BMC Helix ITSM Reviews

We use Remedy as our ITIL solution for our IT department. Currently, we have a few projects starting up, which will also utilize it as a ticket intake system for non-IT as well.

Our Change Management and Incident Management processes have been greatly improved by using Remedy. It has allowed us to standardize and streamline both processes immensely.

Currently, the Service Catalog has the most value to it. Mainly, because we are able to offer IT functionality to non-IT people. This also helps to cut down calls and emails to the Service Desk by routing things automatically via the catalog.

We found that there was numerous issues upgrading from 8.1 to 9.1 in that all our licenses were broken for almost a year and a half. We chased down a total of 14 hotfixes, patches, and service packs before things were finally resolved.  During that time, said "fixes" also broke other things, so it was quite the sore spot with management for some time.

We understand this occurred mainly because the Dev team rewrote the entire code from scratch to remove the spaghetti code.  However, in doing so, they really broke quite a few things which left not only us, but numerous companies, in dire straights for quite some time.

I highly recommend that more QA be done on a product like this, especially after a complete rewrite, to make sure things are working properly. I can't imagine what it was like in version 9.0.

In recent releases they introduced OOTB email tickets creation. In the older version we needed to write a lot of code for this.

CMDB & Asset management is very helpful in locating an asset. Also, the CI viewer helps in good impact analysis for a CR. Bmc SIM gives a good model too.

The SRM module is still pretty complex, this needs some improvement in AIF creation and configuration. Process designer needs some good video demos and documentation.

I have been working on this product for the last 10+ years.

During code deployment the Ar Server sometimes leaks a lot of memory which needs a regular restart.

Stability is as good as your defined architecture which is decided by load.

Horizontal scalability at AR server level and at mid tier level is very good.

Technical support has improved compared to six or seven years ago. Customers are happy.

The set-up is pretty easy.

Most of my implementations were done through an house team.

Get floating licenses if your user base is going to be big.

I evaluated ServiceNow as an alternative solution. Many customers wanted a new tool to evaluate because they have a very old version of Remedy and upgrading is complex because too much customization is needed. Also, ServiceNow has a very good SAAS/PAAS solution.

Keep a balance between your ITIL processes and the tool. Don't break the costly product just to incorporate your old legacy process. When implementing it, you should avoid customising it too much, having complex SRM AIF forms. You should also ensure you don't have a customised approval process and having too much data in the CMDB.

The trouble ticket history is valuable if the technician details the resolution of the problem noted.

It tracks all trouble tickets and provides a ticket history. Problems can be researched and solutions applied based on past tickets. It lets the organization know how well the Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 folks are doing.

Making it easier to use is very important, and the searching of tickets should be an easy procedure instead of being complex.

I've been using it for three years.

Some settings in the browser had to be adjusted for daily operations.

None that I am aware of.

Most responses are via email support, but the system is quite complex.

They're good.

No, this is the solution the government went with, but after taking a look at BMC Remedy and performing a cost analysis, I did not suggest buying this product. However, powers above me wanted Remedy so it was purchased.

It was complex to setup.

A vendor team setup the initial configuration, and an SME was available for configuration issues. A day's training class, just on how to use it, was provided.

I would estimate that it is quite low, or running at a loss.

I provided my report three years ago, but my suggestion was not taken.

This is a complex product that is quite expensive and there are other solutions out there at a lower cost, or you could work a trouble ticket system by using a Microsoft product.

We use BMC Helix for application discovery and dependency mapping the area of the nCode. It's one of the best programs we've used. We usually serve around 10 to 20 customers with this solution but it's fewer than 10 now.

Many other tools are similar. I've used these tools and find that they meet my requirements. Helix is more lightweight than these tools. It's a traditional tool that was developed more than 10 years ago. Ease of use is the operative word.

Integration could be better. If something doesn't work well with some tools and operations, then management becomes difficult, so you have to integrate other tools.

We've been using Helix for at least 10 years.

It is very stable and scalable.

I haven't really done the installation, so I do not know how complex it is.

The license is yearly.

On a scale of one to 10, I would rate it a seven. Before adopting, I would recommend evaluating how well all the options are suited to your requirements.

