Service Desk · Ticketing · SLA

Service desk software with ticketing, SLA engine and a self-service portal.

Ordivis Service

Four ITIL ticket types in one process, priority derived from urgency and impact instead of gut feeling, and a portal your entire workforce may use – end users cost nothing.

End users in the portal 4 ITIL ticket types 100 % On-premises
# Priority is derived, not guessed
Urgency  high    (3 levels)
Impact     medium  (3 levels)
                 ↓
Priority      2 – High

SLA target  response  1 h   Business hours
SLA target  resolution    8 h   Escalation at 80 %
Group    2nd level network
Fundamentals

What is a service desk?

A Service desk is the central and only point of contact – the single point of contact – between users and the IT organisation. It receives incidents and requests, classifies them, steers their handling across every group involved and owns the communication through to closure.

The decisive part is that last clause: the service desk stays accountable even when the actual fix happens elsewhere. A ticket handed to the network team is not „gone“ – it remains a case someone answers for towards the user. This is exactly where most shared-mailbox arrangements fall apart.

Service desk or helpdesk – what is the difference?

A helpdesk resolves incidents: a user reports, someone fixes, case closed. A Service desk is broader and responsible for the entire service relationship – alongside incidents that means service requests from a catalogue, changes, information and the ongoing development of the services themselves. Put briefly: the helpdesk reacts, the service desk also steers.

In practice one single question reveals the difference: can a user order something from you – an account, a laptop, an approval – or only reportsomething? If only the latter works, you are running a helpdesk.

Why not a shared mailbox?

A shared mailbox works surprisingly long and then collapses all at once. It knows no status, no ownership and no deadline; nobody can tell whether a message is being worked on or twice over, and nothing at all can be evaluated. At the latest when you have to prove how fast you responded – to management, to an auditor or to a supervisory authority – a mailbox is not evidence.

One process, four types

Incident, problem, change and service request

All four ITIL ticket types run through the same ticket lifecycle – with the same journal, the same groups and the same SLA rules.

Incident

A disruption: something does not work as promised. The aim is to restore the service as fast as possible – by workaround if need be; the root cause comes later.

Problem

The cause behind recurring incidents. Incidents are bundled, the workaround is documented and the permanent fix is tracked.

Change

A planned change with risk class, approval path and CAB date. Standard, normal and emergency changes with configurable approvers.

Service request

A standard request from the catalogue – account, device, approval. With a form, an approval step and a defined procedure instead of a shout across the room.

Feature scope

What the Ordivis service desk does

Priority from two dimensions

Urgency and impact, three levels each, yield the priority – derived rather than freely chosen. Ten agents therefore prioritise comparably, and the decision can be justified afterwards.

Three-level ticket journal

The activity history is structured by indentation: what happened, who did it, what was communicated. The originating e-mail sits in the journal as well.

Support groups with visibility

Tickets are visible per group – membership by user or by role. The 2nd level sees what concerns it, not everything.

SLA & OLA engine

Several targets per ticket, response and resolution time, business hours and calendars taken into account. Escalation when a breach looms – beforehand, not in the monthly report.

E-mail integration

Tickets are created from a monitored inbox. Unknown senders are added automatically to the local contact directory, replies return into the ticket via reply-to.

Self-service portal

A Blazor portal for end users: report a ticket, track its status, read knowledge articles, order standard requests. Unlimited users, free of charge.

Knowledge base

Solutions are findable and linkable straight from the ticket. Published articles appear in the portal – that lowers ticket volume instead of merely administering it.

CI context from the CMDB

Tickets hang on configuration items. Through the CMDB it is immediately visible which services are affected – the basis for impact statements that hold up.

CSAT measurement

A satisfaction survey after ticket closure. Categories and subcategories are freely maintainable, so evaluations fit your organisation.

Monitoring integration

Incidents from CheckMK, PRTG, Zabbix or Nagios/Icinga automatically become tickets. Repeats land as a comment on the existing ticket, the all-clear closes it again – and an active maintenance window suppresses creation entirely.

No alert flood

A storm brake bundles mass events into a single collective ticket, and flapping services are recognised as such. An agent who has already worked on the ticket keeps precedence over the automation.

Single sign-on (SSO)

Sign in at your own identity provider – Entra ID, Keycloak or any other OIDC provider, plus integrated Windows authentication via Kerberos. Groups and claims are mapped onto Ordivis roles.

