Changing Email That Receives SharePoint Access Requests

How do you change the email address that receives the requests for access?

When you are designing a SharePoint site, you might be the one that is receiving the requests for access.  Once you complete your work you will probably want to transfer ownership to someone else and have them approve the requests.  First check the permissions and make sure that person can approve requests.  Second you need to go into the settings and change the email address that gets notified that there is a request.

When you are on a site, go to Site Settings and choose Advanced Permissions, click on the menu Settings and choose Access Requests. This will give you the email address used for requests from within that site.  Change the email to the new one. It's pretty easy.

Change SharePoint Help Desk Priority Field

Once you start showing you client or coworkers your SharePoint help desk, the requests to change it will begin.  One common one is to change the choices for the priority or status fields.  Unfortunately, these come locked down in the template. 

You have a couple of options here.  I did read that you can go into the servicerequest\schema.xml file and change the sealed attribute to false for both the priority and status fields, which will then allow you to change them.  I do not have access to the server so I did not try it.

I did this work around and added the fields again.  First you need to go to the list settings for the service requests and under Advanced Settings make sure YES is selected for "allow management of content types".  Next under columns select the status column and on the next screen change the name of the column to something different.  Click OK.  Now you can create a new column called status and make the choices what ever you would like.

Now the final step is to make sure all the forms show the new column and not the old one.  On the settings page for the Service Request, under content type, select service request.  Select the old field and under settings select hidden. This will remove it from your forms.  Click OK.  Also on the content type settings page you will need to add the new column to the service request content type.  Just click the add from existing list columns link at the bottom of the page and select your new column.

Free Help Desk Solutions

If you have a small company or if you do not have the resources to setup a SharePoint server, there are some free solutions available to help you create your own help desk.  Here are some options that may be suitable to support your requirements.

SysAidIT offers a free version of its help desk solution as well as a Pro and Enterprise package. The pricing for the other options was not listed on the website, but you can register and request pricing. Ideal for smaller organizations, SysAid IT Free Edition is a light and fully-functional help desk software solution that supports up to two administrators and 100 assets. The free edition contains the core modules of the paid solutions to get you started. This edition comes with the following modules: Help Desk, End-User Web Portal, Knowledge Base, Asset Management, Remote Control, Reports and Analysis, IT Performance Benchmarking, Online Chat, Calendar and Scheduling, and Mobile Apps. You can download the program for Windows or Linux. Some features that require the upgrade to a paid solution include the ability to customize reports and the site logo and design.

Spiceworks has a few different free solutions available to help IT professionals. One of them is their free help desk software. The solution allows you to create and customize an IT Help Desk Portal. You can update help desk tickets, receive service requests, post IT alerts, share maintenance schedules, and provide contact info and more, all from an easy-to-configure, customizable web portal. This solution is ad supported and you also have to option to use SpiceWorks MyWay which allows you to remove the ads and use your logo for $ 30 per month (or $ 330 per year).

Web Help Desk offers a free solution without ads. This solution features include: self service and Ticket Submission Portal, email to ticket conversion, Knowledge Base, 2-way email communications, SLA email alerts and reminders, LDAP and AD integration, and help desk performance reports. A Lite and Pro edition are also available for additional cost. The Pro edition also contains asset management, change management, task management, survey management, and billing and parts management.