Pros & Cons
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- Affordable rates
- AI features available for all plans
- Comprehensive asset tracking tools
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- Some interface conventions and functions are confusing
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Specs
| Asset Management | |
| Chatbot Support | |
| Custom Reporting | |
| Knowledge Base | |
| Live Chat | |
| Self-Service Portal | |
| Smartphone Apps | |
| Support Widget |
If you need to track issues from internal employees, as well as manage asset and change requests, ManageEngine's ServiceDesk Plus is a worthy IT Service Management (ITSM) solution. The Zoho-developed software ensures agents comply with ticket-resolution policies, keeps costs fairly low, and offers generous access to Zia AI features. However, some functions can feel overly complex, and the interface could use some streamlining. HaloITSM remains our Editors' Choice winner for IT help desk services, thanks to its superb user experience and equally comprehensive feature set.
Pricing: Affordable, But Somewhat Restrictive
ServiceDesk Plus's costs depend on the number of agents and IT assets you need. Both cloud and on-premise versions are available, but I focus on the former in this review. ManageEngine organizes pricing across Standard (help desk only), Professional (asset management and help desk), and Enterprise (asset, change, and project management, along with help desk) versions. Here's how these tiers differ in terms of features.
Teams with up to five members can access ServiceDesk Plus's Standard plan for free. This level includes core ticket management functions, such as automatic agent assignments, knowledge base creation, reports, user surveys, and various conversational, predictive, and generative AI features (under the Zia branding). The next level up within the Standard tier (approximately $13 per agent per month, billed annually) supports up to 10 agents. The more agents you need, the less you generally pay per agent. ManageEngine doesn't impose a limit on the number of internal employees you can service, but it does cap each level to a certain number of agents.
The Professional edition (starting at approximately $27 per agent per month, billed annually) supports up to two agents and 250 assets, including hardware, software, and services. Finally, the Enterprise edition (starting at approximately $67 per agent per month, billed annually) also supports up to two agents and 250 assets. As mentioned, it adds change and project management features. The more agents and assets you need to support, the higher your costs will be. Note that ManageEngine increases the number of allowable assets for the Enterprise edition versus the Professional one, given the same number of agents.
You can add problem, project, and service management features ($1,595 per year) to tiers that don't support them, while a live chat add-on increases costs by $65 per agent per month.
No matter the edition, ServiceDesk Plus ends up significantly cheaper than HaloITSM (approximately $95 per agent per month for teams of up to 25 people). A license for the latter includes asset, change, and project management features, with exact costs depending on the license type. ServiceDesk Plus's equivalent 20-agent plan costs around $58 per agent per month. The similarly full-featured Vivantio, which can handle requests from both internal employees and external customers, costs between $44 and $99 per agent per month, depending on the license type. Freshservice ($19 per agent per month, billed annually) and Zendesk for Employee Service ($29 per agent per month, billed annually) cost somewhere in between to start, though they charge extra for AI features.
Interface and Ease of Use: Sometimes Complex
Setting up ServiceDesk Plus primarily involved naming my company. Of course, other settings for adding profile pictures to agents' profiles and adjusting their permissions also require attention. Finalizing tweaks and settings, such as enabling AI features and creating knowledge base articles, took several hours, which is about average. I tested the service in Chrome and on my iPhone, and an Android app is available, too. The iPhone version shows tickets and lets you use the Zia AI bot, but you can't adjust admin settings from it.
ServiceDesk Plus's web interface makes good use of color, highlighting common buttons in blue or orange to make them easy to find. Its dashboard is also top-notch. You can quickly see how many tickets agents are working on, and which are unresolved, for instance. All core features are quickly accessible from either the menu bar at the top or the left-hand side; you can choose where it goes, though I had to hunt for this option. Most basic actions are intuitive, but the experience still feels technical at times. HaloITSM, which also has a vibrant interface, offers more guidance overall.
(Credit: ManageEngine/PCMag)Creating knowledge base articles to help support agents and employees (as well as feed the AI features) is easy once you find the New Solution button. But it's not in the upper right section like the New Request button for incidents; you need to look for a button above the list of knowledge base articles on the left. I didn't have any difficulty adding details to articles, such as indicating which group of agents it pertained to and specifying relevant topics. Fields are also customizable.
During testing, I found ManageEngine's tech support to be good, but not great. Two main support tiers are available. The included Classic Support level includes chat or email help during weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Premium Support option (pricing depends on your account level) upgrades you to 24/7 help via chat or email. When I asked the chatbot about Windows client support, it immediately passed me to a human agent. However, no one replied, and the chat asked me to leave a message. When I tried again later, a human agent told me that only the on-premise version supports a Windows client.
