Help Desk Technology's HelpStar 8.1, a help-desk system based on request-management functionality gets excellent marks, especially for easy setup and configuration, an easy learning curve for helpdesk staff, and overall value. Features omitted are scheduling of reports and data imports/exports; new user signup; and linkage among multiple trouble tickets. The Outlook-like interface, Flash tutorials, help files with many screenshots, and many wizards guide users through support. End users, dispatchers, support representatives are supported, and multiple support queues are available. For instance, end users can create request s through a Windows client, a Web interface, or an e-mail message, while a support representative can create a request for the user. Versions are available for Microsoft Access (for which a 10 user limit is recommended), the MSDE (Microsoft's free SQL Desktop Engine), or the full-functioned MS-SQL version. Testers used MSDE. HelpStar 8.1 works well to import flat-file text data for creation of advanced import formulas for handling multiline records as well as columnar data. eXtensible Markup Language (XML) support is not provided. Testers could schedule automatic creation of new internal users through HelpStar's Active Directory import tool and could easily set up specific AD group member importation. Mapping fields from AD to the HelpStar user profiles was problematic until an administration user was created in both AD and HelpStar, each including the same name and password. Also described are easy assignment of support reports to rated queues; easy setup of escalation schedules; and two provided interfaces for .Net and legacy.