it_user458997 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Helpdesk at Bloomin' Brands
Vendor
Provides one system of record and you can connect the dots all the way through the lifecycle.

What is most valuable?

For our company, it would be incident management with the ability to track and report on that. Showing trends and then tying that into problem management as well. Also completing the whole circle, so problem management and change management. Having one system of record that everything is all tied together and you can connect the dots all the way around through the lifecycle.

Being at the help desk, we see trends and incidence from which we can create a problem to track a larger issue because it's effecting more than one user or more than one location for our restaurants. From there, we run down root cause of what's actually causing this problem to happen. Then from that the developers will kick off change requests to permanently fix the problem. But if you don't have the incident management to replace or the ability to report and trend, then you never know that problem's happening because we have a really quick fix that we do all the time. So being able to see that trending and get ahead of the problems and get them out of the environment makes everyone's life easier.

How has it helped my organization?

From our perspective, it's the ability to customize it and provide the different platforms. A good example is that within our organization we have incident forms that are tailored to IT and we have incident forms that are tailored to other groups, like accounting supply chain. They're using the exact same incident form, but they're customizing the fields that show up based on their groups so that they get the experience and reporting they need out of the product, but we're all using one system of record and one form to do that in so we can report holistically.

The other part of that is from a customer and restaurant facing standpoint, we can build out those seamless pages, create custom portals for the restaurants, because obviously the IT view or the back end users view is not what a customer wants to experience. It lets us create that front end view for a customer to get what they need and still have that logic to the system for it to flow through and everything.

What needs improvement?

I think some of the areas for improvement are some of the features that get added sometimes and not a lot of help and resources get devoted to them. A good example is inside of my self-service portal, we use heavily utilizing the wizards that will actually walk users through a guided experience, asking questions, giving responses to lead them where they want to go because in the restaurant industry not everyone wants to fill out forms. They just want to be led by the hand. They're hired to run restaurants, not run computers. So, there's very little documentation on how to use them and how to build them. It's kind of one of the features that got put in but never really expounded upon because it's not been used a lot. So, we really taught ourselves how to use them.

The other one would be what I'm looking at now which is coaching loops. Very little documentation. Very little understanding of how it works. Again, learning it on my own because the book explains this is kind of the fields and what they do, but very little as far as actually using it as available. I would say sometimes they're great features, and they're great additions, but if there's not a lot of user adoption, then not a lot of documentation gets written for them.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been on ServiceNow for about four and a half, almost five years, and we've just upgraded to Geneva.

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What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

I think the only issue we've had is our recent upgrade to Geneva went a little wonky. But I think that was partially our fault. We had gotten a little bit behind on patching Fuji and then jumped to Geneva Patch 5. I think there was items missed. Even though it should have been cumulative, I think we had some items that were missed in there.

The other issue we had is when we deployed ServiceNow, we started with domain separation. Mostly because the consulting company we used said that's the only way to do it. It probably shouldn't have been done, but that's not a reflection of the product as much as the consultants we used at the time.

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

We used Altiris. Maintaining Altiris servers was getting very expensive. They were hosted locally. We had a very old version of Altiris. We never kept up with the new version, so it never went to the cloud. So very old, very hard to maintain. The admin we had at the time was retiring. But probably the biggest standpoint was how limited Altiris was. You really could not customize it. If you wanted to build reporting, you had to have a sequel admin do it for you because there was no user interface for reporting. It was the system sped out the sequel queries that it was told to do, but you had to write them in sequel. So, it was not very user friendly.

How was the initial setup?

I think in some ways we probably bit off more than we should have chewed, but we needed the product to replace Altiris. We had to fill that gap because of everything it did. From a stability standpoint, it was probably on the verge of collapse. We had to put a product in place to take it's place.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with ServiceNow directly now, but during the implementation, we found a third party to do it for us. We were involved, but we also relied heavily on that third party consultant because Altiris had been the only thing we knew for so long that this was a complete change. It was our huge step forward.

What other advice do I have?

Don't look at ServiceNow as what it can do for whatever department you're in, but try to get some buy in higher up in the organization because the more foundation and different groups you can get into ServiceNow at the beginning, the easier it is for the adoption. It really can become something for the entire organization. Getting that buy in from the beginning helps it grow a little faster.

