Anyone moved off Freshservice recently?
Posted by itsme_raf@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 45 comments
Weve been on Freshservice for a while. Its fine. No major complaints, but also nothing that makes me want to stick with it long term. The AI feels like its lagging behind what others have. No real innovation or updates
On top of that, couple things starting to bug us like pricing creeping up as more teams get added, workflows getting messy once you go beyond basic stuff, integrations work but feel a bit clunky sometimes
Started looking around again. Siit came up during research, also Jira SM obviously. Not trying to chase something shiny, just wondering if anyone actually made the switch away from Freshservice and felt like it was worth it.
howzer22x@reddit
Hopefully moving off it, the AI is abysmal for incident deflection and offers zero insight into why users found it unhelpful when they rate it and it also doesn't learn from users rating an interaction as unhelpful. Reporting isn't real time and is very clunky. If you need something basic it'll serve the purpose but it's definitely for small to mid sized businesses at most.
mattberan@reddit
Full disclosure that I work for InvGate - we're THE NO B.S. vendor in ITSM.
1 - Not a platform (for you to get distracted having to manage all the time)
2 - Great support (we win awards)
3 - Low price
4 - We help you implement (so we can learn and improve together)
5 - 30 day free trial
6 - Most teams can go live in less than 30 days
We won't waste your time. Period.
Pricing right on our website.
nyantifa@reddit
I've had a miserable experience with Freshservice. Cannot wait to move away.
BlockBannington@reddit
It's fine. I just wish they would do more with the automation part, like make it easier to request approval via API
WildeThingsGo@reddit
I do fresh full-time for a living. Why do you want to do approvals API? I’m just curious it’s really interesting to see how people are using it and what they need.
BlockBannington@reddit
As far as I know, you can only use a subset of attributes in the approval flow (e.g. ManagerOf) but no parameters that you use everywhere else. If the approval api was easier, I'd be able to script it using the powershell addon to get the exact person for the approval, which isn't always the manager.
I'd also love to be able to get the approval URL script-wise so as to push it via Slack to the helpdesk group for when someone is requesting e.g. An Adobe license. We have it all automated except the approval part. I now just have it send an email to the group but I'd love it if I could just send the link, as I could then format the Slack body json to just be a button they have to click and Bob's your uncle.
WildeThingsGo@reddit
Do you need to send an approval request to a group of people, where anyone in that group can approve? Also, does the group vary for each service item?
BlockBannington@reddit
When I said email to the group, I meant it the slack channel. My bad
WildeThingsGo@reddit
yes, but approvals are tokenized to an individual. So it would have to be all the people in a group and you would have to know who was in that group.
Or it needs to be approved on behalf of a mailbox. But then you lose, who actually did the approval
BlockBannington@reddit
I'm not sure I understand the first part. When I send the approval email to the helpdesk channel in clack, anyone can click the links and approve. Granted, they're all agents but that's what if like to accomplish, just have a big ole button in there that says 'approve this shit'
WildeThingsGo@reddit
are you saying you’re already sending the approval to the Slack channel via email?
Or you’d like to be able to do that?
I think I’ve got a way of you doing it. I’m just trying to understand how far you’ve got already.
BlockBannington@reddit
Yeah, im already sending the email to the channel and that works fine. I just wanted it make it easier for my helpdesk team.
Basically: generate the approval URL via powershell via API Send that URL to a slack channel using the messaging API.
I already do this for HIBP alerts but I'd love to be to send a button with some text saying x is asking for y, click approve or deny
WildeThingsGo@reddit
I got you a button. 🤣But the Submission is tokenised. So close!!
WildeThingsGo@reddit
I worked it out, see this is why I love answering questions, then I learn things! #LoveAProblem
I will make a video properly, but basically,
Set up a custom object, which has your Service item [look up] | Slack Channel [text] | Endpoint [text]. In the Custom objectm set up for each service item the Approval Channel, you can add extra columns to store your individual approvers too, but I won't confuse the explanation with that now,
Create a workflow
Trigger: Approval Status Changed from Any to Requested
Reader: Look up the Ticket.Requested item, in the Custom object you just created.
Web Request: GET https://[yourinstnace].freshservice.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ticket.id_numeric}}/approvals
Parse the output. Change $.approvals[0].id to a Number and replace the * with a 0 so it returns an number not an array.
