What needs improvement with SCSM?

More information about setup procedures and a more user-friendly front end would be beneficial. We need more information for setup processes. It is difficult to do the work independently, requiring us to hire external companies for maintenance hours to fix small issues that could be resolved faster in-house if we had better information. We have been looking for an upgrade version, but finding local service has been difficult. It has been challenging trying to get things done. Speaking with the Microsoft office, we found there are no local companies with substantial experience with SCSM. What we have now was installed five or six years ago. It has been difficult to change configurations and look for upgrades, even with all the manuals. Our office is considering moving away from SCSM and getting a service desk solution outside of Microsoft. For me, it has been a good tool to get help and solve internal problems in the office. It is a very good tool, but the difficulty in getting local service or more information is pushing us to look for another tool.

From an admin point of view, Intune has more features and is easier to manage compared to SCCM. SCCM is a little complex for the admin point of view. Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, the support often lacks expertise, and response times are slow.

One customer uses another management tool, SiteScope, alongside SCSM. They might be looking for additional functionalities that SCSM could integrate. Thus, the product could include more features similar to other tools.

The major issues with SCSM include its severe slowness, especially on the client side, and the lack of comprehensive reporting tools. It also lacks clear future development and improvement from Microsoft, and we had to develop our own web portal because the default one was not user-friendly.

For any weaknesses in the product, our company's security team maintains the application for our environment. The logs and reporting-related features of the product have certain shortcomings where improvements are required.

My company had planned a few months ago to apply SCSM over the cloud in order to provide updates, like regular updates, but it had to be put through a few tools from Microsoft on the cloud, which was not easy. My company found a solution to the problem, but we did not execute it, though we plan to execute it within the coming few months to check if it works or what obstacles users might face.

It would be good if Microsoft added custom attributes or tagging like in Jamf.

The product needs to improve its integration with other tools. It also needs to have a better UI and a simple dashboard.

The solution could be more simple. For example, it takes a lot of work to create reports. It runs on Microsoft SQL queries. Creating custom reports on ManageEngine takes less work from the administrator. Microsoft System Center Service Manager has a large infrastructure and a large number of servers. For production and creation, it needs about five servers. For comparison, ManageEngine just requires one server, and it includes everything out of the box. The setup process could be improved. In the next release, I would like to see a mobile application for users to open tickets. I would also like the ability to deploy the solution on the cloud.

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.

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.

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 found SCSM not adequate enough to carry out some functions.

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.

The ITSM features have to be improved. We would like to see a web-based interface that works on mobile devices.

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.

For this product, they are supposed to have an integration that will work with other resources in Microsoft Azure and other cloud providers because everything is going towards Azure now. I see how people are moving from on-premise to the cloud. So that's the direction we are looking at. And as an integrator, we're supposed to tell them the importance of it and how they will migrate and move on. We would like the integration process to be more simplified. They would have to allow some open-source that is a good product to speak to them even to lead to the open-source product. If the open-source product wants to talk to Microsoft or Service Manager they should have an API to do it.

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 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 Service Now, 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 ITI when we integrate the CSM with Escom. Escom is a monitoring tool, and when Escom 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.

Better integration with other services in Azure is needed because everything is moving from on-premises to the cloud, and as an integrator, we have to help our clients with the migration. I would also like to see integration with open-source solutions allowed. In general, we would like to have the integration process made simpler. Technical support can be improved.

In SCSM (System Center Service Manager) there is a need to be cognizant of the management of the CMDB (Configuration Management Database). It needs to be improved. My initial base experience for alarms was BMC Remedy, and that works really well. From that example, I could see the concept of what the CMDB does but also what it was not doing. So in the SCSM, you can improve the CMDB by using customization on the interface. Because you are able to add configuration items a little easier, SCSM can be much better at doing the job that you need it to do. If I need a separate tool for customization or to add a class, this is the hard way and it makes the tool harder to use. For example, if I need to add a level of severity or if I need to add something else which is not related to IT in some other product, that ends up being harder to customize in BMC than SCSM — even if I know about CMDB. Products that are more difficult will, of course, make it a little tricky for people with less experience to work with. In SCSM, there are some features they provide for you to customize. It is a very easy graphic interface where you can add your stuff in a very easy way. It is different than doing it with the CSM (Content Management System). I know how to do it with CSM because I have already done it. But for the other people with less experience, it is much harder in BMC if you look at the level of difficulty by comparison. I would like to also see improvements in the CMDB. One of the recommendations I will make is that searches for ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) level V3 or V4 compliant software at SCSM have more complete disclosure. There is no real database, resource or content that exists to help support users find this information. It puzzles me as to why because it can only enhance the utility of the software. If you search the internet, you will not even see if Microsoft SCSM is compliant with some particular software. It is compliant, and I know it is compliant, but I do not know if it is fully or partially or only marginally compliant. This type of information should be made readily available and should be there to access as the manufacturer knows the answers and compliances.

It's not too hard to compile stuff but it is hard to manage the solution. Even the design itself makes it difficult for management. In the next release of the solution, they should include Enterprise Service Management.

The patch management aspect of the solution should be improved. It's quite complicated and not user-friendly. If your systems are not patched properly, you are unable to pull reports. They should make it easy to use and to make it possible for users to log calls on the portal. It needs to be web-based.

The interface needs to support better customization. I would like to have the ability to integrate with other systems from the back-end. I am using Orchestrator and it is a little bit difficult because there are too many constraints. I want to connect to other applications to get the data directly. Mobile application integration would be an improvement.

It crashes our client's computers. Sometimes they get blue screens. It would be useful if SCSM could check the upgrades or patches before we implemented them to see if they are going to crash a client's system. Or, if it does install, and the client's system crashes, it would be good if the solution could revert back somehow.

The price of this solution is high and it needs to be cheaper.

There are a few bugs. I would definitely suggest that if the end user is a layman, he needs to be trained how to use the solution properly.