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BMC FootPrints Service Core vs IFS Cloud Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
641
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (1st), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
BMC FootPrints Service Core
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (30th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (26th)
IFS Cloud Platform
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
CRM (33rd), Customer Experience Management (9th), Field Service Management (2nd), Help Desk Software (21st), ERP (20th), Activity Based Costing Software (10th), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (3rd), Local Government CRM (13th), IT Asset Management (13th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (18th), License Management (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer1765752 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
reviewer2268153 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The way templates can be configured is quite simple - it's a matter of drag and drop."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to transform data into clusters."
"Automation Anywhere provides the best feature to make a software bot for processes."
"Automation of such tasks helped in clearing the bandwidth of the users and requestors alike and saved a lot of to and fro just asking for the latest data."
"The ease of use is one of great assets for Automation Anywhere."
"Using this solution has brought a lot of return on investment in terms of saving hours or FTEs, and we are utilizing them in more constructive areas."
"The drag-and-drop feature is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the Excel operations because the most repetitive task which we used to do was Excel operations, and Automation Anywhere has the Excel commands feature where we can run Excel Macros, which is very valuable and is saving so much time for us."
"This product solidly handles incident management, problem management, and change management."
"It is stable and its technical support is good and quick."
"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."
"I feel confident in saying that BMC FootPrints Service Core is definitely one of the best products in the market."
"I have used Tier II BMC support a few times. They were very responsive and recreated my environment in their lab to support me."
"Technical support is good."
"It's extremely stable; we've got customers who are mobile telecommunication customers, hospitals, power companies, and an airport, and we can handle the volume with no interruptions where instability would really be unacceptable."
"The discovery feature is very flexible."
"The product is quite flexible."
"The solution overall is very versatile and flexible, especially compared to other products."
"Feature-wise, I like the way it provides inventory details...It is a stable solution."
"IFS has been completely rebuilt, modernized, and cloud-based so we don't need bulky software installations."
"IFS Applications' best feature is the user-friendly interface that has a .NET Framework application in the front end and an Oracle database and WebLogic middleware."
"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."
"Some of the strengths are Enterprise Management Solutions and the series of Management solutions which is number one in Gartner's report and has been for the last five years."
"We applied the ISO 20000 standard using Assyst."
 

Cons

"I am looking forward to seeing writing on Linux in the web and WorkBatch in the next release."
"Automation Anywhere has some limitation with its integrations. You can build your logic with MetaBots and .NET components, e.g., if something is not gathered by Automation Anywhere or built into functionality, you can write a MetaBot. A MetaBot is like an external component. You can write it through C# or .NET code, and make a DLL, and import it. This is not open to all data types or EXE functionalities which can be written through C#. You have to define your variable types, matching them with Automation Anywhere existing variable types. Because of the knowledge required, I cannot let another person, who doesn't know Automation Anywhere, build my external DLL code."
"Some NLP AI is required to work in combination with RPA, especially for reading unstructured emails."
"Web automation capability needs to be improved."
"One of the challenges that I face every now and then while working with A2019, is around the bot agent updates. Every week/alternate weeK, I receive an error while running my bots, that asks me to update the bot agent."
"Automation Anywhere's UI is difficult. Its user interface can be improved."
"I have not seen bots working efficiently in the area of reporting."
"Another feature that would be cool to see in Automation Anywhere is more use of artificial intelligence."
"We need more customizable reporting functionality."
"The mobile version of this product does not support asset management."
"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."
"It would be nice if they added the ability to go directly to a form via a deep link URL."
"Sometimes it is difficult to make the application do exactly what you need."
"The workflow should be made to be more user-friendly. It should also have more granular scalability."
"It would be better if it were more user-friendly. The reporting part in the version we have is a little complicated. It takes too long to build and report. It would also be better if there were another way to manage notifications."
"There are still a few odd issues in FootPrints 12.x, which are frustrating."
"The product requires heavy administrative work."
"There are some stability issues."
"The support provided by IFS Applications has room for improvement. I'm based in Poland, and when my company had an issue, finding people from IFS to give my company the support it needed was difficult."
"An area for improvement would be transactions, which can be tedious to complete as the process is very complex."
"IFS uses Crystal Report mostly, which isn't too user-friendly. Developing reports isn't easy and requires a lot of dev time. Since SAP bought it, Crystal Report has become more complicated to use on IFS. You have a dashboard for reporting that is good, but it's incomplete. Most of our clients use Power BI or some additional tooling for BI."
"Sometimes from the sales perspective, clients don't always fully understand how large a task or a project they're getting involved in when they decide, "We're going to switch across to IFS." They could probably do a little bit more, maybe around preparing people for these projects."
"Ability to place approval check-points in the custom workflow, so clients can decide what they want it."
"The customer service is not good as expected but we can say its fair."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you compare the cost of Automation Anywhere with UiPath and Blue Prism, those others are much less. Licensing-wise, UiPath wins the deal."
"It is the most economically friendly and it provides you with a lot of functions."
"The pricing and licensing are definitely moderate to costly but easily recoverable by achieving ROI quickly."
"I would like them to have better license management."
"Automation Anywhere is reasonably priced because it can sustain us for a long period."
"Cost is the biggest area in need of improvement for Automation Anywhere. Annually it's $250,000. That's what deterred us right away."
"The cloud-based version comes at an increased cost, although our clients are happy with the new features and have not complained about the pricing."
"It's an ideal pricing model to customize the components based on everyone's needs."
"The licensing for FootPrints is a perpetual license with an annual support fee."
"Cost was on par with other service desk products, and well below Remedy, while still being a BMC product."
"Our costs are well over $250,000."
"This solution has good pricing."
"We pay for a license to use the solution, which is not very expensive."
"Pricing is an area that could be improved. They could be more competitive."
"There's an additional yearly cost for support."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
"IFS Applications is expensive software, but it's on par with SAP and Oracle. It's for large enterprises and government entities and not for small and medium-sized enterprises. They have one licensing model, but if you want to have a module-specific license, they provide component-based licenses. Unlike SAP and Oracle, it doesn't have different levels of licensing. It's one level of licensing."
"There are varying license levels that you can purchase."
"The additional cost that comes with the solution includes the overhead of the people who are trying to fix the tool issues. These people are trying to reproduce the issue and report it to the technical support and testing with them which is huge. It is the cost of quality in the end."
"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business154
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise536
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise10
 

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.
Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?
The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive featur...
What needs improvement with IFS Applications?
When it comes to AI, I feel that is the area where we expect something more from IFS Cloud Platform. They are working...
What is your primary use case for IFS Applications?
Currently, I am working with Arcwide, which is a service industry that predominantly focuses on IFS consulting, inclu...
 

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

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Cast & Crew
China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC FootPrints Service Core vs. IFS Cloud Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.