Spiceworks

Starting at approximately 5 PM CDT (10 PM UTCOpens a new window) on October 31, 2022, we will perform maintenance on the Spiceworks website that will affect News & Insights, Community, and our IT Tools such as Cloud Help Desk and Cloud Inventory. We anticipate this downtime to take no more than thirty (30) minutes and maintenance should end no later than 5:30 PM CDT (10:30 PM UTCOpens a new window).

This maintenance will be to complete the upgrade performed last week, including learnings from that update and to enable some additional health checks. During this, we will put the Spiceworks Community in full maintenance mode. You will be unable to log in to News & Insights but still be able to read the content. The community will be completely inaccessible, though.

Regarding the Cloud Help Desk (CHD), logged-out users will be unable to authenticate, and new user registration will not be possible until the maintenance is concluded. Aside from the Knowledge Base being inaccessible during maintenance, logged-in users will not be affected. Regardless of logged-in state, no data will be lost, and inbound emails will continue to process. This means it will be possible to interact with your help desk via email during the maintenance period.

Once concluded, we do anticipate some performance issues similar to last time, but it should fully recover in a much shorter period.

To keep up-to-date with our progress or any changes, keep an eye here or on our Status Page: https://status.spiceworks.com/

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Starting at approximately 6 PM CDT (11 PM UTCOpens a new window) on October 27, 2022, we will perform maintenance on the Spiceworks website that will affect News & Insights, Community, and our IT Tools such as Cloud Help Desk and Cloud Inventory. We anticipate this downtime taking no more than three (3) hours, but we're scheduling for four (4) to be on the safe side. Based on that, maintenance should end no later than 10 PM CDT (3 AM UTC, Oct 28Opens a new window).

We will upgrade our database service instances. We will put the Spiceworks Community in full maintenance mode during this maintenance. You will be unable to log in to News & Insights but still be able to read the content. The community will be completely inaccessible, though.

Regarding the Cloud Help Desk (CHD), logged-out users will be unable to authenticate, and new user registration will not be possible until the maintenance is concluded. Aside from the Knowledge Base being inaccessible during maintenance, logged-in users will not be affected. Regardless of logged-in state, no data will be lost, and inbound emails will continue to process. This means it will be possible to interact with your help desk via email during the maintenance period.

Keep an eye out here or on our Status Page to keep up-to-date with our progress or any changes.

We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Sean (Spiceworks) wrote:

We had to extend the maintenance on the Spiceworks Community specifically because the team ran into a few complications. Due to that, Maintenance went until 12:30 AM CDT (5:30 AM UTCOpens a new window) on Friday (today).

If you run into any issues or see something that was not occurring before this maintenance, please do not hesitate to bring it up here. I saw scheff1​ created another topic and it sounds like he and some others are experiencing random performance issues that are resulting in a 502, 504, or other errors.

If you do run into these kinds of issues, please let us know what page(s) and or action(s) you were attempting to make when you ran into this.

We want to inform you that we were recently notified that someone has been attempting recruitment fraud by creating fake job opportunities at Spiceworks. Unfortunately, some of these scams are sophisticated and refer to previously advertised job posts, including the names of current and former employees, and include fraudulent LinkedIn profiles. Making matters worse, they are not only tricking applicants into revealing personal information but also requesting money and bank information. And that is ultimately their goal, to get their hands on your personal information and money.

Here are a few things to point out to help ensure this does not happen to any of our members:

• We would never ask anyone for banking information during part of an application process

• We do not require an application fee, nor do we expect anyone to pay for training

• All job opportunities are posted via Spiceworks Ziff Davis (SWZD), not Spiceworks

• All correspondence from us will be using the domains of spiceworks.com or swzd.com

• We will never ask for your Driver’s License, Social Security Number, or other privileged information during the application process

• Before extending an offer of employment, a candidate will go through multiple interviews, including those with the recruiter and hiring manager

• We use a 3rd party service to collect information securely; we will not ask you to send privileged details through an email or other unsecured solutions

It is unfortunate that individuals are preying upon the eagerness of candidates to work with us. Here are a few more tips that we recommend that you pay attention to no matter where you believe you are applying:

• Always check the company’s official website to confirm the job listing

• If the domain of the email is not the exact same domain for the official website, be suspicious

Last but not least, trust your instincts. Legitimate job recruiters are typically not pushy and do not ask for personal information at the beginning of the application process. If you get a sneaking suspicion that something isn’t quite right with the opportunity, you’re probably right. Do your homework and ensure you’re not being victimized by a scammer.

