CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager vs. IFS Assyst

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CA Service Management
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
CA Service Management, including CA Desk Manager, is a fully-featured ITSM platform, now from Broadcom. It competes with BMC Remedy, ServiceNow, FrontRange ITSM, Cherwell Service Management etc. It is based on technology acquired by CA in 2010 with Nimsoft, and is now supported by Broadcom since the 2018 acquisition.N/A
IFS Assyst
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
IFS Assyst (formerly Axios Assyst, acquired by IFS March, 2021) is an ITSM product in both SaaS and on-premise configurations - the SaaS version is called assystSaaS. This product competes with BMC Remedy, IBM SmartCloud, Cherwell Service Management, and FrontRange ITSM (now Heat Service Management).N/A
Pricing
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIFS Assyst
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CA Service ManagementIFS Assyst
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIFS Assyst
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIFS Assyst
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
8.6
6 Ratings
5% above category average
IFS Assyst
8.9
1 Ratings
8% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.76 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Expert directory8.75 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Service restoration8.46 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Self-service tools8.66 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.96 Ratings9.01 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation9.76 Ratings9.01 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards7.55 Ratings7.01 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
9.2
6 Ratings
11% above category average
IFS Assyst
9.0
1 Ratings
9% above category average
Configuration mangement9.76 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Asset management dashboard10.03 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement8.03 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk Manager
9.1
6 Ratings
8% above category average
IFS Assyst
8.7
1 Ratings
4% above category average
Change requests repository9.06 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Change calendar8.64 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Service-level management9.55 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIFS Assyst
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.5 out of 10
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIFS Assyst
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(12 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.1
(6 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
CA Service Management, with CA Service Desk ManagerIFS Assyst
Likelihood to Recommend
Broadcom
It is a suitable tool for a large organization with extensive user needs. It is not for a small shop as it may be over-engineered for smaller organizations that don't have teams that can manage a solution of this size. It does have some significant hardware and configuration needs, but that should not deter customers from deploying it in-house. I've seen it deployed in the cloud as well as in-house; the downside to deploying it as a hosted solution is you're forever at the mercy of the vendor for customizations, and they cost an arm and a leg. The simplest things take a long time and cost much more money than necessary, so you can't truly get a custom solution and end up with mostly vanilla services (unless you have very deep pockets.)
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IFS
I would suggest that in this product class, you get what you pay for. Although it is was sold as SAAS with a nearly 'plug and play' implementation, at least one full time highly trained admin is needed for ongoing support. I would advise a team implementation strategy.
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Pros
Broadcom
  • A large community where, if help is needed, is usually very helpful and quick to respond.
  • Various sites with good information on various issues. If you have a problem, there's a good chance some else already had it and documented it.
  • Fairly easy installation of the product if recommendations are followed and prep-work is done.
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IFS
  • IT Asset Management and IT Service Management in one product
  • ITIL framework
  • Highly customisable service catalogue and processes
  • Mature mobility product
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Cons
Broadcom
  • The right-click feature is disabled in this application and users are unable to copy and paste with mouse or touchpad.
  • The application also freezes quite a bit and a user will have to quite often close and reopen browser to get it functioning properly.
Read full review
IFS
  • Service requests, incident, problem, and change management
  • Knowledge mgmt is not-existent - the product uses a WIKI for it's own knowledge base.
  • Axios help desk does is not knowledgable and does not follow up on reported incidents
  • Training is incomplete - no real resources available except billable by the hour.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Broadcom
While the concepts of Service Desk and EITM were solid. The user interface, tool capabilities, and integrations fell behind the rest of the industry. Too often it seemed like CA bought and rebranded products without fully integrated them with their other products. It was a coat of paint, without the parts under the hood being updated. The overhead for administration was too high and the reporting capabilities were absolutely amongst the worst I've seen.
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IFS
At this point, we are stuck with it. We can't afford a change at this point.
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Alternatives Considered
Broadcom
We are too integrated with CA Service Desk Manager to disassociate anytime soon. We found the more we used the product the more we needed to customize it in order to better integrate with our business processes. There are other alternatives that have many built-in features that had we have foreseen our future requirements... would have chosen ServiceNow or Remedy as our "go-to" ticketing product.
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IFS
Axios assyst outperforms JIRA in every aspect, JIRA is a good job system but when it comes to complex processes and configuration management then JIRA is simply not the right system.
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Return on Investment
Broadcom
  • Having CA Service Desk Manager within the company has increased the satisfaction of customer service from 68% to 95%. Teams are getting better customer survey scores and making better efforts to meet their SLAs.
  • CA Mobile app has provided agility and collaboration among IT Users and Customers.
Read full review
IFS
  • Replacement of 3 systems with Axios assyst
  • Integration with other enterprise systems
Read full review
ScreenShots