BMC FootPrints Service Core vs IFS Cloud Platform comparison

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. IFS Cloud Platform

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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reviewer1765752

System Engineer at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

A flexible, comprehensive, integrated IT service and asset management platform with good technical support

We use BMC FootPrints Service Core to manage network issues, infrastructure issues, software issues, and ERP. We also use it to manage our facility. So, we do some work orders and also use it as an extra ticketing system Technical support is good. It would be better if it were more…

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reviewer2268153

Cloud Operations Engineer

Integrated planning has improved production scheduling and now reduces downtime and costs

The biggest friction point I have run into with IFS Cloud Platform is user adoption, which has been the biggest challenge, as different users in the organization need to get accustomed to the new processes after years of using spreadsheets and legacy systems, requiring training and a mindset shift, along with challenging data migration and process standardization. My advice to someone considering IFS Cloud Platform with a similar workflow is to spend sufficient time understanding and standardizing their business processes before implementing it, as the technology is very powerful, but the real value comes when processes, data, and teams are all aligned. I would rate my overall experience with IFS Cloud Platform as a 9 out of 10.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"This is the right platform and choice, as every business needs to be at this pace and cannot ignore automation if you really want your company to get to the next level and be at par with competitors."

"The technical support is good, and we have not had any issues."

"The character extraction capability of IQ Bot is much, much better than the other OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engines that you have in the market today."

"The features that help us satisfy the needs of the customer to overcome mundane activities using task bots and meta bots are the most valuable along with the rich controls in the control room. The developer team is able to capture all the necessary steps without much hassle with the visual designer and the ability to test each step of automation has helped in delivering error-free automation to our customer."

"It an easy, simple, and user-friendly tool that can be accessed through the mobile application as well."

"When we compare other projects on other platforms versus Automation Anywhere, the technical support we are receiving in terms of efficiency, and even that they are giving us good price, this is what we are looking for."

"We work in the business process outsourcing arena, it has improved our organization mainly around freeing up people to do other things and that can be quite large numbers, in the high tens, even hundreds of people that can be freed up to do other work."

"Learning Automation Anywhere prepares our students for a better future because the future belongs to RPA Automation."

More Automation Anywhere pros

"It has helped the help desk team. We get our tickets in and are able to support our customers, the end-users, with this solution."

"We can track issues easier and run reports on issues to see if there are patterns."

"Technical support is good."

"I like the fact that FootPrints is a relational database, so every item in the database can be linked to another. This helps create history and audit trails for each CI."

"Implemented system-wide process for approving and tracking "employee move" requests for over 15,000 employees."

"I think the most important feature is the ability to receive valuable ticket status support in a timely manner with little to no downtime interruptions."

"We have found the reports and the lockdown on a ticket valuable, so only one person can update issues."

"We use BMC FootPrints Service Core to manage network issues, infrastructure issues, software issues, ERP, and our facility, using it for work orders and as an extra ticketing system."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core pros

"Prior to using the IFS site, it was quite difficult for us to track, access, and extract the inventory available to us, and once we started using IFS, it introduced us to a way to track and monitor the inventory, which from a user perspective is extremely useful for us."

"When it comes to financing, the solution has helped us to concentrate finance functions like accounting processes in one system. This includes about 70 internal entities around the world."

"One of our favorite features is the "Info-Zone", which provides operational intelligence in flight and in context to guide both business users and support teams to productivity."

"The financial posting controls are quite handy. The user interface is really friendly, highly flexible, and pretty intuitive for end users."

"The best feature is the maintenance module, which is essentially an industry-specific workflow designed with a manufacturing module as per industry standards. It's very precise and specific without having complex functionalities. It's straightforward. Field Service Management is definitely a wonderful product that IFS has developed because it caters to field services. The energy and utility sectors can answer their business needs using the software."

"The enterprise management solutions within the solution are very strong."

"Our client has benefited as follows: Reduced transaction time, better visibility, easier tracking, more control on business and automation, and better agility with the ability to move swiftly as times and market conditions change."

