ServiceNow Reviews

We use ServiceNow for asset management. I manage the IT contracts that are in ServiceNow with the metadata that we have. I'm the associate director for IT contract assets.

When we can centralize all the contract information, ServiceNow will give us better control over asset management and technical debt.

ServiceNow is not meeting our expectations. The contract module is quite rudimentary. It doesn't support contract line items, which are subdivisions of contracts in VA. The result is that we're not able to track those sorts of assets down to the product level. I'd like to see support for contract line items included in the next release.

I've been using this solution for two years. 

My understanding is that the stability is excellent. 

The initial setup is complex because it's not meeting our needs. We're having to build a scoped app to address the inability to save contract line items and data.

For now, I rate this solution five out of 10. 

I previously used the on-premise version of ServiceNow. It was a better fit for companies and banks because of their tech security protocols. But for my work with my current company, I am considering the cloud solution because we already have all the other software components in AWS.

The main features of ServiceNow that I use are incident approval management and the ability to link all the information we receive from the finance bureau service. We needed to track the different processes within the IT area and incident documentation. Then we gathered all the information and built a knowledge base. That's the central core functionality that I've been using, and I've seen immense benefits.

We are elaborating and defining the business processes, so I will believe that we will be able to avoid the older models for the second phase. But first, I wanted to have these incident and asset management models in place as a first phase of the implementation.

I've been using ServiceNow for work I've done with various clients for around eight years. I first used it with Wal-Mart International, and then we used it for one event with Brolin Management. I recently worked with Santander Bank, where we used ServiceNow for all the incident and assets management. Now, I help implement different service management tools at my current company, including ServiceNow.

I think ServiceNow is highly stable. These kinds of tools are used in a big company, and I haven't seen any issues in terms of the core platform. However, if we need to customize something, that would be the point to focus on because this would be something new, not a part of the standard flow for the tool.

I think ServiceNow is scalable in the short term. 

The solution has some built-in monitoring capabilities, so we escalate cases as they come. But sometimes the response to our requests is delayed.

Setting up ServiceNow is pretty standard because we want it to manage incidents and use it for other marketing, construction, and procurement areas. But, still, everything would be based on the different services we provide for their operations area. If you move forward with the cloud, I think the number of internal staff needed would be minor. It probably takes around two people to deploy and manage. In this case, we use some external consultants for all the development and maintenance.

For us, it's better to pay the licenses monthly, and I mean when we move ahead with the cloud deployment. I understand that the service includes hosting and licensing as a service as well as some downgoing costs probably. That will be all on the implementation side. It depends if we need some customization. We will need to consider that part as a consultancy. 

I will rate ServiceNow nine out of 10 because it's a little expensive compared to other tools, but it's a very good product from a technical standpoint.

We use it as a tool to develop and monitor attestations and assessments where we develop questions based on our policies and ask application owners to explain and show compliance with our policies through a series of attestation questions.

I refer to it often when I'm looking up applications in the CMDB. The CMDB gives me a lot of information on the application in terms of what certain parameters are, who owns the application, and what's the structure of the organization owning the application. It gives me a fair amount of information.

We are using the latest version. We stay up to date with all the patches.

It helps with how well our applications are compliant with our policies, and that helps with the overall security of our applications. We are very detailed with our policies, and there is a buy-in for security across the company. So, we're able to show which applications are in compliance with the policies and which aren't, and we're able to target those that aren't for a little extra work and attention.

The thing that I like most about it is the easy integration with the CMDB. I'm able to look at the CMDB for applications and develop my assessments and attestations based on the application and point them at that application owner. So, I can really automate the whole thing.

Its setup is tough. It takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience.

In terms of features, we're pretty happy with the product as it is. They make regular improvements. We look at them, evaluate them, but we haven't seen anything that we wanted to use it for, though we continuously reevaluate our tools to see where we can expand our capabilities.

I have been using this solution for three years.

