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IFS Cloud Platform vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL] comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
662
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 (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
IFS Cloud Platform
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
CRM (29th), Customer Experience Management (11th), Field Service Management (2nd), Help Desk Software (16th), ERP (20th), Activity Based Costing Software (10th), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (4th), Local Government CRM (9th), IT Asset Management (13th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (14th), License Management (2nd)
OpenText Service Manager [EOL]
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
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.
MEKKAB Raouf - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Technology Service Manager & Technology Integration DevOps at Djezzy
Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities
We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The ease of use of getting started is probably the big thing. They had a lot of references that we were able to check. It is a well-known player, and being able to get up and running quickly was the big thing."
"The features of the Automation Anywhere bot bring us the ability to develop automations to production quickly."
"Technical support for this solution is the quickest and the best."
"Automation Anywhere was easier to learn for the developers. It has a lot of out of box features when it comes to SAP, Excel, and others."
"The feature I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is the interface."
"We are using it to backfill a lot of our resources who are retiring, so we are hiring less people as we go."
"The return on investment from Automation Anywhere at our organization has been both tangible and intangible, delivering value far beyond the initial financial calculation."
"It has saved us a lot of hours, manual effort, and we can focus on more important tasks, which helps us with our ROI."
"The product is quite flexible."
"Pricing Matrix: Allowed us to implement a very complex go to market pricing model, allowing us to tailor pricing to individual customer requirements and implement an automated pricing model that maximized gross profit in a very competitive environment."
"Our ROI is 4.5 times our investment in 18 months."
"The solution overall is very versatile and flexible, especially compared to other products."
"The most valuable feature to us was the capability to quickly identify the tickets we have open with people and follow up them."
"Individual user profiles that can be configured as templates to minimize data entry."
"The most valuable feature is the distribution module."
"Having a young talented programmer, during the six years of use, we were able to save around 75 000 EUR preparing simple modifications using customization rather than ordering them in IFS / Partner."
"Customer Service: Hmm, let's see, that functions pretty well."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is fine."
"Before we had Service Manager, we had a number of products from other vendors; when we implemented Service Manager, it gave us a standardized, centralized tool which we were able to leverage globally."
"It can adapt to any process in the organization."
"It's the point of control for managing issues and offers control in the implementation of the changes."
"Service Manager gives us a single system where everything is centralized in one base."
"We mostly use it as a platform for our service desk to streamline and optimize."
"Sometimes, customization is simple. The version we are using now has a nice interface."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, while recording, the screen hangs and we are not able to perform any actions during that time."
"The scheduling is a little difficult at times."
"We had had issues with scalability. Recently, we had a use case which we were working on, but we could not do it because Automation Anywhere could not connect to the system."
"To improve the product, one aspect that Automation Anywhere can work on is archiving legacy data effectively. Currently, data older than current versions remains on the server, slowing the system down."
"The initial setup is difficult because Automation Anywhere does not have a GitHub integration. They need to build a patch for that."
"Room for improvement is more on the IQ Bot side: How quickly we can adopt and deploy it?"
"While the ease of use for non-tech users is good, it could be improved."
"The marketing for Automation Anywhere has room for improvement."
"I have seen that one of the areas that my company has identified for improvement might be the rental management capabilities within the solution."
"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."
"The initial implementation was more complex than expected."
"However, if we had any bids with the other products Assyst unfortunately would have lost the bids."
"There should be some improvements in the predefined templates in IFS Applications."
"Customization can only be done by IFS and not by the clients themselves."
"The CRM was shaky and although this improves in Apps 10, there is room for improvement."
"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."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"In general, we were not satisfied with technical support."
"Technical support is average. It takes too much time to resolve issues in relation to the competency of the technical support engineers."
"The user interface is very clunky."
"We aren't able to take emails that come in and turn them into tickets, especially when it comes to attachments. When an email has an attachment, like a screenshot, it is a very cumbersome process, and it does not work very well. I shouldn't have been paying technicians to cut and paste attachments from an email into the ticketing system. It should do that automatically. Other solutions are able to do that. This is something that needs to be improved. Test manager and knowledge management areas are probably amongst the worst parts of this solution. We try to use this solution for knowledge management, but it is not user-friendly. Therefore, it has limited ROI as you need to spend time to try and fully capitalize on the knowledge management system."
"It needs to be a lot more flexible, a lot more user friendly, and a lot lighter, not so heavy."
"The interface could be better."
"There could be some slight fixes to managing the catalog, because you can customise the items so much you can't really change the items in dropdown lists easily."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. Automation Anywhere has reduced the price slightly, as we have grown. However, the price is still excessive enough that we are engaged in PoCs on other tools."
"Complaints are generally about the cost of IQ Bot, which is higher than its competitors. The base model’s pricing is comparable to other platforms with attended, unattended, and IDP capabilities as well."
"Time-wise: We have saved hundreds of thousands of hours."
"Roughly, as of today, it is around $250,000 annually."
"They all are very competitive today. At the end of the day, it boils down to the negotiations that happen and what type of partner you are."
"We have seen ROI on one of the process, but not on the other processes yet."
"Its price is competitive with all other products in the market."
"UiPath is exceptionally more expensive than Automation Anywhere. UiPath is far ahead of its competition, but in terms of finances, Automation Anywhere offers better value and is more effective for organizations seeking cost-effective solutions."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"IFS Applications are competitive in terms of pricing compared to other vendors, such as SAP, Oracle, and Epicor. They are generally cheaper, especially for licensing costs."
"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."
"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."
"Compared to SAP, the pricing for IFS Applications was very affordable. People using the solution would find that it's worth the money."
"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."
"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."
"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."
"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."
"The license is not cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise81
Large Enterprise558
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise38
 

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?
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...
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Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
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