SCSM Reviews

I am operating two deployments of SCSM at one site. One is completely on-premise, and the other one is a co-management with Intune and is cloud-based.

For our cloud-based deployment of SCSM, the Autopilot is the best feature.

We have had some issues with the SCSM on-premise deployment version in the imaging aspects. 

Using the SCSM with Intune cloud we are able to manage only the workstations and endpoints, along with the mobile devices. Intune is not capable of managing other devices, such as Mac or Windows servers. Intune has a very limited Mac capability, it would be good if they focused on that area.

I have been using SCSM for approximately two years.

I have found SCSM to be stable.

SCSM is scalable.

We have approximately three million devices that are using the SCCM solution.

We have a partnership with Microsoft, in case of any issues, we directly reach out to them and open a ticket.

The quality of the support depends on the issue we are facing. Sometimes it a while to be connected to the person that can resolve the problem. However, on average, the support is good.

We did evaluate other solutions before choosing SCSM, such as InfraStruXure Central, Ivanti, and IBM BigFix. The GUI and the features that are available in SCCM are more flexible for the administration to manage, compared to IBM BigFix or Ivanti.

I rate SCSM an eight out of ten.

We primarily implement the solution to clients.

Ticketing systems these days are based on ITIL framework. The solution has incident management, change management, request fulfillment management, release management, problem management, and CMDB also. With integration capabilities with the other system centers like SCCM & SCOM, for example, we are able to build robust CMDB configuration management database.

It has some advantages and some disadvantages like any software, but overall, most customers just prefer the product.

One of the disadvantages in this product is that the reporting module is not very easy. It requires SQL development skills, which not all customers or IT professionals have. 

There are very few default reports available and to create a custom report requires some special skills. The solution would benefit from making reporting and creating custom reports much easier and user-friendly.

Microsoft is a technology giant so they have the resources to do improvements or enhance the product, but I don't know if they will invest in it. It depends on their policy or their long-term development plans. Other ITSM solutions, for example, have other resources and they have very strong, and very flexible reporting modules that are easy to use. Microsoft should emulate them and do the same to enhance their product.

The customization in the form is not easy. It requires if we want to customize a form (like a change management or incident form) an installation of some tool called Services Manager Altering Tool. This is difficult. In comparison, in ServiceNow, you can add a custom field, and do some changes right in the form. With Service Manager, yes it is there and we can do it, but it is not easy or straightforward. We require special skills to make it happen. It needs to be easier.

The solution would benefit from offering a web interface and a better Sales Service Portal.

If the solution could add event planning and event management as a feature in the future that would be ideal. Currently, event management is measured within incident management, which is not the best practice according to ITIL when we integrate the SCSM with SCOM. SCOM is a monitoring tool in System Center and when SCOM triggers an alert and creates a ticket in Service Manager, it goes in as an incident ticket. I believe it's supposed to be an event. However, I suppose it could be either an incident or event, depending on the type, severity, or nature of the issue.

I've been using the solution for nine years.

There are some issues with the system. For example, sometimes the workflows get stuck. However, overall, it is a stable solution. Any software in the world will have bugs and defects. Still, we cannot say, "No it is unstable." It's stable - just with a few issues. This is typical.

In terms of scalability, the good thing in SCSM is that it has a lot of add-ons and third-party tools can be installed on it. There is a wide range of products can be installed, but the problem is while most can be installed, they often cost money in order to install them. We need to either appreciate the license we have or buy the add-on product from the vendor. 

We've been in contact with Microsoft technical support mainly. After doing the research ourselves and troubleshooting, etc., if we can't find a permanent solution, we contact Microsoft to help us fix the issue. Sometimes the issue never gets fixed even by Microsoft. It can sometimes require us to reinstall the solution. However, these are very rare instances. 

Overall, they are very good. We'd rate them eight out of ten.

I also work on ServiceNow, Service Manager is nothing comparable to ServiceNow. You cannot really compare it to ServiceNow. The majority of market share is divided between BMC Remedy, ServiceNow, and Avanti Service Manager. Now they are all challenging SCSM and trying to get into the market. Although they are doing a good job, I have experienced using ServiceNow. I do have some knowledge about Avanti Service Manager, however. 

