Freshservice vs. ServiceNow IT Service Management

Freshservice is a great all round product with many features. Asset management, Reporting, ticketing, automatization. It was much easier for us using the Freshservice app to scan barcodes for our new devices to get them in the asset management tool, automating certain tasks such as service requests for new devices automatically making a ticket and assigning assets to certain people and getting reports from this afterwards. For a medium to large size company this is great value. For a smaller business there are smaller bundles they provide which are much more affordable in case you do not need all of the features they provide. In summary, lots of features for a snappy, responsive piece of software.

Incentivized

I think [ServiceNow IT Service Management is] best suited for very straight-forward customer support type ticketing. If the problem can't be solved by the customer support team, then the ticket likely is a larger issue (ie: a bug) and then likely a Jira ticket would need to be created for more robust documentation.

Incentivized

• Asset Management Module: The features I like most in this module are the discovery agent software, which allows us to collect device information without manual intervention, and the simplicity and robustness of the module itself.
• Service Catalog: This feature allows us to create forms tailored to specific service requests based on group requirements. The ability to customize forms greatly helps both us and our end-users provide the necessary information to fulfill their requests.
• Workflow Automator and Business Rules: These two allow us to have some automation in place, eliminating some of the manual steps and decreasing the number of human errors that may happen due to manual changes.

Incentivized

• When I have a number of requests to make, for example a request to add a dozen or so user accounts to more than one group account in Active Directory , I can put all the needed information into the initial form, add it to my "shopping cart" and all of that information remains on the screen for the next item for which I only need to edit a few items (like the AD group name in this example), and keep adding them to the shopping cart until I have them all. When I "Check Out" each of those items is generated as a separate task under the one request. It simplifies and expedites the creation and tracking of these kinds of requests.
• I can easily and quickly see what tickets are currently assigned to me in order to prioritize them and remain aware of my workload.
• Numerous fields for CIs can be used when trying to find the entry for a particular item. For example, IP Address, server name, raw text, classification, and so on.
• To help with making sense out of related tasks, when a task is assigned to me and I need to open another task for a different team to work in order to complete my task, I can open a sub-task from my ticket so that the relationship between the two can be pulled up later into reports. For example, I may have a task to build a new vm, and need to open tasks for networking, security accounts, software installation and so on. By opening sub-tasks from my assignment, the time spent by all parties concerned is tied together for more meaningful cost accounting.

Incentivized

• Workflow management is hard to troubleshoot
• Some default fields can't be changed
• FAQ has no history
• Work flow management can't be managed via API or a command line
• Service Requests and contracts have no possibilities to choose how pricing will be calculated, like per month, per user, per year, per lifetime...
• Automatic backup of assets and FAQ is not possible

Incentivized

• ServiceNow knowledgebase is limited for self-learning on how to use their features.
• ServiceNow sometimes has a very linear approach to some workflows or assignments where there could only be one child/parent relationship.
• The ServiceNow features for Project Management serves its function is rather cumbersome. The dependencies aspect or predecessors or successors options are rather limited. It is more focused on hours planned vs hours worked then dependencies.
• ServiceNow customer support is hit or miss. They could serve to have more self-help step by step articles.
• ServiceNow needs to have a better export or import features for their Project Management module.

Incentivized

We are pretty invested in Freshservice right now and have integrated it pretty heavily into our environment, so it would be hard to move away from it. For the most part, we are happy with Freshservice and the ease of use it gives us in managing tickets through the system. The only complaint we've had is customer service.

Incentivized

To be completely honest setting up a new ticketing system can be a pain in the ass. Once you have it setup and customized the way you want it, you don't want to switch unless you're unhappy with the product. Unless future releases and updates really muck the system up, I wouldn't change.

Easy to navigate and use GUI. We have many infrastructure team members from various departments using Freshservice and their on-boarding and training was very straightforward and we have not received much, if any negative feedback from non-technology users in regards to overall usability, interface or functionality.

The Geneva version has improved overall usability a lot, but would still be overwhelming for new users. Much like SAP or other large-scale applications- it can be very daunting when you get the first glance of all the modules, but you'll get the hang of it after some training and strong discipline.

Incentivized

Downtime is minimal (it does happen but not often)

Incentivized

We have never had any issues with ServiceNow's availability that I am aware of in the two years I have been using it.

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Most reports are quick, however, it can take some time for emailed exports to come via email. It would be helpful to have the exports live in the system rather than having to wait on emails.

Incentivized

For a massive system, page loads are reasonably quick, including searches.

Incentivized

Support from OEM is decent but needs improvement. Sometimes OEM also needs to understand the criticality of the customer and help as an Ad-hoc, which is somewhat lacking at Feshservice. Although the normal support team is well-equipped and helps according to the matrix, if something critical for the partner or customer requires immediate attention, it still goes through the L1-L2-L3 levels, which wastes a lot of time.

Incentivized

I would give it this rating because we have had no major issues with the support for ServiceNow after we implemented it at our organization. They seem to respond promptly and efficiently if we ever do need to open a support case with them about an issue we are having.

Incentivized

Training was enough to use the base website

Incentivized

Their documentation is pretty good, but only available in English. This makes it difficult for some of our users to understand. There are also some basic video courses available.

Incentivized

To type in what should be a text box, you have to click an empty cell, a tiny text box pop up opens with a check box and an X. You the. Type in the text box and have to click the check mark. If you have a bunch of fields to fill out, doing this is very annoying. Absolutely know thought went in to this. I'm sure somebody in marketing thought it was a good idea. It wasn't.

Creating the correct groups for the stakeholders and enabling the right notifications are one of the most important aspect of the implementation. Creating Change templates will also help in the long run and it's a good practice to create one, if applicable.

ServiceNow implements its solutions for customers using the Start Now Implementation Methodology. The StartNow (STrategicAlignment and drive Rapid Transformation) Implementation Methodology include five deployment stages Plan, Discover, Prepare, Deploy, and Operate. Follow these steps for smooth implementation.

Incentivized

Freshservice is ahead in some areas, behind in others. For example, workspaces have been part of other products for many years. Freshworks just introduced it in 2023. Integration with productivity tools is better than past products we have used. Apps continue to be added as well. We selected Freshservice as it was the best mix of functionality and cost. We don't need solutions as robust as ServiceNow, for example, but found that Freshservice had some comparable advanced features.

Incentivized

This software was used previously. the software was not easy to configure like servicenow and the visual dashboards and the ui experience was less appealing compared to ServiceNow. ServiceNow offers a lot pf features which can be used across the industry. Gives better integration options compared to Remedy. CMDB and Service Watch are great tools offered by ServiceNow which is lacking on Remedy

The software is very scalable from a small to mid sized team. The features have seemed to scale exceptionally well.

Incentivized

ServiceNow works as an enterprise solution.

Incentivized

• Alleviate our support team by providing knowledge directly to the end users.
• Better response times from our IT support team, thanks to automation and dashboard use.
• Better tracking of our assets by assigning them to users so we know which device was handed out to who. During off-boarding, we know which devices to ask back.

Incentivized

• We don't currently have a CMDB, so we are leveraging ServiceNow to build one using their ITSM and ITOM tools. This is a huge gap for us as a company and it will be a big win once this is in place.
• The core help desk functions are comparable to most other tools on the market, but SN does a great job of integrating that data with other modules like Problem, Change and Event Management to provide a truly integrated solution.
• The tool is expensive, so you will need to try to do as much as you can with the platform. We currently use other systems for HAM and SAM but will be including these in our ServiceNow instance in the future to help maximize our ROI.

Incentivized