Unofficial Spiceworks

So I (akp982) have been using the Spiceworks 4.5 beta on my laptop since it came out yesterday. The install seemed to take longer than before but it does now install Apache as the web server this gives improved speed and reliability, see what I think about the rest below.

• Help Desk Queuing (Rules and View)
  • Being able to route incoming tickets to the right person or giving it the right due date to start with is always important. With Spiceworks 4.5 you are able to use Tickets anywhere to update tickets as they come in. I think this will be a great help for when you have a user you don’t want to help, set the checks for the user and then close the ticket before you even see it. I don’t think that’s what its meant for but hay I’m sure ALL IT guys have someone like that, one use would be the opposite, when from management it gets bumped up to the top so you see and do it first. Either way it seems to work well and will be really useful to everyone from 1 man bands to 10 man teams.
  • Read more on Ticket Rules
  • Read more on Ticket Views
• Network Map
  • Spiceworks 4.5 appears to have fixed loads of the smaller bugs in the network map and has now picked up my devices at home and work and put them in the right place first time. It seems to work a lot smoother and with the speed inprovments by using the Apache server the network map seems to load faster.
• Spiceworks Extension Framework
  • Ohh… My… God this rocks. You can now manage and edit your plug-ins a lot quicker and easier. The new editor is more stable and easier to use compared to the old one with even a function to check your plugin will work.
• Apache WebServer
  • The new Apache takes a bit longer to install but once installed Spiceworks FLY’s. This is shown very quickly by how fast the dashboard full of the default gadgets load on a bog standard win 7 laptop with 15 other things open while I’m trying to work from home.
• Performance
  • Speed improvements haven’t just come from the new web server. There have also been a lot of code changes to optimise how Spiceworks works and loads. All of this just makes the whole thing nicer. No mater how many windows you open at the same time there are no speed issues.
• Localization
  • To help Spiceworks spread around the world they have now implemented a localization area in which allows you to download languages and translate the whole of Spiceworks not just the portal as before. A bit improvement and the pig Latin version rocks (there is a image in the gallery below)

Some quick screenshots of Spiceworks 4.5

Below the image there are some next and back buttons you can use to see the others as well as a small description

[imagebrowser id=1]

Get and read more about the beta

Keep up-to-date with Spiceworks 4.5 and the latest version on the Spiceworks community group HERE

Make sure you follow the 4.5 Testing Guidelines and the 4.5 Test Plan and you can help make sure Spiceworks 4.5 is closer to being everything IT.

What do you think?

What do you think about Spiceworks 4.5? Leave your comments here or in the Spiceworks community.