Clarity SM Reviews

Some of workflows became centralised and the complexity of approval cycles decreased via this tool. In general, it has helped us to implement some ITIL practices easily. 

• Logging every action in Service Desk Manager (SDM).
• Unique ticket number for every case (incident, request, problem, change, etc.) and tracking cases with ticket numbers.
• Out-of-the-box functions
• ITIL compatibility

• Reporting side 
• Workflow engine 
• Knowledge base 
• SLA calculation and customisation

The SDM administration and customisation need deep information about architecture and vendor support continuously. Therefore, the quality of support service is very key.

For PAM and BO, it is very hard to create and manage reports, dashboards, or workflows. These topics cause difficulties on application usage for analysts and end users. 

Some processes stop from time-to-time and require a restart. Also, sometimesexporting lists (incident, request, change, etc.) to Excel does not work and requires a restart.

No issues.

Based on what we have gotten from our local technical partner and vendor, I would rate them as a three (from 10). It can be said that the most important thing is selection of your vendor. CA tools can be very useful when you have the right vendors on board, otherwise it becomes a disaster for your organisation.

We have been using this product for eight years and nobody remembers the reason for the switch, however we are going to switch this product due to lack of technical support and legacy structure for the version which we were using. 

Initial setup was complex, because components (SDM, BO, and PAM) were on different servers and a lot of configuration was needed during the setup. 

The product has several licensing models. In our corporation, we are using a concurrent licensing model and there is no cap for the license due to licensing model being ethical. I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations.

Not applicable.

Find a local partner, one that has full competence on this product, or take extensive training for your technical crew about the product from global vendor. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of product and evaluate these with your needs. If it needs more customisation, think twice. 

However, there is a huge difference between the reviewed version and the recent version of this product. The newer version is far better than the reviewed version. Do not forget that this review has been given for version 12.9. (This review has been shared while version 14.x has been in market.)

The most valuable features for us was the ability to calculate service levels for different time periods as well as the ability to store and archive contracts. BSI has templates for calculating key services levels as well as the capability to allowing coding for more complicated, unique measurements. Data for key metrics in individual contracts can be used to creat

It's given us the ability to allow for automation of service-level reporting.

It needs better report-generation features and allow for different types of data.

I've used it for six years.

There have been no issues with deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

There have been no issues with the scalability.

Technical support is excellent. I give them a 9/10.

The initial setup was straightforward and was done by a third-party installer. I'd recommend using the three-tier solution rather than the two-tier solution for installation.

The implementation was done with a combination of in-house and vendor reams. Be sure that your hardware and storage capabilities are adequate prior to doing so.

Licensing costs can be high as they're based on the number of service-level metrics rather than by user. For a large number of users, try to get the enterprise license rather than individual licenses for each metric.

Plan what information is needed for reporting before entering contracts and metrics for calculation. Have a visual basic developer on your team to script business logics used for metric calculations.

For me, personally, the ease of interface is the most valuable feature. It's easy to look up tickets, requiring less clicks compared to CSM. The functionality is more robust than CSM.

It wasn't really rolled out to the organization, it was more of an IT tool, because we didn't fully utilize the tool, as we expected to do work in a mature state within the organization.

SDM could be improved. I don't know if it was in the infrastructure where it crashed a lot, or if it was with the tool. I think maybe I got used to it and then it sort of wasn't an issue anymore.

No issues with deployment.

I noticed more crashing for some strange reason, being that it's on our on servers and we don't know why.

I think the issue, though, goes back to if you use the full functionality of SDM. So, we were on it for two years and we moved it over to the cloud. There were probably a lot of factors why we couldn't optimize SDM to its potential. It’s more of an organizational type of factor.

I wasn't involved in the SDM portion of support tickets, so I can't say.

I wasn't involved in the setup.

Seeing all the demos at CA World, it has a lot of potential, that we, again, did not make use of. So, it's like, oh, it could do that, really? From what I saw with the demos is that there are a lot of functionalities out there. For example, the new 14.1 version seems to scale more with customers. So, if you're looking for more customer-facing input, I would say that it would probably do it.

Our primary use case is managing incidents and requests from customers.

It performs very well.

For us it's indispensable to have all the cases in one place. It's the main tool for managing cases, day to day.