Web Request: GET https://[yourinstance].freshservice.com/api/v2/tickets/{{ticket.id_numeric}}/approvals/{{P1.root.approvals.approvals_object.approval_group.id}}
Parse the output pf P2
Expression: '{{P2.root.approval.email_content | split: 'token?value=' | last | split: '"' | first}}' - This pulls out the token
Expression: concat('https://[portalurl]/public/approvals/token?value=','{{E2.result}}')
POST: Endpoint = Your clack Channel
{"blocks": [{"type": "header","text": {"type": "plain_text","text": "⏳ Approval Required"}},{"type": "section","fields": [{"type": "mrkdwn","text": "*Ticket:*\n{{ticket.id}}"},{"type": "mrkdwn","text": "*Requester:*\n{{ticket.requester.name}}"},{"type": "mrkdwn","text": "*Priority:*\n{{ticket.priority}}"},{"type": "mrkdwn","text": "*Status:*\n{{ticket.status}}"}]},{"type": "section","text": {"type": "mrkdwn","text": "*{{ticket.subject}}*"}},{"type": "actions","elements": [{"type": "button","text": {"type": "plain_text","text": "✅ Review & Approve"},"style": "primary","url": "{{E3.result}}"}]}]}Which should give you something in slack that looks like
Which will open the portal, WITHOUT being logged in and allow the person to approve. I might be able to work out the human click with some more time. But that should get you a ways there. :D
WildeThingsGo@reddit
You can't approve via api or emulate it. When you open the Approval window, Fresh generates a JWT token for submission and submits the approval via Rails, not the API. So this would show that the "Slack Channel" was approved, but not who was in the channel. You might be able to take it a little further with a custom Slack app. But I'm not a slack person. :D
BlockBannington@reddit
It varies for most items, yes. Sometimes a group, like hr, sometimes a single person for db access
WildeThingsGo@reddit
If you’re struggling with it, I’m more than happy to have a chat. I’ve been a customer and now I run a boutique consultancy, and we only do Freshservice, we work with people who have had it for awhile and people who are just moving onto it.
So I’m always interested to hear the challenges people are having because it helps us do our job better but also often it’s somebody didn’t know how to do something and that helps me with content?
So we’re here to help
Altruistic_Tackle27@reddit
I also moved off Freshservice a while back for similar reasons. We ended up going with Jira Service Management since we were already heavily invested in the Atlassian ecosystem, but I've heard good things about other AI-driven ITSM solutions like Risotto if you're looking for more automation.
_30Harsh_@reddit
We moved off Freshs͏ervice about 6 months ago for basically the same reasons you listed, the workflow stuff gets real ugly once you have multiple teams with different approval chains. Looked at Ji͏ra SM but it felt like trading one set of problems for another, way too much config overhead for what we needed. ended up on inv͏gate for service management and the workflow builder is way cleaner than what Freshservice had, like you can actually see what youre building instead of just stacking rules and hoping it works. Pricing was also more predictable which was a big deal for us since we kept getting hit with surprise costs on Freshservice as we onboarded new departments. I'd skip Si͏it if you're a decent sized team though, felt too lightweight when we demoed it
OneSeaworthiness7768@reddit
Sounds exactly like what someone would write if they were setting up a chance to promote their AI-driven service desk SaaS in the comments. 🤔
Due_Programmer_1258@reddit
Drives me up the wall that, I've noticed the s**t spam too... reporting the accounts goes nowhere either.
nakkipappa@reddit
We went to jira (jsm) from freshservice, cost, cooperation between teams, and scalability was one factor, but you have to realize that somebody has to actually take a deepdive into Jira and its possibilities to get everything out of it.
sole-it@reddit
Had a meeting with their sales last year, the platform looked OK but I was busy at that time, so I told the rep that I would test more using the trial next week. Before I knew anything, she created an account for me and started the trial and I got bombed by a lot of automatic onboarding emails in the following days. Had to squeeze some time and contacted the sales to stop all the nonsense.
Tested JitBit a few weeks later based on some recommendation from this sub, no drama but a fully functional system, paid and stay with them since then. Still no drama till this day. %knock on wood%
massiv3troll@reddit
We went to Jira. It's a big lift but the service and project spaces are much more tightly aligned with how they work. You will have to spend a lot of time building workflows and forms if you plan to make it multi department.
