What is most valuable?
The flexibility - we've been able to change it and make it look like our brand, so we have our brand logo on it, etc. We've been able to accommodate a lot of our old customization than we had done in our previous system, we've been able to roll that in, that's some of the niceties with the platform. I think that's one of the biggest advantages for us, is the flexibility to be able to do the dashboards and try to get people more involved in the application rather than running a report.
It allows us to offer a different variety of toolsets for our staff, which our last system was not very flexible in that regard. Allowing my customers to go in and do their own dashboards, write their own reports, change the color of their screens has made them feel more involved and more engaged in the tool. We're seeing more requests for newer things and different things. People are thinking outside the box instead of just thinking inside of it.
How has it helped my organization?
As far as the hospital industry, we have not really rolled it out or it's not as big a feature to our external customers right now (the clinicians in the hospital). What we're looking to do though is to provide our outside customers the ability to do more things through the service catalog and have one central location for doing things. We have different systems that do different things, so we can bring them and ServiceNow's platform will allow us to bring all of those items into one spot, so it's a one stop shop. That's what we're looking to do, that's what is best for the hospital.
What needs improvement?
The training, and that's not the tools, I'm very happy with the tools, it's just I have not been able to get my arms wrapped around it, to be able to do all the multiple things that I want to do. We're still learning it. I was telling someone the other day "I feel like I'm a developer," but then again I'm not really a developer, because I just need that one or two more advanced courses to push me off the edge so that I can get in and do all these great things that people are talking about doing. I just haven't seen that piece.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We did have some performance issues where some of the system areas were slow, but that was really our fault. It was a blip in the lifecycle. I mean comparatively we don't have any downtimes, we've got a hundred percent availability, so we're very happy in that regard. I'm also very happy with their support, they're very engaging and they've been very helpful when we have had problems.
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Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
There was a home grown solution as well as an external solution. We had had that solution for over twenty years and it had been through many different partners and many different hands, and it was not very customizable. I think that especially with ServiceNow, it's allowed us to start pushing forward the thought of ITIL within our authority.
That was Service Desk Express. We actually had it when it was Magic Solutions back in 1997, out of Newark, New Jersey. It actually was the lighter version of, it was the smaller offering from BMC.
How was the initial setup?
Ours was very complex. We had several issues because we were not in ITIL shop, and because we were not only changing our tool but really changing the culture of the way we had done things in the past, there was a lot of push back. Having them come in and having ServiceNow's help was good since they did a great job. It wasn't easy, it was kind of a struggle. We did have some issues where we kind of hoped that the vendor that we had brought in to help us with the implementation would tell us what industry standards or best practices were. We didn't see it, we were missing some of those pieces. That made it kind of hard. We also had an executive turnover in the middle of it, so that doesn't help.That hindered our implementation.
My suggestion to people would be to come and learn about the tool and learn about everything it can do before you make any decisions and before you start your implementation, because if I had to do my implementation over again I would change what I was trying to do. Like we implemented three pieces, or one piece, that really wasn't very helpful and I would have rather have tried something different.
What other advice do I have?
I'd do it. I mean just do it. If you're looking for a flexible tool that's going to grow with you, that's going to expand your flexibility, or expand your team, or expand how you do things and streamline things, I would do it. We've only been on it three years, but we've already done one upgrade, and I was prepared for the worst. I had come into work at midnight, and brought my snacks and sat at the desk and then basically watched the upgrade, and I won't be doing that again. I mean it's just that easy, it really is.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.