Frequently Asked Questions

Yes.

The contents of almost every page in SysAid can be customized to suit your needs, and you can also replace the SysAid logo with your own. Furthermore, the SysAid Self-Service Portal supports additional customization, so you can configure it to look exactly the way you want it to.

Of course not!

As long as you have an active subscription, we will provide you with all the support that you need for normal SysAid operations and procedures.

We offer 100% uptime for our Cloud installations, and backups are created nightly and stored in multiple physical locations.

We love getting help making SysAid even better!

In any given release of SysAid, a very high percentage of new features are taken directly from customer suggestions. The place to submit your feature requests is the SysAid Feature Request Forum, which may be found in our Community. You may also contact us directly at helpdesk@sysaid.com.

Yes.

This is something we can do for you as a special project. For more information, please contact support at helpdesk@sysaid.com.

You can see the full system requirements for SysAid here.

SysAid support is available through multiple channels:

• Telephone
• Email
• Live chat
• The SysAid Community
• Remote control (as needed)

Please see our support page for further details.

Yes.

You can easily integrate SysAid with your internal website (intranet) by embedding the Self-Service Portal into the website using an iFrame. SysAid also allows you to design your own custom web forms for service record submission.

Yes.

SysAid has an API that gives you full access to each of the main entities in SysAid. You can create, modify, and delete entities. The API also allows you to send emails and gives you several additional functions.

Yes.

You can configure SysAid to work in SSL mode. This is true for both the On-Premises and Cloud delivery platforms.

Yes.

Your phone system can identify a caller and open a service record on the computer of the administrator who answers the call.

Yes.

SysAid has a mobile solution that allows you to create, view, add notes, see history, and add attachments across all active incidents and requests – directly from your iOS and Android device.

Yes.

Exact integration details vary by database type. See the SysAid Installation Guide for more information.

SysAid comes bundled with MS SQL 2008 R2 Express database. Alternatively, you can connect SysAid to an external database – either MySQL, MS SQL, or Oracle.

Yes.

Once you’ve integrated SysAid with Active Directory, you can then enable single sign-on for authentication. As soon as users log into their computers, they are automatically logged into SysAid!

Yes.

SysAid supports LDAP integration, both for importing users and user groups and for authentication. SysAid supports Microsoft Active Directory, Novell eDirectory, and OpenLDAP. Both Cloud and On-Premises support LDAP integration.

Yes.

Any end user can participate in SysAid Change Management from the Self-Service Portal.

The SysAid Tasks & Projects module was designed specifically to give your IT staff a project planning environment. For this reason, only administrators have access to Tasks & Projects.

The following modules are included:

• Help Desk
• Asset Management
• Advanced Reporting
• Survey
• LDAP Integration (not included in Free Edition)
• Email integration
• Calendar
• Chat
• Remote Control using SysAid RCG – 1 concurrent license
• Remote Desktop (My Desktop) – 1 concurrent license
• SLA/SLM (Full edition only)
• Change Management (Full edition only)
• Problem Management (Full edition only)
• API (Full edition only)
• CMDB (Full edition only)
• Workflow Designer (Full edition only)
• Manager Dashboard
• Tasks & Projects
• Monitoring
• Password Services

The following modules are optional add-ons:

• Patch Management
• BI Analytics
• Automate Joe – service orchestration engine (Full edition only)

For more information on SysAid Patch Management, please consult the Patch Management Guide.

Yes.

For cloud customers to begin using Patch Management, they need only to subscribe to a Patch Management license.

For more information, please contact your customer success manager or sales representative.

Yes.

We recommend that the RDS, the SysAid server, and the SysAid Agents all have internet access. Minimally, the RDS and the SysAid server require internet access for Patch Management to function.

Yes.

SysAid provides the added value of a fully integrated service desk and patch management solution that allows you to manage the Patch Management approval process with a standardized, guided, and traceable method.

You can follow the Change Management process to approve certain patches for certain assets, and SysAid Patch Management provides a predefined, out-of-the-box Change SR template that conforms to ITIL Patch Management best practices. Change Management is available for both manual approval and automatic approval within Patch Management policies.

Patch Management policies primarily function to:

• Determine which new patches are automatically approved for deployment
• Schedule the timeframe and recurrence patterns for scanning the attached assets for missing patches
• Schedule the timeframe and recurrence patterns for deploying approved patches to the attached assets
• Determine the method to restart the computers after the patches are deployed
• Determine which assets are attached to the policy

Yes, definitely.

You can manage patches automatically by creating Patch Management policies and assigning them to your assets. SysAid also allows you to set up behavior in which new assets are automatically assigned to specific policies based on criteria you define (such as the computer type, its OS, IP address, etc.).

You can create as many policies as you need, and an asset can only be attached to one policy at a time.

Yes.

SysAid provides you full control over all the patches relevant to your system, allowing you to manually approve or deny patches, deploy approved patches on your assets, and review the status of the patches for your various assets.
As an administrator, you can approach the patch management process from the perspective of the patch or the asset. The patch perspective involves applying a specific patch on multiple assets and observing the behavior of the patch. Alternatively, the asset perspective entails focusing on a single asset or asset group and determining which patches are missing.

SysAid Patch Management accommodates both of these approaches and ensures that you can access the relevant data regardless of your preferred perspective.

Yes.

The SysAid Patch Management service operates on an annual subscription licensing model. This means that you must have a valid license subscription to retain Patch Management capabilities, and you can designate the number of assets covered by your Patch Management license based on your specific needs. Patch Management functionality is only available for assets that have active asset licenses.

Example: Let’s say you are using SysAid to manage 1,000 assets, and 600 of them are qualified for Patch Management. If you purchase a Patch Management license for 400 assets, you can select which assets to enable for Patch Management functionality.