No-Brush5909@reddit
Try https://asyntai.com
gamayogi@reddit
We went from Fresh to BMC Helix(Remedy) a couple years ago. The ticketing system is terrible.
Constant bugs, functionality that doesn't make sense. Comments, updates and tasks get lost in the clutter or never show up on the ticket console. Managers are constantly finding tickets and tasks that got lost.. nobody saw them because they never got any notification. Basically were back to using Teams and emails for communication because we can't depend on it.
Upper management loves it for all its data points and metrics. But the actual usability for admins, techs and customers is one of worst I've ever seen. Every update breaks html handling, email formatting is terrible.
Literally all the people who actually have to use it, hate it with a passion but we're stuck with it because the C suite loves it and are probably locked into an expensive contract. They keep saying they are engaging with BMC at the highest levels and we get one step forward, two steps back.
The knowledge base part of it can't even handle basic pasted html. The center tag gets marked as malicious code. I would give anything to go back to Fresh service with a ticketing system that just worked. /rant over
LuckHart02@reddit
Freshservice is good until it isnt. We hit that same point where everything started to feel harder than it should. Looks like siit has a comparison page that gives a pretty good overview
OneSeaworthiness7768@reddit
My dude. You’ve made more than two dozen mentions of siit in a month across nine subreddits. The marketing gig is up. Pack it in.
modder9@reddit
You made them private their post/comment history to hide the obvious shilling.
Jaki_Shell@reddit
Honestly the only alternatives I have my sights on are Halo ITSM and ALVAO ; Both seem to be doing the right things.
paradox183@reddit
We downgraded to the lowest plan last year because we really only use it for ticketing and found better, cheaper tools for inventory management and other stuff. We don’t mind not having a single pane of glass for all that stuff, but others might.
Still like it quite a bit for ticketing, and for the size of our department it is still more cost effective than a lot of alternatives.
Jaki_Shell@reddit
What did you end up doing for inventory management just curious?
paradox183@reddit
Snipe-IT
sryan2k1@reddit
If all you need is ticketing you want Freskdesk, no?
paradox183@reddit
Maybe but pricing is about the same for what we need and sticking with Freshservice gave us a clean downgrade with no worry about having to migrate anything.
BackPackerNo6370@reddit
We just moved to Freshservice from WebHelpDesk with solar winds. It's so much better than WHD that it will likely be a while before we grow tired of it.
Arudinne@reddit
Haven't used Freshservice, but if you're looking for options, we've been very happy with Deskpro.
IceCubicle99@reddit
I used FreshService at a previous job. We had the lowest tier license and the thing I didn't care for is they pay walled some very basic functionality behind the higher tiers.
At my current job, we used Jira and I've been pretty satisfied.
TopComprehensive6664@reddit
Jira SM is the obvious alternative but it comes with its own baggage. Every option feels like a tradeoff somewhere. Siit looks like an interesting alternative
WashOdd7330@reddit
Pricing was the breaking point for us. Once more teams got involved it got expensive fast. Hard to justify internally.
devops_2@reddit
We havent switched yet but Siit came up in our eval too. Seemed more focused on internal IT workflows vs general ticketing. Still figuring it out though.
Outrageous-Guess1350@reddit
Cancelled 18 months ago. The ‘cancel’ button on my account was greyed out, so I contacted support. They confirmed my cancelation.
The next 18 months I kept receiving emails for billing. I kept replying with the ticket number where the cancelation was confirmed. No reply, but a new reminder for the bill a month later. After about 20 emails, I got a email from my new account manager. So I replied I don’t need a new account manager because I cancelled 18 months ago. She was going to get to the bottom of it.
After seven more emails confirming they were still looking into it, I got a reply that I did in fact cancel and would not be billed again.
Down_B_OP@reddit
Joined FS about 6 mobtgs ago for the variety of integrations and cost effectiveness VS competitors. Maybe at larger license volumes, other products might be cheaper, but that certainly was not the case for us.
NoDistrict1529@reddit
We were about to go with them but legal didn't like their tos.
sryan2k1@reddit
Their's isnt special