HCL Notes vs. ServiceNow IT Service Management

I often work with teams from other country and regions, hence HCL Notes is a very useful platform for internal company management operations. It standardized organisational work standards in most of the offices worldwide. HCL Notes also enables chat with other team around the world that I find very helpful when initiating conversation or just want to have a quick update rather than sending emails and waiting for replies. However, HCL Notes is not very efficient in web browsing and user still need to use other internet service providers.

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We found that ServiceNow's ITSM product is overall a great product to use in all areas of IT. Whether it be Security, Infrastructure, or Networking, nothing is too complicated to bring into ServiceNow for processing. Being able to use flows to automate task creation and auto assign has helped to fill process gaps that existed with our previous product.

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• It has a really strong and robust database that's extremely scalable and holds up well to thousands of users and many different environments.
• It has a really good enterprise-grade framework for development custom database applications
• All of the custom database applications along with the email all have a nice uniform look and feel so their easy-to-use.
• I really like how it's developed and supported on every client OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)! The competitors definitely do NOT offer this (M$).

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• Integration
• Good search capabilities. Applications are created within CMDB and we can search for the app to see the changes, incidents and problems created
• Reporting. Great store of MIS reports and will let you to create custom reports
• Visual Task Boards - use it as Kanban boards

• Notes' backwards compatibility sometimes gets in the way. Menus are cluttered with extraneous, outdated options and features that modern users will never use, and Preferences are often difficult to navigate for those coming from Gmail or Outlook. We have greatly simplified this via Policies, but users still find it daunting to go through all the options that are available.
• The IBM Notes client for Windows & Mac is essentially the Eclipse Java development platform...so it is HUGE. Performance initially was very slow but IBM has done a good job of speeding things up. As IBM moves more toward cloud-delivered applications, this will not be as much of a problem.
• Notes and Domino can be complex to manage for administrators who are more accustomed to ActiveDirectory, Group Policy, etc. Editing a notes.ini file to add a feature, or working with XML files by hand to create a SmartUpgrade kit can be daunting to those coming from more modern administrative roles.
• Some users claim to "hate" Notes mail. While I have heard this less and less over the past 10 years, we have had 3rd party software offer plugins to Outlook and it's rare to see any for Notes.
• The client update process should be automated more. I would like to see the Notes client update quietly and quickly more like an Adobe software update. If an update fails it should automatically try again without prompting the user over and over.
• Notes multiple language spell checking is a downloaded add-on Java-based resource that has to be deployed in a convoluted way that is difficult for users to grasp. Therefore any foreign language spell check updates must be done individually per Notes client by IT, which is unfortunate. I would prefer to see that be a "live download" update option for users to get directly from IBM (don't make me download it and put it on my network).

• Finding requests that I opened and have since been completed by the assigned group/individual is very difficult to accomplish unless I've written down the request numbers somewhere.
• Requests that I opened and are subsequently closed, often continue to appear in the list of "My Open Requests" giving the appearance that they were not completed when in fact they were.
• It may exist, but if it does I haven't found it yet, which makes it less than intuitive, but I would like to see the ability to recall a request in ServiceNow.
• I believe our firewall rule change request for is a custom form, but it has a serious drawback. If I submit such a request and need to make a correction to it before it is approved, there isn't anyway for me to do so. The request has to first be rejected with the creation of a sub-task in order to edit it before it is resubmitted for approval.

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I've been in IT business and as a Programmer/Developer for 20+ years with too many programming languages experiences/back ground (C/C++/Visual Basic/Basic Program/Unix/COBOL/Java). Also with 18+ years with Lotus Notes/IBM Domino, I am still and always think Lotus Notes is the best RAD platform available!. When the time where resource is very limited and the expectation is very high and the turn around is too short, IBM Domino/Notes is the platform to use and it's the only choice available.

Excellent rating for exceptional service provided for efficiency and efficient output given by it. It helped both client as well business to coordinate better for the requirements they work. It help to generate reports for real time progress on task. It helps to keep active watch on progress made by all parties

Easy to use for the user, most of the apps we developed, there is not much need for user training. Most of the times, we just do a demo to the users group and they can pick up from there.

The basic actions of creating, updating and tracking requests is easy to udnerstand and use. Only a short onboarding training is needed to train the users of how to use it properly. However, the UI/UX experience can feel bloated with the many options it offers when you start to customize the tool to your company needs. It is also not the best looking user interface compared to more modern web applications.

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

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I've been using the production for a very long time and very happy with it. Also, all the online resources and forums for notes is very friendly and easy/quick for getting help. I found out that compared to Microsoft or Oracle or any other platforms, IBM Notes online forum is the best I have seen.

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.

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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.

Implementation is easy and smooth if the requirement is well gathered/documented. Notes is a RAD platform, all projects in Notes is simple in the implementation step.

While implementation the focus always should be on customizing features which are out of box to minimize the debts following the main features like Incidents, Requests, Change & Problem Statement. It should be strictly ensured to maintain right data quality, eliminating any duplicates or wrong workflows and incorrect reportings. Strong security and goverance to be implemented.

Outlook has been considered for years as a replacement platform. Pricing and support staff made it prohibitive. Our long-time use of Microsoft Office productivity suite naturally led us to consider the adoption of Office365. A recent investigation told us that Azure Cloud services propel an O365 solution to the forefront. Early adopters in international divisions have paved the way for Azure and O365.

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Having used other ticketing/asset tools in the past with other companies. This time, we opted for ServiceNow, primarily because of the company's scale. Once you start hiring a lot of employees, you need a robust tool with some maturity. We wanted to split the IT team into back-office and front-office teams. We needed proper permissions and auto-escalation. Also, approval flows for certain requests (mostly hardware and file access requests). All of this is part of the standard ServiceNow package. Some of the cheaper alternatives we felt were more suited for very small businesses or teams.

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ServiceNow works as an enterprise solution.

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• Over the years, we have lost countless hours of productivity from the thousands of crashes we have experienced.
• One benefit of IBM Notes is that it is very simple to train a new user on. Many people prefer and are familiar with Google tools, but those that use IBM Notes have very little trouble acclimating themselves.

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• Personally as an end-user, I feel like my issues have been resolved more quickly/don't tend to get as lost when using previous tools.
• Having a centralized place where all questions are asked and all issues are resolved means I don't have to spend time searching for the appropriate team. I can just create a ticket and it's channeled to the appropriate team for me.

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A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info