Product Reviews

Get Internal Support Under Control

• By Mike Gunderloy
• 06/01/2000

Blue Ocean Software’s Track-It! 4.0 is a database that’s been fine-tuned for the tracking and help desk needs of corporate IT departments. It runs as a standard Windows application and includes sections for inventory, purchase orders, training courses, help desk calls, and library tracking. It also includes software auditing capabilities and a selection of reports and graphs. Figure 3 shows the Track-It! user interface with several windows open. The application is designed to allow easy multitasking within a single workspace.

For help desk use, the basic product presumes that a technician will be entering problem reports, perhaps based on telephone or email input from users (an optional add-on lets end users submit their own work orders via email). You can define your own lookup tables to hold data such as the product types or work order types that make sense for your organization, and you can define custom fields for work orders. As work orders are closed, technicians have the option to save their solutions for later use, thus creating a knowledge base as the program is used.

Track-It! includes full searching, filtering, and history functionality for the data that it stores. However, it doesn’t attempt to be a complete database management system for enterprise use. Instead, if you’re concerned about things like data backup and multiuser robustness, you should take a look at the SQL Server-based Enterprise Edition. The program does offer several levels of security, including the option to control what modules can be accessed by a particular user.

Track-It! has a wide variety of reports, graphs, and auditing capabilities, making it ideal for corporate IT departments.

Track-It! 4.0 standard (the edition I worked with for this product roundup) is available for trial download at the company’s Web site. They also offer multiuser and enterprise (hosted on Microsoft SQL Server) versions, as well as a variety of add-ons. These include modules for Web access, remote control, and agent-based automation.