Positive experience, as it provided strong reporting, clear visibility, and effective service control but a unified incident and request table would improve usability.
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for was for Incident/Request Management, Change Management and Knowledge Base.
In Incident Management, when an internal user reports a service disruption or system malfunction; either via phone or by sending an email to the IT service desk, a case is logged as an incident. The assigned IT support team then analyzes the incident, performs troubleshooting, and works toward service restoration.
A ticketing system is critical as it captures all incident related communications, actions, and status updates, creating an auditable history linked to the user and/or device. This historical data supports trend analysis, root cause investigation, and continuous service improvement.
In the context of change management, maintaining proper records was critical. Various IT teams regularly submitted change requests; however, these changes could sometimes have a significant impact on other teams or ongoing operations. For instance, the network team might plan an upgrade of Ruckus switches while the support team is simultaneously supporting a major event.
Change management ensures that when a change request is raised, all relevant teams are notified and given the opportunity to review the proposed change and provide input. If no concerns or queries are raised, the change can proceed through automatic approval. If concerns are identified, cross-functional discussions are conducted to assess risks, dependencies, and scheduling conflicts.
Documenting each step of the change process is essential for auditability, historical reference, and rollback purposes in the event that a change causes service disruption.
How has it helped my organization?
BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management positively impacted our organization by improving visibility, control, and coordination across teams. Its strong reporting and categorization enabled better analysis of incidents and requests, helping us identify trends and allocate resources more effectively.
The platform enhanced SLA tracking through clear dashboards, resulting in fewer breaches and improved service uptime. It also reduced incident resolution times by helping us quickly identify service-wide issues and prioritize responses. Overall, BMC Helix helped us manage services more efficiently and deliver more reliable outcomes.
What is most valuable?
One of the strongest features of BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management was its reporting module, which stood out as the most valuable capability of the platform. The solution offered nine distinct categorization layers, including operational and product-based categories, which could be combined to generate highly meaningful reports. This structured categorization, together with the reporting module, significantly simplified our work.
During the launch of our ERP system, which included multiple modules such as HR, Finance and Supply Chain, we leveraged these product categories effectively. The hierarchy was structured with the Business Application as the primary category, followed by ERP, and then Oracle. The operational category further classified items into issues or requests. Under issues, we categorized items such as dashboards, reports, how-to requests, and queries, with an additional tier for specific dashboards. This multi-tier categorization proved extremely useful during reporting, as it gave us clear visibility into areas with the highest number of issues or requests, enabling us to allocate resources more effectively.
Additionally, the user interface allowed us to enable cost tracking, effort hours, and tier services into categories such as Gold and Silver, which added significant operational value.
At the individual team level; whether IT support, infrastructure, network, or security, the impact was minimal, as these teams were already collaborating effectively. However, the real value emerged in cross-team coordination. With BMC Helix in place, all teams had full visibility, and tasks and subtasks could be assigned across teams to support broader organizational objectives. This became even more effective when we onboarded HR modules into the system. We were able to add HR services and agents with restricted visibility, ensuring that IT managed the system while HR retained ownership of policies.
Incident resolution and SLA management became far more controlled due to the platform’s dashboards. Managers and CIOs had clear, real-time visibility into SLA performance, including the ability to track potential breaches within defined timeframes. As a result, we achieved fewer SLA breaches, maintained ninety-nine percent service uptime, and significantly improved service reliability.
BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management also excelled in accelerating service restoration, reducing incident resolution time, and maintaining service availability. When multiple incidents were raised across different locations, the system helped us quickly identify service-wide outages and focus our efforts where they were most needed. Rather than reducing resources, the platform enabled us to manage them more efficiently, which was one of its greatest strengths.
What needs improvement?
From my perspective, the main area for improvement in BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management was the separation between incident and service request records. These were maintained as two distinct tables with different ticket numbers. If a common or linked ticket number had existed, it would have been much easier to relate incidents to service requests or convert one into the other. In practice, closing an incident and raising a service request resulted in a new ticket number, which often caused confusion as users would continue following up on the original ticket while updates were being made on the new one. Having interchangeability or a stronger linkage between incidents and requests would have been a valuable enhancement.
I rated the solution seven out of ten. Aside from the lack of interrelated incident and service request records, I had no major concerns from a user perspective.
The rating was also influenced by licensing considerations, as other tools in the market offered more flexible licensing models, such as concurrent usage. At the time, BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management did not allow reducing the concurrent session timing below ten minutes, which could have improved cost efficiency within the pricing model.
