Andrii Dobrovolskyi - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Dominos Pizza
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Offers various good features including automation, SCMBB, incident management, problem management, change management, VM access management
Pros and Cons
  • "We always get good support."
  • "There is room for improvement in price."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for HR, IT, finance, and many other processes. A lot is automated with ServiceNow.

What is most valuable?

We use automation, SCMBB, incident management, problem management, change management, VM access management, and more.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in price. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for more than five years now. 

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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is highly stable solution. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is low. There are around a thousand end users using this solution. I used it daily.  It's core to our operations.

How are customer service and support?

We always get good support.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We used an internal, self-coded solution. We needed more features and functions, like CDP and other integrated solutions for broader support.

How was the initial setup?

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a six out of ten, with ten being easy. Not super easy, but not super difficult either.

Overall, deployment took us a few days. It's still ongoing as we integrate with internal systems, but the core setup was quick.

It directly connects to our main database for authorization and asset storage. It's also part of our ERP system and connects to various management systems. We have a lot of systems that connect to ServiceNow.

What about the implementation team?

We always use an integrator. Around five engineers from the integrator. 

Two or three engineers manage it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, with ten being expensive. 

What other advice do I have?

It's the best for me. I would rate the solution a ten 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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Khalid Qureshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Architect at Afiniti.com
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
The workspace feature helps us manage multiple projects, but it's not as user-friendly as some solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "I like ServiceNow's Workspace feature. With Jira, we had to edit a ticket by going into it. We couldn't perform edits from within the project plan. ServiceNow allows you to edit everything from one screen. It's like an Excel spreadsheet, but Jira requires you to drill down into the ticket. ServiceNow is more convenient if you are working on multiple projects and workflows."
  • "We can't update bulk tickets using a simple query language. Jira lets us update hundreds of tickets with one command. In ServiceNow, you need to select each task separately to close them. The dashboards could also be more user-friendly. Monday.com has better dashboards."

What is our primary use case?

I work in the compliance department at my company, and we use ServiceNow to manage our team members' tasks.

How has it helped my organization?

ServiceNow helps us deliver projects on schedule. When we start a new project, we share the deadlines with the various team members, and they perform their assigned tasks. 

What is most valuable?

I like ServiceNow's Workspace feature. With Jira, we had to edit a ticket by going into it. We couldn't perform edits from within the project plan. ServiceNow allows you to edit everything from one screen. It's like an Excel spreadsheet, but Jira requires you to drill down into the ticket. ServiceNow is more convenient if you are working on multiple projects and workflows. 

What needs improvement?

We can't update bulk tickets using a simple query language. Jira lets us update hundreds of tickets with one command. In ServiceNow, you need to select each task separately to close them. The dashboards could also be more user-friendly. Monday.com has better dashboards.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used ServiceNow for a month and a half.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate ServiceNow nine out of 10 for stability. We haven't had any downtime except for platform maintenance and upgrades. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate ServiceNow 10 out of 10 for scalability. ServiceNow is a highly scalable platform that can work for large enterprise. We have around 1,000 employees, and we use it heavily. Scalability is never an issue. 

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

We previously used Jira and Monday. Monday is user-friendly and interactive. It's more appropriate for beginners. ServiceNow is better for professional teams who have some knowledge and experience. Monday is accessible and intuitive. It's easy to create dashboards,

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't part of the deployment, but I believe it was straightforward because ServiceNow is a cloud-based application. The initial planning took about three months, but the deployment only took one or two weeks. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I rate ServiceNow eight out of 10. It's too expensive. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We're currently considering Microsoft's SharePoint portal.

What other advice do I have?

