What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?

The tool needs greater customization flexibility, particularly concerning notifications and the progressive view web page. This is significant because it encompasses various aspects like incident management, problem management, change management, work orders, and tasks. Aligning the GUI interface with these functionalities requires more flexibility. It also needs improvement in product categorization and information organization based on feedback and surveys. Currently, there are limitations in terms of user-friendliness and customization options. For instance, the inability to adjust certain categories or banners hampers usability, especially compared to other platforms like AngularJS or NodeJS. The tool needs improvement in monitoring. Every asset has a plethora of monitoring tools available in the market. Requirements may vary from customer to customer, but from what I've observed in large-scale industries, it falls short. From my experience, it typically takes around six to seven months for BMC Helix ITSM to go through the discovery phase, provide releases, test them repeatedly, and so on. Over the past four or five years, I've raised various cases with different companies, and it consistently took a minimum of three to six months to resolve them. Sometimes, I had to close the cases because I had to move to a newer version to overcome those bugs. Apart from that, it's been quite challenging when it comes to performance because we haven't received that level of support. So, there's a need for improvement or better resources to be allocated at the initial stage. I wouldn't say that we don't receive support, but if the right resources are aligned at the right time, it would make things easier for the end customer.

Regarding reporting, when sharing information with leadership, we utilize BI support and data or more analytical tools. These tools provide accurate and comprehensive reports, covering various aspects. Reports are either sent directly through email or automated using scripts. It would be beneficial to integrate similar capabilities into BMC for future use. Many applications we work with already have a centralized virtual automation tool, such as Control M, but manual effort is still required. Improvements in automation for accurate and efficient reporting in BMC would be valuable.

Working with numerous processes can be complex, and the processes are not always transparent in the solution. At times, users may not be aware of the meaning behind various processes when receiving certain information. The most frequently requested change for the solution is integrating the latest technology to facilitate interactive resolution.

BMC Helix ITSM should have an easy-to-use user interface. The solution should also have a more contemporary look.

There are plugins to the solution that have come onto the market, so the solution should also be updated in terms of administration to increase efficiency. That is why we have come up with other products that have a similar use case. BMC needs to come up with a plug-and-play system that requires a minimal partition, it would be highly beneficial.

The documentation could improve in BMC Helix ITSM.

Our middleman provider limits the available functionality so we cannot even do our own analytics. It is important to check your products and services. We used to be able to draw data, export, and do our own analytics. Now, we have to rely on our provider and that is not a good relationship.

The dashboard and search features could both be improved. You can't edit a ticket via the console which is frustrating. It requires opening the default view that takes you to an older version of Remedy. There are other small drawbacks although there could be a couple of things that need to be improved on our end. CMDB is not up to par yet and requires some work.

When BMC Helix ITSM did some upgrades it caused some issues. They have fixed some of the problems but more improvement is needed. BMC solutions are now multiple solutions, they are not one comprehensive solution. It would be beneficial if there was one installation that could be done for all the solutions together. It would make it a lot easier to upgrade. They should improve the reporting and dashboard. However, we have seen the smart report and dashboard, it was very good and I know they have enhanced it with Grafana. They are using Grafana with the latest version, but we did not try it yet.

We've had some small problems using the solution. It doesn't work perfectly. There are some limitations or restrictions to using BMC Helix. For example, when we do some reporting, the reporting interface should be more user-friendly from my point of view. When compared to ServiceNow, it is lacking. Also, there are so many restrictions when I am using the reporting. For example, there's a limitation on the number of records that can be returned. Maybe it is a performance issue? Therefore, the reporting aspect definitely is one of the things that need to improve for BMC Helix. One of the things it can improve is the mobile app for support. When we submit a ticket on the incident and assign it to someone, we must use the computer instead of the mobile app. We'd like it to be mobile based as well.

In the back office, for the expertise technicians, it's more complex to manage the layout. The back office for the expertise needs work. It's too specialized for technicians. Sorry, they need to simplify this background and back office more. For this level of support, it's very complex, and for the customers, it's an issue. The biggest issue for our customers is the back office for the specializations through the second and third lines of support. The management of the solution, the maintenance of the solution is based on this back office, so it's very complex for the teams to manage the solution. It's very difficult to implement. Support could be better. I'd like to see the globalization of the solution. The solution has varied models needed to make a simple implementation. BMC needs to look to a centralized solution, an all-in-one solution. To implement ITSM, I need to have a model for change management, I need to have a model for orchestration, I need to have a model for workflow design, and all suites of BMC have this problem. With ServiceNow, all are included in the ITSM solution. For example, however, for BMC, we need varied models to implement. The customers also need to maintain the solution after the implementation. It is very difficult for them to give that support.

BMC Helix ITSM should improve its price.

