Web Helpdesk - Parts, tickets and alerts

mhclark

We just turned on the Parts piece in our installation. We are looking at a simple usage for just tracking purposes not billing.

The manuals are pretty sparse on the overall functions of the Parts and Billing piece.

Is there a way to easily track who has used/taken a part when it's added to a ticket?

I notices that the low inventory alerts seemed to be hit and miss. We ideally want to get 1 alert once the part is below the threshold, but not have it send every x time period.

Our department secretary really wanted a builtin Helpdesk process that would just create a ticket when parts were low, not send out an email.

Has anyone got any good suggestions on getting a little more control over the parts and inventory piece? It seems like it's still pretty basic, so I'm hoping that more improvements will come over time.

bvondeylen

To begin, it is amazing how many help desk systems do not even include 'parts and billing' in their systems. So 4 stars for WHD for actually having this module.

Notifications

When you enable Notifications, you should see a Inventory Alert Threshold (which it sounds like you know about), where you can ask for an email to be sent when a part reaches a specific threshold point. FWIW, this has always worked for us.

Underneath Inventory Alert Threshold, you should see an Inventory Alert Interval, which can be set to continue to send emails as long as that Threshold has not been replenished. I have our set at 1 week. So until the Part is replenished, the Default Inventory Alert Recipient(s) will continue to get emails every week. This is set in Setup > Parts & Billing > Inventory Alerts

There isn't a way of knowing which tickets have Parts entered. That would be nice and a good feature request (although new features don't seem to happen in WHD).

You are correct that Parts & Billing is basic, but at least WHD has it. I just wish Solarwinds was more involved with the product to make it better.