- Incident management
- Change management
- Problem management
- Knowledge management
Remedy Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Assets can be managed in the CMDB and Asset Management application. Any activity to be scheduled, such as weekly maintenance activity or change requests, can be raised at the same time.
What is most valuable?
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What needs improvement?
Many things still need improvement, and they are mostly related to the customization aspects of the tool.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using it for five years.
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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
There is no such issue while deploying the application in the environment as long as you follow best practice as defined by BMC.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and support?
Customer Service:
10/10
Technical Support:10/10
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've not used any other tool.
How was the initial setup?
You need to follow the installation steps during deployment of application.
What about the implementation team?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Elite Partner
Sr. Programmer/Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
It has centralized all work orders and help desk ticket tracking, but adding additional fields does not work very well
Pros and Cons
- "Smart Reporting makes it easy to create/publish views for tables, so our customers can easily create their own reports."
- "It has centralized all work orders and help desk ticket tracking."
- "Adding additional fields does not work very well."
What is our primary use case?
We use Remedy primarily for Change, Incident and Asset Management. We track all company assets.
How has it helped my organization?
It has centralized all work orders and help desk ticket tracking. It enables our entire IT department (approximately 300 people) to "speak the same language" when referring to work loads and projects.
What is most valuable?
- Smart IT is a great help to the help desk. It allows them to quickly add INC tickets.
- Smart Reporting makes it easy to create/publish views for tables, so our customers can easily create their own reports.
What needs improvement?
Adding additional fields does not work very well. We needed assistance from our vendor support team.
For how long have I used the solution?
Less than one year.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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.
Senior ITSM Consultant at Sierra-Cedar
It provides email notification that are triggered as and when there is an update on assigned ticket, unassigned ticket for pending and resolved.
Valuable Features
The most valuable feature is the flexibility, which allows us to customize it per our customers' requirements.
Improvements to My Organization
- 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.
Room for Improvement
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.
Use of Solution
I've used it for almost 9 years now.
Deployment Issues
We've had no issues with deployment.
Stability Issues
We've had no issues with stability.
Scalability Issues
We've had no issues with scalability.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Customer Service:
Customer service is a 9 out of 10.
Technical Support:Technical support is a 9 our of 10.
Implementation Team
The system on our end is home-grown, which is used for consulting mostly to online and remote clients.
ROI
I think that the ROI is perfect with the pricing/licensing concept.
Other Advice
You can implement it with customizations per your requirements as it's a flexible product.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We have a support contract with BMC, which is renewed yearly.
Head of Customer Operations at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Good support and follows good standards and frameworks
Pros and Cons
- "The standards and the framework that it follows are most valuable. It has an ITIL and out-of-the-box framework."
- "They should add some of the bolt-ons into the initial setup, such as chat."
What is our primary use case?
It is basically in for the management and problem management.
What is most valuable?
The standards and the framework that it follows are most valuable. It has an ITIL and out-of-the-box framework.
What needs improvement?
Certain features can be improved. We find ourselves having to make a lot of customizations to make things work for us.
They should add some of the bolt-ons into the initial setup, such as chat.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is reasonably good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is pretty good.
How was the initial setup?
It was quite complex from memory. It was over three years ago, but it was quite complex.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other options. There were business reasons for choosing BMC over other providers.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise making sure that you have the expertise to administer the system.
I would rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Information Security Specialist at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Smart IT reports and tracks ongoing issues. The tool has created more layers of bureaucracy.
Pros and Cons
- "Smart IT and the phone app are easily the most valuable features in reporting and tracking ongoing issues."
- "We have experienced outages, because some other customers did something on the same cluster that we share."
- "It has created more layers of bureaucracy."
What is our primary use case?
It is the enterprise ticketing system at KU Health Systems. We use it for incident management, asset management, knowledge management, problem management, release management, and change management. There are also several tools, such as SCCM, and other integration solutions (e.g., TLS) which ingest the data and give the executives a flash dashboard to look at. The idea is to reduce downtime and expedite recovery time.
How has it helped my organization?
It has made some improvements. However, it also created more layers of bureaucracy. I like the segregation of duties. I like narrowing the focus of each module, and having independent teams working on specific tasks. What I do not care about is having "Module Owners", which serve as a lead on the module instead of having a Remedy administrator/developer.
Now that Smart IT is rolled out to HR, and more service requests are being developed, we are getting to the point of automation and self-service. The idea is reduce the number of tickets related to day-to-day operations, so we can focus on planning.
What is most valuable?
Incident Management is easily the most commonly used module that we have. It is helpful knowing the ins and outs of ITIL.
Smart IT and the phone app are easily the most valuable features in reporting and tracking ongoing issues.
What needs improvement?
Most On Demand customers can tell you the daily struggles. There are some bugs which magically fix themselves.
