Help desk software for schools: a ticketing system with no accounts to hand out
A school IT desk supports hundreds of staff and thousands of students with a team you can count on one hand, on devices that are old, locked down or both. QuerySolv is a help desk the whole school can use from any browser without a single new account, running on a server in the building, licensed once from a budget that was set last year.
- Staff and students raise a request by e-mail or a web form, with no account, no password and no cookies. They follow it with the ticket number.
- The portal works with JavaScript disabled and on browsers as old as Internet Explorer 11, which covers the library machines and the locked-down lab.
- Departments per campus, building or team, each with its own mailbox and forms; service levels that follow the school's own hours and holidays.
- Tickets, attachments and student e-mail stay on the school's own Windows server. Bought once per installation; free for a two-person desk.
What a school desk is up against
Thousands of users, two technicians
Every student is a requester at some point. A tool that needs a managed account per requester makes the help desk a second directory to maintain.
Old machines and locked-down browsers
The lab runs what it runs. A portal that needs the latest browser and a script is a portal half the building cannot open.
Budgets set once a year
A per-agent-per-month subscription does not fit a budget that is approved annually and spent on equipment. A one-time license does.
How it fits a school
| The moment | What happens | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| A teacher e-mails the IT address from a classroom | A ticket is created with an acknowledgment back. Replies thread onto it; the teacher never needs the portal | The IT queue, with the dashboard showing what is late |
| A student reports a broken laptop from a library machine | The request form works without JavaScript and without an account. The student gets a ticket number and checks it with their school e-mail address | The ticket, tagged by the form's "device" field |
| The projector in room 12 fails ten minutes before a lesson | The AV form's field picks a short service level. A countdown starts; a breach is e-mailed to the assignee | The Due filter on the dashboard |
| Term ends | The agreement's holiday calendar pauses the SLA clock over the break | Nothing breaches on the first day back |
| September | The Demand & Forecasting report shows last September's password resets and account requests, so the knowledge base articles are ready before the queue is | Reports, exported to CSV for the planning meeting |
The parts a school uses most
A public knowledge base
Password resets, printing, Wi-Fi on a personal device: write the article once and let the portal search answer the question before the ticket is raised.
Departments and routing
IT, AV, facilities and the library can each have a queue, a mailbox and forms, with the same portal in front of all of them.
Staff sign-in, student none
Technicians sign in with their Active Directory accounts on the Professional edition. Students and teachers are identified by their e-mail address and sign in to nothing.
Built to an accessibility baseline
The web interface is built to the WCAG 2.2 AA baseline, the level that Section 508 and EN 301 549 build on. We do not claim a certification or an audit.
Data stays in the building
What that means here
- The service runs on a Windows machine the school owns. Pages fetch nothing from the public internet. Student e-mail, attachments and ticket history never leave your network.
- Mail collection is outbound-only, so the server does not need to be reachable from the internet to collect the IT mailbox.
- What the service sends us is short and listed on the security page: a crash report after an abnormal exit, and a license check against the license server.
What to decide first
- The database: SQLite needs nothing installed and suits a single server; MySQL/MariaDB or SQL Server if the school already runs one. There is no migration tool between them.
- The retention policy: tickets are never deleted, which is the audit trail you want and a fact for your records policy.
- The edition: the Free edition runs a two-agent desk on e-mail and forms; service levels, live chat and directory sign-in are on the Professional edition, bought once.
Things to know before you rely on it
- It is a help desk, not an asset system: no device inventory or loan register. Many schools link the asset tag into the ticket's form field and keep the register elsewhere; the topic library covers that approach.
- No mobile app for technicians; the workspace is a responsive web application. Live chat is the one requester feature that needs JavaScript.
- The server side is Windows only. The limits page lists everything else.
Set it up before the next term starts
Download the installer on a server in the building and point the IT mailbox at it. The trial runs for 30 days with every Professional feature and unlimited agents.
Download Installer with Free Trial