We find the product to be very stable. Because it is a cloud-based application, you have your issues with networks and all, but I don't consider that a part of the problem with the application. I find the application to be extremely stable.

It is fairly easy to scale. When you start adding a lot of different modules to it, it becomes a bit more complex, but if you have well-trained staff who can manage it in production, it becomes relatively simple, especially once you develop processes to handle that.

In terms of usage, just about everybody in the company uses it. If you're in technology or you're using technology, you use the interface with this application one way or the other. This is the company's ITIL tool. This is how we handle requests and manage the integrity of our systems and applications. I think it's going to be here for a while. How long? I can't tell.

Tech support is very knowledgeable. We've used them, and they've been very helpful. If someone is starting with ServiceNow, I would recommend them to spend a fair amount of time with their tech support. However, they do tend to point you towards some of their vendors who provide consulting services, and as with most consulting services, it can be all over the place.

We were using another solution. It was the standard for service management for so many years, but it was horrible. I don't remember the name.

The setup is tough. It takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience. So, you have to basically work with the product on an almost exclusive basis to become very knowledgeable. However, it is very powerful, especially once you have people who can write JavaScript and who can improve and make the product do a lot more than it does coming out of the box.

We have operations staff that handles the ongoing maintenance. It's not anything where we're having to pull down servers or anything. It's just managing access and maintaining the integrity of the CMDB. Everything else is just types of ITIL efforts such as handling tickets, processing requests. That's it. I find it very useful.

I cannot speak for the company in terms of what the company sees. All I can say is that from what I've used it for, it has been extremely valuable because I don't have to go around with spreadsheets to people. So to me, it is a return on efficiency.

For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees.

My advice would be to look at it very carefully. It is a great product, but make sure that it fits your company culture and the way you want to do things because it is a big product.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for ITSM and a little bit of ITOM. However, we don't use it for ITBM.

Role-based access is a 'positive'.

ServiceNow has a feature called Orchestration. In that, you can utilize the tool to communicate with applications and systems to issue commands and perform actions. That's a positive, it's something that does exist in the tool. We are in our infancy in utilizing that.

There's a relatively new feature called performance analytics. It's supposed to provide a lot more information. It's got machine learning and some AI built into it. We're our infancy with that. 

For the nuts and bolts running of an IT organization, I can't really say there's anything lacking, feature-wise.

The solution is relatively easy to use.

One thing I don't care for is the reporting and the way it functions. Exporting a report, from a view,  initiates a rerun of the query in the background - highly inefficient.

In terms of the implementation, there seems to be a dearth of basic table joins, on initial install, necessitating the creation of your own database views to get seemingly related data to act like related data. In other words, it's popular to have incidents linked to changes, and linked to problems, and linked to other types of records. And vice versa, you could have an incidents caused by a change. You could have an incident that has a problem record built off of it. However, there are several modules where, if you don't create table joins - for example, for demand records and demand tasks - between those two, then the only option is pull two reports (one for Demands, one for Demand Tasks), and manually merge them outside of the tool. It's highly inefficient. That is something that is a deficiency within the tool design overall.

The initial setup is a bit complex (could have been designed to be profile-driven, as an alternative).

While I recognize that it's a popular thing to do, due to poor design, update sets have to be moved manually, from platform to platform, easily introducing errors (sequence, origin, etc.)  along the way. I've seen far better promote-to-production schemes with other tools.

I've been using ServiceNow for more than 5 years.

Scales 'up' well.  

Scales 'down' poorly.

The solution is not exactly scalable for a mom-and-pop shop (and SMBs). The costs would be too prohibitive for that.

Someone once said, a bird, no matter the size, has the same number of bones. If you're going to do incident change problem, asset config, things like that, for a mom-and-pop, technically, you have the same number of types of things you need to be concerned about. It's just the volume of how it's being applied. A mom-and-pop store might carry 50 items in its inventory. A large company is going to have thousands upon thousands. Therefore, ServiceNow would not be a good solution for a small organization with few assets. 