"The main reason for the ERP project was to bring together our fourteen sites, which had until then worked in separate silos."

More IFS Cloud Platform pros

Cons

"I have had a couple of crashes and issues."

"Our current version needs drag and drop, but that should be in the next release."

"Room for improvement is more on the IQ Bot side: How quickly we can adopt and deploy it?"

"The first version would double our cost."

"It still uses old, deprecated Microsoft components that have an end date."

"They could improve around continuous integration, e.g., Jenkins and GitHub, stating how you could use those products and integrating them into Automation Anywhere."

"Automation Anywhere's current requirement for upfront annual payments limits flexibility for customers."

"The scalability of Automation Anywhere's cloud version is excellent, but the on-premise version is a waste of time and money."

More Automation Anywhere cons

"The pricing could be a little lower and the product should cover more iTel versions."

"Hyphens are not allowed in the quick search bar. This has created a problem in our environment where we use hyphens in our asset names."

"To improve the product for our usage, the pricing maybe could be a bit lower."

"It is pretty clunky and not very intuitive. Even though I have used it for many years, I don't think it is a very good ITSM platform in general."

"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."

"There are still a few odd issues in FootPrints 12.x, which are frustrating."

"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."

"Reporting could be improved along with the option to create more fine tuned reports and to create specific fields for each type of ticket."

More BMC FootPrints Service Core cons

"We would like to see AI-driven CSI functions built into the tool that would allow us to quickly tie our improvement goals to metrics and activities, so Assyst will suggest the next steps to help us get closer to our goals."

"The customer service is not good as expected but we can say its fair."

"The solution needs to improve its documentation and user-friendliness."

"The integration is a bit complex, and post-implementation support services need to be improved. They have a service center based out of Sri Lanka. The support aspect is good, but the response time is a little slower than we anticipated. In the next release, it would be better if Warehouse Management could be improvised. They have a product line that's a data warehouse management system, but it's still premature and requires a bit of enhancement."

"Customization can only be done by IFS and not by the clients themselves."

"We have had an issue that we don't get proper after-sale service when we get technical glitches."

"I have seen that one of the areas that my company has identified for improvement might be the rental management capabilities within the solution."

"We have upgraded to the latest version right now. We have issues with the quality. We tried to enroll in their Evergreen program which was meant to help us adopt any service update or anything that the tool’s providers come up with."

More IFS Cloud Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have heard that Automation Anywhere is expensive."

"I don't agree with the IQ Bot licensing costs, which depends on the consumption of the document rather than per bot or user. This is confusing for me, because most of the cases for us in a possible future scenario, there would be a lot of invalid data to be scanned to get to real data. E.g., we would have to supply approximately 100 pages of scanned data to extract two pages of original data. In these type of cases, the IQ Bot might be a costly venture."

"I advise others that even as of right now, the setup cost and licensing cost to automate bots on Automation Anywhere is steep but it is worth the investment!"

"Additional costs will be for the machines and the number of machines that you are using. You can deploy virtually as well as on physical machines. In both the situations, you do need to allocate a certain budget for securing the machines and where the software will be installed and running. The machines cannot be used for anything else, because only a certain bot can run at a certain time. You need to be very particular about your scheduling of running the bots, and while the bot is running nobody can use the machine. You cannot have an agent working on a machine and the bot running in the background. It has to be completely dedicated. Then there are the network bandwidth requirements and space requirements, which are additional costs apart from the licensing and software costs. The developer is also going to charge you for their coding time too."

"It's a bit expensive compared to other RPA tools on the market."

"We're on a license package with Automation Anywhere (AA), paid yearly. What would be better is for them to have different packages for different types of organization."

"It's justified because we have saved quite a bit of money at the company and many manual hours. Overall, it justifies the cost."

"Because it reduced the time duration of our processes, our costs went down."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"This solution has good pricing."

"Our costs are well over $250,000."

"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."

"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."

"There are varying license levels that you can purchase."

"The pricing of the solution may appear to be expensive for smaller companies with only tens of users; however, for larger and mid-size industrial companies, IFS is able to win deals and the pricing is competitive in the market."