I rate ServiceNow seven out of 10. ServiceNow is better than competing solutions we've used like Jira and Monday.com, and they're working hard to improve organizational processes. They're doing a great job. I would recommend them. Their technical support and deployment team are better than the solution itself. They understand how to refine processes to help you perform better. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Senior Business Systems Analyst - Enterprise Methodology and Process Program Manager at Judicial Council of California
Real User
Fantastic out-of-the-box dashboards and reporting, great stability, and very user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "The Idea Portal and the PPM platform are most valuable. Their out-of-the-box dashboards and reporting are fantastic. I use them almost on a weekly basis. I have developed a couple of PMO dashboards for reporting. It is user-friendly. Everything is done through a navigation bar, and it makes things a lot easier that way."
  • "They can maybe improve the area of agile project management. They do have user storyboards and other things, but we kind of lean on Jira for that work. This is perhaps an area that could be looked at a little more."

What is our primary use case?

Primarily, we use it for our service desk and IT help desk ticketing. We also have the PPM module. ServiceNow is our main PPM platform at the moment. We use the Idea Portal for project requests, and we are also in the process of installing the financial module. We're using the latest version of ServiceNow.

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved the way in which projects are requested and assessed. We used to have two forms that PMs used to send out. We had a committee that would say yes or no and allocate the resources and the time for the project. PMs used to bring the forms, and I used to go through them with the committee. With the Demand process, we have been able to automate that. We now have what is called a Demand Pipeline. PMs still come and present at the committee, but everything is easier to track now and automated. We go through the process of the demand and then turn it into a project, which I find very useful, at least on my end.

It does exactly what I need it to do. I report to the CIO and senior managers for the overall projects. It is great for me because I can show them fancy graphics and makes my life easy.

What is most valuable?

The Idea Portal and the PPM platform are most valuable. Their out-of-the-box dashboards and reporting are fantastic. I use them almost on a weekly basis. I have developed a couple of PMO dashboards for reporting.

It is user-friendly. Everything is done through a navigation bar, and it makes things a lot easier that way.

What needs improvement?

They can maybe improve the area of agile project management. They do have user storyboards and other things, but we kind of lean on Jira for that work. This is perhaps an area that could be looked at a little more.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for about two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a great product. I haven't had any issues with it so far, and it has been working well.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It has been really good for us. For portfolio and program management, which is my area, ServiceNow is my go-to place. It is only the agile module that people aren't using as much because they're used to Jira. We kind of allow our project managers to use whichever product they want for their project management.

We are adding modules as we proceed. The financial module is coming soon. We already have the Service Portal deployed, which is being used. We are also looking at doing a service catalog type of thing.

We are a large organization, but ServiceNow is mostly being used by our IT. Our user base is around 300. We have one admin.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't interacted with them.

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

We used to use Planview, and we moved to ServiceNow to incorporate one platform for everything. It also made a lot of sense financially. We were at the end of our contract, so we decided to go for a new solution. It took us some time to deploy it, but overall, it works better for us. It has good metrics.

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty straightforward. It took about three months. We had to migrate our former projects from Planview PPM. It wasn't hard. We just had to make sure that everything was in there.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with a third-party company to get things set up, and they were experts in those areas. They were fantastic.

What other advice do I have?

On the PPM side, I am quite satisfied with what is there. Apart from submitting tickets, I haven't used the ticketing system to its full functionality, so I can't really comment on that. We are quite satisfied with the tool. Its out-of-box reporting is quite balanced. We didn't require much customization when we deployed it. We did some customization, but we tried to stay out of the box as much as possible to make things easier for us. It has been working really great out of the box.

If you have no experience in using it and if you are just deploying it, not migrating from another solution, it should be pretty straightforward. With a little bit of training and help from ServiceNow, it should be up and running in a couple of days. If you are doing a large-scale migration, as we did, I would probably recommend using a third-party contractor.

I would rate ServiceNow a ten out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Farah Ben Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
DLO Veritas Backup solution Project Manager at Tunisie Telecom
Real User
Is user friendly and allows for customization of the service portal
Pros and Cons
  • "I like that in ServiceNow creating workflows is simpler than that in HP Service Manager. Also, I really like the customization feature. It allows us to customize the service portal and permits us to do a lot of customization per business needs."
  • "There is a need to learn scripting because as in the case of all the ITSM tools, scripting is needed for customization. If you're not very comfortable with scripting, then you may feel that you cannot do everything in ServiceNow without learning scripting."

What is most valuable?

