1. Home
  2. IT Service Management (ITSM) Tools
  3. Cherwell Service Management Reviews
  4. User Review of Cherwell Service Management
Very flexible app at a very reasonable price-point
June 27, 2014

Very flexible app at a very reasonable price-point

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

3.60B

Modules Used

  • Incident
  • Service Request
  • Asset
  • Problem
  • Facilities

Overall Satisfaction with Cherwell Service Management

We implemented Cherwell Service Management to replace an existing (IT) helpdesk application and to allow us to improve our IT service management processess. We also use it for many other support teams in the company including facilities, marketing and some specializaed development teams.
  • The flexibility is unparalleled when compared to other systems that we looked at
  • The ease of administration and development
  • Price-point
  • The performance on our version has been very poor and is a constant source of complaints for our users
  • The system has many limitations that can feel very disabling when trying to design new features. Some examples: a dropdown list can contain no more than 200 items, a table can only get data from tables it is directly related to (e.g., not a table that is related to that one), a pop-up can only contain one field, there is no list box or other method to multi-select from a pre-determined list etc...
  • It took a lot of extra effort after professional services left to actually implement the system. We were left with numerous inconsistencies and spelling errors to track down and correct.
  • We've been able to streamline new multi-step processess (e.g., the name change process, international transfer process etc...)
  • We've been able to eliminate a stand-alone asset management application (and associated infrastrucutre and maintenance costs)
  • We've incorporated many new support teams into Cherwell eliminating redundant systems and making support processes more consistent (our number Cherwell agents has doubled in 2 years)
  • We've implemented a Problem Management process; something that has never had a formal process in the past
  • I, personally, have been overwhelmed with the amount of performance complaints and change requests related to this app; it has been a lot of effort to maintain
We evaluated numerous applications for our ITSM tool. There are specific reasons why each was eliminated but in a nutshell it mostly came down to the application's ability to meet our current and future support needs and 10-year cost. Cherwell was really the most flexible and we found it was easy to implement specific workflow and requirements (a lot of our IT workflow is very specific as it has been tweaked and improved over the last 10-15 years) and had a number of modules we were interested in implementing in the future. One thing that was important to us was to know and understand some aspects of ITIL but not be forced to implement ITIL best practices if they are not compatible with our organization; some tools force such a rigid implementation of ITIL that they were not a fit for our organization.
We stay on maintenance for support and upgrades. We rely on this product for our internal operations and need to have a maintenance contract so there is some vendor support in the event of a disaster, so we opted to renew. The more recent versions of Cherwell also have some new exciting features that we're also hoping to be able to implement.
For a mid-small company, Cherwell is a really good bargain because it will allow the company to automate many processes and grow their organization. It is a very easy tool for a new administrator to pick up and master and is very powerful. I am consistently amazed at how much development can be done with a few clicks. For example: we did 10 months of analysis on a new Cherwell development project, the actual development took only 3 days! One recommendation: dedicate at least one full time employee to Cherwell for support and maintenance of the system (possible multiple people depending on how much additional functionality you plan to implement)