BMC Helix ITSM Reviews

This tool is used for ticketing purposes, to track down daily issues and requests as part of business requirements.

It includes ITIL practices such as incident management, problem management, change management, asset management, and configuration management. We are able to link tickets to one another.

It is used to create, modify, update, and resolve tickets. Parent/child tickets are possible to create. It can also create problem tickets and change requests. It will easily calculate SLAs and can create and customize reports as per user requirement. 

This product has helped us to maintain our OLAs (Organisation level Agreements) and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) by tracking incidents, requests, problem records, and change requests, all in the form of tickets.

We can easily check the progress of these tickets and follow up with the respective teams.

It provides us the facility to maintain a KEDB (Knowledge database), which is indeed very beneficial for day to day activities.

It can easily add notes to every ticket with the status update.

For us, this tool is essential for ticketing purposes.

The most valuable feature is the linking of parent and child tickets. When there are major issues, through the help desk, multiple tickets are raised for the same issue. This allows us to segregate it by parent or child tickets and link the child tickets to the parent.

It's easy to calculate the SLA as it provides the timing as to when the ticket was raised, and the clock automatically stops when the ticket is on pending status. Thus, at the time of resolution, it provides the SLA, whether the ticket met the SLA or not.

To raise any ticket, there are too many fields to be filled and it makes generating tickets very time-consuming. Some fields should take data automatically; for example, ticket routing to the teams after entering the team's respective CI (Configuration Item). This will save time and creating tickets would be faster. 

The GUI looks a bit complex and can be much better.

When generating reports, there are limited options to customize as per user requirement. It is in need of better customization so that these requirements can be satisfied.

We have been using BMC Helix ITSM for six years.

To manage the ITSM process in our organization and the organization's infrastructure via CMDB.

I have implemented and worked on this product at many customer sites. The way you can customize this product to adapt to the process the customer is already using is what sets this apart from other ITSM products out there. This helps customers to adapt to the tool pretty quickly.

The versatility and customizability of the product is what I like most. It provides a strong customization platform in the AR System.

The interface is one major complaint about this product. With the recent introduction of Digital Workplace and SmartIT products. I think BMC is finally going in the right direction on that front.

I've found that the complete set of modules very valuable. All the features, including all modules like asset management, incident management, Service Request Management, CMDB, developing the applications using workflow, etc., are really cool.

ARS has helped to automate various business needs to our client. Remedy is used to track our client's asset inventory which has improved the organizational functions a lot.

Upgrading to a higher version should be easier. Also, performance is the factor which needs a lot of improvements. Apart from that all modules need small small enhancements which I believe would have been taken care in higher version as I never used a higher version.

I am using Remedy ITSM solution for last 4 years.

I was never a part of initial deployment. But apart from that small deployments and enhancements keep coming as per business requirement and I never faced any issue.

No issue with stability. I have not found any stability issues.

No, Remedy is best solution to enhance growth of an organization. We have onboarded lot of customers without any issues.

Customer service is good.

7 out of 10. Tech support should be improved. There is lot for BMC to improve their tech support.

No, I never used any other solution. And I find this perfect as well.

I don't know. I was not involved that time, it was long time ago :)

I don't know as I was not available that time.

From customer perspective, more customizable solutions should be available.

From a developer/support personnel perspective, logging should be more friendly.

Licensing and pricing is quite expensive as compared to other competitors but in long run Remedy is the remedy to all business needs.

No. I started my career with Remedy.

To me, I would say this is one of the best solution for Enterprise customers to fulfill their business needs. Be it managing their assets inventory or working through modules. It's quite user friendly as well. However, licensing and deployment may be difficult for the developers and implementers.

The solution supports our supporting processes. My responsibilities include reporting on the services we offer to end-users, primarily through channels like email. I focus on coordinating arrangements for the services we provide.

The valuable feature for me is that it's a tool that allows me to track processes right from the initial user request. It helps in updating the solution throughout the workflow. I use it to gather information about the people involved, track time, and more.