If you don't have a full CMDB to begin with it really makes a lot of things awkward within the tool. 

We have 4,000+ 

ServiceNow Technical support needs improvement.

One example - 

Order - (context - business rules) - ServiceNow allows you to have any number of rules with the same order number. 

ServiceNow's official answer to 'how does the database code decide which rule to execute first, when multiple business rules are assigned the same order level?': we have no answer 

(it goes without saying - use unique order levels)

We're just a customer and an end-user.

We started on-prem and then switched to cloud. We switched to the cloud about three years ago.

- fill out the CMDB before you start implementing the tool - make the time.

- plan out table joins as you implement new modules.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. I would just warn others that it's too easy to incorporate abysmally poor design.

Multi Tenant, Scalable, Flexible and Stable

It has improved out response time to the client

The reporting is very good. 

The solution has very good automation tools.

The solution has been extremely stable so far. 

The need to improve their technical support services. 

Their dashboards are very, very basic. Maybe if they could develop some sort of very good fancy-looking, visible, graphical, visible kind of appearance. 

The pricing of the solution could be better. It's a bit high.

When we are monitoring, for example, a device, an S-Switch, we can create insights. We can segregate the LAN, and create a VLAN. When we create those VLANs, we should be able to monitor those VLANs. The same with storage systems. The LANs, through the cable space level, should be able to be monitored. 

I've been working with the solution for eight or nine years so far. It's been almost a decade. I've used it for a while now. 

The stability is excellent. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. I find it to be reliable. 

The solution works very well for large enterprises. If you have a very, very big setup, it's an ideal option.

Technical support could be better. We are not satisfied with the level of support they offer.

I've also worked with SolarWinds and ManageEngine. I prefer ServiceNow, as there's a lot of automation tools available in that and it's been a stable product. It's been in the market for a long time. It's got a good market reach also.

Very Complex, 13 companies, 9 Towers, 17,000 devices

First time we implemented it through Vendor and we took a training from the OEM and now we have a team to deploy the solution

Not calculated, but I would say 2 years we recover the cost 

Their pricing is relatively high. They are expensive.

Yes,

SolarWinds and ManageEngine

We are not a partner or reseller. I'm a consultant. Before that, I have implemented the products. I've migrated a lot of products, a lot of systems. That's how I have an association with monitoring tools and service test tools.

I differently would recommend the solution if a company is a huge enterprise. For example, if you are maybe looking at more than some 10,000 or 20,000 devices. There should be a minimum of 10,000 devices or 15,000 devices. I would recommend ServiceNow for those setups. For data centers and other things, definitely I would recommend ServiceNow. I would not recommend SolarWinds or ManageEngine for these types of setups. I don't see that much capacity in them. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The initial setup is not complex.

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

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.

One of the benefits of the platform itself is that it's not covering IT service management only. It, for example, has price service management functionality. 

There are lots of modules around IT service management such as IT business management and human resource management (HRC). Bigger clients, enterprises, are often looking for end-to-end business flow automation. Part of those processes, in other cases, are standalone solutions. The ability to implement end-to-end flows, including business ones, is the most important aspect of the solution.

I sometimes try to compare ServiceNow with Micro Focus. When I worked with Micro Focus or HPE, I liked how they communicate with partners, how they provide materials. ServiceNow really does lots of things in this area, however, there is definitely some space for improvement there. For instance, some workshop materials, et cetera, are lacking. They need to be providing vendors and implementation partners with materials and guidance on implementation.

The solution is mostly on the cloud. On-premises implementations are more difficult. 

I've been using ServiceNow for the last five years. I remember my first implementation project was in 2017. Probably before that, I started using ServiceNow and did the training, et cetera.

The stability is pretty good. On average, I don't see many clients complaining about the performance side of stability or availability on the platform.