If you've got 5 different groups that will be in it from the beginning, then some of the choices you're going to make are going to be a little bit different and they're going to be a little more future planned than, "I just need this for me". So, it's probably the biggest advice I can give is try to plan for the future.

I've seen other products. I've seen some of the stuff that they can do. Really haven't seen one that can, at least in my mind, replace our ServiceNow for everything that we've put into it, everything that we've done. It would be a very hard thing to do.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user459114 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Software Engineer at Southwest Airlines
Real User
We've been able to finally implement a CMDB.

What is most valuable?

There's pretty much nothing that I have found yet that I couldn't accomplish within ServiceNow if I wanted to. I think for us, we tried several times to implement a CMDB, a configuration management database, and it failed for various reasons. With ServiceNow, we were able to finally do that. My boss refers to that as the pink unicorn, the mythical creature that did not exist.

We finally made that happen with ServiceNow. I feel that CMDB is actually my license plate.

How has it helped my organization?

I think historically we have had a real warrior spirit. We would get in there and do it and sometimes that meant we would write something in house. I think that we would invest a whole lot of time on something, and we would get real attached to it. Then the next thing you knew, you blinked your eyes, and we were behind the times. I think that we've made a giant leap or two in the last year, year and a half or so, that we've been using ServiceNow, that I've been involved with.

Now we have invested the time in the CMDB. We've invested the time in a portal and catalog items and now we're moving towards automation and things. We moved from Eureka to Geneva and now we've got this whole fresh look and all these new features. We're able to stay a lot more current a lot faster because ServiceNow is doing the work to keep the platform updated, whereas we can just continue to provide value that is specific to us and what we're trying to do.

What needs improvement?

There's some platform code that is compiled and its Java code on the server side. There's no documented API on what the functions and properties are of that code, and we're not able to reflect that code to get it to make our own API. I think some of the platform devs have met with me in the developer hub and said that they are working to provide that because they can see why we'd want it. I'm excited to hear that that gap will get closed soon.

Also, some of the way that the patches would break the catalog and the catalog items would cause unnecessary changes to the lay out in the UI. Like moving a field label from the left to underneath. If you have 30 items on a page, or more, that's going to offset everything. Unnecessary moves and then unnecessary moves back, stuff like that.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's pretty solid. I think that on our dashboard it says 99.8% availability. Now a lot of my customers in the service desk that do our support line, over the phone or through chat, they're telling me that the CMDB look up for config items on the incoming incidents that they're starting, is way faster in Geneva. They've set it, set it, and reset it. It wasn't just a first impression. It's a lasting, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." They sent a special email. We don't normally have people that are raving fans of anything you provide tool wise. We have our customers who are usually raving fans on our airlines. This was kind of surprising to hear.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We add users constantly. We on-board people and they are automatically added. We have a portal that's internal for our users that don't need to do changer class but they do need to request things in the catalog so those people are able to log in and request stuff.

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

We didn't successfully implement a CMDB. I think different work groups were very siloed and they had the problem of, "Where's our stuff?" They each solved that problem on their own because there was no centralized management database. Some people used spreadsheets. Some people used Wiki Documents or Wiki Documents with spreadsheets in them. Other people just had it in their heads and like, "We'll go ask Jim or go ask Bob. Oh, Bob left. I'm sorry. Go ask Tim. Maybe Bob told Tim before he left." It was like that. What we were able to do was use this as the first product that actually worked. We did try a few other products but we weren't able to get that off the ground. I don't know if that really speaks to those products or if it was the lack of support that we had from our leadership to get it done. I wasn't involved so I don't remember who it was, but I don't believe they were home-grown.

How was the initial setup?

We used a tiered approach. We did like five or six release cycles to get to where we are. We started with CMDB and change management at the same time and I think that that really worked well. When we were working in Remedy, our CMDB only kind of had Oracle database names and host names. Windows or Linux host names and that's it. It was pretty flat and people were used to it and it wasn't a whole lot of information to ask people to put in their change request. When we came over, we were able to stand up change and people were satisfied with just having the host names, which was fairly simple. Then we were able to do kind of a crawl, walk, run, run with scissors sort of thing. I think that it went well.

What other advice do I have?