We can search open cases and closed cases to find what we have done in other incidents. We use the cases as a knowledge base to find what we did last time this incident occurred.

Also, prioritization is valuable and managing work queues.

Dashboards. Custom dashboards are really important because without that it takes too long to view some information. In the new version, xFlow is better.

It's pretty stable. The last versions are very stable.

Our installation is very small but the customer's experience is good.

Tech support is "so-so." Sometimes it takes too long for support people to understand what is happening. They always ask the same things, and start over with installations and with configurations and all that kind of stuff. And then, after all that, they start to ask what is happening. It takes way too long to start solving the problem.

Easy. In the latest versions it is straightforward.

When our company is investing in a new vendor, what is important to us is 

• support
• world-class software.

Overall, I would give it an eight out of 10 because it's a good product. I think it can improve some things but it's stable and it's useful.

Install it. I think it is easy to use. It's a good tool.

• The TWA option for CA CMDB along with the simulation of CI and relationship data in GRLoader.
• The MDR button on the CI page, which directly takes you to the integrated MDR Source.
• The Visualizer, which automatically affects the map based on relationships.
• Personal Response, which is helpful in following a standard format across teams.

We implemented this for a customer. The major improvement in functions is their ability to track, report incidents, problem, changes and configuration management.

There is no documentation available from CA for SPEL code; I hope they make this available, so that we can customize it more 

CA Service Desk Manager used a SPEL code to perform different action in the tool. To create a new action or condition generally know as macros (type: action macro, condition macro etc) knowledge of SPEL code and how to use it important. Unfortunately CA does not share any document around it hence we as administrators cannot customize it much like we can in servicenow, remedy etc. So if they can make it available, we could tune or optimize CA SDM as per specific requirements and it will help the tool to sink in the organization implemented. 

The process of adding new columns in the DB and publishing it from the front end is a lengthy activity. I hope they make adding columns and tables in DB easier. 

Creating a new custom column in servicenow is a child's game as you can do everything from the UI. No service restarrt, code execution etc needed. However, in CA SDM the process of adding a new column is a little lengthy with service restart and few steps needed, hence this is where they can improve upon.

• There is no documentation available from CA for SPEL code; I hope they make this available, so that we can customize it more.
• The process of adding new columns in the DB and publishing it from the front end is a lengthy activity. I hope they make adding columns and tables in DB easier.

It pretty much does the work it’s intended to.

Compared to others, I like the ease of Service Desk. It's easy to maneuver around in. It's very user friendly. Things make sense where some other products we looked at, they were very confusing.

We found that there's plenty of things that this tool does that we frankly aren't utilizing. Other tools looked neat, but when we got to really looking at it we just have it. We're not using it to it's potential to be honest with you. We do have the CMDB, but we're not utilizing a lot of the integrations to the potential like the IT workflow. A lot of the automated processes we're just not using and I'm sitting here looking at this stuff going, "We are barley using this tool."

We could be doing a better job, but unfortunately out hands are tied because it takes our system administrators time and effort to implement these things for us. Whether we want them or not, it's whether their team has time.

The thing that gets me is they sell it as a customizable tool, but the more customizations you add to it, the less stable it becomes. So over the last few upgrades, we've tried to come out of box as much as possible, and that has worked for us. Sometimes, people want and want and want and change and change and change and we find you really can live without all those customizations and it works just as well, I mean, works better. We're getting ready to upgrade to 14.1 and we were talking about that. Really, the last few years, we haven't really had to use the word outage very often.

I've suggested a couple of improvements. It might not mean anything to you specifically, but I have joined one of their communities and suggested that, when it comes to groups, they need to have a separation of groups so that you can have a separate group for work flow tasks in the change side than you do on the other side. The problem is, we have business people and different approvals on the change side that need to approve change orders, but they don't need to be involved on the ticket. But what happens on the incident problem request side, when people are playing hot potato trying to get the ticket out of their queue, they're looking for a group and they're picking it whether it's a my work flow group or not. We've tried to creatively name them so people won't use them, but there needs to be a separation. You ought to be able to select what modules you want that to be available in.

