PEPPER PACK USER GUIDE

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PEPPER PACK USER GUIDE - 1

PEPPER PACK USER GUIDE

INTRODUCTION

The Spiceworks Help Desk module is an excellent system for managing IT support requests. However, it lacks a few features that could really help IT technicians save time and troubleshoot faster.

 Imagine someone submits a ticket describing an issue with their printer – what’s the first question you might have? “What printer are they talking about?” In order to find out, you’ll either need to ask the person for more information (by phone or email) or go digging through Spiceworks’

Inventory module to try to find which printer is assigned to them. But what if you could find this information instantly – right within the very ticket they submitted?

 Have you ever received a ticket that required you to remote control the user’s computer, but you didn’t know their IP address or computer name? Imagine having that information right at your fingertips with a single click. Better yet, what if you could quickly see if there were any hardware or software issues with their computer without having to leave the ticket screen?

 It’s very common to deal with repeat issues with certain users. Weeks or months later you may get another ticket in your system asking you to deal with the exact same problem. Wouldn’t it be nice to know what you did last time without having to dig through a myriad of tickets? What if you could simply copy the instructions you gave them last time to the current ticket with one click?

Pepper Pack addresses all of these issues, plus more! It allows you to see all the devices assigned to the person that submitted a ticket to you – right within the ticket! It tells you whether those devices are online or offline, what their IP addresses are, and displays a whole array of useful hardware and software information about those devices (including warnings) without you having to switch to the Spiceworks Inventory module.

With one click you can also link the problematic device to the current ticket for historical reporting.

Pepper Pack also displays all of the person’s past tickets in a user-friendly list that you can quickly search/filter to find resolutions to repeat problems – and then with one click you can copy your past response to the current ticket. That saves time!

This is app was designed with one goal in mind – make all of the information that’s already in Spiceworks and which is relevant to the current ticket instantly available to help desk technicians. No need to switch modules or waste time searching through the application. Let’s give your IT staff the full picture right up front!

Version 1.0

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

 Compatible with Spiceworks 7.4 or higher

 Browser Compatibility:

o Internet Explorer 10 or higher o Google Chrome

o Firefox

o May also be compatible with Safari & Opera (but these are not tested)

INSTALLATION

1. Open your browser and login to your local Spiceworks installation 2. From the top menu, select Apps > App Center

3. Find Pepper Pack in the App Center or manually enter the following URL:

https://community.spiceworks.com/appcenter/app/extension_21

4. At the top-right of the Pepper Pack app page, click on the green Free Trial button 5. Review the data access requirements and then click Next

6. Enter your Spiceworks email and password

7. Review the subscription plan details and then click Next

8. Enter your credit card information (your card will not be charged if you choose to cancel before the 15-day free trial ends) and then click Buy Now

9. The app will automatically install on your local Spiceworks server

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APP OVERVIEW

MAIN APP SCREEN

After installing Pepper Pack, you will be presented with the main app screen. This is where you configure various settings such as device & anti-virus rules, and software rules. There are three sections shown on the screen:

 Settings – Configure device and anti-virus rules (these settings will determine what warnings will be displayed when viewing device info in the Help Desk App Placement)

 Software Manager – Configure software rules for approved and prohibited applications on your network computers (these rules are used to identify approved/prohibited software when viewing device info in the Help Desk App Placement)

 About – Gives an overview of the various Pepper Pack features

You can access this screen at any time by selecting Apps > Pepper Pack from the main Spiceworks menu at the top of the page.

HELP DESK APP PLACEMENT

Pepper Pack was designed specifically to be used within the Help Desk module of Spiceworks. If you switch to the Spiceworks Help Desk (select Apps > Help Desk from the main menu) and then click on any ticket, you’ll notice there is now a new tab titled “Pepper Pack” inside the ticket (right next to the “Related” tab, as shown in the screenshot on the following page). Clicking this tab allows you to access the core functionality of Pepper Pack, as described in the introduction.

If this is the first time you’re using Pepper Pack, you may see a message saying “Where’s the Pepper?” This screen is displayed if the person who submitted the ticket doesn’t have any devices (ie. Computers, Laptops, Printers, etc.) assigned to them.

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Otherwise, if the user already has devices assigned – you’ll see a screen similar to this.

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The Help Desk App Placement for Pepper Pack is divided into two tabs:

 Assigned Devices – This tab shows you all of the assigned devices for the current ticket submitter, and allows you to assign/remove devices, view device info & warnings, and gives you detailed hardware/software information for those devices. You can also link devices to the current ticket from here.

 Other Tickets – This tab displays a complete list of all past and current tickets for the current ticket submitter. You can search/filter the ticket list, and click any ticket to expand it to view all comments for the ticket. If you hover your mouse over a comment, you’ll see a “Copy to Current Ticket” link appear which you can click to instantly copy that comment to the current ticket.

CONFIGURING SETTINGS

Select Apps > Pepper Pack from the main Spiceworks menu to go to the Pepper Pack settings screen.

DEVICE RULES

There are three options currently available:

 Warn if prohibited software is installed – If you enable this option, Pepper Pack will warn you if prohibited software is installed on a user’s assigned computer when viewing the device’s details in the Help Desk App Placement (as shown below). You can define which software is prohibited on the Software Manager tab.

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 Warn if anti-virus software is not installed – Enabling this option will display a warning message, similar to the one shown previously, if no approved anti-virus is installed on the user’s assigned computer. You can define which anti-virus products are approved under the Anti-Virus Rules section immediately below the Device Rules section.

 Warn if free disk space drops below “X” MB – If you enable this option, a warning will be displayed if the user’s assigned computer has less disk space than the amount you specify here.

For example, if you specified 1000 MB as the warning limit, any computer that has less than 1000 MB of free disk space will display an alert pointing this out to you as shown below.

CONFIGURING SOFTWARE RULES

Select Apps > Pepper Pack from the main Spiceworks menu to go to the Pepper Pack settings screen, then click on the Software Manager tab. This section allows you to specify which software is approved to run on your computers and which software is prohibited.

ADDING A SOFTWARE RULE

To add a software rule, simply fill out the form and click Save. If you want approve or prohibit all software titles for a single vendor/publisher, then just fill in the Vendor name and leave the Title field blank. Then select Approved or Prohibited from the dropdown field, and click Save.

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For example, if you wanted to approve all Microsoft software titles, you would just type “Microsoft” in the Vendor field and then select “Approved” from the dropdown, then click Save.

EDITING A SOFTWARE RULE

To edit a software rule, simply click it in the list of software rules below the form. Then make any necessary changes on the form before clicking Save again to update that entry.

DELETING A SOFTWARE RULE

To delete a software rule, hover your mouse over the entry in the list of software rules and then click the red

“X” to the right of that rule.

VIEWING SOFTWARE RULES WITHIN A TICKET

To view installed software on computers assigned to a ticket submitter, click the Pepper Pack tab inside a ticket and then click on a computer in the list to the left. On the right-side, scroll down until you see the list of installed software. Prohibited applications are highlighted red, and approved applications are green.