We also have experienced outages, because some other customers did something on the same cluster that we share.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Useful for orchestration, change management, and self-service
Pros and Cons
- "Automatic orchestration is the most valuable. The feature for designating some cases or incidents to the right PM for resolution, first call resolution, and change management are also important. The self-service feature and knowledge base resolutions are helping the customers in resolving issues rather than opening tickets."
- "It can have more features for hardware discovery and hardware information. The integration with IQ operations management should be streamlined. ITSM and ITOM should be more integrated, and there should be better integration from Helix Discovery to Helix CMDB. There were some issues regarding this integration, and they were difficult to resolve in big environments. We have a lot of devices and users to manage. Therefore, the integration should be better."
What is our primary use case?
Clients use it for incident management, problem management, change management, and device management.
What is most valuable?
Automatic orchestration is the most valuable. The feature for designating some cases or incidents to the right PM for resolution, first call resolution, and change management are also important.
The self-service feature and knowledge base resolutions are helping the customers in resolving issues rather than opening tickets.
What needs improvement?
It can have more features for hardware discovery and hardware information.
The integration with IQ operations management should be streamlined. ITSM and ITOM should be more integrated, and there should be better integration from Helix Discovery to Helix CMDB. There were some issues regarding this integration, and they were difficult to resolve in big environments. We have a lot of devices and users to manage. Therefore, the integration should be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been selling this solution since version 7, that is, for five years to seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There is some difficulty in configuring high reliability and disaster recovery. Sometimes, the solution is not available for end users. The infrastructure must be configured in a certain way to keep it online most of the time. There are no bugs or issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable horizontally and vertically. The problem is that you have to use a lot of servers and server infrastructure to scale it. You need a really big infrastructure to manage and sustain ITSM. Most of our clients are big companies.
How are customer service and technical support?
They solved the problem most of the time. I would rate them a nine out of ten. It would be good to have Brazilian support. Currently, you have to talk to engineers in the US, India, and other countries. We don't have local support, and we have to work with a partner.
How was the initial setup?
It was complex. The older versions were complex to customize and create some workflows. It took a lot of time to deploy. I don't know about the latest versions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is too expensive for a small business.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others to prepare and plan a lot before using the product. Define the exact workflows, themes, and end-user experience because the users sometimes don't use self-service. Customize it as little as possible.
I would rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Reseller
IT Service Management Team Leader at mStart
The ease of use and integration made it a worthwhile investment
Pros and Cons
- "Having all the processes, fields, and settings already setup out-of-the-box, thus minimizing implementation time."
- "The ease of use and integration made it a worthwhile investment, since we did some integrations with other tools making our lives easier."
- "Support could be more skilled. We are wasting too much of our time debugging."
- "The amount of software issues are still too big, even considering the complexity of the tool."
- "Whenever you start exploring some new product features, you run into defects. It has been like this for the last six years."
What is our primary use case?
Aligning IT processes within your organization with best practices, like ITIL.
Having all the processes, fields, and settings already setup out-of-the-box, thus minimizing implementation time.
How has it helped my organization?
Our organization already had another solution, therefore there were no issues accepting such a solution. However, the ease of use and integration made it a worthwhile investment, since we did some integrations with other tools making our lives easier.
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
The amount of software issues are still too big, even considering the complexity of the tool. Whenever you start exploring some new product features, you run into defects. It has been like this for the last six years.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
How is customer service and technical support?
Support could be more skilled. We are wasting too much of our time debugging.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
SR. ITSM/BSM Consultant (Remedy) at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
It is easy to be notified and update your work from a mobile
Pros and Cons
- "The mobile features are the best part of the new version. It is easy to be notified and update your work from a mobile, which is great."
- "Maybe the upgrade process and the release between environments should to be more transparent for anyone to execute it."
What is our primary use case?
We use Remedy to automate the ticket registration, attention, and solution from automatic creation to solve them on mobile devices.
How has it helped my organization?
This product helps us to better serve our customers, enabling them anyplace for making requests or updating tickets.
What is most valuable?
The mobile features are the best part of the new version. It is easy to be notified and update your work from a mobile, which is great. Also, the option to review reports and dashboards from the mobile.
What needs improvement?
Maybe the upgrade process and the release between environments should to be more transparent for anyone to execute it.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
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Updated: November 2024
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Overall I can agree with many things you have mentioned with some differences. Customer Service and Support is very strong as long as you are covered by "Premier Support" otherwise it is rather difficult to get things resolved at a decent pace. But then, that is very much their strategy (why would anyone buy premier support if it is not much better than regular support!). I don't see it as a wrong thing - but just something that one should be aware if thinking of implementing their products.
Disclosure: Currently BMC has no tie-up or partnership with my organization. I handle large, complex BMC Remedy projects and interact with BMC frequently on behalf of customer.