HaloITSM vs. Microsoft System Center Service Manager

If you want a value for money full system, which you could use out of the box then this is the one for you. If you want a system that can take care of tasks then this is the one for you. [HaloITSM] is easily scalable with very competitive pricing. New features are added regularly based on best practices and customer requirements.

Incentivized

We use Microsoft System Center Service Manager in the education sector. We believe this is the only real way to manage our IT systems and ensure compliance for not only today but tomorrow as well (what ever that brings!) Our IT management team significantly streamlined our working practices to mold a slick IT support service which serves our end users efficiently. Microsoft System Center Service Manager brought added automation and clarity for all major stakeholders in our organization through detailed reporting and scheduling, ensuring a complete realtime picture of the IT estate.

Incentivized

• The Self Service Portal is very easy to configure and the end-users have commented on how easy it is to log and manage their own calls.
• Asset and User Management works very well and it is simple to link them to tickets. Looking up ticket history for particular Users or Assets is also very useful.
• The ability [to] use different ticket types and templates is fantastic. The added ability to merge and clone tickets is also a great benefit.

• This tool is used to track support requests among our IT staff.
• We use this tool to automate some more routine tasks.

Incentivized

• Support for M365 \ Power Platform, Power Bi reporting in particular
• Feel the asset management side of the product is not as good as the ticket management
• Support is excellent but maybe an old school user forum where other admins can share and discuss ideas

• The software requires a lot of memory to run smoothly, otherwise it will be slow.
• It takes some time to learn, and training prices are a bit high.
• The price is a bit high; System Center is not a cheap solution.

Incentivized

Its simple and intuitiuve - requires minimal training to get people in and working at speed

As with all software, Microsoft System Center Service Manager has its quirks but it has more than made up for them with the sheer amount of functions the system brings to the table. Being based on the ITIL framework really shows with its design/terminology and, generally, we have found it 'just clicks' with our ITIL trained staff which makes operating our system straightforward and enables us to report to end users and all stakeholders consistently with ease.

Incentivized

I've made overall positive experiences with the Halo support. The only thing to increase would be some follow ups on feature requests. If someone would reach out to me, telling me wheter or not my feature request will be considered in future updates or not.

Incentivized

The customer support service is excellent. They help from start/deployment through to any time later on. They responded quickly and resolved our issues professionally and in no time.

Incentivized

HaloITSM offered the highest level of functionality, available as standard, at our price level. Halo support during our trial period was second to none and unrestricted. We had a list of deciding factors covering the most important areas of functionality and HaloITSM covered all of these.

I can't really compare them as we haven't used an "all in one" tool like SCCM. There are other patch management software, other remote control applications, and to be honest, I find those work better when compared to SCCM. However, there hasn't been an application yet that does it all, so I feel it's unfair to compare. All of these tools that SCCM offers could/should be fine-tuned and made to be a bit more user-friendly.

Incentivized

• It enabled us to allow our Service Desk Staff to work from home during COVID and this has continued ever since.
• We have halved our average resolution time.
• Some of the automation processes, when implemented alongside the MS Power Platform, have saved approximately 30 hours a month. This includes times when customers were unable to access the system until they had been trained. This is now automated via Halo and they get sent to on-demand training, instead of waiting up to 3 weeks for the next scheduled session.

Incentivized

• The tool has saved money in a transition from another 3rd party tool
• It simplifies the ease of use for users. This is similar to other Microsoft tools
• We are able to provide reports of system performance when questions arise about availability.

Incentivized