BMC Helix ITSM Reviews

ITIL implementation in a corporate 100 technology company.  

Implemented the following:

• Service Desk
• Knowledge Management
• Problem management
• Asset Management
• Service Level Management
• Service Request Management.

Now, we have MyIT and SmartIT implemented, which have a significantly improved UI.

The service desk (incident management) function is the lion's portion of use and value. It has been instrumental in aligning our service desk with the ITIL fundamentals and continuously improving the operating metrics of that area.

The interface is somewhat dated as compared to technologies in use today. They have made steps towards addressing that, but they are still limited in being able to allow the customer to truly extend the UI. In the next releases, they should continue the work with the updated interfaces and extend the toolset so the customer can make more flexible changes to the UI (within reason).  

Provide documentation on the content of the REST API interfaces. Right now, it is pretty much non-existent.

The product that was replaced was a homegrown service desk app. We replaced that with Remedy ITSM, which has streamlined our management and routing of service requests. This has reduced the amount of time taken for ticket resolution. We have seen year over year customer satisfaction improvement for the last five years.

BMC Remedy ITSM application solution is one of the best solutions in the market. This is one of the primary help desk management tool that we have. We use this tool for managing tickets, other employee related services, and reporting purposes.

We reduced many paper processes to electronic driven forms. It helps us a lot in tracking and managing.

Overall, the product is valuable, but we use Incident and SRM the most. We really liked the Smart Reporting tool and also the new mobile apps as add-ons.

If BMC can add and extend the Release Management with ease, it would be great. Also, make customizable/configurable article templates in the Knowledge Management. 

Sometimes, but if you have a solid architecture, then this tool work like a charm.

Never.

Its 50-50, sometimes its great, and other times, not.

The platform was in place prior to my arrival.

Initial setup is straightforward, and if you follow best practices, then future enhancements will be smoother.

The platform was in place prior to my arrival, but we did lot of the things afterwards. When I took over, Remedy was on 7.6, and now, we are on 9.1 with Smart IT running.

If Customer and IT agents are happy, that is one of the greatest ROI. However, one of the major factors is Leadership, because at the end they have to justify the cost.

This solution needs to be in the annual IT budget. Please always get the latest quote from a BMC partner or from BMC. Check for the latest offerings. 

While purchasing, try to negotiate on per user licensing costs, associated maintenance, and purchase 20% more then what you think you should have. Bulk is always cheaper.

The platform was in place prior to my arrival.

Once you have the solution implemented, always follow best practices and have an admin in-house.

With so many cool features available in BMC's own applications like ITSM, it's easy to overlook the platform features that enable them. ARS really shines when it's workflow directly supports critical business processes. And it's this workflow - how easily its translated from business process, how quickly it can be developed, and how fast it can be deployed and used - that I consider it's most valuable feature to the business. It has all of the other features you'd expect in a robust enterprise platform (architectural scalability, flexibility to adapt to Windows/Unix shops, tons of UI widgets, a variety of DB options, cloud offerings, etc.) but it's workflow engine is what makes it a great platform for pretty much any business need.

As a platform it provides a way to rapidly develop and deploy a number of small, but important applications. One example of this is how call center quality is evaluated and measured - we use Remedy to track, grade, and ultimately development improvements to the processes, ultimately benefiting the customer.

There are two areas where I think improvements could be made; web support of custom applications and upgrades. BMC provides a couple of modern web interfaces with SmartIT and MyIT, but these are limited to fronting their own (ITSM) applications. Having a modern web layer for custom applications running on the ARS platform would help a lot (indeed there are several very large technology companies who do this for themselves, but having a BMC solution would simplify the DevOps process and associated infrastructure). Upgrading to a new ARS version in a complex environment remains a challenge. It's not that any one part is hard (and BMC has the ability to offer a zero-down-time option), but it's often a manual, long, and time-consuming process. Managing multiple tasks and handling them as part of the installation would simplify things).

We've been using the Remedy Action Request System (ARS) platform by BMC Software, running 100% custom applications (not ITSM). The larger, primary system is running ARS v8.1 and we're in the process of upgrading to ARS v9.1. There's also a smaller system running an older version that's being phased out.

Personally, I've been developing business solutions with the ARS platform for over 20 years. The last couple of environments I've been working have some applications over 10 years old.

We had no issues deploying it.

There have been no issues with its stability.

BMC has done a good job of keeping ahead of enterprise growth and continues to offer new features that make administration, scaling, and performance tuning all easier to manage.

