OpenText Service Manager Other Advice

MEKKAB Raouf - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Service Manager & Technology Integration DevOps at Djezzy

We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS.

They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs.

I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. 

I'd rate the product nine out of ten.

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Farah Ben Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
DLO Veritas Backup solution Project Manager at Tunisie Telecom

I would rate Micro Focus Service Manager at seven on a scale from one to ten.

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PJ
Head of Strategic Ecosystems and Accounts for Pedab Group at Pedab

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. 

This is really a capable solution. It works for all kinds of needs and dimensions you might have in a project.

My advice is to find a partner who can advise you, but also has experience from installing these types of projects. Normally, technology is not super different, in terms of user interface. It's important to have someone who understands you, and can implement this and support you as you get the processes and the way of working going. I think that's important. 

Work closely with the vendors of course, when you're assessing what the issue is, but also find a partner that has the experience and the hands-on experience on how to not only install the solution, but how to get the value out of these projects by implementing in a way where you get the organizations adopted and customers.

For ServiceNow, but especially for Micro Focus, there are some partners who could be helping out and guiding you a lot.

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Buyer's Guide
IT Service Management (ITSM)
March 2024
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it_user251856 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, IT Service Management at Dignity Health

I considered the integration capabilities, that is, being able to integrate the suite of HP tools to already existing tools (in this case, also HP (SiteScope, AssetManager, BSM, etc.)). I was not involved in the initial purchase by Dignity Health, but I know price was important, so I assume it was also important when choosing HP.

Part of the challenge for any organization is the scale with which you intend to use any solution. This means that for larger organizations using Service Manager, HP could scale no matter what the demand was. However, many products are limited in their ability to scale. When looking at software, I think scalability should be important. If you can’t find that, walk away.

Also, they have a very poor follow-up. The technology itself isn’t very bad, but HP's lack of follow-up by its sales organizations has driven me the other direction. Not a single sales person followed up when I mentioned this a year ago. But, I still use the other tools pretty extensively and I intend to expand on them. I am, however, looking at a new service desk solution.

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TK
Service Management Architect at Kandrel

We are a partner. 

We are on the latest version of the product. 

New users should know their business requirements and how to adopt and justify the product. An out-of-the-box solution may not be ideal. You will likely need to customize it.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten. 

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DB
Principal at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I would rate Micro Focus Service Manager a five out of ten because it does what it needs to do. It is not bad from that perspective, but it clearly has room for improvement.

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it_user264057 - PeerSpot reviewer
HP Service Manager Technical Lead @ PepsiCo at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Have a firm grasp on your business processes and how you’d like to see them implemented.

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it_user671310 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

When looking for a new product, check how the user interface looks. That was the mistake that we made. We underestimated the acceptance of the end user community of the interface. And we currently use the Service Request Catalog for HPE Service Manager, which is really bad. We had big acceptance issues with our user community on that product.

The other issue is how the administration of the tool works and how many resources you really need to administrate it, to keep it running, and to keep it alive. That's something that shouldn't be underestimated.

Check how much configuration customization you can do in the system without impacting the upgrade path and increasing the upgrade effort for the system.

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it_user567813 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of ITSM application support team (JUMP! program) at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Keep it simple. Do not do a lot of customization. Keep the implementation of the tool simple.

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it_user469491 - PeerSpot reviewer
Release Manager at United Airlines

The interface is good, I like it. It's easy to use. It's intuitive and it does go to the mobile app for verification and approvals and it's easy to use on the mobile app. Just make sure that the PCs that are going to run the non-graphic interface have a fast processor because if they don't it's very time consuming to use.

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it_user398232 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Utilities Applications at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I think it's fair to say it is a workhorse. It's extremely reliable, relatively cost effective, scalable, and has good existing integration points.

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WA
IT service Delivery Manager Managed services projects at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would recommend Service Manager to other users, and I'd rate it seven out of ten.

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Shrikant Pillay - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Management Consultant at Tata Consultancy

I don't think I will recommend  Micro Focus Service Manager to potential users. But if the customer wants it and it fits the requirement, then it's okay to go ahead with it.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Micro Focus Service Manager an eight.

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it_user252612 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Operational Excellence at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We wanted to align with Intel, we wanted them to be a cloud offering, and we also needed a technology market leader that could offer diverse set of offerings. So for us, we wanted to invest in one company that could service all of our needs across the board.

We will upgrade to 9.40 before the end of the summer, but there are still some adoption issues. We struggle with and the simplicity of getting reporting data at a high level, and output is not where it needs to be for us. But as far as having an easily supportable and deployable product, it’s really changed the work we manage IT in the company.

Call HP, call BMC, call CA, call Service Now. Be skeptical of the guys that say “we can do whatever you want”. Partner with somebody that has a vision of how IT service management is supposed to work and shift your business in that direction.

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it_user568176 - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Leader IT Service Management Presales Eng at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I advise others to use the HP Service Manager because it's a powerful and capable enterprise solution.

The reason for choosing this product is that it is an enterprise tool and HP is a big company that supports its product powerfully. I have started working with it since 2009 and up until now, I have used about 6 versions, i.e., from version 7 to 9.5. Since HP is a big company, it has the ability to keep growing and that is an important factor for selecting this vendor.

The missing factor in this product is that there are some processes that are not mapped to the ITIL V3. Only 11 processes are certified for the ITIL V3; another 5-6 processes are not certified. Thus, it needs more customization and development that applies to the processes in regards to this aspect. In addition to this, the support team takes a long time to reach a solution and we want a faster response.

