A ticketing system helps companies from different spheres handle service requests on time, as well as make working processes more organized and efficient. A ticketing system is about solving problems without complications, it is devoted to making workflows more clear and convenient. 

Still, many companies seek to avoid compatibility problems and hence don’t want to implement another software into their digital environment. If they use SharePoint, they can configure a part of it for ticket management, which is exactly what we are going to discuss in this post. 

Who needs the ticketing system in SharePoint?

SharePoint is the most popular platform for collaboration, employee, document, content, and project management, according to the Fortune 500 list. Many companies use SharePoint as the basis for the ticketing system. 


Let’s take a look at the departments that can require a ticketing system. 

  • HR: for vacations, learning, and sick days;
  • IT: for customer and staff support (problems with the network connection, user access), intranet support (tutorials, error tracking);
  • Accounting and finances: for tracking invoices, payments, expense approvals;
  • Legal: requests for certification, document approval, etc.;
  • Procurement: purchase and quote requests;
  • Security: security checks and audit requests;
  • Office support: delivery service, printing, office supplies;
  • Facilities support: booking of a meeting room and equipment for presentations, repair services;
  • Customer service: problems with the product or service.

Pros and cons of SharePoint ticketing system

Let’s analyze the advantages and drawbacks of using SharePoint as a ticketing system to check whether it meets your company’s requirements.

Pros of SharePoint ticketing system

  • If you already work with SharePoint or Office 365, you don’t need to search for a new tool.
  • You can adapt a ticketing system to your customers’ requirements with the help of various features.
  • It has a user-friendly interface with the same sign-in with other Microsoft products.
  • It is available on different devices: PC, tablets, smartphones.
  • It provides high security with the help of data encryption, support or different access level, a complicated system of authentication and other tools. 
  • Automated notifications, escalation of requests, and delegated tasks make workflows more clear and convenient.
  • It provides request search by metadata and the full text. 
  • It supports the reporting system with the usage of analytics and charts.
  • It has low subscription plans. The pricing starts at $5. 


Cons of SharePoint ticketing system

  • Without customization, SharePoint allows companies to use the basic features of the ticketing system and helpdesk. If you want to use notifications and add files to requests, you need to configure the system.
  • There are no analytical features, so you should integrate them with special tools, for example, Power BI.
  • There is no multilingual user interface, so you need to use Bing, a special API for translation.
  • There is no automated generation of tickets from Facebook and Twitter messages.

How to customize the ticketing system in SharePoint

Companies can customize the ticketing system in several ways that differ according to the required time and effort.

  • Type A, simple customization. It takes 16-32 hours/feature and still requires a specialist with a higher level of expertise than the administrator that serves out-of-the-box SharePoint solutions; 
  • Type B, complicated customization. It takes 32-160 hours/feature and a highly qualified specialist.

No matter what type of customization you choose, our dedicated specialists will offer you the most suitable solution that will meet your expectations.

Let’s consider what is included in these customization types. 

Small customization of the ticketing system (type A)

This kind of customization can be used for IT, HR, and office support tasks. Such customization allows employees to do a lot of things:

  • Create a request form with information about the requestor, contacts, address, name of the request, its priority, subject, deadlines, etc.;
  • Add files to the ticket;
  • Create anonymous tickets;
  • Prioritize tickets with color markers; 
  • Group tickets (for example, new, important, finished);
  • Configure the system with logo and branding colors;
  • Create a database to solve repeated issues.

Detailed customization of the ticketing system (type B)

This type is needed for departments who work with law, finances, and security: they require notifications and reports. With the help of such customization, they can:

  • Manage tickets, assigned persons, and observers

Employees can make tickets from emails, insert screenshots in request forms to change or duplicate tickets. Such a system can automatically distribute tasks among operators according to the information filled in their profiles, tag the observers and track the execution time. The System can work with tags and database and offer resolution templates according to the available information. Employees can manage tickets in many ways: merge them, divide them into groups, forward, print, etc.

  • Work with notifications

Detailed customization allows you to start using SharePoint to work with different notification templates, such as ticket creating, receiving the reply, or other interactions with a ticket.

The system can automatically generate notifications about new tickets, customers’ answers, changes, deadlines, etc. Employees can answer the notification and their answers will transform into comments.

  • Integrate with other software

Companies can integrate the SharePoint-based ticketing system with CRM (for example, Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho) to work with exact and detailed information about customers, such as service history, time of product usage, etc. Integration with ERP-systems and databases helps to avoid the duplication of data entry, to set accordance between a ticket and its object and information (description, cost, availability, etc.). 



Ready-made solutions for the ticketing system 

The question about how to customize the ticketing system in SharePoint is very popular, so there are a lot of ready-made products that can simplify the customization process. Let’s take a deeper look at them.

IT Help Desk (by Crow Canyon Systems)

For

  • It is available on mobile devices.
  • It provides 24/7 customer support.
  • This tool can integrate with email and asset management systems.
  • It offers general SharePoint utilities and a user-friendly interface.
  • IT Help Desk includes priority filters for more organized work.
  • It shows great reporting with detailed information about the status, priority, and resolution time;
  • IT Help Desk can work with Power BI for making the reports.

Against

  • It requires the help of specialists to set up.
  • There is no real-time communication, multichannel connection, and different language support.
  • IT Help Desk standard plan has functionality limitations.

MetaCaseDesk (by MetaOption)

For

  • MetaCaseDesk involves a multichannel connection.
  • This tool provides two different portals for customers and customer support. Customer Portal is designed for customers to sign-in on the SharePoint site and report errors. Support User Portal allows users to enter the system, create and manage tickets. 
  • It offers 24/7 real-time customer support.
  • It can integrate with email and asset management systems.
  • It provides different authentication levels and different user roles, for example, end-user, end-user administrator, support user with read-only ability, support user with the read-write ability and support user admin.
  • MetaCaseDesk includes SLA and notifications customization.

Against

  • This tool doesn’t work on mobile devices.
  • It doesn’t provide support on different languages and community forums.

Help Desk Plus (by Ivero)

For

  • Help Desk Plus supports a lot of types of request templates (IT, HR, purchase request, etc.).
  • It works with three types of users (employees, admins, technicians).
  • It allows users to configure notifications.
  • This tool provides adding to the request comments and files. 

Against

A ticketing system is represented on the basic level, with simple features.

SharePoint HelpDesk (by Plumsail)

For

  • Its configuration doesn’t require IT team involvement.
  • It provides a mobile version.
  • Users can merge or split tickets for more convenient work.
  • Users can customize the appearance of tickets, templates, and reports.
  • External users can create, view and make changes to the tickets with the help of a Widget.
  • SharePoint HelpDesk includes in its plans SLA management.

Against

  • This tool doesn’t provide 24/7 customer support.
  • Its interaction with the Office 365 email system requires improvement.

The SharePoint-based ticketing system is obvious and the most convenient solution for companies that are already used to SharePoint as a platform for collaboration. You can customize it with different tools according to your requirements or turn to the dedicated specialist to develop your personal business solution.