Come to a user group meeting and we'd love to connect, meet and show you what we've done and talk about where you're at and give you some feedback and advice about what worked, what didn't work, what we thought might work better.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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April 2024
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it_user458943 - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant VP at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
The improvement to organization is due to the amount of stuff that we can put in and then direct people to a single place instead of multiple places.

What is most valuable?

For me it's the development, and in the background it's very easy to manipulate forms, to write simple scripts and to do things. The developer side is very very easy. Because I stress velocity and therefore I can get a lot more work in, because it's so simple, I can maintain my high velocity.

How has it helped my organization?

We have 65,000 process users, and it's great. We've used it for ten years or so. We're actually one of the very first adopters of ServiceNow, so we've got a long history with it. The fact that they can do everything that we need to do. For us it's just the amount of stuff that we can put in there and direct people to a single place instead of multiple places.

What needs improvement?

I always say that I have never been asked to do something in ServiceNow that I couldn't do. They've just released mobile which is an update for the new release, which is a great step in the right direction. The push notification is the way of future, things like system emails and those sort of things are sort of an antiquated way of dealing with the notifications.

I would like to say less of an emphasis on those sort of things and more of emphasis on using ServiceNow as the notifier itself, so as you're logging in, you see the notifications of the things that you need to address then, not to getting spam in your email box. Because what happens invariably, this is the second company that I work for, what people do is they get tired of the ServiceNow emails and they just shove them into a folder and never pay attention to them, and at that point you've completely lost your audience. If there was a better way to get notifications out than email spam, that would be great.

For how long have I used the solution?

This is my fifth year using it. I'll be entering my sixth in August.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

My first instance was a June 2011 instance, and upgrading was a nightmare from that point. It got progressively better. Right now it is flawless, and it takes very little effort to do an upgrade, but getting to that point has been very very difficult. That's probably one of the other things that would be nice for ServiceNow to give us the ability to sort of see all the things that we have changed. Not in the middle of the upgrade, but just ahead of it, so you can try to knock those things out.

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

We used to have BMC Remedy and we've moved from that. We've consolidated in a single unified place for people to go and do anything IT related that they need to do.

How was the initial setup?

It was easy and straightforward. It's a web-based app essentially, so you get loaded onto a server, and we have twenty-four node cluster in one node. We're on primus and have 65,000 process users going to it. It's relatively easy, as far as getting it up and going and just turning the monitors on and letting people enter.

What other advice do I have?

First, I'd tell you to do it. I've been on four or five separate ITSM systems and ServiceNow has been the best. I've used Remedy, Vantive, and Autotask, and none of them come close to the ease of use and development that ServiceNow has.

I would tell you to step away sort of like as an architecture, because you can do a lot of things on servers now that wind up being dirty data or just technical death. Just be very true, with whatever you're doing, think about it, write it down, then implement it, that sort of thing.

I love it, I love the platform. In fact, I view my job as sort of not trying to put people out of the job. We need to consolidate, we have thousands of tools all over the place, we need to consolidate all those things and I'm very strong at let's consolidate it in ServiceNow, and get rid of all of the sort of money that we are throwing at things.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
BenjaminFang - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at Palo Alto Networks
Real User
Top 20
User-friendly and simple to use
Pros and Cons
  • "It is user-friendly and simple to use."
  • "The solution could be made cheaper. Machine learning and artificial intelligence should be introduced in the next release."

What is our primary use case?

The solution is being used for our ticketing system.

What is most valuable?

It is user-friendly and simple to use. 

What needs improvement?

The solution could be made cheaper. Machine learning and artificial intelligence should be introduced in the next release. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ServiceNow for two years. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of the solution is good. Presently, ten thousand users are using the solution. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. The deployment was done within a month. 

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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PeerSpot user
Director Delivery and ServiceNow Practice Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 10
Straightforward to setup with a low-code approach and offers excellent ROI potential
Pros and Cons
  • "ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI."
  • "Like all other IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS subscription cloud providers, ServiceNow is constantly improving by building new capabilities to expand the breadth and depth of its offerings while increasing its activities with partners to build more capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution in a variety of ways, including the NOW platform (CMDB, Workflows, Service Portal, Service Catalog, Reporting), Custom AppDev, SecOps (Vulnerability Response with Tenable integration and Security Incident Response), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC), IT Service Management (ITSM), IT Asset Management (ITAM), IT Operations Management (Service Mapping, Discovery, Event Management), IT Business Management (including Project Portfolio Management (PPM)), HR Service Delivery (HRSD), Software Asset Management (SAM), and Facilities Service Management (FSM).