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DL
Senior Consultant Project Management & Transition at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

I rate Micro Focus Service Manager four out of 10. I wouldn't recommend it. I would suggest ServiceNow. There may be solutions better suited for smaller companies. There are always alternatives because the architecture isn't terribly complex. 

The architecture is the same across solutions, and everything is linked. There are no modules to be bought from some other company in the past and integrated. ServiceNow also its disadvantages, but if you compare it to Service Manager, I can safely say ServiceNow is the future and Service Manager is the past.

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it_user568071 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - IT Roadmap (IT Operations and Service Management Program) at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

First of all, compare, for sure. We use an HPE product; we still look at other vendors and competitors. We have a long history with HP/HPE. Now, what I would also say is, wait, because in my shop, we know we are a pure customer of this software product. We know it's moving away from HPE going to another company. They say nothing will change. We'll see. I think it brings uncertainty, and they're well aware of that.

If I had a colleague or a friend of mine say to me, "I need a service management solution.", I would say, “We have a nice, wonderful solution.” Now, what it will look like in a couple of years is less clear than what I would have said last year. So, we'll see. Normally, nothing will change, but we just know the name of the new company. We don't know what the leaders will choose, even if right now, the HPE people we see say, "Nothing will change." I think that will be the case for one year, but they can't speak for 2-3 years.

No vendor is perfect. There's always improvement possible, so nobody deserves a perfect rating. Why not a lower rating? I think they're doing a good job, and they listen to customers.

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it_user486633 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect for IT Infrastructure Management Tools portfolio at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's a good solid product. We're not unhappy with it. We're not overjoyed with it, and we're big time looking at Service Anywhere and other SaaS solutions for that space as opposed to internally hosted. We brought it in in the late 2000s and it served us well. We're approaching 2017 and we're looking at what we can do much more cloud based.

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Naresh Markapuram - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Service Delivery Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I rate HP Service Manager an eight out of ten.

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FB
Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

I've been consulting with companies about using the solution and largely deal with the on-premises deployment model.

I'd advise others to really take their time and think about the specifications before they embark on implementation. They must be sure that the positions are implemented or not via their ITSM processes that are already in their company. 

To implement some features, it's possible to lose an entire year, so it's best to hire an expert to provide guidance and advice about what is feasible.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. It's an improved rating since the last version. However, it still needs to be more user-friendly can could continue to improve its stability.

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it_user568191 - PeerSpot reviewer
Incident and Problem Manager at a pharma/biotech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

My main advice is to work with the tool the way it is and don't customize it. I guess that’s one of things we picked up that's very key, to be honest. I guess just determine where your priorities are and start working with whichever module covers them.

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it_user568182 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Consultant at Innova

We suggest to our customers that they use a similar solution to Service Manager even if they use different products. But we do suggest they switch to HPE products. We think it’s worth switching over to HPE. They are a good company.

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Islam Bayraktar - PeerSpot reviewer
PPM Services Director at OPTIIM

I would recommend this solution. It's a classic with an operating system that can easily adapt and be implemented.

70 to 80% of the time with different cases the customer's requirements can be met.

The customer can start to implement the incident management with just one post. if you feel that you want to add more, you can add the change management, it can be implemented step by step.

There is always a place for improvement.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

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it_user671370 - PeerSpot reviewer
Configuration Manager

You need to spend a lot of time getting it developed. Make sure you go over areas brought into it so you can then show the value of what it can do. Once you've then got it, then you can prove to the business that this is how important it is, being able to understand your IT. What makes up your IT. Then of course, if you're trying to pass that information into other areas, like asset management or software license management, it's all feeding from the same place. So you can then at least get something which is meaningful at the end.

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it_user614100 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Business Systems Reporting Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Service Manager is a very versatile system that can be tailored in many ways to suit many customers' requirements.

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it_user567921 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Channels Database Administrator and Way4 System Administrator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

It's a good product.

I would advise colleagues to get the latest release because I’ve been told the reporting has been sorted out in this new release. I am interested in upgrading to get that. If what I'm told is true, then that's a good product.

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it_user482028 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

There's a lot of features we're not using currently, some of which we're thinking about using. There's just a lot to it, a lot more than we really need in most of our cases right now.

Definitely check in with Packard App. There's a lot of good software applications that they provide. They've got a good integration with their hardware. Overall, HP will just give you a really great solution.

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it_user567573 - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Engineer at T-Systems

The best solution depends on your needs. You should consider different solutions and decide which best fits your needs. Ask yourself whether HPE Service Manager can provide you what it provides us.

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it_user484743 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director Infrasructure Services at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Look at everything out there. Think about how you're going to grow in the future, because that's going to certainly impact the cost of the product.

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it_user671319 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems admin at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

I'm in finance, so it's mostly the reliability part that is important while selecting a vendor. As a company, we are trying to be reliable to the outside world, so we need reliable suppliers that can support this ideology.

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it_user363291 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at Canberra Solutions Ltd

Get it. It's a one-stop-shop solution.

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it_user192834 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Management Consultant with 10,001+ employees

My only concern is the flexibility of the product in smaller environments. HP do recommend people use their Service Anywhere product for SMEs. Unfortunately the nature of some businesses and agencies is that this isn't possible and they insist on their own in-house tool.

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it_user568065 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

HPE is a strategic partner for doing such work. I would advise colleagues who are considered this solution to take it.

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IN
Enterprise Service Management Head at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

I would recommend Micro Focus Service Manager.

On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd rate this solution a 7.

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Buyer's Guide
IT Service Management (ITSM)
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText, ServiceNow, BMC and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.