Working with numerous processes can be complex, and the processes are not always transparent in the solution. At times, users may not be aware of the meaning behind various processes when receiving certain information. The most frequently requested change for the solution is integrating the latest technology to facilitate interactive resolution.

I have been using the solution for the past 20 years.

The solution is stable. I have several servers working together in a cluster.

The solution is scalable.

We haven't needed customer support extensively. However, we did encounter some delays, waiting for several hours to receive a satisfactory answer. Fortunately, there have been no issues with the technical components.

I have worked with SentinelOne and ServiceNow.

The solution is best-suited for medium-sized companies. I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It's easy to customize and provides a range of features you can customize with practically no exceptions unlike its competing products like ServiceNow, etc. which have many limitations.

I have implemented this product at many customer sites and have been able to do so with an extremely quick turnaround. The development and customization timelines on the calendar were insignificant compared to the time needed to collect business requirement which is usually the constant and tool agnostic. No matter what solution you pick, understanding business requirements is a constant.

I can’t quite think of any areas that may require improvement – web services maybe as until v8 there was one small limitation which I think has been removed with the v9. It was possible to circumvent the limitation in previous versions by rewriting the WSDL.

We've been using BMC Remedy AR System and its ITSM suite products for about 17 years.

Not once in any of my deployments for the past 17 years. Bugs and issues like that yes, but nothing that was not resolved as quickly as it was found.

Just in a couple of releases after which they had to immediately release a SP to resolve those stability issues.

Scalability is one of BMC Remedy systems biggest strengths..

Fairly good. Much of it is in Asia and as in with most foreign customer support there is that occasional “understanding the accent” problem, but apart from that they are fairly good at what they do.

It's top notch.

I have had to use ServiceNow in between deployments, and think it is a much inferior solution to the BMC Remedy solution.

As straightforward as it can get for someone who knows the system.

I do the implementations myself.

From a technical viewpoint, I can only say it should be fairly good as you get exactly what they promise you no less. With many other solutions including ServiceNow that have better marketing teams than BMC Remedy does, they set the delivery expectations where they cannot possibly get due to technical limitations with the tool. BMC Remedy representatives however set the bar exactly where it should be and the product is able to deliver what they promise it can.

Since licensing can affect price of the overall solutions significantly especially for smaller businesses, I would recommend those that are interested in this solution to spend a tiny bit on third party applications you get that are designed to work with the BMC solution to monitor its usage and suggest the optimal numbers for licenses based on these statistics. It has been useful for a number of shops to save on their licensing costs significantly by not over budgeting for their licenses. These monitoring apps are legal to use and in fact have been displayed at BMC Remedy user group conferences and even won awards at some of those shows.

I had to evaluate ServiceNow which I feel has a long long way to go. Lucky for them they have invested in a very strong marketing team which has strengthened its product sales

Make sure you get a team that has the know how to implement this product. Like with all other things that are easy to use and easy to implement, it also is easy to muck things up when you have a team that does not know what it is doing. Find the right people, build a good implementation team, and more importantly, spend as much time as you can with the business analysis part making sure you get the implementation team involved in it. Do not sweat on the actual implementation. That part is the easy part once you have your requirements right.

• Incident management
• Change management
• Problem management
• Knowledge management

In BMC Remedy, their foundation data is well organized. A customer will raise a request through the self-service tool (BMC SRM), and the ticket will go to the help desk through automatic routing. The help desk will check the incident and assign it to the right support team. Once the ticket is assigned, the SLA will start. The support team should then work as per the SLA defined for the particular request. A ticket can be raised though email, or events depending on the integration with other monitoring tools.

Assets in the organization can be managed in the CMDB and Asset Management application. Any activity to be scheduled in the organization, such as weekly maintenance activity or change requests, can be raised at the same time and the scheduled time can be defined.

