ServiceNow Reviews

The most valuable features at this point in time for me is the ability for tracking changes, for tying changes in the problem tickets together, tying incidents together to the problem tickets. The interaction between our user to IT aspect, from top to bottom, has been fantastic. Whereas users submits a problem because they have a problem, then we've got to find out if it's a bigger problem, or if it's bug, or SDLC, all this stuff. For me in my role at this point in time, which is changing, it's just tracking everything from bottom to top. We're making sure that stuff is getting done and then communicating back to teams, and it's a full loop.

ServiceNow was implemented over seven years ago. When I came on it was already implemented and I didn't have much of a role in getting ServiceNow changed, add-ins, whatever. They weren't reaching out to other companies. I was basically brought in to do monitoring buildouts, and get our very baseline infrastructure more organized.

I actually don't know. To be perfectly honest, I feel that just about any tool, as long as they have the same offerings, can be modified to fit the company that is attempting to use it. Take a look at an ERP solution. ERP has been around for a lot longer, to a certain degree than say ServiceNow and there is a massive amount of offerings. You can go with SAP. You can go with Oracle. I can't even remember the other guys' names. No matter what, you can always make them work for your company.

They may not have been the best choice for you, maybe there are pluses and minuses. Once you actually get into the application, you start figuring it out at that point it's like, "Well, it would have been better if we went with this, if we focus more on this." The thing is once you get an offering, you still have the ability to go in and configure it to your heart's desire. ServiceNow, it's the full suite of offerings. You have a lot more to sit in and actually go in and configure, as opposed to it's just another ITIL based application that I can sit in and configure.

I know there are places that they can do better at. While I'm not an administrator, I'm not sitting there configuring it, I know our person who does configure it does have his foibles. There are certain things that are difficult to get out of ServiceNow, which is why I suggested going to partner companies that are using ServiceNow already in your similar environment. You go to ServiceNow and say, "Hey. This is what we want to do. How can we accomplish this?" ServiceNow says, "You can do it any way you want."

It's like, "That's not an answer." It's like, "What should we do? We need guidance." Well, "No. you can do anything with it." Okay. That doesn't quite help me as a user, and future administrator, or as an executive. I'm sure it sounds great for an executive, but when it comes down to it, when it starts growing in your own environment, executives starts asking questions, "Why hasn't it been doing this?" It's like, "We don't know how to get that matured within our own environment." It really comes down to I think they can improve upon. They are doing that here with the networking, but for as themselves, have their own best practices to a certain degree.

To a degree, yes it's stable, but mostly it's due to data center issues on their side, or it's come down to network issues on our side. Since it's external, it's not internal, you're looking at having to deal with Internet weather, or data center hosted environments, or our instance had the issues, which is pretty rare.

It's been a long time. It's been a very long time. I think mostly they had a roll back of, not a build or an update. It was some type of data change, but I don't recall the details as it was several years ago.

I wouldn't know because I don't actually handle any of that aspect. Again, I'm still pretty new to actually having my hand in helping with ServiceNow. I don't have any of the hands-on experience. I'm more of a user at this point than an administrator of certain degrees.

I've used many other types of applications such as HEAT, or Remedy, any of those guys and a couple others that I can't remember the name of. They're all customizable to a point. Obviously, not many of those previous ones actually had a full ITIL buildout, or full offering as ServiceNow does. From my point of view and my aspect, I'm more concerned about user experience, and more concerned about backend experience as an IT professional coming in and trying to fix issues, and track said issues. ServiceNow has a much bigger offering in the sense that you've got new changes. You've got your problem ticket findings. You've got tracking for CIs, and the CMDB database, and sitting on the backend trying to provide all that data for those tickets, and whatnot, throughout the company. It makes it a lot easier. It's definitely a one-stop shop for being able to actually come in and help your users, but also help your full infrastructure, your backend.