Fair/Good - In environments as complex as ours, the basic needs are pretty much taken care-of in-house. The issues we generally face are complex and deep within the technology, and these always take a bit of time to bring the vendor up to speed. (To be fair, BMC offers higher support tiers, providing a more bespoke support experience, but I haven't had the opportunity to experience this tier.)

The platform was in place prior to my arrival.

That's more of a question for leadership, but I think that it needs to be compared against custom platforms and evaluated from a total-cost of ownership perspective. There's hard evidence that, while licensing sounds expensive, having the development staff focus on core business process automation rather than low-level platform development/maintenance is a worthwhile trade-off and is a bigger benefit to the business (assuming you treat the AR System platform as such).

Pretty darn good, but nothing's perfect. Know your business, their processes, and how they use other tools - seriously. "Implementation" often is interpreted as focusing on just a software installation, like running setup.exe and watching the blue status bar make it's way to 100%. Frankly the software install is so well defined that it should be automated - and it typically only represents 20-30% of an overall deployment. 80% of an implementation should be spent analyzing, configuring, and testing the various configurations and integrations required by your unique business. Don't forget the training and knowledge transfer! Vendor teams can help (a lot) in guiding you through this, but they don't know your business like you and your customers.

Make sure you think about, and understand the differences between what BMC calls the brand, "Remedy", their application suite, " Remedy IT Service Management", and the platform, "AR System". Calling something "Remedy" without this understanding leads to a lot of confusion.

The most valuable feature is the ability to have ITIL Out Of The Box (OOTB) functionality that can be readily customised to fit the specific needs of any given business organisation. This coupled with the open API that allows for integration with existing and legacy data sets means that you can rapidly implement ITSM in an organic fashion. Another valuable feature has to be the fast prototyping environment with allows an organisation to develop customisations in a reactive, agile manner.

The use of templates, both Incident and Change templates, has allowed for a more consistent approach to processing these types of tickets. Developing a standardised approach to these has also improved the associated reporting for post-Incident and post-Change reviews. Another important improvement has been with the implementation of the Service Request Module which has improved the end-user experience and is helping move towards a more "Self-Help" environment.

The two main areas for improvement are the User Interface and ad-hoc reporting. The User Interface still has the appearance of being clunky and not user friendly. This has changed with the release of Remedy/ITSM V9 and related products such as SmartIT and MyIT. Reporting has always been an issue with the Remedy/ITSM paradigm. It is not user friendly, too limited and clearly not intended for the End User. With Remedy/ITSM V9 comes the SmartReporting module. I look forward to using this in the future.

I have involved with Remedy since 1996. Starting with Version 3.2 of Action Request System and v1 of Helpdesk. This was long before ITSM came onto the scene.

Having been involved in migrations from version 3.2 up to and including v8.1.02 I can honestly say that very few of the migrations have induced deployment issues. The Remedy, and latterly BMC, engineers, have successfully maintained backwards compatibility throughout all their versions. As long as the platform and infrastructure requirements are planned and resourced correctly then the deployment process is relatively straightforward.

Stability is very much dependent on the architecture that has been implemented and also on the underlying infrastructure. For example, with the application server and mid-tier being deployed on a Windows Server environment, I had a client who was experiencing issues with some of the Java processes on a weekly, if not daily basis. Moving to a Linux based environment has almost eliminated these issues.

Scalability is very similar to stability in that as long as the underlying infrastructure is correctly sized and resourced then the product can deal with scalability issues.

Customer Service does vary. It all depends on your Account Manager. The good ones can be a real asset and and can provide that additional effort that makes for a good relationship between all the actors.

Technical support can vary according to your location and which team picks up your issue. Over the years the quality of technical support has varied. Providing you have an administrator/developer who can do some of the initial problem discovery and debugging then you will be able, in conjunction with technical support, to more easily track down the underlying issues.

My existing client used an older version of ITSM from the same supplier. In this case there was no switch from a different solution but the upgrade/migration still needed proper planning to implement correctly. The main reasons for upgrading were to ensure that a currently supported version of the product was being used and that the old infrastructure was replaced by a more performant

For the product itself the initial setup was relatively straightforward. The main complexity arose mainly in the project management aspect of the migration. This was due to the fact the coordination had to be done with both internal and external resources.

The project was undertaken with a vendor team for the installation and migration, internal teams for the architecture and security aspects, as well as the Remedy/ITSM administrators/Process Managers and, of course, the End Users.