For recurring Incidents, a problem ticket can be raised and the root cause of the problem can be found. For resolving any incident, a knowledge base article can be created which will contain the solution of of the issue.

Many things still need improvement, and they are mostly related to the customization aspects of the tool.

I've been using it for five years.

There is no such issue while deploying the application in the environment as long as you follow best practice as defined by BMC.

BMC Remedy is stable with one improvement with the recent version. Currently, 9.0.01 is the latest stable release and v9.1 will be released after the complete testing of 9.1 Beta.

10/10

10/10

I've not used any other tool.

You need to follow the installation steps during deployment of application.

I did multiple projects for BMC Remedy implementations, both server group and non-server group environment. All the projects had different business requirement, and all of them are live and running successfully.

It is flexible and can be used for any type of company, whether it's finance, or transport, etc. It uses ITIL standards, and has the flexibility to integrate with other applications and can also be customized as needed.

If you want your company to follow ITIL processes, want to use a tool which follows the standards, and is also flexible enough to be customized and integrated with other application or tools then I feel this is a good choice to invest in this tool.

The BMC Helix ITSM can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.

We use BMC Helix ITSM in the financial sector.

The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the ease to use and integration.

BMC Helix ITSM should improve its price.

I have been using BMC Helix ITSM for a couple of years.

BMC Helix ITSM is a stable solution.

We have a lot of clients using BMC Helix ITSM.

The initial installation of BMC Helix ITSM is fine.

I have a team that does the implementation of BMC Helix ITSM.

The price of BMC Helix ITSM could improve their price.

I would recommend BMC Helix ITSM to others.

I rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten.

Helix ITSM has several great features. One of them is the chatbot — the artificial intelligence solution that BMC has. Secondly, Digital Workplace Advanced is important for the end-users — it provides great flexibility. Also, the end-users can manage all requirements and all of the information that they need related to IT services. The chatbots are also integrated with this. The workflow solution is another great feature for the end-users, as part of the engine. It has the power to automatize several different tasks in the ITSM world.

In fact, BMC had a business workflow — this is a solution that is out of the ITSM environment. This solution helps you solve business-related problems. You can automatize a lot of activities related to human resources, finances, production, and so on. It's very useful, it's another feature to emphasize. The presence of BMC in the market of ITSM has been around for more than 20 years. The maturity of ITSM processes has been very good. I think it's excellent. In fact, over the past several years, BMC has begun changing the idea of interfaces for end-users, users of ITSM, and IT people.

Nowadays, the interface is very modern, clear, and practical. It's very easy to use. The user interface is one of the best features. Also, it has a very advanced model of reporting. It's very powerful when it comes to managing metrics, in order to manage APIs. This process is constantly improving. In this arena, I think BMC has very good solutions.

Some parts of the solution are using the old interface — the contracts and contract management part of the solution. It needs to mature a little further in order to become more user-friendly. BMC has been a leader for several years now. In fact, it's a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, along with ServiceNow. I believe BMC is actually on par with ServiceNow in terms of critical capabilities. For this reason, I don't see many areas for improvement.

BMC not only has ITSM solutions, but it also has solutions for asset management — they are really powerful. Discovery, for instance, is a very good solution. It complements ITSM because it's autodiscovery. It's very powerful in terms of discovering all assets connected to the network and the cloud. This capability not only shows all of your infrastructures and relationships in mass, but the connection with CMDB is very strong. It takes all of the information that has already been discovered and transfers it to CMDB. From an ITSM perspective, you can manage your CMDB and the construction of different services more efficiently because all of the information is updated and the relationships between assets are clear. 

When you have to use ITSM processes, you can assign incidents, requests, or changes for the right assets. For instance, in the case of a change in management, you can perform a very efficient impact analysis. This is another reason why Discovery is a very good complement to the ITSM solution. Of course, I am mentioning this as a complement to the ITSM environment, but all the solutions are related and work together very efficiently.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give BMC Helix ITSM a rating of eight.