SysAid Patch Management allows you to manage patches for a constantly growing list of products, including all Microsoft products, Adobe Systems, and Google products.

The complete list can be found here.

SysAid’s Patch Management solution integrates state-of-the-art OEM Patch Management technology to the SysAid environment.

Patch Management resources are available through an OEM cloud service over the internet. To optimize Patch Management related communications and bandwidth consumption, communication between the SysAid Agent and the OEM cloud is carried out through RDS nodes. The SysAid Agent collects the OEM agent’s patch scan results and transfers them to the SysAid server through the RDS. The SysAid server analyzes the results and reacts according to the behavior you define.

Any device of any sort can be tracked using SysAid Asset Management. However, for non-computer and non-SNMP devices, you are better served by using the SysAid CMDB. The CMDB allows you to create as many item types as you like, and you have 250 customizable fields to record any information you need about each of your items.

No.

You will not see any noticeable performance differences after the SysAid Agent is installed. The SysAid Agent is lightweight and uses minimum system resources.

Absolutely.

When you deploy the SysAid Agent, you simply specify a different hotkey.

SysAid has an automatic discovery service, and assets can be imported in the following ways:

• Computers can be imported by deploying the SysAid Agent or by performing a WMI scan
• SNMP devices can be imported by performing an SNMP scan
• All asset types can be imported from a .csv (Excel) file

Additionally, any asset can be created manually.

You can use SysAid Asset Management without deploying an agent. This includes importing all of your Windows-based computers using WMI scanning and importing your SNMP devices using SNMP scanning. In addition, SysAid does include an Agent that you can deploy to your computers for enhanced functionality. The SysAid Agent enables remote control and monitoring and will give you full hardware and software details for each of your computers, servers, and workstations. It also allows you to initiate chats with end users, send broadcast messages, see which users are online on your network, and more.

Yes.

The help desk and asset management modules are very closely integrated. Your end users can easily attach their assets to their service records, your administrators can easily see a complete service history for each asset, and much, much more

Yes. SysAid comes with a wide selection of out-of-the-box reports. There are reports for:

• SysAid Help Desk
• SysAid Asset Management
• Highest values (e.g. end user who submits the most service records)
• Tasks and Projects
• And many more

End users can submit service records by email or through the Self-Service Portal. Once you’ve installed the SysAid Agent, end users have easy access to the Self-Service Portal (they simply click the F11 hotkey). The hotkey automatically opens a service record with an attached screenshot or video of whatever they’re viewing, and also attaches full information about the asset they are submitting from.

There are three ways to import users into SysAid:

• Through LDAP integration, which also gives you the ability to import and map the various fields in your LDAP
• By importing from a .csv file (Excel)
• Through the API

You can also create users manually.

Absolutely.

You can easily set up SysAid to convert incoming emails from specific email accounts, and you can define categories and automatically route service records accordingly.

While the help desk and asset management modules are closely integrated, you can still use either one without the other. However, you will lose many advantages of having an integrated system, such as the ability to see full service history for an asset and the ability to see full asset details directly from a service record. You will also miss out on additional benefits of asset management, such as monitoring, remote control, initiating chat with end users, broadcasting messages to end users, and more.

User roles are controlled by permissions. In this way, you can control exactly what each administrator has access to, giving you complete control.

When you receive a quote from SysAid, it contains a link to place your order. If the quote is correct, click on the link to order. If your quote needs to be adjusted, please contact your SysAid account executive, and you will be sent a new quote with a new order link.

Please see our Latest Release page to find out about SysAid’s new features, and to download the latest On-Premises release.

As long as you have an active subscription, you receive for free all updates to SysAid for all modules you’ve purchased.

There are two ways to test SysAid before purchasing it:

• Sign up for a full trial of SysAid and experience SysAid with all features and all modules
• Test SysAid in our interactive product tour

Not only can SysAid grow with your organization, but SysAid can also help your organization grow.

You can:

• Add licenses at any time to keep up with the growing size of your organization
• Add new modules when you reach the point where you need them

Furthermore, we at SysAid are always developing new features and modules to meet our customers’ changing needs. Therefore, if there’s a feature that you need and it doesn’t yet exist within SysAid, there’s a good chance we’re already developing it.

Setting up SysAid is an extremely simple and intuitive process. From installation to email and LDAP integration to configuring the help desk to importing your assets — you will be hard pressed to find another software with SysAid’s capabilities that is as easy and as quick to implement.

Adding administrators, assets, and modules is as simple as adding a new license key, and you can do so at any time.

SysAid is offered as an annual subscription and includes full support and software updates.

Definitely. For On-Premises users, after you purchase SysAid, you’ll receive a new activation key. You simply replace the trial activation key in your SysAid with the new one, and you keep everything! For Cloud users, the data is automatically saved.

The price of SysAid is calculated based upon:

• The number of administrators and assets that you need
• Which additional modules you need
• Whether you choose the Basic or Full Edition
• Whether you choose SysAid On-Premises or Cloud as your delivery platform

SysAid includes unlimited end users.
Please contact SysAid Sales for a tailored quote.

Any network or SNMP device. This includes: workstations, servers, printers, mobile devices, routers, or any IT device that you would like to record in SysAid for inventory and monitoring purposes

If an end user is a supervisor, it allows them to view the service records of all supervised end users from the End-User/Self-Service Portal.

There are two types of supervisors:

Company Supervisor: This end user can view service records submitted by all end users in their company.

Department Supervisor: This end user can view service records submitted by all end users in their department.

An end user is somebody who is registered as the request user on a service record and as the user of an asset.

An administrator manages the service record flow and can be assigned to a service record and configure the system.