BMC Helix ITSM could improve by having a cloud version. They are working on it which is a good thing because their competitors, such as ServiceNow, already provide cloud services.

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.

There's some confusion with the BMC roadmap. The BMC Remedy Mid Tier architecture didn't have a good-looking frontend, but you could build any functionality, so it had a lot of flexibility. The frontend of BMC Smart IT is relatively limited in its ability to change, hide, and show fields and those kinds of things that pop up. With Helix, they're trying to build things and add a little more capabilities, but they still have a long way to go. It's not a complete solution. For example, they are phasing out Smart Reporting because it doesn't fit well in an ITSM solution. It needs a more organic workflow, so every field you create is labeled throughout the stack. BMC has a few products that they try to bundle together. Generally, that solution works. BMC should take a step back and think about the overall solution—not only ITSM but also CTI Integration along with chat. They have all that, but it's not an end-to-end holistic solution with the added reporting analytics.

It's expensive, particularly in the emerging market where you see a lot of customers that have a budget crunch over issues. They like the products a lot, but when it comes to the costing part of it, sometimes they say it's not in their budget. They go and they compromise, instead of compromising on the budget front. Sometimes they go with an open source or a cheaper tool. They have scalability issues, and they don't get quality support. Sometimes on the pricing front, we lose some deals, particularly in the emerging market.

BMC Helis ITSM is a very good tool, can be customized, can be integrated with other tools but still has the scope of improvements from a UI/UX perspective. some of them are listed below:

1. Offline updates should be allowed in Smart IT, this will ease the life of field engineers, remote service desk engineers in case of any network, power failure as most of the staff are now working remotely.

2. Smart IT has limitations when it comes to workflow customizations in Remedy. It's difficult to use both Mid-Tier and Smart IT consoles together. It should be either one - Mid-tier is old and traditional but still holds together the Remedy tool from the support agent perspective. No doubt Smart IT is modern UI and much better look and feel but doesn't help a lot of things don't work.

3. Huge Gap between Digital Workplace - Basic and Advanced Version. Basic is free and very limited whereas Advanced is a paid option but full of capabilities and features. Most of the customers think of a budget and go with the Basic and get disappointed and regret using the Basic.

4. On-Premise still incurs a lot of cost on Hardware, implementation, and upgrades. BMC should quickly look for the Containerized On-Premise version as well.

To raise any ticket, there are too many fields to be filled and it makes generating tickets very time-consuming. Some fields should take data automatically; for example, ticket routing to the teams after entering the team's respective CI (Configuration Item). This will save time and creating tickets would be faster. The GUI looks a bit complex and can be much better. When generating reports, there are limited options to customize as per user requirement. It is in need of better customization so that these requirements can be satisfied.

The notifications that the solution is providing are very helpful, they should keep improving them for the future.

I have customers that always would like to adapt and personalize BMC Helix ITSM more.

Functionality-wise, it falls short of our expectations. This could be the way we have it deployed. Perhaps, the functionalities have not been enabled 100% in our organization. There could be some additional features that our enterprise is not aware of, yet is available. There is a text editor that we use to enter our incident description or service request description, and it should be richer in terms of features. For example, it would be helpful if we had more formatting options.

Helix is not quite as mature as ServiceNow, which is a complete product. All of its technology is current. Helix needs to enhance some of its functionality with the latest technology. For example, Helix could improve its chatbot automation to automate more use cases.

It would be great if BMC could integrate some new solution — something like DevOps — and improve the smart reporting features. Plus, I would like to see the BMC add advanced DWP features and customization to the standard package. Furthermore, BMC does not have any leverage for non-IT services, so it would be nice if BMC could integrate something like HR Change Management into ITSM itself.

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.

One of the issues with the solution is the requirement to provide a lot of information in order to log a request. I'm not talking about end users, technicians or engineers need to provide too much information to initiate a work order or an incident. It doesn't flow; access should require minimal effort. They should consider using ITIL principles and not just IT.

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.

The reports need improvement, it is not a good functioning tool. No one in my organization seems to be able to use the reports properly. I think it is a dysfunction in the product because there has to be a more simplistic form for building those reports to allow the extrapolation of information for trend analysis and other operations. You want to be able to pull information from a variety of sources to see how you are providing support to the customer, this is what your performance base is. This is why those reports are a significant piece of the equation. You need to be able to produce those right now. People would rather create spreadsheets on their own and just thumb through all kinds of time-consuming tasks, why not use the actual databases that are there to produce that information.

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.

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.

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.

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.

All products can be improved. For this solution, the customization could be improved. BMC has its own community where we can go in and suggest ideas and changes to the products, which is great, but at times BMC is not very responsive. There have been suggestions that were submitted five years ago and still not delivered. BMC has indicated that it was in development. They could be more responsive to feedback from their community board.

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.