We did some cases to improve server functionality with scaling. We created clusters. In terms of the scalability of ServiceNow itself, several instances of ServiceNow with synchronization, et cetera, as well as performance, I don't recall scaling so much. In most cases, it's not really required as one instance of ServiceNow is good enough for most clients. They also handle all this backup, monitoring, and et cetera, internally. 

I rarely deal with technical support, as, most often at least, I focus our innovation on implementation projects. Support is more active when it's implemented already and rolled out to production. Other personnel from my department handle that, for sure. From my understanding, in terms of the quality of the support,  it's quite typical. Sometimes it could be better and faster. However, if we can imagine the flow of those tickets for the ServiceNow support side, I would imagine it's quite big. Therefore, I'd say that it's acceptable and understandable.

I also work with Atlassian's Jira Service Desk. I used to work with Service Manager five years ago.

For ServiceNow, I really like it's a single platform. Everything within the platform is integrated already. There are quite rich integration capabilities with other systems at the client-side. For Micro Focus, you can install it in the cloud or on-premises. ServiceNow doesn't really allow you to install anything on-premises. 

On the Micro Focus side, some of their products were really great, such as Universal CMDB or UCMDB. At some point, it's still better than the current ServiceNow CMDB. Some single individual products from Micro Focus were really great for me. However, in some cases, when you come into a client and try to solve a complex task, you need to map the requirements to particular products. For Micro Focus, sometimes it was problematic as you required many products solving more or less the same purposes. At ServiceNow, each module is quite unique and serving its unique purpose. It's more like LEGOs. 

With Micro Focus, I remember in some cases, their solutions were quite resource-consuming. It's pretty predictable since HPE at the time was both a software and hardware vendor. It was good for them to sell software plus hardware. Sometimes it was how to understand why particular software could consume so many resources. That's not a problem with ServiceNow at all as it's on the cloud mostly.

The initial setup is pretty clear. If we try to compare the implementation of some traditional modules, like incident management, request fulfillment, it's an industry standard. It's very good. ServiceNow, from a functionality and partner support perspective, has lots of materials. However, when it comes to some newer modules, some ITBM applications, et cetera, sometimes when they just release the first version of the module, and it might be a bit different from a functionality perspective. There's a lack of documentation and support. That's quite typical. I feel like Hewlett-Packard pays a bit more attention to that.

We're implementors. We implement the solution for our clients.

ServiceNow is still mostly used as an ITSM platform. And IT service management mostly feeds some kind of internal purposes. It's not a business-related platform. It's supposed to save money, not to help to earn money.

Some clients come in to get some help with the reimplementation of a platform. Others are looking for certain improvements to the existing platform. In some cases, it's a greenfield implementation. For greenfield implementations, especially when it comes to big enterprises, the question behind the scenes is we don't really understand how much we spend on IT. There are likely many unrelated budgets, which are not even visible. The first question is how much you really spend. And if they get an answer to this question, it's already a good achievement. 

Over time, we baseline the spending and we implement new functionality and new processes, new modules. In some cases, it's quite expensive compared to the business itself. By that, I mean, the processes we implement. We may have 20 people doing some job and if you look at their salaries for a couple of years, it's a lot. We come in and implement and automate the process for them, and in those cases, it might be five years of salaried budget saved. However, that's years. You won't see the savings immediately. It will be something witnessed over time.

We're a ServiceNow partner. We help to implement ServiceNow for our clients.

We're working on likely the latest version of the solution. ServiceNow provides upgrades two times a year. Previous versions get obsolete so that you can't actually use them.

I often see that people tend to simplify things and they expect any system, no matter if it's ServiceNow or any other system or platform from the area, that the implementation would solve the entire ATSM matter. However, in fact, with ATSM, it's about products, people, processes, and partners. All the efforts should be covered. No solution is a silver bullet.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. it's a very good solution, however, there's always room for improvement.

We primarily use the solution for change management and program management. Let's say, for example, if someone across our state needs a license. My team will send the request to me and I would approve it. For other tasks, they might send me a ticket and I would either approve it or add additional comments, however, that's it. 