There's a good product that is suitable also for small and medium enterprises which like ManageEngine Servicedesk Plus. I had experienced it more than eight years ago. I had implemented the tool in my environment or in my work back then and it was very good and I loved working with it but I'm not working with it anymore.

Service Manager is not doing very well because, for example, there is no default web application and in order to use Service Manager we have to use the desktop console which is a disadvantage. If we need to have a web console or web application then we need to buy a solution from a third party company. 

Since the other products are already web-based applications, we don't need to buy a third-party solution to have access. It just seems to be the case with Service Manager that there's only the desktop. It is one of the main disadvantages along with the issues surrounding reporting. The reporting is very poor in Service Manager unless you have someone who has good skills and a strong technical background.

The initial setup is not very complex, but it requires some basic knowledge and skills to understand how to install the SQL server. It's not straightforward, either. It's something in the middle. However, it requires some technical know-how. That said, it is easy to learn how to install it. It's not like SCCM for example. System Center Configuration Manager is much more complicated. There are others as well that are not easy to install. This solution is just much simpler to handle in comparison.

In terms of deployment, the basic installation could take one day just to install the servers without any configuration or special customization taken into account. It might take one to two days, or, more likely, one and a half days to install the basic servers and to prepare the infrastructure for the program. 

In order to configure the product and make the customizations based on the customer needs or requirements, it could take as long as three or four months. That's on average. It could also take up to six or eight months for a full deployment, but it depends on the client.

You only need one person to deploy the solution. Any ticketing system, any ITSM tool, doesn't require many human resources in order to complete the project. Products like ServiceNow might require more people. One for implementation, and one for the development, for example. In Service Manager, we might need one more person who has some SQL reporting skills who can help us create a custom report. For a normal installation, however, one consultant is enough.

You also only need one person to maintain it. Sometimes after doing the project, after completing the project via one consultant, we assign another consultant for the maintenance. However, the maintenance itself is quite minimal.

We are consultants and help clients handle the implementation of the product.

The solution does charge for add-ons and third party installations most of the time.

I'm an ITSM consultant. I'm an IT project management consultant and I'm working on Microsoft Service Manager and ServiceNow. I specialize in these two products: Microsoft System Center Service Manager SCSM, and ServiceNow ITSM. Our company is a Microsoft System Center Golden Partner.

SCSM is an on-premise deployment. There is no cloud deploying for SCSM.

We typically deal with small to medium-sized businesses. However, the product is suitable for all business sizes, including enterprise-level organizations.

I'd warn users considering implementing the solution that there are some product limitations that they should be aware of.

Giving the solution a rating is difficult as it depends on the customer's requirements and needs. For example, if we gave an F1 race car driver a very good car, but not a car that fits his needs, it's still a good car, it's just not right for the race car driver because it doesn't fulfill his requirements.

From our experience working with the solution, I'd rate it a seven out of ten.

I use SCSM for historical data and provide item modules like service requests, change requests, problem management, and incident management.

I like the reporting service. SCSM has a good reporting service and analysis service for analysis requests.

It would be better if they had a portal for administrators. It would help me use it from anywhere and connect to any device from anywhere. I can administer the solution without a VPN.

I have been using SCSM for five years. 

SCSM is a stable solution.

SCSM is a scalable solution. We have about 20 customers in different sectors using this solution.

The initial setup is straightforward, and you can deploy this solution within three hours.

The license for SCSM is cheap.

I would advise potential users to backup the data warehouse and work with Power BI to get more insights. They should also work with the concept of high availability, etc.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SCSM a nine.

It is our ITSM solution.

It is quite scalable.

There is no development with this product, and we had to go and buy additional ITSM solutions to sit on top of it. We had to buy products from companies like Cireson and Cased Dimensions in order to get the functionality that we need out of it. So, we're using Service Manager as an engine, rather than as a full-blown product. It is the engine, but we have other products sitting on top of it to make it work properly.

It has limited stability and support, and it is also complex to deploy.

I have been using this solution for nearly 10 years.

Its stability is limited. There are bugs in it that Microsoft isn't fixing.

It is quite scalable.

It is fairly limited. So, we buy additional support from another company.

It is complex to deploy.

It comes free with the enterprise agreement that we have, but the expense really is in having to buy another product to sit on top of it to make it work properly. You wind up having to buy additional support and additional products with their own support and maintenance costs on top of that.

