founders came home and got to work on a comprehensive solution. Here is what they came up with...
• #5: (What do I have?) - Full inventory of hardware & software - Spiceworks provides IT pros with a robust inventory tool that uses an agent-free scan to collect information about all of the hardware and software on a network (How do I keep track of everything?) - Track to-dos and user request - not only does Spiceworks automatically scan everything on your network, it also provides an integrated help desk to allow IT pros to receive help tickets from their users and also keep track of their own IT projects. (Is everything working?) - Troubleshoot & report on Assets - Not only does Spiceworks allow you to keep track of everything, including your user requests, it also let’s you know when things stop working. System monitors let you know everything from when a device goes offline, to when a printer is out of ink. You can also create and run custom reports on any of the information that Spiceworks collects. (How do I fix things?) - Collaborate with a community of IT pros - Their are hundreds of thousands of IT pros that use Spiceworks everyday and participate in the Spiceworks community. These IT pros use the community to find answer to IT questions, learn best practices, and even connect with others in their industry.
• #6: Is Spiceworks right for me? - Spiceworks runs from a windows machine, but will discover machines with any operating system (Mac, Linux, etc.). It’s ideal for networks of under 1000 devices. You will also need admin credentials for Spiceworks to scan your devices.
• #8: A Full Inventory of Hardware & Software - Using an agent-free scan Spiceworks is able to collect all sorts of useful information about your hardware and softwares, including: Basic information like a devices manufacturer, owner and serial numbers. More advanced configuration info like the devices operating system, memory, processor and even disk usage over time. Software info including version numbers and install dates. Spiceworks even collects product keys from windows and Microsoft office and allows you to enter in your number of licenses so you can receive alerts when you go out of compliance. You can even track warranty information for devices so that you know when an expiration is around the corner. Spiceworks also allows you to: Track non-network devices like projectors and PDAs Create custom groups to quickly access a devices by any criteria you choose. Troubleshoot devices through handy, built-in tools including: Comparing any two device to discover where a difference in configuration might be causing a problem. Remoting in to a device right from Spiceworks using RDP and VNC Seeing all processes running on a device and killing them remotely.
• #9: Customizable Reports - Spiceworks lets you report on any of the information that it collects. This means that you can: Easily report to your boss or an auditor on anything from a complete asset report, to how much time you spend resolving help tickets. You can even report on more detailed info like what software you have installed on devices to how much ink is left if your printers. Create reports of your own to get at exactly the information that’s important to your network. Export reports in any major format including CSV, PDF, or Excel. Share report builds (data is never shared) with other IT pros in the Spiceworks community.
• #10: Help Desk and Ticket Submissions - The Spiceworks help desk allows you to easily receive and respond to your users help requests as well as manage your own projects. You can do this by: Giving your users a number of options on how they submit tickets, including through a dedicated email address or through an easy to set-up web-based portal. Tracking all sorts of valuable things throughout the tickets life-cycle, including the tickets creator, who it is assigned to, when the ticket is due, what its priority is, and how long it takes to resolve. It is also easy to report on all of these interactions. Access and managing your help tickets via your mobile device using simple text commands.
• #11: Network Monitors and Alerts Spiceworks makes it easy to proactively address changes on your network before they become major issues. With Spiceworks monitors and alerts, you can: Monitor things like disk space usage, software instillations, anti-virus updates - even whether a device is offline for a designated amount of time. Create custom reports of your own to monitor exactly the information that’s most important to your network. Receive important alerts via email. Track the number of licenses you have for software and automatically compare it to your number of instillations so you know when you are out of compliance.
• #12: Participate in a Global Community of IT Pros - Spiceworks put you in touch with hundreds of thousands of other IT pros just like yourself. This means you can easily find answers to the questions you have about Spiceworks and other IT Topics. You can also: Join groups of other IT pros based on industry, interest or even area, Research products and services by reading ratings and reviews Read helpful step-by-step how-to’s for common IT issues
• #13: How Spiceworks Keeps IT Free - No Gimmicks. No Catches. Spiceworks is free and always well be. Spiceworks is able to provide a great app at no charge to our users through non-obtrusive ads that run in the upper right of the application. Spiceworks is careful to seek relationships with advertising partners that provide products and services that our users will find useful. When users do choose to purchase from one of our partners, it helps us to keep IT free! Think of it like google... A great tool that advertisers pay for and users get for free!
• #14: Can’t have Ads? Have it Your Way! - Spiceworks realizes that Ads aren’t appropriate in every environment, but we don’t want anyone to miss out, so we do provide an ad-free version of our software. For $20 a month, you can get Spiceworks with your logo in place of ads.
• #15: Getting Spiceworks - Getting started with Spiceworks is easy. Just visit www.spiceworks.com . From here, you can take a quick look at all of the features you’ll find in Spiceworks and start a download immediately. Then it’s just a quick instillation and in a few minutes, you’ll be up and running!