I like that in ServiceNow creating workflows is simpler than that in HP Service Manager. Also, I really like the customization feature. It allows us to customize the service portal and permits us to do a lot of customization per business needs.

It covers all the modules regarding ITSM, IT asset management, and customer service as well. That is, all modules are covered in the same platform.

It is very user friendly, and I've enjoyed using the dashboard and user interface.

Technical support is great, and a lot of documentation is available on Google.

What needs improvement?

There is a need to learn scripting because as in the case of all the ITSM tools, scripting is needed for customization. If you're not very comfortable with scripting, then you may feel that you cannot do everything in ServiceNow without learning scripting.

The licensing costs are high for companies in Tunisia.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the open source version for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have found it to be a stable, reliable solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have discovered a lot of support and a lot of documentation on Google. So the information is always available.

Sometimes, I have opened a ticket to ask participants in the community, and I have always got an answer from support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is not complex.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend this solution because it's a very well performing solution. As a result, I would rate ServiceNow at ten on a scale from one to ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Global Alliances Manager at Tech Mahindra Limited
Real User
Top 20
Cost-effective for IT service management and IT operations management
Pros and Cons
  • "ServiceNow offers a range of ITSM, IT incident management, and PRCPs."
  • "The utilization of AI in ServiceNow needs enhancement."

What is our primary use case?

There are multiple use cases associated with ServiceNow. The major use case is IT service management, incident management, and IT operations management. ServiceNow offers GRC and solutions that integrate with other security systems for cybersecurity. I have been involved in both ITOM and ITSM.

What is most valuable?

ServiceNow offers a range of ITSM, IT incident management, and PRCPs. The entire platform makes it an excellent product for users. Its capability to manage end-to-end ITSM is necessary because no other competitor is offering such a comprehensive solution.

What needs improvement?

The utilization of AI in ServiceNow needs enhancement. Their incident management system requires attention. If you examine it closely, there's an extension available in the market for future consideration. ServiceNow is quite advanced in incident management solutions. If ServiceNow aims to improve its incident management capabilities by incorporating AI/ML and other general components, it would advance the product and enhance its use cases, ultimately boosting productivity. This would lead to improved overall value for enterprise customers.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ServiceNow for eight to ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

ServiceNow is a very stable product. I have heard a couple of integration issues in some places.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

ServiceNow can be easily scalable. However, scaling down may pose a problem because, if someone has purchased a certain quantity of subscription-based licenses, they cannot be reduced. You have to complete the term of those licenses whether you're scaling down or up.

We cater the solution to enterprise customers.

How are customer service and support?

Our delivery team used to interact with ServiceNow, and they used to receive support from them. They are responsive. Most of the time, issues are resolved. They ensure a smooth delivery process and quick response. In certain complicated situations, such as new integrations where ServiceNow is not supported, there is a lot of email exchanges.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

ServiceNow offers a very comprehensive tool that covers end-to-end IT services and IT operations management. This is where enterprise customers seek an end-to-end solution. ServiceNow is being adopted by numerous customers. I have experience with BMC Solutions.

BMC also provides an IT service management platform called BMC Remedy. Remedy is less comprehensive and user-friendly compared to ServiceNow. I've encountered support and configuration issues with BMC Remedy.

How was the initial setup?

There is a large pool of trained workforce available for ServiceNow. Considering their market share, which exceeds 60%, there are ample skilled resources in the market. ServiceNow technology has been established. I haven't encountered challenges with ServiceNow projects in terms of implementation or configuration wherever I've worked. However, the deployment can vary depending on the company and partner, and how they've structured their practice teams and training resources.

If it's a Greenfield project, then a new deployment is necessary. For enterprise customers, integration becomes the key focus. ServiceNow offers a substantial integration portfolio to address these needs.

What was our ROI?