I am an administrator and developer of BMC Remedy ITSM Suite. I create service requests, templates, and do day-to-day admin duties. I also create customizations due to requests or business needs.

We were using outdated applications and spreadsheets. Now, with service requests, we have been able to give visibility to the business users.

Service Request Management was the first big win for our company. We are currently implementing Change Management and look forward to seeing more benefits.

Smart Reporting was added, then was purchased from another vendor. We have little ability to customize and correct issues due to this. 

I would also love to see consistency across all consoles.

Flexibility in development and the capacity of being used by so many different kind of businesses are the most valuable features for us.

It enhances the implementation of process between teams in a central way, and if that is not possible it makes the integration with other applications easily.

There is a lack of features to help the support team in supporting this application. Anything that help to understand the workflow would be very appreciated. Having a "big picture" of a solution is a great way to solve any issue. Something that allows the "navigation" in the workflow (step-by-step), would be fantastic.

We've used Remedy for 17 years and five years for ITSM.

There were no issues with the deployment

It has a problem with the memory management. It's the biggest problem from my point of view.

It has a problem with the memory management. It's the biggest problem from my point of view.

3/10 - customer service is very painful. It takes a lot of time to pass the issue to the technical support and until that happens, the issue jumps between the people in support, that ask us always the some things.

The technical service is OK.

I have always worked with this product, but the company where I work, has a lot of others products similar to this one, and along the years are converting for this one. So, for me, this is evidence of the quality of the product.

For the needs that my company have the structure is complex, and so the setup is a little complex to, but if you only need one server, the setup is straightforward.

In the many years I have experienced both situations. My advice is to have a vendor team so they can validate everything in the setup.

Very dificult to talk about ROI in financial terms. Taking into account that the main concern is to choose the best delivery for a service, we are very happy with this product, and the feeling is that it pays for it self.

The final product has an installation with many modules, so choose carefully according to what your needs are. If you have something simple and if you know how to develop, the price of getting this product will decrease a lot.

The most valuable feature is the flexibility, which allows us to customize it per our customers' requirements.

• Email Notification that are triggered as and when there is an update on assigned ticket, unassigned ticket, pending, and resolved.
• Multiple mailbox configurations helped people from different organizations to communicate/create incidents.

As of now, the new release of version 9 is in place which is resolving the issues reported related to Reporting, Change Management, Approval Console, Dashboards.

I've used it for almost 9 years now.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

Customer service is a 9 out of 10.

Technical support is a 9 our of 10.

The system on our end is home-grown, which is used for consulting mostly to online and remote clients.

I think that the ROI is perfect with the pricing/licensing concept.

You can implement it with customizations per your requirements as it's a flexible product.

We are not using this product. Rather, we are proposing it as a part of our solution because we have experience with the on-premise and the ROE (remedy on demand). We upgrade and do the installation for our customers.

What I have found to be the most valuable is that it offers the radius deployment package not only to the BMC cloud but also to the public cloud such as Azure. You can also deploy it to a private cloud.

The Helix platform is not restricted to the ITSM. It has the capability to do the workflow management, the digital workplace, the discovery, and the monitoring. 

If you want to have to migrate from on-premises to Helix or from Helix to a ServiceNow, or from cloud to on-premises, it's easy but it requires additional tools. It should be included in the existing package, rather than clients having to go with a third-party tool. It could be offered to customers as a value on a separate line item.

There are some companies that provided a customized solution to identity what customization has been done, and to reduce the number of your upgrade cycle. If they had this type of solution included, it would be helpful.

In the next release, I would like to see AI used for classification or categorization.

I have been working with this solution since it's was launched, which has been a couple of years.

It's a stable solution.

It's easy to scale.

I belong to a larger enterprise. With this solution, you can go from smaller organizations to a large enterprise.

The technical support is good.

The initial setup is easy. Within a few hours, you are up and running.

It's straightforward to install and configure it.

Pricing on the licensing depends on how you want to position it. If you are looking for some kind of professional services form the OEM then you would have to purchase that.

When you evaluate other products they all have their pros and cons.

The cost differs, as well as some of the functionalities.

I recommend this solution and I would rate it an eight out of ten.