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PeerSpot user
Sr. BMC Remedy Lead Developer (PM) at a transportation company
Real User
The main valuable feature is the flexibility of the product -- the ability of being able to make it do almost anything we need it to do to adjust to our business needs and to do it very quickly.

What is most valuable?

The main valuable feature is the flexibility of the product -- the ability of being able to make it do almost anything we need it to do to adjust to our business needs and to do it very quickly. The time to deliver a finish product is fast.

How has it helped my organization?

We have been able to provide several fairly complex and deeply integrated fully customized applications within the different systems throughout the company in an extremely quick delivery time which is impossible with other products.

What needs improvement?

It has improved the life cycle of the development making it a lot shorter to go from the concept phase (requirements gathering) to the deployment portion.

We also have been able to provide a lot more applications to the businesses within to service them better. Improve their processes by automating a lot of their sticky notes and spreadsheets and other paper trails that they were using prior to the application being created.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been developing on ARS platform since 1998, but on this version since 2013.

Buyer's Guide
BMC Helix ITSM
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about BMC Helix ITSM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Like any product/new versions there are always issues. The main ones are the undocumented features that comes with the customized applications. We are not using the out of the box application (ITSM) therefore we are thinking "out of the box" and BMC did not document all of the changes made in their different upgrades. So each time you upgrade from one version to another, you always run into these issues. You need to always make sure you do thorough testing of all the functionality you have in your different applications especially if you are "outside of the box" type of business.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We did and still have stability issues that we are working on. The issues are all linked to the BIRT reporting tool which was the solution recommended at the time by BMC. But we are now totally disconnecting from this tool. We have identify this as being the 100% culprit and are using other methods for doing what is required within our web applications.

But beside the reporting issue no. This is a solid system. We do however have a weekly scheduled reboot of our servers (Windows farm) just to be safe. But that is just because they are Windows :-)

But in all honesty, we need to always keep an eye on the amount of Handles being generated by all the services from the BMC AR System. They do from time to time run out of control and will require you to restart the services. But that is not a regular occurrence.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

None. I haven't seen any limitation at all on this product. It is as good as the hardware will allow it to be. you just need to ensure you have the proper hardware/architecture to support what you need.

How are customer service and support?

Customer Service:

The Customer service is the same as always. It hasn't changed much. They will always be there to help you find the product to help you grow in your business.

Technical Support:

BMC needs to keep improving their support. It is still far from what it was back in the days of Remedy. It is very sad that you still are asked for you logs when the logs are already been provided and that you are asked the same questions when those are already answered in the tickets. It is as if they are reading from a script like drones. They need to learn to be more proactive and less robots. When the tickets being raised already have all the details of the issues, and all the diagnostics have been done by us please send the details to second level or 3rd if necessary instead of asking us to repeat the steps we already repeated. we don't have time to waste, especially when a server is down. That is why we do not use BMC support at the moment.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have been on BMC AR System platform here since the mid 90s. We keep adding more applications, modifying/updating the old ones.

We have retired some too. It is an easy platform to grow and adapt

How was the initial setup?

I was not at this client site when the implementation was done. But from experience, I would suggest that anyone embarking in this adventure does get at least the basic training

What about the implementation team?

BMC ARS was implemented back in mid 1990's . I was not at this client site when the implementation was done.

What was our ROI?

BMC ARS was implemented back in mid 1990's . I was not at this client site when the implementation was done.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I keep a close eye on license usage and balance them. The cost of license is always an issue in every company and needs to be evaluate every Quarter/Year.

A report is provided with the recommendation to each business units on what needs to be done.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

BMC ARS was implemented back in mid 1990's . I was not at this client site when the implementation was done.

What other advice do I have?

