What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.
The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends. From a certain point of view, I understand because it's an enterprise product, and they tend to focus more on stability rather than aesthetics. It's probably not that important for them. But for the customer, however, it is. Nowadays you need all the gadgets and it has to shine.
The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces.
IT Service Desk Manager at a government with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Feb 19, 2021
The solution lacks a graphical user interface. They should work to implement one in the future. It's not very easy to make changes. They need to make it easier to adjust items as necessary. The product is kind of clunky to use. The scalability could be better. It's only scalable to a moderate extent. There are limitations on the capabilities.
Software Specialist at GBM (an IBM alliance Company)
Real User
Jan 14, 2021
The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon. The need to make it easier to manage timing and time calculations. I found it to be a bit challenging. They could make it easier. Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues.
Software Specialist at GBM (an IBM alliance Company)
Real User
Jan 14, 2021
The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time.
Because I have been working with SmartCloud Control Desk on a daily basis for eight years, I don't have any issues. I mainly hear our end users who do complain about some things, one of which is the user interface. The 7.611 version, for the users, and even, in my opinion, is not as pretty as it was. They went with simpler colors, but only blue and white. In the previous versions, you had those little icons and you knew what to click and where the configuration and administration are. Now you have to read the menus. In the software or middleware forms I don't see any complaints, it works as it should. But again, users mainly complain about the user interface, the GUI. It has too much information and it's more complicated than it should be. Maybe it is a different architecture because I know that the self-service center is in Java and it's different from the others, including the applications in Maximo. Other than this, I would not say it needs anything new.
Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy. I want things to change quickly in my email, for example, but I don't get this. I understand that they're a big company and they have lots of tickets they have to solve for it but my customers don't and it bothers them. New updates can create problems. I worked from version 7.2 to 7.6 and I know some problems that occurred in 7.2 and IBM resolved this problem but in 7.4 and 6 we had this problem again. Now I need to wait to resolve this problem again for the new fix. The main problem is to get a person from the top line to talk to you. It takes a lot of time to describe my problems to the first line, then for the second line and then to try to repeat this problem in the environment. When we have connected with the top line, it resolves for a few days, for example. The people don't have enough knowledge or experience to solve my problem. We cannot send pictures from our system to our email client. Our clients will send a screenshot of their problem but the picture won't appear. We have the same problem when we send emails from the system to email clients, we don't see the screenshot that we can add to the text. I would like this to be improved in the next release. Our clients want their email support to support pictures, margins, rich text and other things. I would for them to resolve this in the next release.
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust integration capabilities, effective SLA integrations, automated workflows, and comprehensive reporting. Its flexibility and centralized request management enhance service efficiency, making it ideal for detailed issue tracking and resolution in IT environments.IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is designed to streamline IT support, ticketing, and incident management. By integrating seamlessly with existing infrastructures, it centralizes service requests and...
What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.
The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends. From a certain point of view, I understand because it's an enterprise product, and they tend to focus more on stability rather than aesthetics. It's probably not that important for them. But for the customer, however, it is. Nowadays you need all the gadgets and it has to shine.
The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces.
The solution lacks a graphical user interface. They should work to implement one in the future. It's not very easy to make changes. They need to make it easier to adjust items as necessary. The product is kind of clunky to use. The scalability could be better. It's only scalable to a moderate extent. There are limitations on the capabilities.
The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon. The need to make it easier to manage timing and time calculations. I found it to be a bit challenging. They could make it easier. Technical support can be slow in terms of resolving issues.
The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time.
Because I have been working with SmartCloud Control Desk on a daily basis for eight years, I don't have any issues. I mainly hear our end users who do complain about some things, one of which is the user interface. The 7.611 version, for the users, and even, in my opinion, is not as pretty as it was. They went with simpler colors, but only blue and white. In the previous versions, you had those little icons and you knew what to click and where the configuration and administration are. Now you have to read the menus. In the software or middleware forms I don't see any complaints, it works as it should. But again, users mainly complain about the user interface, the GUI. It has too much information and it's more complicated than it should be. Maybe it is a different architecture because I know that the self-service center is in Java and it's different from the others, including the applications in Maximo. Other than this, I would not say it needs anything new.
Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy. I want things to change quickly in my email, for example, but I don't get this. I understand that they're a big company and they have lots of tickets they have to solve for it but my customers don't and it bothers them. New updates can create problems. I worked from version 7.2 to 7.6 and I know some problems that occurred in 7.2 and IBM resolved this problem but in 7.4 and 6 we had this problem again. Now I need to wait to resolve this problem again for the new fix. The main problem is to get a person from the top line to talk to you. It takes a lot of time to describe my problems to the first line, then for the second line and then to try to repeat this problem in the environment. When we have connected with the top line, it resolves for a few days, for example. The people don't have enough knowledge or experience to solve my problem. We cannot send pictures from our system to our email client. Our clients will send a screenshot of their problem but the picture won't appear. We have the same problem when we send emails from the system to email clients, we don't see the screenshot that we can add to the text. I would like this to be improved in the next release. Our clients want their email support to support pictures, margins, rich text and other things. I would for them to resolve this in the next release.