Microsoft System Center Service Manager Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 8.8 out of 10

Score

8.8 out of 10

Reviews

8 Reviews

Education Systems Management - a good fit

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

January 23, 2026

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Microsoft System Center Service Manager to provide a single integrated platform for automating and adapting our environment's common IT tasks and workflows. Microsoft System Center Service Manager ensures our CMDB and ITSM needs are met with ease using built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, asset lifecycle management, and change control.

Pros

CMDB population
ITIL Compliance
Self service portal

Cons

Inconsistent date and time formats in some areas
Complex upgrade process (pre reqs)
System service crashes/timeouts

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

10 years of experience

Microsoft System Center Service Manager Review

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

August 28, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have more than 400 computers in our company, almost all of them running Windows OS. With Microsoft System Center Service Manager, we are able to manage them all together. We are able to install/uninstall software to all machines at once, install updates, configurations, and also deploy images to the computers. It is a complete package to maintain infrastructure with lots of features available. The tool indeed saves us a lot of time.

Pros

Simplifies the operations of IT services
Flexibility in configuration
Application deployment across Windows machines
Server and workstation provisioning

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think any organization that runs windows on their computers that is size over 50 workstations and looking for a complete package to manage their windows machines must have Microsoft System Center Service Manager, especially if they have Windows servers and VMs. The capability of managing multiple devices at ones can save a lot of time for the IT jobs.

Mostafa Dakam

IT Administrator in Information Technology at Libyan Norwegian Fertilizer Company (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

Service Manager, Solid overall!

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

February 18, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use this tool for tracking IT service requests in our organization. We use this specifically as an internal IT tool that we use between technical staff across the company. We also are leveraging this tool to automate some of the more routine items that we run across on a daily basis.

Pros

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

Cons

It takes a while to configure everything.
It lacks some more advanced features of other ticketing tools.

Likelihood to Recommend

I do believe that this is an overall positive tool that can be leveraged to solve internal issues and to also automate some of the more common and repetitive tasks that you might be running into as an organization. It does take some effort to get everything set up but once that is completed and you leverage your templates it does become much easier.

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Great all inclusive tool, but needs to be babied.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

February 13, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Microsoft System Center Service Manager for patching physical machines, as a tool for remoting into end-user machines, getting quick info on devices, and building and deploying packages and software to end users. It's a nice, central solution for much of what needs to be done via our service desk.

Pros

Remote control.
Quick info on end users.
Deploying software.

Cons

Kind of clunky.
Takes a lot a lot a lot of configuration.
There is a lot of jargon to learn to be able to use it to its full ability.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you're building and deploying packages and would like to have a central "place," this is the software for you. It should probably be used for a larger enterprise environment as it requires a dedicated team or person to administer it and keep it running on all cylinders -- especially if you want to utilize all the "options."

Matthew Smith

System Administrator in Information Technology at Questar Assessment Inc. (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

MSCSM is a solid tool

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

January 25, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft System Center is used to push software and security updates throughout the organization. The tool is used for a number of reasons including providing consistent updates, saving manpower and, validation of configuration. We save a significant amount of time, using this tool compared to other tools. The system has configuration into Active Directory which helps to have better control of systems

Pros

Integration with Microsoft Products
Availability of 3rd party configurations using the tool
Very large install base promotes administration familiarity

Cons

Reporting in System Center could be more user-friendly. While the data is there, sometimes several reports have to be run to get what you want
SCCM would be better making updates to SCCM easier. We see risk in updates, so it causes delays, which creates more risk
Improving the application deployment log files , making them easier to read

Likelihood to Recommend

SCSM is well suited for environments that 50 systems to thousands of systems. The company does need a technician or engineer who has good familiarity with Microsoft products and is willing to spend time getting the configuration set up properly. SCCM is well suited to service the services management of applications. Many manufacturers have created integrations to save engineering time.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

Good ITSM

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

December 10, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Used as the main ticketing system on one of the customers. SCSM helps to drive IT processes like incident and change management according to ITIL. Rich reporting capabilities allows us to create informative reports about things going around IT infrastructure, and analyze the trends. It natively integrates into the Microsoft stack-based environment and does not require huge administrative efforts.

