Cherwell Service Management

Pros

Cherwell as a ticket management tool gives some good features like groupings, report generations and even timely email sending options which works well for day to day tasks.

Cons

We noticed sometimes the tool crashes but it gets up fast when contacted with respective people who maintain it.

Pros

The feature I like most about Cherwell is it's workflow management feature for IT change controls. This feature has been extremely helpful, especially when managing normal, and emergency changes to any of the IT systems in my organization.

Cons

Sometimes, when documenting closing comments for a service request, Cherwell times out, and I have to document the comment again.

Pros

A software tool to use for issues with your computer, system outages, request for IT hardware or software, etc.

Cons

There is not really a good way to track the ticket when it is submitted and does not alert you by email of the status.

Pros

Easiness to search for tickets by name, number, etc

Cons

Reporting is not very user friendly. Printing a ticket does not capture attachments.

Pros

This product allows us to customize it in a way that makes it so we can bring all departments within the same system (finally!).

Cons

Implementation and additional integrations can be difficult (as with any product).

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Cherwell Service Management

Pros

It is reliable to manage your tickets, the SLAs, the escalation plans, everything works perfectly right. Therefore, the option to use the asset management is pretty interesting as well and you can access it from anywhere without you have an infrastructure, it is totally on cloud. Another plus about the software, is the possibility to customize it, according to your company, if you have an development team.

Cons

Some features, like the agent to inventory the assets, needs to be bought apart from the software, it is something that would be really useful if it came together with the bundle.

Pros

Customization of searches; use of an SQ-like search format to build queries that can then be saved and reused

Cons

Requires some level of training in order to increase personal customization. Occasionally have multiple people working on the same tickets, so some tickets get resolved with ineffective solutions while others are working on them. Reporting requires some effort to access.

Pros

Users can create a case via emails and can be updated on the progress of the case via emails. Ability to re-assign ownership to tasks when necessary. A dashboard, while not terribly elegant looking, does provide insights into open cases within a users area. Ability to send the ticket to Salesforce, which is a far superior case management system. "Incident actions" allow users to nominate a case for a knowledge base article though we've not used this feature yet.

Cons

The interface is clunky at best and unusable at worst. It feels and looks like a piece of software built in the 80's. Once a user clicks into the case they've been assigned, it becomes very difficult to get a complete view of the thread and what has been worked on. There is simply too much going on within the cases screen itself. New users will surely be overwhelmed as they use the system for the first several months. They will likely find themselves gravitating towards the email and subsequent threads that started the case.

Pros

Very customizable, and no coding!! Easy to use

Cons

It's a bit buggy and there are some quirks that require adjustments

Pros

Cherwell is easy to use and set up. Creating multiple threads for multiple projects is a plus. Its easy with adding or removing participants to the threads.

Cons

Cherwell has no real cons in its software or platform. I have had no issues that I can report. Its just a great software and I enjoy using it.

Pros

It is a tool that allows me to know the productivity of my staff, follow up on all support requests in the company

Cons

Existe poca información para usar el software.

Pros

Very much aligned with ITIL which is what our company is focused and built around.

Cons

Can be clucky at times, but that can be fixed with better customization.

Pros

Configurability, flexibility and ability to expand beyond IT.

Cons

The report writer is difficult to learn and understand.

Pros

The product allows for a high level of customization and is very easy to use, both from user and administrator standpoints.

Cons

The built in report writing leaves something to be desired. However, reporting through dashboards and searches within the system is a great alternative.

Pros

The fact that it has so much functionality, and you don't have to be a programmer to make changes.

Cons

There's almost too much you can do with it, and not enough time to accomplish it all.

Pros

The flexibility and ease of use. The licensing model is extremely flexible and makes sense in nearly every business case.

Cons

The depth. While this isn't generally considered a negative, the software is so deep that you tend to realize there are a half dozen ways to do the same thing, and if you're of the mindset where you constantly tweak your apps, you'll always find a better way to do something, even if you don't have the time/resources to do so.

