Azure DevOps Server (formerly TMS) vs Cherwell Service Management

• The consolidation of issues is extremely useful for us. Having one place where all bugs are entered has helped our business process immensely.
• Being able to query data regarding user stories, bugs and code is extremely helpful. As well, using the visual tools built into the system can help with messaging regarding the status of a project.
• Being able to monitor code deployments is extremely helpful. Since we are managing multiple environments, this tool makes it easy to see what is happening where.

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• After proper training on setting up the views and servers, Cherwell did a good job separating various department ownership of tickets. Our work views weren't cluttered with irrelevant information.
• There is a lot of information that can be embedded into tickets. Such as sub-task assignments that could contain almost the same information as a ticket itself. Lot of customization options.
• Custom personal dashboards were nice, once I figured out how to do it. Not everyone wants to see things the same way as other people, and being able to move touch points where you want is always a plus.

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• The older versions of TFS are more lacking in the web version-- if you aren't updated to 2015 or above I believe, a lot of the web features are not available (like bulk update). You really have to keep up to date with TFS for the best features, and it's no simple task to migrate your entire instance of TFS from an older version to a newer version.
• VSTS is supposed to be a virtual version of TFS that we've been looking into, but it severely limits customization options for ticket templates and workflows. It would be nice for VSTS to eventually carry that customization over so we could feel more comfortable switching to "the cloud" so to speak.
• Queries are a very powerful tool, but normal business users struggle to understand how they can best utilize this tool to analyze tickets. Because of the permissions structure in all companies I have been a part of, I've never been able to save my custom queries to a public folder in TFS for business/project users. Instead, I have to take time to train these users and give them guidance on how to best create queries for their needs. This is admittedly a business process issue, but it could potentially also be resolved with some good training/guidance around queries provided by TFS themselves.

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• Sometimes comments made on a ticket do not generate emails to the technician who owns it, and they will not know there is an update from the customer without checking it
• Sometimes I will see an error pop up when copying text but it can easily be closed
• Sometimes the time-out window for staying logged in does not appear on top of other applications so I will not know it's logging me out

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• Time to completion for projects has significantly gone down by 15% and that number changes as more people are trained and are comfortable with TFS.
• Change Management and Approvals are easier to access.
• More projects are implementing SCRUM methodologies for applications

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• Having a single SaaS instance of Cherwell has allowed our organization for the first time seamlessly transfer tickets across regions and allow for unprecedented communication between our groups. We look forward to opening the tool to all global IT teams and incorporating all major modules (Problem, Change, CI & Knowledge and more!) where we'll finally all be on the same tool and various IT data will finally all be in a relational database.
• Ongoing costs can be lowered because we now have enough in-house expertise to manage most of our routine Cherwell modifications and management.
• Once Cherwell is fully implemented at our organization, we'll be able to do with several separate systems and databases where all IT information is currently stored which will make things more simple and cost-effective to maintain.

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