How has it helped my organization?

We can now transform operations from excel spreadsheets and emails to a central system of record/truth. ServiceNow can either replace or integrate with a prospect/customer's existing solutions - especially if such integrations are common.

ServiceNow ensures a customer's investment by having 2 releases per year.  Prospect/customers considering implementing or expanding its ServiceNow investment should enlist the help of ServiceNow partners to support their effort throughout their journey.

ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI. 

What is most valuable?

The platform (PaaS) is a low-code/no-code platform on a secure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS - Government Cloud Computing environment (GCC)), with a single data model and a single system of record. Its applications (SaaS) can easily be extended with workflows and other built-in APIs together with the ServiceNow Integration Hub and other applications available on the ServiceNow Store. The platform is very flexible and built to be integrated.  

ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.

I have no further information to add to this, however, there is much more information offered by Forester, Gartner, and ServiceNow to augment this input.  

We are a ServiceNow partner, as well as Salesforce and other cloud-based IaaS, SaaS, and PaaS transformative solutions, and have been for over 10 years. Often, we are engaged with our customers for years, helping to build roadmaps that allow them to expand their solutions over time because resources are limited and organizational change management takes time.

What needs improvement?

Like all other IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS subscription cloud providers, ServiceNow is constantly improving by building new capabilities to expand the breadth and depth of its offerings while increasing its activities with partners to build more capabilities. As ServiceNow and its partners/customers expand the capabilities, I see new vertical applications being created (currently underway for TELCO and other industries). Stay tuned for more updates that not only provide new capabilities but also enhance existing ones.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been implementing ServiceNow for over 5 years for various clients.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has excellent stability and we're working with a client that has one of the largest implementations of ITSM and SecOps in the world.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution offers excellent scalability. For example, currently, we are working with a client that has one of the largest implementations of ITSM and SecOps in the world.

How are customer service and technical support?

The product offers excellent support.

How was the initial setup?

Yes, the process is straightforward, but using an experienced services firm is best - especially if implementing the product for the first time.

What about the implementation team?

CoreSphere, LLC - CSAT scores are published on the ServiceNow partner page. Other are reviews completed in the US Federal government's Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARs).

What was our ROI?

The ROI a company can get depends on the customer and the investment.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: CoreSphere, LLC is a ServiceNow Specialist Sales, Service, and Public Sector partner.
PeerSpot user
IT Systems Analyst Lead with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Trend reporting helps us focus on issues that come up, but better workflow would help
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the reporting aspect of it. It helps us know where we stand regarding the types of issues we're receiving... It also shows us trends. That enables us to possibly predict an issue that might come up in the future as well as what is happening right now. We will like that feature. With it, we can either avoid certain issues or know where we need to focus more regarding the service we provide."
  • "I would like the reporting aspect to be better, including the graphs. It could have some way for us to easily to export to a csv or spreadsheet so that if a graph cannot be provided by ServiceNow itself, we would be able to use other applications to create them. Also, if there was a feature that enabled us to interact with end users directly from ServiceNow, like an instant-messaging type of feature, that would be great."

What is our primary use case?

We use ServiceNow mostly for our IT ticketing business. Recently we set up the Request portion of ServiceNow and we're using it as well.

How has it helped my organization?

It enables us to interact with our end users and helps us resolve whatever incident they might be having. We get incident reports and it helps us get set up with trends so that we'll get resolutions to those incidents.

What is most valuable?

I like the reporting aspect of it. It helps us know where we stand regarding the types of issues we're receiving, the types of incidents that come in.

It also shows us trends. That enables us to possibly predict an issue that might come up in the future as well as what is happening right now. We like that feature. With it, we can either avoid certain issues or know where we need to focus more regarding the service we provide.

What needs improvement?

I would like the reporting aspect to be better, including the graphs. It could have some way for us to easily to export to a csv or spreadsheet so that if a graph cannot be provided by ServiceNow itself, we would be able to use other applications to create them.