As I wasn't involved at the beginning of this project I cannot give any information on the ROI. However, it is clear that ROI improves as and when the relationships between the different modules of ITSM are integrated. Related to this is the integration with other applications within the organisation such as ADDM/Discovery to enhance the CMDB. Once this information is available to, for example, the Incident, Change and Problem modules then the true value of ITSM to the organisation can be realised.

When it comes to pricing and licensing, you have to have a good relationship with your Account Manager. They are the best person to guide you through this important area. You need to analyse your requirements in terms of the ratio of floating/fixed licenses to ensure that you have the correct mix of these licences. Licence and maintenance costs may be relatively high but in terms of upgrades you tend to get a good ROI.

For this particular project no other options were chosen. A SaaS option was not suitable for this client and the requirements of being able to migrate/access the data from the existing environment did not allow for other solutions to be discussed.

This solution is a complex one which does allow for flexibility and customisations. Clients should therefore be aware that there is a need for in-house administrators/developers. This may be reduced if the SaaS option is selected.

• Configuration Management – to track hardware, software, users
• Change Management – manage and maintain the company schedule of activities and resources

This product aided in the management of hardware, software, resources, and implementation schedules. Additionally, it opened the communication barriers for resources and management to communicate one on one or in a group tracking and utilizing the facts

The company has used it for 11 years, and I have used it as an implementer & manager for four and a half years. I have also used is personally as an end-user for a further seven years.

When I was a part of the support and upgrade team, it took 120 constant hours to upgrade. 

The data was slow and the BMC support was lacking. 

After the five day upgrade we then had days of data clean up.

We were using a very old product called PMSD, and excel spreadsheets. It was not robust nor did it provide the endless types of functionality that Remedy offered.

The initial setup for all involved was “discovery” as no one had the experience of the tool.

Our internal team performed the hardware configuration and setup, software process and procedures, documentation and training. Our teams were technically strong and had good technical knowledge. They knew the company and this is what made our implementation successful.

I cannot comment as I was not monitoring the ROI. 

I do know that managing the configuration items aided in the upcoming annual contracts for hardware, software products and other configuration items, the data was extremely helpful.

We evaluated several tools – I cannot remember them as it’s been a while. We had a PRB team and performed site visits and demos.

It’s a great product, I would highly recommend it. My strong advice is to take your time to plan, understand your company, and design your processes with your team members to understand all aspects. You also need to schedule your time and implementation. Finally, understand that it’s teamwork, and without that no-one will be successful.

I am supporting the top bank in Pakistan, and they are using BMC Helix ITSM. There are multiple solutions in BMC Helix ITSM, such as asset management, configuration management, and tools that are used for monitoring purposes.

The solution can perform well for large-sized companies.

The documentation could improve in BMC Helix ITSM.

I have been using BMC Helix ITSM for approximately eight months.

I rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten.

We have three to four people using this solution.

The solution is best suited for enterprises.

I rate the scalability of BMC Helix ITSM a seven out of ten.

 I rate the support from BMC Helix ITSM a five out of ten.

Neutral

The initial setup of BMC Helix ITSM requires a technical expert. An expert is required for the configuration and management of the different servers.

The price of BMC Helix ITSM is expensive.

I rate BMC Helix ITSM a seven out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution for individuals calling into the help desk to have a ticket created over the phone, which becomes an incident. If the incident gets upgraded then it becomes a problem and then they work on it.

The most valuable feature is knowledge management.

All products can be improved. For this solution, the customization could be improved.

BMC has its own community where we can go in and suggest ideas and changes to the products, which is great, but at times BMC is not very responsive. There have been suggestions that were submitted five years ago and still not delivered. BMC has indicated that it was in development.

They could be more responsive to feedback from their community board.

I have been working with BMC Solutions from Remedy since 1994.

I have used it since it was released.

This solution is stable, it's very good. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.

This solution is scalable and I think that it's the best that you can get. I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten.

The current project has 140 people, which excludes the users. There are approximately 20,000 users for this project. This site is quite large.

I have worked on sites that have a couple of hundred users to many thousands.

This solution is suitable for medium to large-sized companies.

The technical support is very good and I would rate it a nine out of ten.

At times, you have a critical issue and you need an answer very quickly. Even if it takes half an hour or a day to get an answer, it takes longer than you expect.

There is always room for improvement, although BMC has improved over the last couple of years.

I have worked with other competing products for integrations. I focus on BMC solutions.

The initial setup is complex. If you know what you are doing and what you want then it's straightforward. Most clients don't know what they want and it becomes complex.