For how long have I used the solution?
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In my personal experience, I have never experienced any downtime or reliability issues with BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management was pretty scalable. As I mentioned earlier, we added the HR module under the same tenant, and it was pretty much scalable. They have scaled it up higher to finance and other modules already.
How are customer service and support?
We had our local partner in the UAE, Magnoos Services. If we had any issues or new requests, we would reach out to them. I think they were very good partners, and we generally did not reach out to BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management directly.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I joined the organization when BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management was already in place, and it remained the same throughout my tenure; there was no system transition during that time. However, I have personally been exposed to and worked with other ITSM solutions.
How was the initial setup?
I am really not sure how BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management was deployed in my organization as this was before I joined. I joined as an admin, and these deployments were mostly handled with the infrastructure team.
What about the implementation team?
Yes, BMC Helix improved efficiency, reduced SLA breaches, and maintained ~99% service uptime, enabling faster issue resolution and better resource allocation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From what I heard from procurement and management, BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management overall is a costly setup. However, since I am in the support and administration team, I do not have much visibility over the cost.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I think the competitor BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management was evaluated against was ServiceNow.
What other advice do I have?
The only advice I would give from my experience is to categorize the nine available categories properly, as they will be very helpful for reporting.
Utilize comprehensive IT service modules while addressing configuration database issues
What is our primary use case?
I use
BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management primarily for IT service management. It supports modules like incident management, change management, problem management, release management, and configuration management.
What is most valuable?
While I cannot provide very particular details about the most helpful features, I also use other tools like
ServiceNow and
Jira that have similar features. Some of the changes required are at the framework level, which may not be feasible to change immediately. Incorporating features available in
ServiceNow would greatly enhance
BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management.
What needs improvement?
There are several areas where BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management could be improved. Currently, ServiceNow has an edge when it comes to the ease of discovering Configuration Items (CIs). In BMC Helix, there are issues with the
Configuration Management Database (
CMDB), such as duplicate entries and problems with reconciliation. The recently introduced dashboard tool in Helix, which replaced Smart
Reporting, has several issues.
Reporting has been a consistent problem in BMC, and it would greatly benefit from enhancements.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management for about fifteen years now.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I did encounter issues, but they were not overly complex. Overall, I would rate the complexity of the migration as medium.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution could be improved, specifically in the area of the
Configuration Management Database (
CMDB), where there are issues with duplicate entries and reconciliation.
How are customer service and support?
The support of BMC is generally good and better compared to some competitors. However, there is room for improvement in new products like the dashboard tool.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used the older
Remedy solution before migrating to BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management.
How was the initial setup?
I migrated from an older
Remedy to Helix Remedy, which took around six to nine months. It wasn't extremely complex, but there were some issues during the migration.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While I am not very sure about the pricing, I have heard that the license cost of BMC is relatively lower than its competitors.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Other solutions I work with include ServiceNow and
Jira, which also have similar features.
What other advice do I have?
The decision to use BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management depends on the specific use case and requirements. Overall, I would recommend considering other tools if their features align better with organizational needs. I would rate the overall solution a 7 out of 10.
A Powerful ITSM Solution with a Learning Curve
What do you like best about the product?
BMC Helix Platform offers a robust and versatile solution for our organization's IT service management needs. The platform's user-friendly interface simplifies workflow customization, making it easy to adapt to our specific requirements. The seamless integration with various ITIL processes enhances efficiency, and the built-in automation tools have significantly streamlined our operations. While the learning curve exists, the extensive documentation and responsive support team ensure a smooth onboarding process. Overall, BMC Helix Platform stands out for its flexibility, scalability, and comprehensive feature set, making it a valuable asset for any enterprise seeking a reliable ITSM solution.
What do you dislike about the product?
One drawback I've encountered with BMC Helix Platform is the complexity of certain advanced features. Navigating through intricate customization options can be challenging, requiring a steeper learning curve. While the platform's flexibility is a strength, it might benefit from a more intuitive interface for these advanced configurations, making it more accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
BMC Helix Platform has proven instrumental in resolving key challenges across various IT domains. Its robust IT service management capabilities address issues such as incident resolution delays, service request bottlenecks, and inefficient change management processes. The platform's automation features significantly reduce manual workload, leading to quicker response times and improved overall service delivery. Additionally, the comprehensive analytics provided by BMC Helix enable data-driven decision-making, enhancing our ability to proactively identify and mitigate potential issues. Ultimately, the platform's versatility and problem-solving capabilities contribute to increased operational efficiency and client satisfaction, making it an invaluable tool for our consulting endeavors.