Also, if there was a feature that enabled us to interact with end users directly within ServiceNow, like an instant-messaging type of feature, that would be great. 

Another nice feature would be a way to easily to assign tickets and incidents to the techs who will be working on them. That could be better. Other than that, the system seems to be working just fine.

For how long have I used the solution?

Three to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've had no issues with the stability of the solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are okay with the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

I would rate technical support at seven or eight out of ten. They are pretty much on time. They're willing to help.

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

When I started with the company, we outsourced our issues. When we brought IT in-house, ServiceNow was the first system we used.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward, easily understandable with the training we did. There might have been some kinks but everything was worked out in due time. It was fine.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There were a few other options we evaluated but I don't remember the specific product names.

What other advice do I have?

Learn anything you need to know direclty from ServiceNow. It's a good product. I can't really knock it. Go ahead and give it a try. As long as it fits your environment, I think it's a fine product.

I would rate ServiceNow at seven out of ten. I would like to see a little more automation. It may just be the type of license we have which doesn't give us full automation, but that would be one of the things that I would like in ServiceNow. That would make things easier for both the techs and the end users. In addition, I would like to see a better workflow setup within ServiceNow.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Sr. Systems Manager at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Reliable, easy to deploy, and good for tracking incidents
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution."
  • "We are struggling with the scheduling part, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a ServiceNow issue. It could be the way we have configured it. We don't have it configured in a way where you can schedule a support call with our end users. We are looking for more automation in the box and the chat feature."

What is our primary use case?

We mainly use it for requests and tracking incidents. We are onboarding our HR team, and they are going to start using the HR module in it as well. We also use it for asset management and configuration management. 

We are using the Paris release.

What is most valuable?

I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution.

What needs improvement?

We are struggling with the scheduling part, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a ServiceNow issue. It could be the way we have configured it. We don't have it configured in a way where you can schedule a support call with our end users.

We are looking for more automation in the box and the chat feature.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been on ServiceNow for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable. There are no issues at all.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have around 60,000 or 70,000 users or maybe more.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't contacted them.

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

We used an IBM tool. We switched because we were told that we were switching.

How was the initial setup?

I didn't set it up, but it is pretty simple.

What other advice do I have?

It is a great tool. Most companies in my industry use ServiceNow.

I would rate ServiceNow an eight out of ten.

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
Ligia Godoi - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Service Delivery Manager at DXC
Real User
A stable solution for processing and cataloging customer service requests
Pros and Cons
  • "It's a very low-code platform, and it's simple. The user experience is also really good."
  • "I know that discovery tools are not meant to be simple, but somehow, if they could make it more simple and robust, that would be great."

What is our primary use case?

We use ServiceNow for all service delivering processes within service management. For service and incident problems, change and configuration management, relief management, and event management.

Within our organization, there are roughly 30,000 users, using ServiceNow.

What is most valuable?

From a service perspective, I think that being able to customize it great. It's a very low-code platform, and it's simple. The user experience is also really good.

What needs improvement?

From a configuration/discovery perspective, how you map your infrastructure and the relationship — that could be improved in a sense to make it simpler. I know that discovery tools are not meant to be simple, but somehow, if they could make it more simple and robust, that would be great.

You just need plenty of experience with the solution, then it becomes much easier to use.

Other than that, I can't think of anything else that I would like ServiceNow to include in the next release. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ServiceNow for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

ServiceNow is very stable. The scalability is also great.

How are customer service and technical support?

I can't evaluate their technical support because I don't get support from ServiceNow myself. I'm responsible for implementing it for our clients, but we don't provide support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very easy.

Initially, deployment took us eight months. Once we had some experience with it, we could deploy it in four months.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to evaluate the license more — seriously look into their licensing options. The way that ServiceNow licenses the product, there is no concurrent user model so you have to pay for each user, and each type of user, that uses the tool. It can be very expensive depending on how you use it. Sometimes you cannot implement other modules because they don't have a budget for that. So make sure you correctly look over the different types of licenses to make sure you understand what to expect.

ServiceNow should review and make the solution more flexible for clients who have more users, or users that are not concurring, to know how to share licenses. To have options depending on how the client wants to use them so that everyone can benefit from it — that would be my advice. 

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

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free ServiceNow Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free ServiceNow Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.