I have worked with three or four consultants where you have small teams, and I have worked on larger teams where there is a huge undertaking to implement it.

I implement this solution for my clients.

BMC Helix is a marketing term. The name changed from BMC Remedy ITSM to BMC Helix a few years ago. It's also linked to BMC's CMDB, where they have an image of all of the assets in the company.

In BMC, you can do absolutely anything. You can customize, you can configure, and you can customize and develop pretty much anything.

It might take some time and it may have some consequences later on when you are upgrading and you want to install a newer version, especially when you are on-premises.

Other solutions may have a better BEB Cloud interface or better sales organization, but BMC is a trustworthy company and they keep their promises. Some other competitors make promises but don't always honor them.

My advice to others would be the following:

1. Get a support contract directly with BMC. 
2. Pick your BMC partner or reseller.
3. Get in-house resources and knowledge, and train your employees, or employ someone with the BMC Remedy skills.
4. Get external contractors to top it up with contractors and consultants from the partner.
5. Set up a good project team that communicates with BMC contract partners, your employees, and the contractor.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

The primary use case was basic ITIL/ITSM.

It replaced an older system, called ManageNow. It had no major impact on the way we operated. We more or less continued, we had a well-performing organization, so it really didn't change much. Everything we had in ManageNow, we had in BMC Remedy, including basic incident management, event management, based on monitors spread around our environment.

It was a full-featured product. Based on my experience where I was responsible for Remedy, and for a later project where I worked on a very sophisticated implementation of BMC Remedy, it is full-featured and could do almost anything that you can think of in the ITIL portfolio.

BMC Remedy has more features now than I know about and have used, so it would be presumptuous for me to try to suggest improvements for a future release.

What I do find is that, compared to ServiceNow, BMC Remedy is somewhat "closed." I can go to the ServiceNow website and learn everything there is to know about the product, and training is available. That really wasn't available with BMC Remedy.

However, if I'm working with a client who wants to expand and move into other areas - they want to expand their workflow and other parts of the organization, they want to do some work with project management, they want to do some work with HR - I'm not sure that BMC Remedy is doing that. And it's because of their platform. Any software has a lifecycle. To me, BMC is a dated architecture. I wish them well but I don't see how they're going to keep going, long-term, without a total rewrite and coming out with a new system.

BMC Remedy is good. It's solid. I don't remember ever having any stability problems with it.

I didn't see any limits. I worked with one client who had, to me, what seemed like a lot of servers. They had some 25,000 servers. They had a lot of BMC workflows. They had a lot of users on the system. I never really got a full feel for how many, based on what I was doing, but I saw no scalability issues. ServiceNow and BMC Remedy scale about equally.

There were times when we needed to talk with BMC service support, and we got good response. It was something that we paid for, but we got good response.

The old system was at the end of its lifecycle, it was being phased out. The name of it was ManageNow, and I don't know that it exists anymore. It was very old and BMC Remedy was a step up, in the right direction, to a modern system.

When selecting a vendor it depends on the client. In my case, I was selecting for a client and BMC Remedy was the best available at the time. We did an evaluation of all the vendors, and BMC Remedy was the best. That was eight years ago.

Initial setup was like any other similar implementation. There are certain things that you have to do, tables that you have to build, configurations that you have to work with. There are a few modifications that you have to make so that it fits into your environment. We tried to stay as close as we could to the out-of-the-box solution. So it was fairly straightforward.

There are portions of BMC Remedy that are proprietary. One of those was attachments. If I attached an image, if I attached a project plan, if I attached a screen print, getting those out was very difficult when we moved servers to ServiceNow. So if you're not planning on moving, it's not an issue. It's when you move it the issue.

ServiceNow is expanding. If I were just choosing an ITSM system right now, it would be hard to choose, if you ignored the underlying platform. BMC Remedy is very old. It has a very old infrastructure. So if I ignored that, and the "openness" issue, it would be very hard to choose between BMC and Service Now.

I would rate at nine out of 10. It did what we wanted it to do. We had some issues, but we caused those issues by the way we implemented it. I found that BMC training and BMC availability for learning how the system worked and for answering questions - if it wasn't in their manual, it was very difficult to get that information. You had to pay, it wasn't open. It was a "closed" environment. If it had been much more open, so I could get into understanding everything, that would have been better.

In terms of advice, if you're working for a large company on an ITSM solution, where you're talking about incidents, problems, change, knowledge, there are three, maybe four vendors. I would say look at those very hard, learn what you can, and make the best decision for your organization. It's a limited market.