Pros

You can easily configure and create Incidents and Change requests; easy to use workflow and very well integrated with Microsoft active directory. Support is available as a community website and or as a phone call.

Cons

Cloud based and it can be slow once in a while, but works most of the time it is fine. It is getting better after our feedback.

Pros

That it is fairly easy to configure. The administration course contained a lot of information but once you start to play with it and build things out its sort of like riding a bike for the first time, well maybe more like flying a plane for the first time.

Cons

The overall look of the ticking window, very busy, a bit confusing for new users to figure out exactly what to fill in and where to go next on the page. Different sections, different font sizes, the colors, etc. make a bit difficult to navigate around. Again, you learn it over time, but if it's your first time using it, or with our IT staff some people rarely use it, this can make it difficult to know where to navigate. We are still in the testing/learning phase and about to go live, it will be interesting to see if our system administrators continue to develop and enhance the system over time, which the should do because in the week long administration class we saw first hand how powerful this tool can be, or will they just leave it as is which is a rather simplistic go-live model.

Pros

Ability to make changes to forms is very easy. We can also created and adjust workflow pertaining to incident/problem tickets as well as change tickets, which can all be done without having to recycle services during the off-hours. Such changes to the code are captured in snapshots which can then be easily restored if we discovered something we changed isn't working correctly. ITIL is also built into the tool and yet it can be tweaked to meet our needs. Likewise, dynamic reporting capabilities without having to go to an 3rd party bolt-on vendor. I'll also add that configuration item comes with the product, something we have desired for a long time in order to increase productivity and reduce outages related to our weekly Change Meetings.

Cons

Not too much I don't like. I guess learning the administration portion was a bit overwhelming at first, a lot a material to try to grasp and then apply when those situations arise that require us to dig thru the old memory banks on how to go about accomplishing what is needed. HOWEVER, I'm sure all Service Mgmt. tools are like this, in fact the tool we left was so overwhelming that most of our work had to be contracted out which made it hard to support later down the road.

Pros

The flexibility it provides, excellent customer service, ability to share mApps with others.

Cons

Takes some time using the software to become proficient at making modifications.

Pros

Easy to use and customize.

Cons

Sometimes not as powerful as you'd like.

Pros

System was easy to implement. Give the ability to track tickets and record when things are going wrong. Shows clearly what was already attempted and allows use to see the time spent per person on a single issue.

Cons

Locking the Description down so after initial creation, it cannot be changed
We like this idea, and will take some time/thought to get it right We are concerned that doing this could result in automation processes to stop working correctly, or other onesteps from functioning. Other concerns are auto-populate options for fields potentially breaking. Additionally we're concerned this might pigeon hole us a bit.

Pros

The dashboards are pretty neat looking. When it works it can be very smooth and doesn't appear to be "hard" on the machine.

Cons

I wanted to like this product, but unfortunately there are simply much better products out there.
- Static windows means you are constantly adjusting your screen when you open tickets (what is this - '98?)
- Not as user friendly as you'd expect
- "Cherwell Writer" for creating custom reports (metrics, etc) is extremely complex

Pros

This product contains the same features as many ITSM tools on the market but at a fraction of the cost. Their concurrent licensing model makes it easy to afford a solution that includes complete ITIL-aligned workflows and templates (out-of-the-box), a self-service portal and the ability to run Powershell commands within custom workflows. Available in both SaaS and On-prem flavors, this tool will meet anyone's needs without breaking the bank.

Cons

The UI is somewhat dated but still functional. Their web-based console (for technicians) has about 90% the functionality of the thick client.

Pros

The Cherwell Software seems to be reliable and easy to use. We were having difficulty getting user acceptance for it but once we initiated a "re-branding" of its look and feel users started to really take to it. Additionally the email integration works quite well.

Cons

The initial look-and-feel held back user acceptance. The site is often slow and seems to be missing some basic features, that will probably get added in newer versions.