This is based on the older version of the product as we are slowly moving all our thick client apps to the Web. This has been a pain stacking process due to amount of applications we needed to move and to the multiple of "old" code we had to drag along with us. The next move will be the upgrade to version 9 which will be another huge and exciting step. This is an amazing powerful product, but like any product that has so much multi possibilities, it has its "quirkiness" that you need to learn to work with.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user400080 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user400080Sr. BMC Remedy Lead Developer (PM) at a transportation company
Real User

i agree with you completely. BMC Remedy is a special “beast”. I play the role of BA helping the BA understand how the platform will serve their needs. I design and architect the solutions, write up the technical requirements for the developers, develop the most difficult parts of the design when need be. And if time allows it, it will code too. Training the rest of the team is a big part of Remedy. Experience is what makes you a better developer

See all 2 comments
PeerSpot user
ITSM Consultant at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Good incident management and reporting, ease of access, and stability
Pros and Cons
  • "We find the incident management module the best. The reporting part is also useful. We use a feature called smart reporting, and it is very beneficial for us."
  • "Its performance can be improved. Sometimes, there is a performance issue, and it is a little slow and difficult on the usage side. It would be beneficial for us if there is a lighter version of this solution. There is also a limitation on the number of columns and memory for extracting a report, and this functionality can be improved. We would like to have better integration and UI in this solution. The user interface should be easy to navigate. Its integration with other tools, such as SharePoint or Jira, can also be improved, which would be beneficial for us. In terms of new features, there should also be a mobile version. The desktop version is available, but the mobile version is not available, which is one of the challenges that our team has. For users who work on Remedy and who raise the ticket, it would also be very beneficial to have some chatbot features."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use it for service requests and incident management. It is being used for all problem tickets and change requests. We are using the latest version. 

What is most valuable?

We find the incident management module the best. The reporting part is also useful. We use a feature called smart reporting, and it is very beneficial for us.

What needs improvement?

Its performance can be improved. Sometimes, there is a performance issue, and it is a little slow and difficult on the usage side. It would be beneficial for us if there is a lighter version of this solution. 

There is also a limitation on the number of columns and memory for extracting a report, and this functionality can be improved.

We would like to have better integration and UI in this solution. The user interface should be easy to navigate. Its integration with other tools, such as SharePoint or Jira, can also be improved, which would be beneficial for us.

In terms of new features, there should also be a mobile version. The desktop version is available, but the mobile version is not available, which is one of the challenges that our team has. For users who work on Remedy and who raise the ticket, it would also be very beneficial to have some chatbot features.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for the past four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have around 7,000 users.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their support is sufficient and fine as of now. Our interaction is currently minimal. We generally use the community portal to contact the BMC team. We are also looking for other tools, and we are mostly connecting with the technical team.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used a tool called HEAT. We were also using the VPN version of Remedy that had to be installed on a system. We were not using the web-based version of Remedy.

We migrated to this solution because it is available on the web, and it is easy to access. The previous one had to be installed on a system. If you wanted to raise a ticket and work on the ticket, the user had to raise a request for installation. There were a lot of other things that had to be taken care of before using the solution. That is the reason we moved to BMC Helix ITSM.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple. It took around six months to one year.

What about the implementation team?

We took the help of a vendor. For maintenance, we have a separate Remedy team. The maintenance of the cloud part is taken care by the vendor team.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is not very expensive and not very cheap. It is somewhere in-between. Some of the features are more expensive. 

There are also additional costs. If you want to use most of the features, you need to pay more.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution because it includes all the best practices of ITIL and ITSM used across the industry. It is a good product.

I would rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
BMC Helix ITSM
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about BMC Helix ITSM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IT-Consultant at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
A highly-integrated solution that could be more simplified
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a very integrated solution."
  • "It needs to be more comfortable for the end-user."

What is our primary use case?

Overall, within our company, there are over 15,000 end-users and 400 incident management members using this solution.

What is most valuable?

You can do some customizing if you want, which is great. It's a very integrated solution. You have incident management, change management, release management, and asset management — all of these things work very well together.

What needs improvement?

Their customer service catalog (where a customer can order some products) could be improved. This product is not the best, but they are working on it.

It needs to be more comfortable for the end-user. You need to be able to order some products.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for over ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to scale. You can connect one server to another and scale them together if you want.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have a support partner that handles all of our BMC support-related issues.

How was the initial setup?

For us, the initial setup was complex because we needed a lot of customization done.