From what I've heard, and all I can go off of is hearsay, it was pretty easy comparatively. I don't know what they were using before for any ticket tracking system, but that's initially what they jumped into was ticket tracking. We needed something to be able to support our IT infrastructure and our service desk. They also wanted to be able to track changes, and do that. It was just like, "Okay, we'll start with this, and start growing more and more." It turned into quite a bit more. We have definitely stepped up using a lot more of the offerings that ServiceNow has, mostly because we have to, to some degree, to be able to make things a lot more efficient. It's worked for us from what I can tell.

You want to sit there and plan. You probably don't want to turn everything on right from the get go either, because then you're just going to overload yourself. The same goes with any type of a larger offering that has hooks into other aspects of your infrastructure. If you turn everything on, you're just going to get overwhelmed, and not actually have proper resources to be able to handle those. It's always start turning things on, start figuring out what the workflow is, and go from there.

Make sure you flesh out what you're doing. Honestly, I see all the pitfalls are the ones where you'll have a misunderstanding, or make a bad choice in configuration. If you believe that the offering is going to work for you, then you need to make sure you reach out to people who are going through similar situations, or rather it's three years in advance in your same situation. Find another partner company that has already gone through the preliminary, but not too far in the future because then you just look and say, "Wow. They completed so much. How are we ever going to get there?" A year or two, maybe three, and talk with them, figure out what their pitfalls were, a similar type company hopefully.

• Change
• Incident
• Service Catalog
• Configuration Management
• Project Portfolio Management
• Knowledge Base

• Improved the globalization of processes and around the clock service delivery to our customers
• Automated repetitive tasks and shifted left simple tasks to the service desk

• Lots of customizations can lead to breaking the system when moving to another release. This should be managed better by ServiceNow
• UI can be busy and complicated for non-IT users
• Difficulty in debugging and testing code output

I've used it for five years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

8/10

8/10

We used a different product, and switched because it was easier to set up and customize to the needs of our business compared to its competition.

A bit of both. It involved more customizations/work than we initially assumed.

Both. Have a dedicated resource(s) from in house that works with the vendor in developing and setting ServiceNow Modules/Applications. It's very important to use an experienced vendor team that has dealt with complexities in implementing a ServiceNow environment. You should also have clear functional requirements/functional specifications from the beginning before any ServiceNow development is done.

For me, the most valuable feature is the flexibility it allows in customization. We're able to set it with the parameters we need for our specific business use cases.

We're now able to use emails in the Request Fulfillment process, instead of assigning roles to an account.

The setup wasn't as straightforward or easy as it should have been. While it wasn't difficult or complex, there was some planning and work involved.

There were no issues with the deployment.

There were no issues with the stability.

There were no issues with the scalability.

I'd rate their customer service an 8 out of 10.

I'd rate their technical support an 8 out of 10.

I am also working with CA SDM and in the process of comparing the pros and cons of each.

The initial setup was of medium difficulty. Though it wasn't the most difficult setup, it could have been easier.

I didn't participate in the implementation as it was done by a vendor.

Based on my experiences so far, I'd recommend it.

The core applications are what our business uses day-to-day, including incident, change, problem, service catalogue and knowledge. However, I think the real value comes in when you start using CMDB, discovery, asset management and orchestration. Also, the fact that you can build custom apps and there are additional apps for HR, Facilities, etc. is also what makes this tool great.

It has given us a single source of record across all departments. Also, it has allowed us to automate many processes along with enforcing processes by making them workflow driven.

My only thought is while it is great they are expanding into many different areas of business, don’t forget about the core of this product and why it was originally built. UI and feature enhancements to records like incidents would be great.

I have been working with the release from June 2011 – Geneva.

There have been no issues with the deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

With scalability, we have grown quite significantly in the last two years and the performance of our instance has really taken a hit. However, ServiceNow support has been great and we are currently in the process of moving to a new data center and on to faster hardware to improve this issue.