"We pay for a license to use the solution, which is not very expensive."

"Compared to SAP, the pricing for IFS Applications was very affordable. People using the solution would find that it's worth the money."

"There's an additional yearly cost for support."

"Pricing is an area that could be improved. They could be more competitive."

"Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs."

"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."

More IFS Cloud Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Construction Company

21%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	157
Midsize Enterprise	82
Large Enterprise	558

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive featur...

What needs improvement with IFS Applications?

There are features that came up during implementation that we are not actually using today, such as field service man...

What is your primary use case for IFS Applications?

My main use case for IFS Cloud Platform is for production planning, where I typically use it for production schedulin...

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

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Product Reports

Automation Anywhere

Download Automation Anywhere product report

IT Service Management (ITSM)

Download BMC FootPrints Service Core product report

IFS Cloud Platform

Download IFS Cloud Platform product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

FootPrints Service Core

IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

BMC Helix

Demo not available

IFS

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

BMC FootPrints Service Core is a comprehensive tool that aids in incident, problem, and change management while offering customizable views and integration options.

Valued for its customizable home views and flexible database relations, BMC FootPrints Service Core excels in stability and responsive technical support. With capabilities for email automation, survey integration, and report creation, it enhances IT service management and business process efficiency. The solution supports ticket status updates with minimal downtime and accommodates multiple administrators across workspaces. Pink Elephant certification and smart IT features broaden its appeal for IT departments.

What are the key features of BMC FootPrints Service Core?

Incident Management: Tracks and resolves service desk tickets efficiently.
Problem Management: Identifies and mitigates underlying issues to prevent recurrence.
Change Management: Helps assess and handle changes seamlessly in the environment.
Customizable Views: Offers tailored dashboards for user-specific information.
Email Automation: Facilitates swift communication and response handling.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in reviews?

Stable Performance: Ensures reliable operation for consistent IT services.
Responsive Support: Provides timely technical assistance to resolve issues.
Administrative Flexibility: Allows versatile control across different workspaces.

In industries like IT services and HR, BMC FootPrints Service Core supports managing service desk tickets, tracking assets, and resolving issues in network, infrastructure, and software areas. Its functionalities also extend to HR issue tracking, service requests, and contract management, facilitating both on-premises deployments and ITIL process implementations such as Service Request and Service Catalog Management.

BMC Helix

IFS Cloud Platform offers a modern, adaptable enterprise management tool with a user-friendly design, providing seamless integration and customizable modules for efficient operations.

IFS Cloud Platform streamlines enterprise processes through its cloud-based architecture, favoring adaptability and swift updates. It supports industry standards and offers deep analytics and flexible customization, benefiting industries like aerospace, defense, and manufacturing. Despite needing enhancements in documentation, mobile compatibility, and reporting tools, it remains a viable choice for comprehensive ERP applications in finance, HR, and supply chain management. Integration with systems such as Azure and NetSuite further optimizes manufacturing schedules.

What are the key features of IFS Cloud Platform?

Modern Design: Offers an intuitive interface.
REST APIs: Enables seamless integration.
Customizable Modules: Enhances finance and service management.
Analytics: Provides deep insights into operations.
Cloud-Based: Ensures quick updates and adaptability.
Industry Standards: Supports service-oriented architecture.

What benefits or ROI should be considered in reviews?

Increased Efficiency: Streamlines enterprise management.
Enhanced Connectivity: Facilitates system integration.
Flexibility: Customizable to business needs.
Improved Operations: Optimizes schedules and resources.
Cost-Effectiveness: Competitive in enterprise solutions.

In aerospace and defense, IFS Cloud Platform assists with planning and scheduling, while in manufacturing, it manages inventory and service management efficiently. Companies implement it for ERP applications across finance, HR, and supply chain, integrating with Azure and NetSuite to enhance IT service management and project-based scenarios, leveraging its AI-driven PSO component.

IFS

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

Cast & Crew

China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia.

BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. IFS Cloud Platform