The workflow and the general effectiveness of the processes have helped improve how our organization functions.

The workflow makes things extremely efficient and it improves effectiveness.

The product integrates well with other solutions. 

The stability has been very good so far.

We have found that the product can scale. 

Technical support has been helpful.

One of the areas that need improvement is when the product was implemented, they did not do a very good job of explaining all these features and functions, and capabilities of the tool. That could have been an implementation issue on our organization's side. This could have happened by not including end-users in order to get their input or to understand what this tool offers. It was kind of just pushed out. For example, while the tool could potentially do a hundred things, only 20 of the capabilities were explained. The other 80 we have to figure out on our own. It could have been explained and rolled out better, however, that could have been just an implementation issue on our side as well.

It became kind of complex to set it up without a general lack of knowledge of the particular feature-function capabilities. Features and capabilities could have been explained better to the end-users.

I have used the solution for about a year.

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The product definitely can be scaled. We're working now to integrate it with other workflow products, so it's definitely scalable.

We've dealt with technical support in the past. We have a service desk. Since it's on-prem, it's been pretty good. Tech support has been helpful and we have no complaints. 

We did previously use a different solution, however, with ServiceNow, we find that it offers better scalability, ease of use, features, and functions.

My team did not implement ServiceNow, we do not maintain it and we do not service it. We just use the product.

I don't know what they had on the setup and the implementation part in terms of setting up servers and configuring servers and things like that. I don't know what that entails. We just know when we got it, we got a product. So what difficulties they might've had setting in up with, I don't know. I can't speak to that.

I don't handle any aspect of the payments or licensing process. I can't speak to it from personal experience. 

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

I go in and approve service tickets, however, I am not a hardcore user of that platform. My team sends me a request, I open it up and I review the ticket and I approve it, and then it moves on. I don't follow the workflow or anything like that.

Our team uses the most recent version of the solution.

I would advise potential new users to make sure that in that user community, end-users are involved in the implementation from beginning to end and make sure that the end-users fully understand the features and capabilities of the tool before it is implemented across an organization. Their involvement is key to a successful implementation and very important.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

We are premium partners with ServiceNow and I'm a solutions architect. 

ServiceNow is one of the fastest‑growing cloud enterprise software companies in the world. We implemented ITSM, ITOM and ITBM for various customs and even in our organization which reduced operations costs infrastructure cost

This solution has a user friendly environment. ServiceNow offers a wide platform which allows us to explore other technologies and functionalities and provides a 360-degree view. Data in reports and dashboards are easily accessible. I also like the integration hub which is plug and play. You can integrate any tool with ServiceNow.

Need to focus on small business like Licensing, packaging

I've been using this solution for 10 years. 

We don't have any complaints from our customers after they start using the product. Once they adapt to the new look and feel, and the user experience, there's no problem. 

We generally don't need much support. When it's necessary, I can contact the higher support team that deal with implementation and it's easy to connect with them and get a quick response. They are good. 

We used Remedy and we switched because Remedy is still using old technology

The initial setup is straightforward in ServiceNow. It's not complex, you can say it's out-of-the-box.

100%

If a company is looking for more accessibility, a user friendly environment where they want to explore other functionalities like HR and CSM, then ServiceNow provides that. I recommend this solution because they're always coming out with new technologies and functionalities. And the support level is very good even though things are automatically updated on a regular basis. 

I rate this solution a ten out of 10. 

We use this solution for managing IT assets and business operations.

We are also using it to help make better business decisions.

Using ServiceNow has forced conversations around the whole IT domain, on how we can manage the IT assets through their life cycles. This starts with identifying the need and introducing it, developing it, and deploying it, to then eventually making decisions to remove the asset from the operation.

I can use it to see the whole life cycle.

As a company, it's about how you get your data in there and manage it.

I like all of the operations and features that I have seen.