What about the implementation team?

We have a team of four staff members, including myself, who look after all maintenance-related issues.

What other advice do I have?

I would absolutely recommend BMC Helix ITSM. There are two solutions to look out for: BMC and ServiceNow. I think both solutions are great solutions but I can't say which one is better.

For a smaller company, a solution like JIRA Help Desk may be better. BCM can be quite complex as there are many modules that are not easy to handle.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.

If they improved the workflow and processes, simplified the initial setup, improved the UI, and the digital workplace catalog for the end-users, then I would give this solution a rating of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user383814 - PeerSpot reviewer
Remedy Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Consultant
It's easy to customize and provides a range of features you can customize with practically no exceptions.

What is most valuable?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is one of BMC Remedy systems biggest strengths..

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

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.

Technical Support:

It's top notch.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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

How was the initial setup?

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

What about the implementation team?

I do the implementations myself.

What was our ROI?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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

What other advice do I have?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Principal Consultant at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Consultant
It is highly scalable but it is a complex enterprise application and needs proper administration on an ongoing basis.

What is most valuable?

It has complete coverage of ITIL processes and a rich functionality. Plus, it provides a strong customisation platform in AR System which is quite flexible.

How has it helped my organization?

BMC Remedy ITSM has been used both by the customers that I served as well as the software services companies that I actually worked for while serving those customers. In each case that I have seen so far, BMC Remedy has typically been implemented to transform multiple older ticketing systems into a centralised single IT ticketing system. In the case of telecom vendors, largely it is doing the job of network (operations support systems) ticketing and is integrated with variety of non-BMC applications. In each case, it has helped customers transform their applications stack and bring in a uniform, standardised process when compared to the past. This results in savings and streamlining of both people and processes.

What needs improvement?

The traditional UI of Remedy is somewhat of a weak point from the end user perspective. Also, from a developer perspective, a lack of version of management support unlike traditional programming languages such as Java/C# etc where you can easily create code lines, create branches/merge branches, create automated drops of code etc. One can't do this in Remedy in that manner. In general, Remedy doesn't support very aggressive Agile development and is more conducive to a waterfall kind of SDLC. Also, the debugging of defects or performance issues in Remedy is not well assisted by the Remedy Developer Studio.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using BMC products for around nine years, since 2006. My experience includes older versions such as 7.0.1, and 7.6.03/04.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

By itself the product is ok, but frequently people follow incorrect procedures while doing custom coding. BMC does provide guidelines to avoid this, but AR systems as such doesn't prevent you from coding in the incorrect manner, so such bad customisation can cause deployment/upgrade issues later. From versions 7.6.04 and 8.1 onwards, this is largely addressed due to the introduction of the overlay concept, but it is still not too easy to upgrade wherever you have heavy customisation.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Again the stability is frequently related to custom code rather than out of the box code. I don't think it is unusual for any application going live for the first time to be a bit unstable for the first two to three releases, at least after the first ever go-live.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not much - it is highly scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Customer service can vary wildly. With premier support from BMC, which is very expensive I believe, it can be quite fast and dedicated. But, if you have bronze, a basic service or worse, if you don't have direct service from BMC but only have access to them via some intermediate partner - then it may not always be smooth.

Technical Support:

I have experienced service to both extremes - very good and not good at all! Currently I am driving a project that has premier support so it is quite good in this case. They helped a lot in sorting out upgrade related issues and we had a very smooth excellent upgrade from 8.1 patch 002 to SP2.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Typically our customers switched from other products such as Amdocs Clarify or People Soft or home grown ticketing applications to BMC Remedy because the older platforms were not supported by the original vendor anymore OR they found the older solution was not scaling to their needs. Plus, older ticketing functionality was typically fragmented across multiple applications - e.g. for incident management, they may use one application and a completely different application for change management and so on. Now, it is all within one suite which is much easier to handle.

How was the initial setup?

BMC Remedy is set up for a real production environment and can be quite complex depending on what you have. For normal DEV/TEST environments, it is fairly straightforward, but it certainly is nothing like MS Office or something, where you can blindly click next-next and then finish and forget about the installation! It is a complex enterprise application and needs proper administration on an ongoing basis.

