ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs. Snow License Manager

ServiceDesk Plus is very easy to configure at the start, and then adjust the categories and rules as the implementation is refined. Its greatest strength is the ability to program without requiring a full time administrator. There is very little jargon involved. Reporting not so much. The canned reports are useful but do not always cover some of the basics. Fortunately, the user groups freely share report definitions so one could springboard from something close to your desired result.

Incentivized

I have said at a number of events that I have attended, where other suppliers have shown their latest and greatest new thing, it is the fundamentals that need to work, and need to work well, and this is what Snow License Manager does. It does not take a team of 100 staff to get the tool working or to keep the tool functioning, it works and is stable out of the box. We have learnt that putting the right processes in at the start means that Snow License Manager can do what it has been designed to do and what we have paid for it to do. Audits from vendors now days are relatively simple actions, with the Snow License Manager doing it's job we can quickly run a report and know exactly what our position is and then act accordingly, quick, simple and accurate data at your finger tips, as long as you put the work in to enter the license details etc. If Snow License Manager could invent a robot to go around the business and find all these bits of paper for us then that would be perfect.

Incentivized

• Ticket logging for end users, so they can see the progress on their help requests
• Asset management; it has an agent that can be installed on machines which can then feed back information on installed software, active times, logged on user etc
• Project management; larger projects can be managed within ManageEngine ServiceDesk as well as end user help tickets, where progress/milestones etc can be recorded
• Active Directory import of users, so that it automatically updates when users are created/deleted and links their accounts in ManageEngine ServiceDesk with their email address as well to enable email alerts

Incentivized

• SLM finds installations of software reliably.
• SLM determines the usage of applications, web apps, and the users who employ them.
• SLM Reports help management determine current and future application usage.
• SLM notifies when forbidden programs are installed.
• SLM provides complete license management.

Incentivized

• When trying to select the top row ticket, you have to be careful not to select all tickets. Happened to us twice and we assigned all open tickets to one technician. Took a few minutes to correct.
• Site is sometimes a bit sluggish to respond. Don't know if that is an issue with our network infrastructure or the program itself, though.
• When users send emails to the help desk, we sometimes experience delays until the tickets appear on the site for the technicians.

Incentivized

• Recognition of licensed plugins running in another application's executable is missing
• There is inconsistent use of Wildcards like "%" across search fields in the SLM and SMACC
• The search "filter" called "Also include not installed/used" is necessary to see not installed/used applications.

Incentivized

we are looking at other tools like Zendesk which may replace ServiceDesk. We are currently evaluating both tools to see which one would serve our needs better

Incentivized

Snow License Manager is an integrated part of our Licensing Compliance software solution. It does help us manage current license needs and actual license usage, as well as inventory shadow IT usage. The nice side effect of being able to see hardware specifications and keeping track of hardware usage by users is a bonus!

Incentivized

It is still very cumbersome, lots of data entry on the back end to build how we want it but it is still not completely user friendly. Many functions still dont work and contacting someone for help isnt always easy or we get told solutions for issues we have just arent built yet.

Incentivized

We currently have the on-premise solution, which is very good indeed. If we were starting working with Snow now, we'd probably select the Atlas (SaaS) managed platform. This would reduce/remove work required to keep the Snow servers up-to-date with Windows and software updates.

Incentivized

Never had issues in this area. Always up and running

Incentivized

It took some growing pains and SNOW fixed performance issues for their product, but never had any issue with it

Incentivized

Our network administrator usually gets a good response when contacting ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus customer service. They are quick to respond and so far have been able to eliminate most of our issues. We have been through several upgrades of the software over the years and have no issues to report in regards to customer service.

Incentivized

Is is easy to find information on their support site or to enter a support ticket. The response times are usually under a day and they don't hesitate to get into direct contact with you to solve the current issue.

Incentivized

Love it, and I got to go to Sweden

Incentivized

It went well, we took out time and verified each step as we went

Incentivized

Spiceworks was free, which obviously had both benefits and limitations - I will say that the community around Spiceworks has always been great. If we could replicate that experience with the ME user base, it would be terrific.

Incentivized

The deciding factor for the decision makers was the combination of license management and utilization statistics. Our desktop people wanted the utilization and reporting to be very granular and close to real time. Snow was purchased because they promoted their real time utilization in addition to the license management, alerting and reporting. To my knowledge, only Snow was given a proof of concept before the decision was made.

Incentivized

Not quite sure I understand the deployment question. We deployed company wide

Incentivized

Worked great and accomplished the goals

Incentivized

• The tool does not scale well from an ROI perspective. As you add a customer, you must add a new instance, hence a new license.
• The tool is probably on the expensive side (34,000 USD per 130 technicians per year).
• There is no usage beyond incident, change, and problem management. The CMDB feature is extremely limited and cannot generate additional ROI. There is no knowledge-base or integration with other software (other than ME Desktop Central).

Incentivized

• Allowed for reducing licenses/cost at renewal or true-up time
• Shows us new software in our environment so we can get it removed or purchase appropriate licensing to avoid compliance issues
• Shows up blacklisted software when it appears in our environment allowing us to get it removed to avoid security issues

Incentivized