This can be very hit and miss, there are some individuals who are fantastic and a lot of help and then there are others that are not so much. My biggest struggle is with them just not reading my updates and asking the same questions just to put the ball back in your court even though it is likely you already provided them the information. I will say it has gotten a lot better over the years.

If you aren't very familiar with ServiceNow, I would recommend bringing in a vendor for deployment. They will help you understand the tool and make sure you aren’t boxing yourself in with the way things are built out. The OOB processes ServiceNow offers are all based on ITIL standards so theoretically there aren't a lot of customizations you should need to make up front.

I have worked for a company who used a vendor and did it themselves and now I do it for customers. My biggest piece of advice is don’t just try to make ServiceNow do what your old tool did. Take advantage of the power behind this tool!

This isn’t the cheapest solution out there, but is definitely worth it if implemented and used correctly.

I haven’t necessarily used or evaluated other systems, but I have done work with integrating to other solutions and converting users from other solutions to ServiceNow. I will say ServiceNow makes most of these tools like TrackIt or OmniTracker as a few examples look like they are about 20 years behind the game. The biggest struggle is trying to get users to look at ServiceNow and use the tool to really improve their processes instead of just trying to copy the process you used in their old system.

There are a ton of features and capabilities that can be used to automate processes within your organization and have a single source of data and this is an exceptional tool for that. There is always room for improvement and as they try to expand into different markets ,I do think some of the older applications get left behind and aren’t maintained as they should be.

ServiceNow is a great tool and I would highly recommend it. It will give you powerful automation capabilities and can significantly decrease time users have to spend researching and working tickets not matter what department it is.

• Workflows
• Automation
• Integrations

I would say one of the best things on ServiceNow platform is the way how you can quickly automate delivery of services or goods to the end-user.

Reporting capabilities could use some improvement.

I've used it for four years.

It strongly depends on customer awareness of ServiceNow best practices. In some cases stability is an issue.

It strongly depends on customer awareness of ServiceNow best practices. In some cases scalability is an issue.

Depends how big account the customer is for ServiceNow.

I have a few experiences with HPSD. Thick client instead of web application says everything.

ServiceNow comes with a lot of functionality included as baseline implementation. For example, all main ITIL processes are implemented, as well the fact that it is a cloud solution gives you the whole functional system at the beginning.

I am part of vendor team or advising clients in solution architecture area.

The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want without additional costs.

A strong architect is needed. You should follow best practices and challenge customers. So don’t implement everything right at the moment when you receive requirements.

Find a strong partner with experience of other customers of the same size and nature. Find a parter that will create, together with you, a strategy that will guide you during preparation, all phases of development, and operational times.

I’m a developer, so I wouldn’t classify the product as valuable to me, per se. However, through the eyes of a client I can tell you that ServiceNow is highly customizable, so when anybody asks, “Can it do this?”, the answer is usually, "Yes, yes it can."

The whole platform has improved our organization, but that is the beauty of ServiceNow. It provides a solid starting point to manage your IT operations, but not just IT operations, but almost anything your organization needs.

I've used it for three years.

It is usually user error rather than system error, and even on the largest deployment that I took part in, that was muddled by an inexperienced admin. I was able to back out and fix within a two hour span of time.

Stability is a complete non-issue. It is all cloud based and I have never experienced down time with ServiceNow.

I really don’t think there is anything out there that even compares.

This really depends on what the issue is. When you start venturing outside of the base system functionality, they will not support it. You essentially become the owner when you start modifying the base functionality.

That being said, the base functionality really doesn’t need to be modified. When customizing this product to suit your companies/organizations needs, developing solutions that lie within the base functionality are nearly always attainable.

I have used Cherwell, and while it works fine, it leaves a lot to be desired as far as user experience. I may be jaded because of ServiceNow, but managing data in Cherwell is nowhere near the capability of ServiceNow.

When an instance is spun up, it’s ready to use. In that case, setup is very simple, but no organization wants to keep the out-of-box-setup though. Why would you buy something so highly customizable and not customize it?