Ticket Management: Solid Features, Brilliant Workflow Design
ServiceDesk Plus shines at handling help desk incidents. The main ticketing interface is easy to use and organize once you get used to it, but I wish the button to create a new ticket (called a request in ServiceDesk Plus) were closer to the main ticket list. (It's off to the far right side of the navigation bar.) The use of terms is also confusing. The button is labeled New Request, but when you click it, you create a new “incident” instead. An incident can be anything from a maintenance issue to a major system crash.
Once I realized what the terms meant, I had no trouble creating and managing incidents. For a server crash issue, I assigned an agent, set the priority, and filled out other fields without any trouble. It’s intuitive to escalate or downgrade tickets by setting a new priority level. I transferred a ticket simply by selecting a different agent. After I assigned a ticket to myself, I received an email with a status update. Employees at the company submit incidents through a self-service portal, by email, or via live chat.
Zia AI can help with ticket management; it uses data from your current tickets and automatically suggests related knowledge base articles. For example, in a new request about whether the product supports the Chrome browser, I noticed that ServiceDesk Plus pulled in a solution from a knowledge base article. The AI can also judge the sentiment of a new request and automatically escalate it.
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To make triaging incidents painless, you can create workflows that specify who should be involved, what should happen, and by when. I found this feature incredibly useful, especially since the Zia AI can help you craft workflows using prompts. In testing, I created a workflow that automatically assigns server crash incidents to a supervisor. I especially appreciate the visual interface for creating these workflows; it works just like a simple flowchart diagram builder.
ServiceDesk Plus makes it simple to manage and track end users (or requesters), whether they are internal employees or external contractors who need IT assistance. With contact profiles, you can add email and phone details, specify a department, and upload attachments, though I wish ManageEngine hadn't relegated all this functionality to the admin section. However, when reviewing incidents, you can easily view interaction history and contact info.
Asset, Change, and Project Management: Everything Costs Extra
ServiceDesk Plus lets you track assets alongside incidents; it's a core part of the experience (starting with the Pro plan). If there’s an issue with a particular server, for example, you can not only track all discussions about that server but also check which agents are working on tickets related to it. When I added an asset, it was easy to configure details such as its acquisition date and serial number.
Change management comes in two different forms. The change management database (CMDB) organizes all the critical IT resources in your company and their relationships. This add-on isn't available with the Standard plan, but it's available to Professional subscribers for $1,595 per year. The Enterprise version comes with this functionality. A full change management system is available for both Standard and Professional plans for an extra $3,195 per year, though the Enterprise version already includes it. I wasn’t able to test the full set of change management or project management features, but I'm glad to see support for Gantt charts and templates for the latter.
Reporting and Exporting Data: Quick Access to Analysis
ServiceDesk Plus's analytics and reporting tools are also just a click away from the dashboard. They tend to mirror what you see on that main screen (which is a good thing). For example, I was able to view reports on tickets past their service level agreement (SLA) windows, both on the dashboard and in a more detailed report. The ready availability of reports exceeds what I've seen in competitors, including HaloITSM and Vivantio.
I also like how ServiceDesk Plus lets you type prompts to generate reports. Using the Ask Zia bot in the top navigation bar, I was able to generate a report instantly by typing “show all unresolved tickets.” Zoho reps told me this feature is part of the Analytics add-on for either Standard or Pro plans. The add-on is free for one user to generate 10,000 rows of data per month or $199 per month for two agents to generate up to 10 million rows of data.
You can export reports as a spreadsheet (CSV or Excel) or PDF, as well as (uniquely) an HTML file for posting to a website. When I exported a ticket report as a PDF, it looked exactly like the on-screen version.
Integrations: Many Are From Zoho
ServiceDesk Plus integrates with some third-party products natively and others via Marketplace add-ons. You can connect it to popular apps like Microsoft Teams, Slack, TeamViewer, WhatsApp, and Zapier. But as is typical for a Zoho product, the emphasis is on other Zoho services, including Assist, Cliq, Meeting, and Voice. A select few add-ons are paid, and the company says the Qntrl Circuit and Zoho Flow integrations are available only to subscribers of the upper two tiers.
Zendesk for Employee Service has thousands of integrations—far more than ServiceDesk Plus—including Asana and Trello, which are common work management apps. Freshservice also offers more integrations.
Administration and Security: Robust, But Somewhat Cryptic
At first glance, the admin functions in ServiceDesk Plus seem straightforward. The search box is prominent, and the landing screen displays common functions for automations, customization, permissions, and workflows. The Zia AI plays a role, too. As with Zendesk's help desk solutions, you should be able to prompt the AI to change settings using natural language. I wasn’t able to test this feature, but saw how it all works.
Regardless, the admin functions can still feel overwhelming. Creating templates for new tickets, for example, requires you to design and customize them. I edited one of the available templates for maintenance tasks, and although it’s not difficult, you have to deal with multiple options. I wish there were more guidance for the dozens of settings that appear on this text-heavy page.
ManageEngine's privacy policy is clear and reasonably up to date. You can also enable multi-factor authentication to enhance the product's security.