Gartner Digital Markets has awarded Spiceworks Help Desk in 3 shortlist categories: Top Performer in IT Service Software, Top Performer in IT Management Software, and Established Player in IT Asset Management Software.

Spiceworks Help Desk has earned a score of 4.4 and has 500+ reviews on Capterra, which is part of the Gartner family, alone. The Capterra Shortlist is an independent research report and it scores vendors on two dimensions: User Ratings and Popularity.

According to Capterra, Top Performers are the highest scoring products in both popularity and user ratings. These are generally products that have been around for a while and are loved by their users.

If you’re unfamiliar with Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk, it is a versatile help desk software that is used in a variety of service sectors; from IT to Education. Since the help desk is a cloud-based service, there’s no server procurement, setup, or maintenance, so simply sign up and you are ready to go! Make your job even easier by using monitors, alerts, custom ticket attributes, and ticket rules. Get help desk reports with key information like updates on ticket and labor by organization. Also, it comes with a top-rated mobile app that has the latest ticket updates and push notifications right on your phone or tablet. Click here to learn more about the Cloud Help Desk (CHD).

Thank you so much to our devoted members whose active participation in feedback, feature requests, spreading the word, and other activities help us continuously improve our products!

For those of you interested in viewing the complete report, simply go to:

https://www.capterra.com/it-service-software/#shortlistOpens a new window

While this happens every year, it’s hard to believe that SpiceWorld is already over. It honestly goes by too quickly.

Over the course of three (3) days, a lot happens, and it may be hard to keep track of much less watch everything. So we want to make sure you don’t miss some of the announcements we’ve had at Spiceworks during the event.

Inventory online integration with Intel EMA

During the Welcome Session, we announced that we’re collaborating with Intel to bring Spiceworks IT pros an integration with Intel Endpoint Management Assistant (Intel EMA), which gives IT pros an administrative dashboard from which they can manage their vPro devices. While there are many great things about this collaboration, one of them is that both Inventory online and Intel EMA are free! You can learn more about this in our official media announcement or our release notes if you’re looking for something more technical.

Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

With SpiceWorld, we kicked off not one but two different alphas for the Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk (CHD).

The first was an early access view of our new Ticket interface for desktop browsers! For months, the team has been rebuilding this with up-to-date web frontend technology while making the interface more accessible and adhering to responsive web design principles. Learn more about this and how to take it for a spin in our recent update.

Earlier this year, we announced the deprecation of the old mobile apps and improved the ticket view for mobile devices. We heard your feedback and we’ve moved around some of our plans to bring you new and improved iOS and Android mobile applications for CHD. If you’re interested in getting involved in its development, check out our Mobile Apps section in Help and Support.

While not an announcement, we did also want to draw your attention to this great walkthrough that Ben.B (Spiceworks) made for helping those of you who are looking at migrating from our Legacy Desktop to CHD.

Spiceworks Community

Much like our IT Tools and Applications, we’ve dedicated a lot of energy to updating our community tech stack. Over the year, we’ve accomplished some major upgrades to our search engine and core programming language that the Community is built upon, while removing some older web framework technologies and consolidated our identity and access management system. All of this is being done to help us iterate quicker and better on future updates.

Speaking of which, we’re in the process of doing a complete rewrite of the web frontend of our Topics within the Spiceworks Community. This is in an effort to have a more solid foundation for future updates. This first iteration focuses on performance and user experience to address some of the current version’s challenges.

After that, we’re looking forward to improving our site navigation so that it has a better experience on both mobile and desktop, focusing on personalization in the Spiceworks Feed, and a new section currently called Spiceworks News & Insights where we’ll be bringing you industry-leading editorial content.

Awards and Accolades

Last but definitely not least, we had the opportunity to announce some awards and accolades during the event.

