How to Create a SharePoint Helpdesk Ticketing System

If you are already using Microsoft 365 in your organization and need a solution for an internal support system, SharePoint help desk ticketing system might seem like a perfect next step. It allows you to track and manage incidents, problems and requests within the familiar Microsoft 365 ecosystem, whether it’s for IT Support, HR requests, or facility maintenance.

But, how to create a ticketing system in SharePoint?

In this article, I will walk you through two different ways of creating a SharePoint help desk. The first one is using native tools like SharePoint Lists, Power Apps, List Forms, and Power Automate. Then I will introduce a much easier and more powerful alternative, which is perfectly made to fit into your SharePoint and look as native as possible, Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint.

Both approaches will be described in this article to help you decide which one is better for you based on your current and future requirements.

Why use SharePoint as a ticketing system?

When using Microsoft 365, leveraging SharePoint as an internal and external ticketing system might be a very natural and logical solution. Apart from being cost-effective, it also provides an extra layer of security as it uses Microsoft 365 stack and provides a well-known work environment for your employees.

Here are some reasons why you should consider using SharePoint as a ticketing system if you are already using Microsoft 365:

• Built-in security and permissions – You can easily restrict users to their own tickets, create agents, and give broader access to agents and managers. This is possible because SharePoint integrates with Azure Active Directory.
• Part of your existing Microsoft 365 Stack – SharePoint ticketing system uses your existing infrastructure and builds on top of it.
• Workflow Automation – You can use Power Automate to build workflows and enhance automation to save on resources and improve efficiency.
• Customizable – SharePoint help desk can be customized to cover different use cases such as IT support, HR requests, Legal and facility management.
• Familiar interface to users – Changes are often not welcomed and very hard to implement within an organization. By enhancing SharePoint and turning it into a fully functional ticketing system, your employees will stay within a well-known work environment, which will result in less training and faster adoption.
• No or very low extra costs – If you are already paying for Microsoft 365, building a basic help desk in SharePoint will result in no cost. For a more complex and ready to use solution like Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint, it will save you up to 10 times or more in licensing fees, depending on the number of agents in your organization.

How to create a Ticketing System in SharePoint

If you are looking to build a basic ticketing system in SharePoint using SharePoint lists, customized forms and create some workflows using Power Automate, it is possible. Here is the step-by-step instruction on how to do it:

Step 1: Create a site

Start by creating a new SharePoint site for your help desk. I would recommend creating a new Communication site. This way you will have a help desk on a separate site, clearly marked and customized for that purpose.

Step 2: Create a SharePoint list for tickets

After creating a site, create a SharePoint list to serve as a database for your tickets. Make sure to include all necessary fields such as:

• Title (single line of text)
• Description (multiple lines of text)
• Category (choice field)
• Priority (choice field)
• Status (choice field)
• Assigned to (person field)
• Created by (person field), and
• Creation date (date field)

Step 3: Customize views for different roles

Create filtered views for different user types based on SharePoint permissions. Suggestion is to create the following views:

• My tickets – shows tickets by a logged in user
• Assigned tickets – shows tickets assigned to the support agents
• All tickets – for manager and admins

Step 4: Automate notifications with Power Automate

Use Power Automate to setup workflows and notify support agents when a ticket is assigned or when a ticket status is changed. While powerful, these workflows require some experience using Power Automate to set up a proper logic.

Step 5: Build a Form to submit tickets

To build a submission form for your help desk, there are a couple of option depending on your level of experience and requirements:

• Default list Forms – these are native SharePoint list forms and straight forward to use.
• Power Apps – use Power Apps to build more complex forms. This option requires some Power Apps knowledge and coding skills.

Step 6: Configure permissions

SharePoint permissions setup is the key to data security and access control. Some examples:

• Users can see only their tickets and edit them.
• Support staff or agents can see all tickets and edit them.
• Admins can manage the entire site and create workflows.

Step 7: Setup Reporting and Dashboard

This step is optional. You can connect to Power BI or create SharePoint pages and include web parts to display dashboards with important KPIs.

Step 8: Design the Home Screen

Design a nice and user-friendly home screen, include announcements and other important resources for support agents.

Challenges when Building SharePoint HelpDesk from Scratch

While it is entirely possible to create a SharePoint ticketing system from scratch, using only native tools in SharePoint, the question is how expensive it will get in terms of lower productivity costs, efficiency and time saving using automations with prebuilt and ready to go solutions. Teams might face significant challenges when the need for support grows and becomes more complex.

Here are the most common challenges:

• Setup complexity – Setting up a functional Help Desk in SharePoint requires use of many different tools like: SharePoint Lists, Power Automate, Power Apps, Forms, and possibly Power BI. It might take days, if not weeks, if you are not familiar with all the tools mentioned.
• Limited automation – While automation is possible to some extent by using out of the box workflows, more complex automation like setting up SLAs, automatic ticket assignment and similar, require complex workflows which are difficult to maintain.
• No advanced reporting and dashboards – You will need to manually create dashboards and update them if you need real time reporting. While you can use Power BI to some extent for this purpose, it is not a native solution.
• No built-in help desk features – When you use a native help desk solution, it does not offer some advanced features like:
  • Email to ticket automation
  • Smart ticket assignment
  • Service satisfaction survey
  • Knowledge base
  • Internal or private notes
  • Canned responses
  • SLA policy automation setup
• Maintenance – Each workflow, form, and view must be updated manually as you change the processes in your organization. This makes scaling difficult and requires significant use of developers' time and effort.

Out-of-the-box Alternative: Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint

If you are looking for a faster way to implement a more advanced SharePoint help desk ticketing system, Plumsail HelpDesk is built just for that purpose, and it can be installed on your SharePoint online and on-perm 2019/SE.

Rather than building everything from scratch, Plumsail HelpDesk gives you a fully functional SharePoint HelpDesk with all necessary features right out of the box, and it will take only minutes to deploy it.

It comes with built-in ready to go features like:

• Ticket management
• Automations
• Smart ticket assignment
• Reports
• Customer service survey
• SLA policies
• Knowledge base
• AI assistant, and much more.

Benefits of using Plumsail HelpDesk ticketing system for SharePoint include:

• Advanced automation
• Robust email integration
• Flexible customization
• Microsoft Teams integration
• Internal and external support
• Ongoing support and updates

As a result, response times to customer queries have significantly improved, and service quality has been elevated.

When to Choose Plumsail Over a Native Solution

When it comes to a decision when to choose a paid solution, like Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint, over a native in house-built solution, there are a few instances when it’s smarter to go for a paid solution and save yourself from a hustle:

• You need a ready to go SharePoint ticketing system - If your organization needs a solution that’s ready out of the box, and it could be set up in 15 minutes, Plumsail HelpDesk is a good option.
• Your requirements go beyond SharePoint’s capabilities – Some of the advanced features like email automation, SLA tracking, and smart ticket assignment will be included in your Plumsail HelpDesk from day one.
• You want better visibility and control – If you want to track performance and discover bottlenecks in real time, customizable Reports are included.
• You want to save time and IT resources – When you don’t want to spend time and resources modifying your in house-built help desk for organizational or Microsoft updates and changes.
• You want enterprise level support – If you can’t afford downtime and performance issues, Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint offers superior support with very fast response time and free tech support for any issues you face.

Register for a 30-day free trial to test Plumsail HelpDesk for SharePoint and decide if it’s a good option for your needs. You will be able to use all features without any limitation.

If you have any questions and need to consult with our team, you can always book a free 15-minute call to discuss your require