Return on investment is good because once the overall comprehensive solution is deployed, it offers a lot of ROI to the end customers. If a customer opts for a point solution to manage their ITSM and adopts different technologies to integrate, it is going to cost them, and then it will add up to their complexity.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is expensive compared to other tools but holds value for money.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
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Senior Consultant at Rountree Technology Consulting, LLC
Consultant
Solid, highly scalable, and has got all the features, but needs better reporting, a graphical interface for resource management, and the ability to turn on and off portions of Project Management
Pros and Cons
  • "Being able to have the required information for project management is valuable. I've got multiple people accessing it, and I'm tracking tasks with percentages done. It allows me to have detailed notes and provides the ability to attach documents. I have used a lot of project management solutions, and there were gaps in terms of what was available. ServiceNow has got all the features and functionalities. It is a solid solution. It is also easy to get into and use. It is certainly highly scalable."
  • "The reporting, which also includes dashboards, needs to be improved, and there should also be the ability to turn on and off portions of Project Management. Currently, as soon as you install the new version, you've got to go back there and make all the tweaks. There should be just a configuration file that goes to the new version.  The Project Management module does not leverage the knowledge base the way it should, and there is no built-in ability to get to the articles. Resource management should be easier. It would be amazing if they can make resource management a little bit more graphical. There are other solutions that I've seen where resource management was a more visual experience."

What is our primary use case?

Everything that I've done over the last six years with ServiceNow has been for hospital systems. It was used at different levels for different clients. Many times, it was being used by the whole organization, but my involvement has always been for the department projects. There was significant effort into reporting and dashboards and some automation for approvals. I am currently using its latest version.

How has it helped my organization?

Visibility and resource management are the two areas that are improved by the ServiceNow Project Management implementation. The Project Management module provides visibility to leadership. We are able to get accurate dashboards and, more importantly, proper resource management. A lot of this isn't necessarily ServiceNow functionality. It is also a matter of implementation and adoption process.

Before ServiceNow, in the environments I've been worked with, there were a bunch of files, such as Microsoft Project plans or Excel spreadsheets, all over the place, and very rarely anybody had a clear understanding of where we were in the project. By the time they had an understanding, the document used to become dated. 

What is most valuable?

Being able to have the required information for project management is valuable. I've got multiple people accessing it, and I'm tracking tasks with percentages done. It allows me to have detailed notes and provides the ability to attach documents. I have used a lot of project management solutions, and there were gaps in terms of what was available. ServiceNow has got all the features and functionalities.

It is a solid solution. It is also easy to get into and use. It is certainly highly scalable. 

What needs improvement?

The reporting, which also includes dashboards, needs to be improved. Both dashboards and reporting require subject matter experts. A lot of end-user configuration and functionality comes with ServiceNow and it is not bad, but when I want to do something slightly more sophisticated, I've got to get a ServiceNow subject matter expert to get those dashboards all set up. One of the big reasons why that's so difficult is that ServiceNow is effectively a whole bunch of databases, and almost every module is fundamentally a database, so pulling information from multiple modules is painful. The key thing here is the Time Tracking piece, which is rather important because that's what helps you automate the percentage done inline. Getting a report that shows combined information from Time Tracking and Project Management into a single view is difficult.

There should be the ability to turn on and off portions of Project Management. I'm not asking them to do a finance portion of Project Management through the interface. Currently, there are hundreds of fields that project managers are looking at and trying to decide whether they should fill them out or not. Being able to configure the user interface without a subject matter expert would be really great. 

When you want to get a little more value out of the product and pull data from multiple modules and do something that isn't built-in and is a user-configurable thing, it gets ugly. Currently, as soon as you install the new version, you've got to go back there and make all those tweaks. There should be just a configuration file that goes to the new version. When a new release comes out and I've tweaked it, I shouldn't have to go back and manually tweak everything again. 

When we look at ITSM pieces, there is a knowledge base that works really well. I feel that the Project Management module does not leverage the knowledge base the way it should. I don't think it needs to be a separate knowledge base. There should be links. Currently, if I am configuring a project and looking at a particular tab or field, and I want to know more details about that, there is no simple way other than to go into the knowledge base and do a search. There is no simple way for me to just click and see the approved knowledge base article about that particular tab or field. 

