ScreenToGif: Or how to easily provide assistance?

Hey! Hello everyone! 🤙

Here we are again together for a new article that, this time, will introduce you to a tool I use daily to respond to assistance requests. You’re probably familiar with the expression: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, in today’s article, you’ll understand what I’m getting at with this expression! 😁

Introduction

This is a new support request that has come up at support. It’s simple to solve because the user only needs to make three clicks in two menus to achieve what they want. However, this seemingly straightforward request ends up dragging on through several email exchanges because the user doesn’t understand the explanations provided in writing. This can lead to frustration guaranteed in the end.

And yes! Unfortunately, sometimes we technicians forget that what seems intuitive to us is not necessarily intuitive to the user. 😛
In this case, we end up processing the request by taking control via our RMM on the user’s workstation to make the three mouse clicks. That was before you read this article that will introduce you to the ScreenToGif solution! 🥳

What exactly is ScreenToGif?

Do you remember the expression I mentioned at the beginning of this article: “A picture is worth a thousand words”?
With the ScreenToGif solution, you can record the manipulations that your user needs to carry out to achieve the desired configuration.
Indeed, this solution records your own screen and makes it available to you in the form of a GIF image, which you can then communicate to your user. This way, they can directly see the manipulations to follow rather than reading a long explanation. 😉
A picture is worth a thousand words, and here’s an example made with ScreenToGIF 😃:

Where does it come from? How does it work? I want to know everything!

ScreenToGif is an open-source software developed by Nicke Manarin and licensed under Ms-PL. It is available for free download from the official website in different languages and is compatible exclusively with Windows. A portable version is also available, making it practical!
One of its biggest strengths? It’s easy to use, very intuitive, and perfectly meets the needs we can expect from this type of solution.
It also has other advantages; it can do the following:

• Recording your screen;
• Recording your Webcam feed;
• Whiteboard function with recording capability;
• An editor for your recordings;

Example of use

Conclusion

And here we are at the end of this article that introduced you to the ScreenToGif tool! From now on, you will be able to respond to your assistance requests much more easily and, above all, make yourself understood from the first image. 😉