Empowering Efficiency: A Seamless Experience with BMC Helix Platform
What do you like best about the product?
The BMC Helix Platform offers a robust and flexible solution for building and managing applications. Its intuitive design and comprehensive features make it an excellent choice for organizations seeking efficient workflow automation and seamless integration. The platform's scalability ensures adaptability to evolving business needs, while its analytics capabilities empower data-driven decision-making. Although user customization may have a learning curve, the overall value provided by BMC Helix Platform makes it a compelling option for businesses aiming to streamline their processes.
What do you dislike about the product?
While BMC Helix Platform offers comprehensive features, some users may find the initial learning curve for customization challenging.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
BMC Helix Platform addresses challenges related to application development and workflow automation, providing a streamlined solution that enhances operational efficiency and empowers data-driven decision-making for businesses.
Best software used in corporates to manage incidents and tickets.
What do you like best about the product?
The best part about BMC is that it let's you provide and manage ticketing based remedy support. Here you can raise and recieve incidents / tickets to which you can provide resolution and keep your business functioning smooth.
What do you dislike about the product?
It's not open source and only used by big corporates. UI is a littile bit confusing for new person and need proper knowledge transfer to work on it.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
BMC helix helps business to extensively manage and operate incident support. Incidents are raised here by corporate users to report their problem to which the support team provides timely resolution based on priority. This keepts business functioning smooth and ongoing.
In my experience BMC helix platform has been great tool in IT services management area.
What do you like best about the product?
I liked the robustness of BMC Helix platform which provides seamless experience of customisation and integration tools.Most amazing part is we can use Mobile app also to manage service request and incident on the go. By that means I frequently use BMC helix mobile app for crucial incidents. Again by use of AI and ML it enhance implementation and also customer support and community provides best practices.
What do you dislike about the product?
We can say the BMC helix platform is resource intensive, but again for advanced integration you will require some hands on practices.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
What we expect for BMC helix it fullfills with satisfaction. It efficiently solve the problem of service request handling. Again somewhere down the line if know some basics of it we can solve incident with ease and quicker way because of enhanced customer support we don't get stucked in one place.
Admin of BHOM Platform
What do you like best about the product?
The new grafana (Called Helix Dashboards) that the new platform includes to display metrics and compare with different data sources like vcenter, prometheus, elastic...
What do you dislike about the product?
Very very new product with a couple of little problems.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Dashboads for long data periods, integration with very third parties tools, specially AWX tower for remediations, and internal integrations like BMC ITSM (Remedy)
IT IS VERY USEFULL & HELPFULL
What do you like best about the product?
IT IS USER-FRIENDLY AND ITS FEATURES ARE DETAILED TO HELP YOU WITH WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR. IT CAN BE FLEXIBLE IF YOU'RE EXPERIENCED AND SAVVY WITH CLOUD COMPUTING.
What do you dislike about the product?
I USED IT ON MY LAPTOP, UNFORTUNATELY, IT REQUIRED JAVA-BASED SERVICES WHICH DON'T WORK WELL WITH A CHROME ENVIRONMENT. IT HAS ALSO PRODUCED DELAYED RESPONSES DURING HEAVY USE TIME.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
IT ASSISTED IN CREATING A MOCK - LAG-FREE ENVIRONMENT WHERE TEAMS ACROSS MULTIPLE BUILDINGS WERE ABLE TO CONNECT AND MANAGE THE WORKLOAD WITHOUT THE NEED FOR EXTRA PAPER, TOOLS AND WORK.
Very useful
What do you like best about the product?
I really like how easy it is to understand and navigate
What do you dislike about the product?
The software can take up a lot of space and be a little slow on laptops
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
It's helping me with organizing and creating visuals
BMC Helix Platform- SaaS application with High availability
What do you like best about the product?
BMC helix platform is new innovative approach by BMC software by taking all installation and server managing mesh away and now managing all on cloud server with public access and high availability.
What do you dislike about the product?
BMC Helix Platform lags local server logs and config file setting like ar.cfg and armonitor. Also services restart and administration privileges are taken away from the tool owner company.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We enbale clients who doesn't wants to take responsibility of server allocation, management and performance monitoring of their ITSM system. Without any other responsibility they can directly focus on their business and manage their business procees with Helix ITSM tool.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
BMC helix platform is new innovative approach by BMC software by taking all installation and server managing mesh away and now managing all on cloud server with public access and high availability.