There is no built-in ability to get to these articles, and the customer would have to build it. All the stuff is in the knowledge base, but I am constantly required to go and do a search and find it. After that, I have to try and figure out if this is the approved one. Most knowledge bases are designed so that your end users can submit articles, at least successful ones. You've got to get the subject matter expertise into the knowledge articles, and there is a clear delineation between the ones that are approved versus the ones that work right. I want both types of articles in there, but I want to be able to delineate which ones are the approved ones and tie them in Project Management. This functionality is already there in some other areas, but it is not there in Project Management. Not being able to link that knowledge base in a more fluid way is a big miss because it just makes adoption much harder.

Resource management should be easier. This is an area where I would love to see an improvement. The nature of ServiceNow is that it tends to be a bunch of fields. It is a bit like an Excel spreadsheet. You're in a software interface, but you've got a bunch of rows and columns. Other than dashboards, there are a lot of rows and columns views that often do not help you to easily see and manage resources. More graphical and more click-and-drag ability around resource management would be really good. The data is in there, and you can run dashboards, reports, and stuff like that, and very often, get the information in a somewhat consumable view. However, it tends to have frozen columns. It would be amazing if they can make resource management a little bit more graphical. There are other solutions that I've seen where resource management was a more visual experience.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

From a perspective of it working, there are bugs occasionally, but for the most part, it is very solid. There are always pockets of problems, but when it comes to Project Management, I am yet to see a significant bug or issue. Most of the bugs and issues are more related to a lack of functionality as opposed to something that is broken or bad data. All such functionalities get added in the next version. 

From the perspective of doing what it is supposed to do, it is very solid. My experience has been very good, especially with the most recent release.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is highly scalable. Once you get over the initial pricing shock, you can have multiple people in there, and you can scale quickly and easily. It is one of those things where you get a better price for more people and most subscription licenses. Technically, it can scale up, but it starts getting expensive.

In the current environment, they have licenses for 180 people who are actively using the Project Management module. They have 30,000 end users, and their users have view-only access to Project Management. Once it is stable, and they are completely comfortable with it, which may be a year or longer, they might potentially expand it to the entire environment. They have 30,000 people in the US, and they also have health systems in South America. So, the total number of users could be between 50,000 to 60,000. Going to South America would probably be two to three years out.

How are customer service and technical support?

I've got a lot of experience with ServiceNow outside of the Project Management module. Focusing just on the Project Management module, my experiences have been very good. ServiceNow, at least for this particular module, has been smart and only tends to let you get on the phone with somebody who really knows the product. There are not that many support calls typically, and they tend to be just the technical staff that are supporting the module. While you can have end-user support, I've not worked with many customers who buy the support for the Project Management module for anybody who is not actively using it as a project manager, and even those project managers usually rely on the core administrator team. They'll tell them what the problem is, and that core team will call support.

When I've been on the calls with support, which I have done on a regular basis over the last couple of years and certainly with this current customer, I've been very pleased with their knowledge. These are highly technical calls, and it is not what I would call typical support. It is definitely the third-tier support that we are calling and getting, and my experience has been extremely good for the Project Management module.

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

I've definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow. Some of them were homegrown, and some of them were built into the electronic medical record solution that was there. 

The current customer I'm working for didn't make a switch. They had made that decision and gone to ServiceNow four years ago. They adopted Project Management probably two years ago. It seemed very logical to go ahead and switch over to ServiceNow Project Management because people were already logging into ServiceNow. About a year ago, in fact, right about the time when COVID hit us, they actually finished the implementation. There have been some hits and misses because the staff resigned and things like that. 

Other customers that I've worked for had either Microsoft Project files or Excel spreadsheets. Many times, they also had a web-based project management solution that literally was a task list with a percent complete and literally four fields per task, and those would be stacked in. A lot of these were more team management solutions such as Microsoft Office 365. None of them is a competitor to what you get from ServiceNow.

How was the initial setup?

It is overly complex mainly because it has a lot of content. There are some out-of-the-box configurations, and there is also a lot of content that is not configurable out of the box. Of course, most organizations aren't mature enough to use the additional content and additional tabs. Typically, the implementers are smart enough to deal with that, but I've worked with customers that weren't smart enough to go ahead and say, "Hey, we need a subject matter expert to come in and install this module." Sometimes, they brought somebody in to do just the bare bone install, and then they wanted to configure it themselves. 

You need a subject matter expert. ServiceNow doesn't always do it, and very often, it is third parties who implement it, but they don't do a great job of educating their customer on what they should and shouldn't do as their initial install. They just say here is the tool to some extent. You should ideally go for subject matter experts that are either recommended by ServiceNow or are directly from ServiceNow. Of course, it gets more expensive as you go up that chain.

ServiceNow could do a better job of prepping their coordinators and supporting this process. It is tough because most of the customers first need training on project management in general before you start teaching them how to use the tool. There is no lack of support. It is just not well-organized and prioritized support. There is a knowledge article for everything from ServiceNow, and all the information is there, but it is not organized in a way, especially for a new user, to say that don't worry about this. We'll get to this later. Here are the things you should worry about, and here are the things that you really should do as best practice. That's the key.

I have been advising and working with implementation teams over the last three years. Every single time, after they implemented and started using it, they started to discover things that they wish they'd known beforehand. That's why it would be good to have an organized set of best practices from ServiceNow saying, "Hey, you're implementing. This is new. You don't have a mature organization that has a bunch of requirements. So, here are the minimum out-of-the-box things that you should enable. We're also going to hide all that stuff that you don't need, and we're going to get these fundamentals working." Guided and organized best practices for organizations that are new to project management would be a huge win for ServiceNow.

It is a cloud product, so it requires just configuration from us. Typically, implementation takes two to three months, which includes all the beforehand and after closeout. You have some meetings, make some agreements, install the product, and get it up and running. Installation would take just two to three weeks, and the implementation would take two to three months because you've got to do training and everything else to truly get it in there. Most organizations also end up having to come back and do remediation that takes an additional three to six months. We're not talking about the setup where everybody is working on it. We're talking about a setup where you've got a small team that is typically working on the issues, coming up with solutions, and then implementing them later. There is usually a three-month to six-month clean-up afterward. It's not uncommon for me to see close to a full year from the first conversation to when they feel like they've got stable, usable, and good reporting coming out of the solution.

What about the implementation team?

It was a company recommended by ServiceNow. ServiceNow has got a top-six list, and this was number two on their list. In terms of knowledge and the ability to solve problems, they were very good. Because there are no organized best practices and things like that from ServiceNow to help customers in avoiding mistakes, I've not seen an implementor that does it properly. I am constantly trying to help, but, of course, you also typically have that executive that just wants to get it slammed in. This is because they think that with the tools in place, things will suddenly get better. However, good technology rarely results in good results. You've got to have adoption in order to have good results.

While I'm certainly complaining about some deficiencies, I have been very pleased with this implementor's ability to come in, implement, explain, tweak, and get things right. I have been very pleased with what they do. Deficiencies are more typical of all of the implementers, including ServiceNow.

In terms of maintenance, I have not worked too closely with the PMO staff that does that, but as I understand it, they've got four people. Two are directly involved, and two are more along the lines of training and support. There are really four roles for them. There is one role of subject matter experts who are constantly looking at what functionality is in use and for which functionality they want to start adopting. They look at what can we do with the Project Management tool. They also create a lot of dashboards and reports. The end-user functionality is very powerful, but when you want a dashboard that starts grabbing things from multiple places, it is not easy. They spend a fair amount of time doing that kind of work. They also provide support and spend a fair amount of time troubleshooting the data, which isn't because the product isn't working correctly. It is because the users aren't correctly using it. They also simply look at the data for management. They kind of audit the data to see that what we know and what we're hearing in the status update meetings matches what's in the tool. When it doesn't match, they audit the content and figure out whether there is a problem. All four of them probably spend at least 30% or 40% of their time doing that audit process, sitting in meetings, hearing what's going on, looking at the status reports, matching those up with what's in the tool, and making sure that it matches.

What was our ROI?

That's a tough call. I would say yes, but I don't think that many of the customers are calculating or tracking that sort of thing. From my perspective, when we say the return on investment, a lot of times we're talking about hard dollars and being able to readily show that my expenses were reduced. The return on investment for most of the project management solutions is improved performance in project management, and therefore, it is a bit of a soft cost saving because of the improved efficiency and ability to deliver projects. That's usually where ROI is seen, and it is tough to make that a metric.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I'm not aware of any additional costs. I'm pretty sure that the current client is paying just the licensing fee per user. I do know that they've got some support agreement with ServiceNow, but I don't think that is broken out or specific to Project Management. It is just inclusive.

What other advice do I have?

I certainly would recommend it on a regular basis as a viable scalable project management solution. It is a solid solution. It has got all the features and functionalities I want. The lack of visualization of data, ease of implementation, and ease of configuration results in difficulty in training people, and it needs to be more visual and a little bit easier to configure and maintain. Currently, as soon as you install the new version, you've got to go back there and make all those tweaks. It is not all or nothing sort of thing. It is just a case of how much of the functionality done in a manual way has to be redone in each update. That could change over time. They're constantly improving how this works, but in my experience, that was very much the case for the last two upgrades that I've done. Occasionally, I've had problems where existing data from a prior version did not migrate. There is some wonkiness, and you got to go in and clean things up a little bit, but it is pretty minor. It is one of those things where when you've got a solution like ServiceNow that every single person in the organization is using, and you do the update the next morning and realize that none of your reports are right because you've tweaked it, and now, you have to go and fix it. In fairness, if you only use it out of the box the way ServiceNow says you should use Project Management, it probably wouldn't be an issue, but I am yet to see a customer use ServiceNow Project Management out of the box with no changes.

Comparing it to all other project management solutions without consideration of cost, I would rate ServiceNow a seven 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.
PeerSpot user
Assistant Manager at Wipro Limited
Real User
Top 20
Has versatile features, streamlined workflows and excellent scalability
Pros and Cons
  • "The most impactful feature in our day-to-day operations is the ticket status, which provides crucial visibility into the progress of each resource or incident."
  • "The user interface for accessing assistance sometimes disconnects."

What is our primary use case?

ServiceNow is a powerful tool, but to utilize its features most efficiently, it requires proper fine-tuning and design. When developed according to specific requirements, it becomes an excellent solution for ticketing and reporting management, offering enhanced capabilities for streamlined operations.

How has it helped my organization?

ServiceNow optimizes our IT service management processes through its knowledge base feature. This repository contains solutions and insights into challenges encountered during request or incident resolution. A select group reviews and collects this knowledge to analyze how it can streamline processes or enhance user interfaces, such as creating simplified catalogs for quicker request submission. Integration with ServiceNow ensures that every request or incident benefits from this knowledge, enabling faster delivery through automation. Focusing primarily on requests and incidents, which are the most common user interactions, leveraging the knowledge base in this manner significantly contributes to refining and fine-tuning operations management.

ServiceNow significantly enhances our workflow efficiency, as demonstrated by a straightforward example of adding a user to a group. Through analysis of over a thousand requests, primarily for server or file share access, we identified the top ten groups frequently requested. Utilizing this insight, we implemented backend automation scripts integrated into ServiceNow's action tasks. Now, when users request access to a file share or server, they select from a dropdown menu of the top ten file shares, streamlining the process. The automation prompts users for necessary information, such as their ID and approvals email, before swiftly granting access within one to two minutes. Previously, such requests could take up to twenty minutes or even a day due to lack of clarity. However, with this automated workflow, users have predefined options, reducing confusion and minimizing errors. Additionally, the system captures requests not covered by the predefined options, allowing us to monitor and address emerging needs effectively. This improvement has significantly reduced the occurrence of errors and escalations, leading to smoother service delivery.

ServiceNow portal has significantly enhanced our user experience and service delivery, particularly through its advanced reporting system. This system allows us to gather feedback and insights, such as the number of pending items assigned to individuals, reasons for delays, and the status of updates. The reporting capabilities within ServiceNow enable us to conduct in-depth analysis of ticket resolutions quickly and efficiently, facilitating improved decision-making and operational efficiency.

ServiceNow's reporting and analytics functionalities significantly contributed to decision-making processes, earning a rating of eight out of ten.

Although I lack extensive experience with it, I find that ServiceNow is generally straightforward to integrate.

What is most valuable?

The most impactful feature in our day-to-day operations is the ticket status, which provides crucial visibility into the progress of each resource or incident. Whether it's marked as pending for a vendor or awaiting user information, this status allows us to understand precisely how long a particular request has been waiting and for what purpose.

What needs improvement?

Improving the quality of consulting services is essential and can lead to significant enhancements. The user interface for accessing assistance sometimes disconnects.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In terms of stability, there may be occasional hiccups, but they are not overly frequent.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling up is effortless, as evidenced by the platform's adoption by approximately thirty thousand users.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support provided is satisfactory, but there is room for improvement, particularly in the consulting aspect. I would rate it eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What about the implementation team?

While I'm not deeply involved in the deployment process, with careful planning and architecture, the complexity can be minimized.
Maintaining the system isn't straightforward. It requires essential knowledge and a support team well-versed in the product. The size of the support system, with a minimum of ten staff members, is recommended to adequately support the service.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is reasonable and affordable, making it suitable for businesses ranging from small to large scale.

What other advice do I have?

ServiceNow is a versatile solution suitable for businesses of all scales, from small to large enterprises. My advice to others considering its use would be to thoroughly understand the product's capabilities before implementation. Aligning these capabilities with your specific requirements ensures optimal utilization of the features available, facilitating efficient management and future scalability. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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PeerSpot user
Solutions Architect at Quintica
Real User
A scalable solution used for ticketing, integrations, automation, and event management
Pros and Cons
  • "The flow designer feature of ServiceNow has had the biggest impact on our productivity because it has helped me reduce manual efforts by creating automation and robotics."
  • "The solution's user experience could be improved concerning its UI and portals."

What is our primary use case?

We use ServiceNow for ticketing, integrations, automation, and event management.

What is most valuable?

The solution has an innovative technology that keeps on changing. The flow designer feature of ServiceNow has had the biggest impact on our productivity because it has helped me reduce manual efforts by creating automation and robotics. The solution's automation capabilities save time for our customers by resolving issues quickly and reducing human intervention.

The solution's integration with existing tools is quite straightforward. The way they set up the integration using the low-code/no-code model is very straightforward, and any developer can pick it up easily.

What needs improvement?

The solution's user experience could be improved concerning its UI and portals.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ServiceNow for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have mostly faced stability issues for the on-premises model. We haven't faced any downtime for the SaaS version.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

ServiceNow is a scalable solution. We have different customers using ServiceNow, with more than 100, 500, and 1,000 user bases.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's overall technical support is quite good. Sometimes, the technical support team lacks understanding of the issues.

I rate the solution’s technical support seven and a half out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

The solution's on-premises deployment depends on the customer's requirement. It depends on how exactly the customers want to set it up in terms of users, what modules they want to integrate, and what integrations they want to have. An out-of-the-box deployment will take a week's time. The solution's SaaS model is already pre-bundled. You just need to switch it on and start working on it. You can start working on the solution's SaaS model in a day.

What was our ROI?

Our customers are extremely happy with their return on investment with ServiceNow.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

ServiceNow is interactive, user-friendly, and easier to set up than Helix. It adds a lot of modules integrated within the tool, and you don't need to have different components installed separately, like Helix.

What other advice do I have?

ServiceNow provides the best practices to streamline our IT service management processes. We have customer processes, and the tool helps to follow the process and reduce the meantime and resolution.

I work with both the on-premises and cloud versions of ServiceNow. The on-premises model requires some resources because we have to maintain the databases and applications. We don't require any resources for the solution's SaaS version.

Maintaining the on-premises model has its own challenges. It's a little bit difficult unless you know how the whole technology works. We don't need to worry about any maintenance for the SaaS version.

Overall, I rate ServiceNow a nine out of ten.

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