Pure Capsacians

We took our Dirty Dozen to the Fantastic Fourteen as we added two new Pure Capsaicins to the Community since the last SpiceWorld: Neally and Robert5205! If you’re unsure what that is, The Pure Capsaicin is the highest level of engagement we have here in the Spiceworks Community! Only a handful of SpiceHeads have achieved it. This is because it takes commitment, tenacity, drive, determination, IT intelligence, and, most of all, a genuine desire to help their peers to reach the required 250,000 points it takes to achieve such a level. You can learn more about our Fantastic Fourteen in the Pure Capsaicin section of the Field Guide.

The Spicies Awards

Speaking of congratulating people, something we do every year at SpiceWorld is recognizing our Spicie Award recipients. While the program has changed over the years, the foundation of it is still the same. The Spicies honor the outstanding achievements of IT professionals and brand representatives who make a difference in our Community.

• The Hero Award: Supaplex. This one almost feels like it came out of nowhere. Supaplex joined the Community in late 2018 but has already received over 350 Best Answers and over 3,000 Helpful Votes in that time alone! And if you look at many of his technical replies, you'll often see the "expert" designation, especially in areas like Data Backup, Virtualization, Windows Server, and VMware. And when you visit the areas he engages in; it’s no surprise that he is considered an Expert in our Networking, DNS, Firewall, and VMware discussions.

• The Champion Award: The Repairatrooper. If you’ve been around the Spiceworks Community for a while, this one should come as no surprise. The Repairatrooper has been a member for almost a decade now, and he has a ton of quality contributions. Over the last year, he's been one of the main authors of the community-led daily Spark, but he also has a few other series he writes, such as the Random Screen Capture and The Printer Exposed. And of the best things about The Repairatrooper is that he does it while being helpful and spicy and classy!

• The Innovator Award: Technical.Angel. This one has been a long time coming! Technical.Angel just hit her 10-year mark with Spiceworks, and she's been a fantastic member since the first day! Not only is she well-known in the Spiceworks Community but also highly respected! She helps out in so many ways; she's a SpiceLeader (someone who leads up a local IT meetup group), a core member of various technical and user groups, and is always helping out her fellow IT professionals.

• The Advisor Award: Melissa (KnowBe4). The advisor is an extra special award because all of you choose the brand representative. Spiceworks members are no stranger to the KnowBe4 brand, largely due to the fantastic people they have representing them. This year, we are honored to give this award to Melissa (KnowBe4). She’s been a member since 2016 and an exemplary example for all of us on how best to assist each other in the Community -- with great technical details while keeping it spicy, classy, and friendly.

While SpiceWorld is over, the magic doesn’t stop there. There is, of course, the Spiceworks Community that has a ton of areas to engage in. But, there are places all around the internet where Community members are engaging and helping each other out all year long, such as the SpiceBuddies and the unofficial Spiceworks Community Discord.

It’s been great chatting with everyone at SpiceWorld and we look forward to both talking and seeing each other next year!

Pop OS user in my personal, computing life; not a fan of proprietary software. Linux user in a Windows World; forced to acknowledge it daily. Service Desk work prol. I am working on certs because, after years in I.T. without certs, am forced to acknowledge that employers want proof of EVERYTHING. Anime fan. I play Kubb to add sports into my life. I barely game. I miss the old pre-internet days when everything was being built.

We are thrilled to announce that Spiceworks Help DeskOpens a new window has been named as one of the top Help Desk and Service Desk solutions by G2 in their Fall 2021 Reports. We have been recognized as:

• Leader in the Small-Business Grid report for Service Desk

• Leader in the Mid-Market Report for Service Desk

• High Performer in the Enterprise Grid Report for Service Desk

• High Performer in the Grid Report for Help Desk

• Most Implementable in the Index for Service Desk

While we know ratings and reviews aren’t a popularity contest, we’re proud of this validation as we’re committed to producing a free and amazing service for our members.

Thank you to our members who’ve given us reviews on G2 and, in effect, contributed to this award! We’re extremely honored to receive these distinctions and we know none of it would be possible without all of you!

Click the below if you're interested in learning more about our Help Desk solution:

https://www.spiceworks.com/free-help-desk-software/

SoftwareReviews recently launched their 2021 IT Service Management Emotional Footprint AwardsOpens a new window and, as you may have guessed, the Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk (CHD) was named as one of the champions!

The SoftwareReviews Emotional Footprint Awards evaluate and rank products based on emotional response ratings from IT and business professionals. They are founded in 100% user review data and are free of traditional “magical” components such as market presence and analyst opinion, which are opaque in nature and may be influenced by vendor pressure, financial or otherwise.