I would not recommend this solution. If I was starting again, I wouldn't get this product. We didn't have to buy it, and it was free with our enterprise agreement, but if I was going again, I'd go to the market and buy another product.

If you've got Service Manager, I would recommend buying a solution from Cireson. They provide a browser interface and a whole pile of additional applications that sit on top of it. That's how you can get the features that are not in the product itself. The product is just an engine, and it is not very user-friendly.

I would rate it a four out of ten. 

I am part of an auditing team in a bank in Nigeria and we use SCSM for service management when it comes to unknown errors and knowledge problems. We use it in our service technology management system because we are ISO 20000 certified. For most of our service technology issues, such as internal customer requests and solving incidences we escalate them to the second level and log them into the necessary departments.

I have found SCSM not adequate enough to carry out some functions.

I have been using SCSM for approximately three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

The support from Microsoft is good and we also have local support on the ground in Nigeria.

The installation was straightforward.

Our internal IT department is in charge of implementing and maintenance of this solution.

The price of the solution could be better. My organization has an enterprise annual license with Microsoft which provides us support.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate SCSM an eight out of ten.

I am using this solution as a customer to do what it was built for: to help us be more efficient in tracking and delivering our services.  

The most valuable feature in this solution for me is the reporting.  

I have not made up my mind about what really needs to be improved. Overall, I am pleased with it mostly because it supplies the reports I need. As far as other features, it performs what I need it to do.  

Probably the price and configuration could both be a bit improved.  

I have been using SCSM (System Center Service Manager) for the last three years.  

We have not had any bugs or glitches with the stability of the solution that I have noticed. It is stable.  

We currently have 25 users for the product. It is a mixture of engineers and end-users.  

We have your own team for maintenance and do not really need to use support.  

We previously used SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) and SCCPM (Software Configuration, Change, and Process Management).  

We actually still use all of these solutions. We just apply them in different use cases.  

The initial setup was pretty simple. The deployment part did not take long at all.  

It is an amazing solution but the pricing could be improved to be a little more competitive.  

I would recommend this as a solution to other people considering it. But just as with everything and anything, people need to educate themselves as to the services that the application offers. It has to fit the need to be worth the cost and effort to understand.  
 
On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate System Center Service Manager as an eight. It would not be higher because nothing is perfect and it does have some faults.  

I use SCSM for incident management.

The most valuable feature is the reporting of incidents.

The ITSM features have to be improved.

We would like to see a web-based interface that works on mobile devices.

We have been using this solution for about one year.

We haven't had any problems with respect to stability. We haven't experienced any bugs or other issues.

We have been in touch with technical support and I think that they are good.

I did not install this software on the server, but my understanding is that it was straightforward. On the Help Desk side, the setup is not complex.

It took us less than one month to deploy.

We are currently evaluating other solutions such as ServiceNow and BMC Helix ITSM. Our intention is to replace this solution with a better one.

This is not a product that I recommend. My suggestion for anybody who is looking for this type of solution is to evaluate ServiceNow and BMC Helix ITSM.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

There are several common use cases for SCSM including HR onboarding, helpdesk ticketing, and collecting surveys from customers.

The most requested feature from our customers is the helpdesk ticketing system.

There is some difficulty when it comes to deploying this solution.

The user interface needs to be improved.

One of our customers has complained to say that the workflow needs to be more customizable.

We have been working with SCSM for about one year.

I am not aware of any issues related to stability.

Our customers have not commented on scalability.

I do not have contact with Microsoft technical support. Our team handles the technical support for our customers.

We also have experience with Ivanti and it is the clear winner if we compare these two. It does not have the same difficulties with deployment and the user interface is better.

This solution has been difficult to deploy in some cases. The length of time required depends on the customer's requirements and needs. If there are a lot of customized workflows then it is going to take longer.

I would say that the average time to deploy is about two weeks.

Some of our customers prefer an on-premises solution but the majority are deployed in a hybrid environment using Azure cloud.

This is a solution that I would recommend for people who need only the basic features and do not require much customization. Otherwise, I would suggest a solution like Ivanti or ManageEngine.

This solution is good for some customers but other solutions are better for different reasons.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.