Pros

Incident management according to SLAs.
Change management following internally approved processes.
Reporting.

Cons

Sometimes clients are working slowly and we are not able to find the reason.
Hardly customizable.
Need to spend some time to learn the administration part.

Likelihood to Recommend

<div>Works well for companies with huge IT infrastrucure and ITIL processes in place, so entire management is consolidated in a single place and does not require consolidation of data from lots of different information systems. </div><div>May not be a good choice for small companies as it a bit expensive and requires the SQL Server to keep data.

</div>

Andrey Perepelitsyn

Senior SQL Server DBA in Information Technology at Atos IT Solutions and Services A/S (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

SCCM for the win!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 19, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use System Center to image and manage machines. We use it to manage several different images for all the machines in the company. It is also used to deploy individual software as the need arises. It is also a tool used to deploy patches so we can manage them at a higher level and do more thorough testing before we push out to the entire network and find an issue the hard way. It also has some useful tools that you can use to get other information like using the command line and looking into another host to see their user profile.

Pros

Imaging - Can hold all of your images and allow them to be deployed from one central place
Patching - Able to manage patches from a central database and have reporting on machines out of compliance
Reporting - ability to utilize several reports to check compliance and other items you may want to review

Cons

When imaging on occasion the system does not seem to accept your deployment. It may require you to put the image in the machine collection several times before it shows as available.
Patching seems to go well on the admin side but we have been having some issues with them installing on the user side. It seems like the user gets a message and then they get concerned. I have noticed that if you ignore the message the updates will install at some point. It is always a small percentage of users each time we push a patch but not able to tell why this is happening.
Deploying software seems to be about a 50/50 success rate. Not sure why and it is almost not worth the headache of using SCCM for this type of deployment. It would be nice if it was working consistently because you could push the software and have it installed on the user's machine without any downtime for the user.

Likelihood to Recommend

SCCM is suited for medium to larger companies. I don't think it would be worth the time on the back end to build all of the images and deal with the patch management with a small pool of machines. From a larger company standpoint, this is a plus for the system since the image is one build and you always have consistency when it is installed. I am sure the cost is prohibitive for a smaller company also.

Verified User

Contributor in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

SCSM is the right choice for an IT environment

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 17, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

SCSM is used mainly for asset management and knowledge management, This allows us to know where and who owns what devices within our company. The knowledge management is mainly used to know how our equipment has been managed throughout the use of. This is mainly an IT organization tool.

Pros

Asset management. Before we used a spreadsheet for serial numbers, equipment location, etc. With having a spread out IT staff managing all this equipment, it came apparent real quick we were losing equipment, knowledge of replaced equipment, etc. SCSM resolved this with a better organization method.
Compliance Management has become an asset with becoming a PCI compliance shop.
We just started using the workflow optimizer for team asset tracking. These has helped manage who is working on what issues throughout the companies.

Cons

Customization of the service manage data warehouse. This is the primary function for storing lists within the data warehouse.
The overwhelming functions thrown at you in the beginning. I recommend a course that steps a new user through all the functionality so it doesn't seem impossible task to implement.

Likelihood to Recommend

if you are looking for an incident management and asset management suite, this software does a good job. The back end management of SCSM does a good job of allowing multiple users to update workflow of an incident. As for a less appropriate, I would say non-IT using it. This is made for true IT management with a medium knowledge of IT to function properly.

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Reviews and Ratings

SCCM for the win!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 19, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Imaging - Can hold all of your images and allow them to be deployed from one central place
Patching - Able to manage patches from a central database and have reporting on machines out of compliance
Reporting - ability to utilize several reports to check compliance and other items you may want to review

Cons

When imaging on occasion the system does not seem to accept your deployment. It may require you to put the image in the machine collection several times before it shows as available.
Patching seems to go well on the admin side but we have been having some issues with them installing on the user side. It seems like the user gets a message and then they get concerned. I have noticed that if you ignore the message the updates will install at some point. It is always a small percentage of users each time we push a patch but not able to tell why this is happening.
Deploying software seems to be about a 50/50 success rate. Not sure why and it is almost not worth the headache of using SCCM for this type of deployment. It would be nice if it was working consistently because you could push the software and have it installed on the user's machine without any downtime for the user.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Contributor in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience