BMC Helix ITSM Reviews

I am currently working as a BMC Remedy developer. I have been working for over ten years on the BMC platform. My company uses BMC Helix ITSM for IT service management processes.

We initially had a lot of tickets generated via the service desk through calls and emails. Now, we have almost moved out of email creations by introducing the DWP features on the Studio pages, with about 90% of the tickets coming in via our self-service portal. Recent upgrades offer different types of views for particular business lines, which was missing earlier. The new landing pages have allowed us to add banners, images, and internal videos, encouraging most customers to use these DWP self-service features. Resolution time has decreased significantly since implementing the self-service portal. Additionally, the availability of knowledge articles, chatbots, and the new Helix GPT feature has improved service processes.

In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult to find the right information quickly. The recent move to a new platform is beneficial as all documentation is now available in one place. However, we lack access to a sandbox for in-house development, which was very helpful for hands-on work with new features. BMC should allow personal instances similar to competitors that offer comprehensive access.

I have been working with BMC Helix ITSM for twelve years.

Over the past five years, we have experienced no major issues or downtime during upgrades. BMC Helix ITSM has been stable for us.

I would rate BMC technical support as eight out of ten. There are issues with misrouting and a preference for email rather than direct communication via phone calls.

Positive

My company previously used ServiceNow and switched to BMC Helix ITSM five years ago due to its ease of use and cost efficiency.

I was not directly involved in the initial setup as it was completed before I joined the team.

The deployment and maintenance activities are managed by BMC. They handle monthly or quarterly maintenance.

I do not have specific metrics, but some team leads have indicated financial benefits from using BMC Helix ITSM.

BMC Helix ITSM was chosen for its cost-effectiveness compared to other options like ServiceNow.

I recommend BMC Helix ITSM because it offers solutions to business processes and was cost-effective for us compared to ServiceNow. I rate this solution eight out of ten due to its ease of use and the need for improved documentation and sandbox access.

We use BMC Helix ITSM for the complete end-to-end ITSM suite, mainly for ticketing and service management.

BMC Helix ITSM supports our IT service management processes primarily for all incident, problem, and change management, covering all the basic and traditional modules of ITSM.

BMC Helix ITSM is a good product out-of-box, with a lot of functionalities built-in, so there is no need to worry—just plug and play.

From the features perspective, integrations have been the most valuable in improving our service delivery with BMC Helix ITSM.

Integrations are particularly valuable because I cannot just run with BMC Helix; I need to integrate it with my existing platforms.

Currently, we are not utilizing the AI functionality in BMC Helix ITSM as we are still in the roadmap and development phase at this point in time.

There isn't anything that I would suggest for improvement in BMC Helix ITSM at this point because we have not started fully leveraging it. Once we start leveraging the automation and AI, then we will understand what needs to be improved.

I think customizations can be better, and definitely, documentation can be better to make the process smoother.

I started with BMC Remedy from 2006, and with BMC Helix, it has been almost three years since we upgraded our Remedy on demand to Helix.

We work with the cloud version of BMC Helix ITSM.

Regarding the stability aspect, I find BMC Helix ITSM stable, and that is why we have been with the product for the past 15 years.

BMC Helix ITSM is scalable.

I would evaluate the BMC tech support as very good.

On a scale of one to 10, I would rate the tech support of BMC as 10.

Positive

Apart from BMC Helix ITSM, I have worked with another ITSM solution, as I am also a ServiceNow architect.

The main differences between BMC Helix ITSM and ServiceNow are that ServiceNow is more user-friendly, with user screens and navigation being more intuitive, but Helix is also improving. Otherwise, they are two different technologies.

The setup process and migration part are definitely not straightforward. We need to address some challenges, but they are not too significant.

BMC Helix ITSM brings a return on investment.

My thoughts on the pricing and licensing cost of BMC Helix ITSM are that it is flexible.

I have faced many challenges with BMC Helix ITSM, but we get substantial BMC support, although technically, we need to make many adjustments to fit it to our organization.

We have not fully leveraged the tool now, so we need to see how it fits our organization. On a scale of one to 10, I rate BMC Helix ITSM as a product and solution between seven to eight.

We are currently using BMC Helix ITSM in our organization. We are in the process of implementing new modules like CMDB and discovery.

The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM for us are CMDB and discovery. These features are crucial as we complete the implementation and maintain data accuracy in the CMDB. They help us analyze investigation time and improve IT service SLA efficiency.

BMC Helix ITSM is difficult for us to customize, and most customizations require vendor support, which leads to extra costs. The interface should be more user-friendly, and the customization should be easier.

We have been using BMC Helix ITSM for around six years.

We have not encountered any issues that make the stability of BMC Helix ITSM a concern.

The product's scalability is adequate for us, yet its complex customization sometimes restricts extensive adaptability.

Customer service is handled by a local vendor support team. If they cannot resolve an issue, they contact BMC support for us. We have not had any problems with technical support.

Neutral

Before BMC Helix ITSM, we used Clientele and Jira.

It took us around one year to implement the incident, problem, and change modules. We recently upgraded to BMC Helix.

The implementation generally requires a Systems Integrator (SI) due to the complexity involved.

Over five to six years of usage, I have not been able to clearly demonstrate savings in operation costs to my management.

The pricing of BMC Helix ITSM and its implementation costs are quite high, including subscription and maintenance costs per year. It might be comparable to ServiceNow but is still considered expensive.

We considered other tools like ServiceNow and initially used products like Clientele and Jira.

The features of BMC Helix ITSM are comprehensive and comply with ITIL, however, improvements are needed in customization and user interface design. 

I rate BMC Helix ITSM a seven out of ten.

We majorly use the solution for user ticket management, incident management, and event management.

The solution is quite user-friendly. It is much better than the BMC Remedy version and is at par with ServiceNow. The solution's most valuable features are automation and orchestration.

I have been using BMC Helix ITSM for one year.

I have previously used ServiceNow. Functionality-wise, BMC Helix ITSM is at par with ServiceNow. However, BMC Helix ITSM is very cost-effective. It's very cheap, and its pricing is one-fourth of ServiceNow's.

The solution's initial setup is easy and has a plug-and-play model. The OEM deployed the solution themselves. The solution's implementation took six months because it all started with requirement gathering to determine which modules the tool could suit.

The solution has helped our organization save two hours per day.

BMC Helix ITSM is a very cost-effective solution.

We had a manual event management process and a separate monitoring tool called Dynatrace. The alerts generated did not flow to the ITSM tool. With BMC Helix ITSM, the alerts flow and auto-route to respective technical support. If the alerts are resolved, the ticket will be automatically closed. So, the workload and automation are much better now.

BMC Helix ITSM is a fast platform, so it is quite manageable. I would recommend BMC Helix ITSM to other users because it is a good solution.

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

I use BMC Helix ITSM in my company for operation purposes.

My company uses a lot of features of BMC Helix ITSM, which may be more than 50 percent of what it offers.

The product's customization capabilities, price, and technical support are areas of concern where improvements are needed.

I have experience working with BMC Helix ITSM. I use the solution's latest version. I am a customer of the solution.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a five out of ten.

All the people in my company use the solution.

The solution is used daily in my company.

I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

I rate the product's initial setup phase an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is a difficult setup phase, and ten is an easy setup phase.

The product's initial setup phase was easy.

The solution is deployed on the public cloud services offered by Amazon.

The solution can be deployed in a few hours to a week.

My company's in-house team, consisting of three engineers, managed the product's setup phase.

The solution offers high stability. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. The solution is expensive.

My company did evaluate other solutions against BMC Helix ITSM.

I rate the overall tool a five out of ten.

We use BMC Helix ITSM for ticketing and asset and IT resource management.

We use the solution's Discovery tool to discover our assets, and we've used the ticketing tool for years. BMC Helix ITSM pretty much covers all aspects of IT asset management.

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

I have been using BMC Helix ITSM for six months.

I rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten for stability.

I rate BMC Helix ITSM ten out of ten for scalability.

The initial setup of BMC Helix ITSM in our situation was complex because we were coming from a version that was over ten years old.

The solution's pricing should come down.

BMC Helix ITSM is deployed on-cloud in our organization.

I advise someone evaluating BMC Helix ITSM to start with a new installation and not to bring an old system into the new Helix environment. Start with a new product from scratch, and it will give you more success in standing up the product and a lot fewer headaches trying to bring old data into a new system. When you try to bring in customizations and old datasets, you will run into a lot of problems.

Overall, I rate BMC Helix ITSM an eight out of ten.

If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within departments like HR or finance, require a swift resolution. This is where the product comes into play. It provides a platform for raising tickets and obtaining quick solutions.

For instance, if you require a virtual machine from a specific data center group, you no longer need to endure traditional processes. Automation kicks in, and you have all the necessary details within moments. This efficiency level isn't confined to just IT; it also permeates management levels. Beyond that, the tool offers scalability and flexibility, facilitating the maintenance of knowledge repositories and standard release processes. Additionally, it has features where users can make service requests based on their specific needs, thanks to tailored questionnaires. This ensures that only the exact resources that can support us will be allocated. 

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.

I have been using the product for more than seven years. 

When evaluating the tool's overall stability, I would rate it around a six out of ten upon fresh installation. However, as the system adapts to its environment and smoothens out, the stability significantly improves, reaching around a nine out of ten. So, shortly after installation, it may start at six out of ten, but within six months to a year, it typically stabilizes and earns a rating of nine out of ten for its stability.

The expanding nature of the environment may be unfamiliar. The requirements BMC Helix ITSM suggests for installation are also uncertain, as they haven't been tested in the live environment. Real repercussions become apparent once you proceed with infrastructure installation, including real-time unexpected issues.

My company has more than 1000 product users. 

The ease of installation largely depends on your specific requirements when it comes to the initial installation of BMC Helix ITSM. If you're opting for a containerized deployment, it's not necessarily straightforward; I'd rate it around a six out of ten on a scale of difficulty. However, if you're leveraging cloud-based deployment, the tool manages everything, including instances and scalability. 

I have experienced all the phases of BMC Helix ITSM: standalone, on-premises, containerized, and cloud-based. I have worked in all these environments. ITSM deployment depends on various factors. Currently, we are transitioning to containers instead of the cloud. Specific dependencies influence this choice. Many large companies opt for containerization, while some move to the cloud. The primary reason is the reluctance to expose their data publicly.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We used to support VMware applications, focusing on distributed applications such as data from ETW, Snowflake, and SAP. Our role involved processing critical data systems through internal mechanics and IT processes, primarily managed by the application support group. 

We employed services to monitor streams related to critical management and address issues promptly. Initially, we managed on-premises data, which was relatively straightforward. However, with the introduction of BMC Elite, we transitioned to this new platform, finding it more effective than our previous Azure-based approach.

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.

I have been using BMC Helix ITSM for around eight months.

It is stable.

It is scalable.

My opinion on BMC's technical support is positive. Whenever we encounter issues with the applications we support, such as connectivity problems with the BMC Controller on the SAP side, their support team responds promptly to our requests. They provide timely solutions and assistance, making the overall experience quite satisfactory. This is why we continue to rely on BMC for support.

Positive

The initial setup involved transitioning from our previous practice of following the HL methodology to adopting ITSM methodologies, specifically those associated with InfoSight technologies. Initially, this shift required some adjustment, as our previous approach did not adhere to such processes. It took some time to understand the workings of the new processes, but once acclimated, I recognized the significance of these methodologies in our current working model.

The cost is relatively high, especially for the BMC Controller application. However, the expense is justified by the standard and reliable features it offers. This product's reputation in the market is strong, providing assurance in terms of data and other considerations.

It is advisable. The choice depends on the workload and the specific requirements of each industry or organization. For critical and well-organized tasks, HSA Helix might be suitable. In the case of handling data in various applications, including cloud and HANA, AppSecetics proves highly useful. It enables efficient report generation compared to other automation tools.

I would rate it nine of ten.

We use it for the entire service management portfolio. We do instant problem changes and asset management, CMDB. We use it for the entire service management module.

The out-of-the-box features are great. You can look at those before you jump into customization or integrations.

Technical support has been fine. 

The dashboard can be better. 

The remote reporting can be improved.

I'd say that the tool itself can be lighter in weight. It's too heavy.

Technical support is not very fast.

For the discovery, which is top to bottom, I would have an option for scanning sideways.

The functionality could be better.

The stability has been good. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. I would rate it eight out of ten in terms of reliability.

The scalability is okay. I'd rate it seven out of ten since it is a bit heavy and gets heavier quite easily.

We might have around 100 people using the solution right now. That includes end-users and developers. 

We've used technical support in the past and find them to be okay. However, it depends on the type of agreement you've got with them.

We have a service provider who contacts BMC for us. That said, there had been some occasions where I was involved with the support along with the service provider. They are okay. However, they take a lot of time to find a resolution.

Neutral

I've worked with ServiceNow in the past and find it to be a much better product.

While I wasn't around when it was installed, my understanding is that it is pretty straightforward. 

The cost is pretty good. That might have been a deciding factor when choosing the product.

I can't speak to the exact cost of the solution. It's not part of my scope to look into licensing. 

I wasn't at the company at the time it was set up. I'm not sure if they evaluated other options. 

We're customers. 

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're on. However, it being on the cloud, it does update automatically.

I would definitely recommend ServiceNow over BMC. I have an experience in ServiceNow. It's much better. It is lightweight, and easy to use, the integrations are easy, the scalability is extremely easy, the dashboard is wonderful, and the discovery is the best. I would rate ServiceNow much higher than BMC.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It is a strong tool and is a good application to do your ITSM. It's just that it's a bit complex to integrate with your other applications. It's a big elephant. It's too heavy. The dashboard is quite confusing. It's not that state of the art in today's world and at the user level, the customization is not so easy in BMC.

I was responsible for three implementations with BMC. All of these implementations are related to ITSM, with the IT Service Management implementation, where we manage all the processes like incident management, request fulfillment, problem management, change management, and configuration management. All three projects were of the same scope, with only ITSM managing all these processes in each one.

The most important feature in the BMC is the users' and technical teams' front end. They are good for the front end, simple front end. For the first line of support and for the end users, it's a good front end. It's very simple to register, to follow the cases or incidents. 

It is a stable product if set up correctly.

The solution can scale. 

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.

I've used the solution for about five years. 

If the configuration was well performed, yes, it's a stable solution. However, this is the same problem for all the other solutions in the market. If we don't have a good implementation, we don't have a good illustration of the solution. That said, if we follow the best practice to implementation, it's very stable.

The solution scales well. 

Technical support can be improved. They are fast in response, yet they pass the buck to other people. It is not easy to follow the register of support. It's not the worst support in the world. However, it could be better.

Neutral

I also have knowledge of ServiceNow. 

It's very difficult to set up the product. It's one of the most difficult solutions in the market to implement. It's time-consuming. It will take more than two months compared to something like ServiceNow, which is faster and easier. 

The number of people you need for deployment and maintenance is minimal, maybe four or five people. We can separate that into one project management, one architect, and three developers or analysts to implement the solution.

I was a partner of BMC in my last job function. 

The best support is defending the requirements of the company. This is the same advice I would give in ServiceNow. It's very important for any solution to define the requirements very well. Based on that, it's easier to implement the solution. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Compared with other solutions in the market, for example, Manage Engine, which has technical limitations, BMC is robust. We can do everything with BMC. We can do a lot with ServiceNow too. BMC does have complexity in the implementation, however.