One other thing I can think of. I've noticed with this latest upgrade they're starting to change their terminology. They're calling incidents issues in the service catalog and I'm really curious to go talk to someone about that. We have what we call an issue module for our business side and that is for our external customers. When we plan to bring about the service catalog, they're going to be really confused when it says open an issue. Why did they do that? Why did they change that terminology and I've heard them use it in here. You know, "When you go to open your issue." I'm like, that's an incident. That's not an issue. That's two different worlds.

We've had no issues with deployment.

It's reliable.

It's scalable.

That would be the tier above me, so I haven't had to deal with them.

ServiceNow we also looked at. I would have been okay either way. In all honesty, it was more of a cloud solution and we wouldn't have needed our system administrators for as much as the upgrade work. That was kind of one of our driving things that did lean us towards that. The other tools were way too expensive compared to what we had. When we did the comparison, again, the new tools looked tiny and new, but we weren't utilizing what we have. We have some of the same features. We just haven't used them.

You don't have to go for the newest item out there. There's reliability, stability in maybe some of the older tools as well.

I help my clients make best use of the tool in their service management environment.

It performs pretty well.

It helps organizations manage their services in a way that treats them as services, and not as, "Oh, this is what I do," in isolation.

Being able to specify event rules and SLAs that can help to automate some of the processes that people are doing manually is valuable.

I could pick a dozen and say, "That's useful, and that's useful, and that's useful." The fact that it aligns very well with ITIL. I think that's probably one of my favorite things about it, because it's following up a general best practice for service management. That's important.

I think some of the work they're doing with the xFlow interface and the more collaborative tools. I think that's helping because this new generation of people like the social-media style of collaboration.

I would also like to see a simpler reporting tool. They went from one fairly robust, very complex, reporting tool - it was great - and then they went to another one that was also fairly complex and robust. That's a great tool for people who are report writers, but for the average person who just wants to get a quick little report, it's like handing somebody a chainsaw because they have to break some toothpicks in half.

It's been there for a long time. It's very stable. No issues whatsoever.

I've seen it scale to very large organizations and do it well. They've made improvements to help with that scalability.

I think they're a great team. I actually did some work for them for a few months, a couple of years back. Knowledgeable, friendly, helpful, and very professional.

I've been involved in initial setup many times. It can be complex, depending on the requirements of the customer, primarily, whenever the customer wants to deviate from the out-of-the-box, in a large way; if they want to over-customize because they think it should look that way. It's better to accept the way it looks rather than try to force it, because then when you come around to upgrading later, those customizations may or may not be appropriate.

When selecting a vendor the most important criteria would be 

• stability
• reputation within the industry in general

• their following of general best practices, like ITIL.

I would rate it bordering on nine out of 10. It is an older based tool, it's been around for more than 25 years. They've made improvement, but it still carries with it some of its old roots.

Make sure that you are recognizing what your real needs are and not just going go with whatever hype is being presented to you.

The most important part is the user experience. CA Service Desk Manager provides a great and helpful experience. It's a tool with constant updates and always thinking about and looking out for the user.

It's a powerful tool that is able to do everything. Anything you need, CA SDM can help.

CA Technologies have been improving the customer experience when we're talking about UI, probally it's comming soon a great UI about usability.

It's comming with v17 a great functionality about upgrade - it's easier than ever.

I've been implementing the solution for more than a decade, in different companies of different sizes and in different industries. It's adaptability is incredible; you can codify and change almost everything. Therefore, the solution is working for our needs.

The solution could include in your own license other products to help your own customers embrace more disciplines to their needs.

With a small licensing of these products, it's possible to present all the power of the power of suite.

I have used it for more than a decade.

Usually everything's OK.

I have never encountered any stability issues.

I encountered a scalability issue with an older version. Nowadays, it is better.

Customer service is really good.

CA Support is improving its work. The support workers have a lot of experience, and they think fast to solve our problems.

I previously used other solutions, but they were not as powerful. I'm working as a single MSP and work with different solutions.

It's as easy as a Windows install. You can check on CA Communities.

Using CA Service Desk, the companies grow up.

I do not know. I never can compare these numbers.

No comment. Ask me privately.

I can help you to check and evaluate options; compare the solutions. Therefore, the first step is: Compare the same thing with the same thing, apples to apples, but I cannot tell you which is the better choice of fruit.