From the running application

How the service desk works

Tickets
Service desk software: ticket list with priority, SLA and assignee
Ticket listPriority, SLA, supporter and tenant per ticket – four ITIL types, one process.
Ticket detail
Ticket detail view with journal, SLA clock and linked knowledge
Ticket detail & journalThree-level activity history, SLA clock, effort and linked knowledge.
Cost

Why end users cost nothing with us

Many ticket systems bill per user – and mean everyone by that. It leads to an absurd situation: access to the self-service portal is restricted to save licences, and the tickets arrive by e-mail and telephone instead. The software gets cheaper, running it gets dearer.

Ordivis Platform bills by named users in two roles: administrators with the full feature set, and service desk agents for ticket handling alone. End users in the portal are unlimited and free of charge – as are assets, CIs and IP addresses.

RoleWhat it may doLicensed
AdministratorFull feature set including service desk, configuration, all modulesYes, named
Service desk agentTicket handling – the cheaper role for handling aloneYes, named
End users in the portalReport and track tickets, read knowledge articles, order servicesNo – unlimited
Frequently asked questions about the service desk

Answered briefly and honestly

What is a service desk?

A service desk is the central and only point of contact (single point of contact) between users and the IT organisation. It receives incidents and requests, classifies them, steers their handling across every group involved and owns the communication through to closure – even when the actual fix happens elsewhere.

What is the difference between a service desk and a helpdesk?

A helpdesk resolves incidents: a user reports, someone fixes, case closed. A service desk is broader and responsible for the entire service relationship – alongside incidents that means service requests from a catalogue, changes, information and the ongoing development of the services. The helpdesk reacts, the service desk also steers.

How is a ticket's priority determined?

From two dimensions of three levels each: urgency (how fast does it have to be resolved) and impact (how many users or how critical are the processes affected). The priority is derived from them instead of being freely chosen – which makes prioritisation comparable between agents and justifiable afterwards.

Does every end user cost a licence?

No. Billing is by named users in two roles: administrators and service desk agents. End users who report and track tickets in the self-service portal are unlimited and free of charge. Rolling the portal out to the entire workforce is therefore not a budget question.

Can tickets be created by e-mail?

Yes. Tickets are created from a monitored inbox and the originating message stays visible in the journal. Unknown senders are added automatically to the local contact directory, replies return into the ticket via the reply-to address.

How does SLA monitoring work?

The SLA engine keeps several targets per ticket – typically response and resolution time – and takes business hours and calendars into account. OLA targets can additionally be kept at support group level. When a breach looms it escalates before the deadline is missed; the evaluation lands in reporting.

Does the service desk run on premises?

Yes. Ordivis Platform runs as native Windows service infrastructure with its own PostgreSQL database entirely in your data centre. For ticket systems that matters particularly, because tickets regularly contain personal data and details of security incidents.

Is there a mobile app for agents?

An Android app is built and runs on the device – with an offline queue so that entries made in the field are not lost without a connection. It is, however, not yet generally available: hardened sign-in, push notifications and the distribution channel are still outstanding. The current state is in the app changelog and in the roadmap.

Can monitoring create tickets automatically?

Yes. Incidents from CheckMK, PRTG, Zabbix, Nagios/Icinga or any other tool become tickets through a batch endpoint; alternatively a monitoring mailbox with a parser profile is enough. What matters is what does not happen: a repeat does not create a second ticket but a comment on the first. The all-clear closes the ticket itself after a grace period. An active maintenance window suppresses creation, a storm brake gathers mass events into a single collective ticket, and flapping services are recorded as flapping rather than as an avalanche of tickets.

Does Ordivis support single sign-on?

Yes, via OpenID Connect – Entra ID, Keycloak or any other OIDC provider. The code-for-token exchange runs server-side (broker model), no secret sits in the client, PKCE is enforced. The e-mail domain determines the tenant and the sign-in service, accounts are created on first sign-in, IdP groups are mapped onto Ordivis roles. For domain workstations there is additionally integrated Windows authentication via Kerberos. A nightly reconciliation disables accounts that have been blocked or removed at the sign-in service.

Related

The service desk is part of a whole

ITSM software

All ITIL practices in one suite – from incident to change, without module surcharges.

CMDB software

CI context on the ticket: prioritisation by real dependencies instead of by feel.

ISMS software

Security controls run as tickets in the same system – no Excel alongside.

See the ticket lifecycle in action.

From the e-mail through the SLA clock to the CSAT survey – in a demo by video conference.