This award is important to us because it’s not just about the features and functionality of our Cloud Help Desk. It’s about how our members feel about it and the Spiceworks brand. And while it may sound a bit cheesy, the best is really yet to come as we’re working hard to bring some of the most popular feature requests to life!

We’d be remiss without saying thank you to all of our members. You’re both the reason we do this and why we’ve been recognized with this award. Without your involvement and feedback, this would not have been possible.

You can learn more about this at: https://www.softwarereviews.com/awards/emotional-footprint-awards-2021-it-service-managementOpens a new window

We’re excited and proud to be recognized by our users on Capterra’s 2021 Shortlist for Issue TrackingOpens a new window! If you’re unfamiliar with it, the Capterra Shortlist is an independent research report made up of the top-performing software products based on the product’s popularity among users as well as ratings and reviews.

Being on the Capterra Shortlist means a lot to us. It suggests we have a product that genuinely helps organizations around the world by making it easier for you to assist your end-users.

Thanks so very much to our dedicated members whose active involvement in feedback, feature requests, spreading the word, and more helps us continuously enhance our products! You’re not only a big part of the reason we made this list but you’re also the reason we do what we do!

A full report of the shortlist can be found here :

https://www.capterra.com/issue-tracking-software/#shortlistOpens a new window

So you’re a regular in the Spiceworks Community. You check the site every day, catching up with the latest posts, helping out your fellow IT pro, and racking up an impressive streak on the Daily Challenge.

But did you know that many of your favorite SpiceHeads are getting together to not only chat in real-time but also learn about the newest offerings and industry best practices from your favorite tech vendors? All while entering in the running for some pretty sweet prizes? I don’t know about you but I do like to win stuff.

If you haven’t checked out Spiceworks webinars, you don’t know what you’re missing. Instead of the same old boring “death-by-PowerPoint” sales pitches, you may be used to, we work with our sponsors to make sure that they are tailored specifically to the IT pro audience and make sure you are walking away with useful information for the time you invest, even if you’re not ready to make a purchase at that time.

Slideshows aren’t your thing? Want something more like a podcast but in video format? We got you! Spiceworks also produces original content events sponsored by top tech vendors called “Video Meetups," where you can watch video panels with industry experts alongside some of your favorite SpiceHeads. Hear them discuss real-world migration experiences, tips for getting your executives to actually sit through security training, and more.

You’ll also want to stay tuned for later this year when we unveil the newly revamped “On the Air,” our weekly web show variety hour about IT from our brand new Spiceworks Studio! You’ll see great segments like trivia, Pictionary, and a version of “Dungeons and Dragons: IT edition” that will educate you and hopefully also make you laugh.

But the best part of all these events isn’t just the content. It’s also the online crowd of “regulars” in chat that will provide some of the wittiest and most insightful commentaries you’ll ever see at a tech presentation. But don’t just take my word for it:

“Spiceworks Digital Events and Webinars are really important to connect IT Pros, Marketers and Vendors and more now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen the rise of needs to have communication and be engaged with like minded people to accomplish our business goals. The Webinars provide an entertaining, professional and informative session regarding a variety of topics that affect a wide range of organizations. They also provide room for growth for IT Pros in areas they are lacking and it gives them an entry level overview of technologies they might not be aware of or familiar.” - dbeato 

“Spiceworks webinars are a great modern way to get a feel for what is out there in the overpopulated world of tech solutions. It gives you a direct connection to the vendor with a fun, involved, and creative platform to learn about how their solution may or may not benefit your network or environment.

World star world star meow meow you only yolo once etc etc.” - dimforest 

How do you get started? Well, definitely check out the Events Calendar in the Community. There you’ll find a list of all of the great events we’ve got coming up, including who’s presenting and what we’re giving away.

If you’re like me, you’re probably going to forget to check up on a calendar continually. For that, I recommend ensuring your subscription for Spiceworks Events Alert is turned on. This way, you’ll have information about upcoming events delivered straight to your inbox and you won’t miss out on the ones that will interest you the most.

For those of you who have attended our live events, what do you like most about them and keeps you coming back for more? And what are your thoughts on being granted badges for attending live events? Yea or we don’t need any stinkin’ badges?

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