WHD at scale

I've worked with Web Help Desk for quite some time, with an uncountable number of instances and scenarios that could make you as happy as a sunny day or as dreaded as a space Kraken ripping the planet apart.

The number of users has always varied, from simple instances going between a couple of users held up by a single technician happily manning their work in the small cave down by the forest, all the way to hundreds and thousands of users that have instant replied by the many hundred technicians that hold the fort whilst bombarded with questions, requests and horrid creatures that manage to break through the castle walls and breach the inner keep to raid whatever they can.

The variety of platforms available over the many versions of the software increasingly crumbled apart into the base Operating Systems and Databases that we see today. Anyone can simply install Web Help Desk onto their PC, it's just whether they want to go through the pointless pain that might crop up by doing so... Though I can say that a few people just want to do things their way and not listen, some want to do it right, some want to get everything perfect, and others just continually break the software until they can pass the blame to another and get a different piece of software just because a colour was the wrong shade.

Some instances struggle before Web Help Desk has even been installed, how much RAM should be given to an instance? - simple answer is 3GB minimum with 1-5 techs (unless you're doing advanced queries and searches 24/7), and add an additional 1GB per 10 technicians added. - Note that you can fix a good majority of performance issues by putting the database on a different server to the help desk and separating the daemons to its own dedicated server... This being said, this all depends on how much you want to spend, what your company can afford and whether you want to go full out on a help desk system that has the potential to be developed into more than just a help desk.

More than a help desk you ask? Well, you can add custom code such as HTML/CSS/JavaScript to customise the front-end to your heart's content... Just know that this affects your upgrade procedure as you'll need to make the changes again after upgrading. Additionally the possibility of implementing Action Rules into PowerShell scripts, VS Code and weirdly clunky Quine that I've never gotten my head around. Nonetheless the possibilities are endless as to what your help desk can achieve, I say it's limited to your imagination and optimism.

Some instances I've worked with weren't used as a help desk, in fact there are odd scenarios such as a rocket management system, a mapping system and even a boat's sonar gps co-ordinator... I'm not saying that I'd recommend using this instead of software that had been specifically developed for it, but the potential is out there.

Hi timmeers​,

There're many things to take into account when trying to fix performance issues with Web Help Desk, I've noted some questions below for you to consider and get back to me with.

1. Is your database on the same server has Web Help Desk?
2. What database type are you using?
3. What help desk version are you on?
4. Where is your mail server in comparison to your help desk?
5. Have you separated the daemons from the help desk server?
6. Are you close to storage limitations?
7. How many tickets would you expect to be dealt with in a day? (Submitted in, worked on, closed, etc...)
8. Do you have many reports, action rules and tasks that run?
9. Have you got an automated script to restart the help desk every few days?

-Midnight

Fluffy, that is a great summary of usage metrics around the platform given a few scenarios.  We have struggled at times with slowdowns, and still regularly restart the platform.

This might be a great thread in which to list setup and usage scenarios.  I'll have our primary administrator post some of our details, but we currently run almost 45 techs, with about 20,000 potential clients.  Tickets processed per semester probably runs about 5000 to 6000.  We use the help desk for external help desk functionality, but also internal project tracking, leave management, change management, and a number of other smaller things like tracking payments and also assets.