I like that it's running on a unified platform and that there is no data integration.

I can get a real-time view of how our assets are performing.

I also like that with the operations running on a unified platform, I can then get a better picture of ITHealth through the application platform management tool.

I really like what they've done with their common service data model because now I can make a connection between the business process and technology. I can start showing the role some of the technologies are playing and talk about the health of the technology and even connecting it up to the business strategies. You can do that with the APM component.

I like having one platform to get that view.

The marketing needs improvement. This platform can really do a lot and I don't think they do it justice for what it can do. 

I have to go out there and market things. Whereas I think if their teams were a little more in tune with what they could actually deliver, they would do a better job selling it.

I still haven't seen a holistic picture of the whole platform and what they can really do. I don't know if that's intentional or if they're not selling it.

The visuals are the one area where there is opportunity for improvement. 

The reporting can be difficult, but they are making it a little easier to create reports or introduce a wizard to help you walk through them.

You have to know the entity-relationship diagram to get the right data and make the right connections. 

The visual representation of the data is an area where they fall short of, but they do have a partner who is native to their product. It does a much better job visualizing the data. I don't know if that is there, the way they're closing the gap.

I would like to see, from a business process automation perspective, where an engineer or architect could implement the automation. You don't have to write the spec and hand it off to a ServiceNow developer.

For some of the things that are happening with the other BPM tools, I'd like to see ServiceNow be a little more user-friendly. Another thing I'd like to see is that they have a representation and their service taxonomy of a more modern application for events business logic, as well as APIs. As it is now, it's still in the application and infrastructure perspective, but that's not totally a modern construction of an application.

I have been using ServiceNow for 12 years.

We are running the current version. 

From a SaaS perspective, it's very stable. I think in the 12 years that I've been running it, I have seen maybe one or two outages. For the most part, it's pretty stable.

I haven't really experienced any performance problems. I am assuming that they are monitoring and extending it when they need to.

I don't know how many users they have at my current company. In my last company, we had more than 1,000 users. They were primarily IT except for the work request part of it that came in from the entire enterprise.

It is being used extensively. There are definitely plans it increase the usage. I am working on the plans to extend it. It was just introduced in March, more for the kind of IT service side of it. Problems, incidents, change, and work requests for example. 

Now I am looking to bring in governance, risk, and compliance. 

Also, having conversations with other areas like business continuity, disaster recovery, and security about how they could leverage the same platform for some of their operations.

I think whoever purchased it had this in their vision, they're just not communicating who's vision right now. I have been having those conversations to get people to understand what we will be able to do in the future so that they buy into making the move and investing in learning how to use ServiceNow.

I wasn't on the support team. I am on the architecture team, but as far as technical insights go, and to help make decisions, they have been very good at sharing knowledge. 

I have a couple of connections right now who, as I'm trying to push things out a little bit more, I'm pinging. I am getting help with enterprise ERDs and different things, and they're very responsive to them.

I was not involved in the setup of this solution. It was already in place when I started with the company.

To others who are interested in implementing ServiceNow, I would say, consider it for running your IT operations, but implement it capability by capability. This will allow you to see the big picture of what you're going to get at the end of it. You can't do a big bang approach on this. Rather, you have to be very deliberate in how you implement it.

They have thought through it, and not just the whole domain in the platform but now they have connected it to the business side, the business needs and the processes, the work that people do down to the technology. I think that was missing a few years ago, probably more than a few years ago. Because I think they met with them in 2016 around it. But they have got that now, and it is really powerful. 

I've been working through the taxonomy with different parts of the organization and the fact that they can start making some of these connections in a system I think is phenomenal.

Also, they have the assets included. When you do an assessment to see, how healthy it is, you can not only see who has impacted the business applications that are impacted, which drives you to the people and the processes and all those things. You can also see what the root cause of the cross problem is, and manage the root cause in a more holistic manner.

For its space and what it is capable of doing, I would rate ServiceNow a nine out of ten.