What about the implementation team?

In all cases, I have had my own set of people (belonging to a software services company) that did the implementation. In India, we have a pretty good pool of people available for this in general.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I believe there is a strong need to actually compare Remedy, Service Now and couple of open source or free to download products and bring out what really the free products can achieve vis-a-vis established product like Remedy.

As of now, this is more of a perception (Remedy is costly, Free products have less functionality etc - but hardly anyone is going to great lengths to establish point by point, module by module what really is better in which software).

There is no point in listening to such comparison done by one of the vendors (e.g. BMC Remedy communities are having several comments of how Service Now lacks several things and customers coming back to Remedy. Service Now communities are saying exactly opposite. The need is to take out this bias and put down all the facts in a proper shoot-out.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In most situations, we got involved only when customer had already made a decision to go for BMC Remedy so I can't really comment on this. But I think it is more to do with good sales pitch from BMC and the fact that it is an established tool with large enterprises that has typically tilted the scale towards BMC Remedy.

What other advice do I have?

For large organisations, or a medium organisation that is now growing due to new acquisitions etc. (typically several thousand people strong and a large presence in one or more countries) BMC Remedy is surely a very good choice. For smaller organisations, there is the option of BMC Remedy-On-Demand (ROD), but then they may have cheaper alternatives - or at least options that give low starting price.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect at Bytes Systems Integration
Real User
Top 20
Integrates well, easy to use, and stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the ease to use and integration."
  • "BMC Helix ITSM should improve its price."

What is our primary use case?

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

We use BMC Helix ITSM in the financial sector.

What is most valuable?

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

What needs improvement?

BMC Helix ITSM should improve its price.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

BMC Helix ITSM is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have a lot of clients using BMC Helix ITSM.

How was the initial setup?

The initial installation of BMC Helix ITSM is fine.

What about the implementation team?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of BMC Helix ITSM could improve their price.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend BMC Helix ITSM to others.

I rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Principal Architect at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
MSP
Reliable and able to expand but technical support isn't helpful
Pros and Cons
  • "It's one of the top solutions on the market for ITSM capabilities."
  • "The interface isn't that great."

What is our primary use case?

It's a help desk software. It is an ITSM system. We are an MSP. We use it in-house and then we use it for a bunch of our other customers.

What is most valuable?

It's a stable, reliable product.

The solution can scale and expand well.

It's one of the top solutions on the market for ITSM capabilities. 

What needs improvement?

We used to use it and we don't want to use it anymore. We're actually now replacing it.

The interface isn't that great. Also, it just doesn't integrate with as many systems as ServiceNow.

The initial setup is complex. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for 11 years or so. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very, very good. I'd rate it four out of five in terms of reliability. It doesn't crash or lag on us. There aren't bugs or glitches. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is highly scalable. We have lots of users. We've never had a problem expanding it. It's not a problem.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is not really good yet. Due to our scale, when we work with their support, it's not very good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are actually on the way to phasing this solution out. We are replacing it with ServiceNow. ServiceNow integrates with more solutions. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty complex. 

What about the implementation team?

We had the competency to handle the setup in-house. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost is high and going up. Part of the reason why we're changing products is that the pricing actually went up recently by a lot.

What other advice do I have?

We're an MSP. We resell it for BMC amongst other things.

This solution is a SaaS, a Software as a Service, solution. 

It's probably the second-best solution out there. It's just that, as an MSP, we just need to work with a bunch of other toolsets. When that happens, then you run into more support issues and run into more integration issues. That said, I would still say it's the second-best ITSM solution out there.

I'd rate the solution five out of ten. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
PeerSpot user
Response for services and allocation at Quait Consulting
Real User
Automates activities related to human resources, finances, production, and more
Pros and Cons
  • "It has the power to automatize several different tasks in the ITSM world."
  • "Some parts of the solutions are using the old interface."

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

What other advice do I have?

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free BMC Helix ITSM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free BMC Helix ITSM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.