If you keep your customizations light, setup is not difficult for someone with a modicum of experience. If an organization goes all out and wants heavy customization, then setup can become extremely complex.

I work for a vendor, and typically the level of experience of in-house administrators/developers is rather low. We tend to incorporate them into what we are doing so as to raise their experience level, which allows them to support any solutions we implement.

Costs for consultants/developers, as I’m sure some of you know, can be pretty high. It’s not because ServiceNow is hard to configure, it’s because it’s so big that developers with an intimate knowledge of how the system functions and knowledge of the nuances are in short supply.

It is pricey, and for good reason. As far as licensing, I have one word: haggle. I have had clients pay full price for licenses and I have had clients who get lower prices for licenses or a certain amount of free licenses.

Also, for organizations that have busy seasons where additional licenses are needed for a few months, I have heard of those being comped so long as the number of licenses needed is within reason.

You should go play with it and learn how it works. You can get free personal developer/demo instance spun up at developer.service-now.com.

When it comes to the time to get your requirements ready you will be miles ahead and save money rather than blindly coming up with requirements, having a solution implemented, and then finding out you want to change 10% - 30% of what you originally thought you wanted.

Out-of-box end-user portal (this is highly customizable, and I’ve seen some pretty slick interfaces):

Fulfiller home screen:

Some of the base applications and list view of records:

Just an example of a custom application, I commission a fantasy
football league, and I built myself an application that utilizes web services
to pull in external data to help me manage my league as well as provide
statistics to help me set my lineup every week:

As a technical specialist, the features that are most valuable to me are:

• Facility for doing customizations
• Very quick time to business
• Good support
• Availability time
• Some nice development tools
• Facilities for building integration

At the moment, we have implemented Incident, Problem, Change, Catalog and a bit of Asset Management. As we had a terrible system before ServiceNow, we did not have any kind of KPIs. Now we have all the processes integrated between each other and with some good KPIs.

The number of improvements is big, but we are still doing changes on the platform so we can get even more. At this point, we have already done almost 1000 stories (each story represents a change) with improvements.

They improved, a bit, the Reporting part of the product, but for sure it could be improved a lot more. I think they also should re-think the way they license the tool because it’s too expensive to automate all of your business, but you’ll need lots of licenses. If they did this, it would be an awesome tool. People go for doing some dirty integrations (with JIRA for example) just to reduce the number of licenses needed in ServiceNow.

I worked for a ServiceNow partner for some years before being a client. As a client, I have used the solution for one-and-a-half years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

I really like it. They answer quite fast and provide good solutions.

It was straightforward because we had a clear idea of what processes we were implementing and how they would be (Workflow). The complex part of it is basically map your processes; implementing the tool is the easy part.

At my current company, we did it with ServiceNow and in-house (me). But I worked at a ServiceNow Partner before, and I would strongly recommend a vendor implementation unless you already have some experts in-house.

We did an extensive evaluation to choose this product. It’s confidential and I cannot give details of it.

As a technical specialist, I can see that the product is really good and has lots of enhancements with each version. It’s a really good (but expensive) product. As it’s very easy to customize, it’s also easy to break it. I would recommend just to have a really good specialist (who knows some of the business as well) and it should be pretty straightforward to succeed.

ServiceNow comes as a set of pre-built ITIL processes as well as a platform that can be used to build a variety of custom business applications.

Even though there is a huge freedom in what you can customize, there are still plenty of areas for improvement regarding non-documented APIs and hard-coded functionality.

We've been using the solution since 2014 (Eureka version).

No, deployment is very smooth and your production instance will be up and running in no time.

There were a couple of issues on ServiceNow side which were promptly addressed by ServiceNow support.

I would say there is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to technical support. There are times when I feel that a person working on a ticket is able to only direct me to the relevant WIKI articles (which I've usually read already before deciding to contact support).