Information Technology (IT) is a major part of enterprise operations. Every business of a significant size likely has at least one employee dedicated to IT operations. At large organizations, you’ll find entire departments devoted to the same task.
IT is a vast field with many divisions. It encompasses everything from cybersecurity and identity management to project management to collaboration. Hence, you’ll need dedicated IT service management (ITSM) tools to help you manage the process.
IT service management tools help you organize and implement your IT services. You can organize all your software from a single platform which makes things easier for your staff. Your ITSM platform could be cloud-based on hosted on your own servers.
We tested different IT service management platforms to identify the best ones. We narrowed our list based on important factors including pricing, performance, ease of use, customer support, etc. Each tool we select has its pros and cons, but, overall, they’re the best you can choose.
How to choose an IT Service Management platform
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1. Cost
Cost is the first thing to consider when choosing any software. It’s necessary to choose a platform that you can afford in the long term. Most ITSM tools have transparent pricing; they charge according to the number of users and devices, so it’s easy to estimate how much you’ll pay finally. Check if there’s a demo or free trial to test the features before making a final decision.
2. Customer Support
Things can go wrong at any time, and you’ll need external help to solve your issues. Choose an ITSM platform with a good customer service reputation. You should have access to a broad range of customer support resources including articles, user guides, FAQs, video tutorials, etc. You should also be able to contact a human support representative at any time.
3. Performance and Scalability
You need a tool that works well with your IT workload. A lagging tool can frustrate your workforce and IT operations, which you definitely want to avoid.
Your ITSM should work well even as you scale your IT workload. It should handle growth without sacrificing quality and performance.
4. Ease of Use and Setup
You need an ITSM system that is relatively easy to set up and configure. You also need a platform with an intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate and use, especially for non-technical users. Any platform that’s difficult to use will frustrate you and potentially cause costly mistakes.
We’ve also featured the best IT management tools.
Jira is a very popular project management and bug-tracking platform for enterprises. It offers an ITSM system as part of its services. You can use it to manage your enterprise IT operations easily.
A good thing about Jira is that it offers extensive collaborative features. You can connect your software development and IT operations team to a single platform so that they can manage requests and incidents easily.
Jira offers templates to help your IT team create documentation for your organization. They can create detailed documentation about every software system you choose; staff facing any issues can quickly consult this documentation for help and only seek direct help if they don’t get what they want. Having great documentation cuts down on direct support requests and frees up time that your IT team can put to use elsewhere.
This platform offers a free plan for a maximum of 3 users. Afterward, you can choose either the Standard plan for $21 per user per month or the Premium plan for $47 per user per month. There’s also a custom Enterprise plan billed annually; you’ll need to contact the company’s sales team for a quote.
Read our full Jira Service Desk review.
NinjaOne is a broad IT management platform. It helps enterprises modernize their IT system and monitor it effectively. With this platform, you can monitor all your IT operations from a single dashboard with detailed analytics.
Users often commend NinjaOne for its Service Desk and ticketing system. This system makes it seamless for people across your organization to request help when they need it. An administrator takes charge of the process and accepts tickets and assigns them to the relevant personnel.
Another good thing about NinjaOne is its documentation system. It provides documentation templates that you can edit to fit your tastes. These templates, designed by professionals, make it easy to create documentation for different types of software within your IT stack.
NinjaOne enables you to discover assets connected to your IT network and monitor their usage in real-time. You can remotely take control of devices connected to the network in one click.
This platform has no standard pricing; you’ll need to contact the sales team for a custom quote. You can request a demo to test the features before making your final decision.
Freshservice is the product of Freshworks, an Indian software company best known for building affordable alternatives to popular products built by North American counterparts. This platform helps you organize and manage your IT operations effectively.
You can use the Unified Service Catalog to manage all your enterprise software. You can deploy integrations between different software to make them easier to use. Freshservice provides tools for IT documentation; you can access templates designed by professionals and edit them to fit your tastes. You can create an extensive Knowledge Base to assist users across your organization when they encounter problems with any software.
You can integrate Freshservice with popular cloud computing providers like Amazon Web Services, Azure, and VMWare. These integrations enable you to monitor your cloud resources effectively and automate some cloud-based tasks.
Freshservice gives you a bird’s eye view of your IT stack, including every hardware and software resourcE. The platform has an intuitive interface that makes it easy to navigate. The main drawback we observed is having a steep learning curve for new users.
Read our full Freshservice review.
SysAid is a popular IT management system with many features. A unique thing about this platform is that it offers extensive automation features. You can use it to automate a great deal of your IT workflow to save time.
For instance, you can use SysAid to automate your ticketing system. Every incoming IT ticket will be automatically organized, prioritized, and assigned to the person(s) that’ll handle it according to your pre-configurations.
SysAid lets you automate a lot of IT-related tasks. For example, you can automate your employee onboarding and offboarding process. You can also automate provisioning and de-provisioning of virtual machines.
SysAid provides a Help Desk and ticketing solution for enterprises. It makes it easy to manage incoming requests and help people across your organization. With SysAid, you can remotely monitor all devices connected to your network and ensure they’re functioning as expected.
This platform has no standard pricing. You’ll need to contact the sales team for a quote.
ServiceNow is a famous cloud-based enterprise software provider. It offers a popular IT service management system (ITSM) adopted by enterprises worldwide. You can use it to manage your IT operations and make things easier for everyone in your organization.
ServiceNow offers robust Knowledge Base and documentation tools. You can create a Knowledge Base for all software under your IT stack; users can consult this knowledge base when they have issues with any software or need to learn about any specific feature. The extensive documentation means that people can easily help themselves when they encounter errors instead of immediately seeking direct help from your IT staff.
This platform gives you extensive visibility into your IT environment. You can monitor all devices connected to your network from a single dashboard. You can log incidents and assign them to the relevant staff to take care of.
ServiceNow doesn’t have standard pricing, so you’ll need to contact the sales team for a custom quote. This platform offers robust features that you’ll hardly find elsewhere but is known to be expensive. We recommend it only for large enterprises with equally large IT budgets.
Essential features of an ITSM platform
1. Asset Discovery
You should be able to discover any device connected to your enterprise IT network. This way, you can easily detect if there’s an intruder and kick them out or take other further actions.
2. Incident Management
Downtime can cause a lot of problems for your enterprise. Hence, your ITSM platform should have tools that help you deal with downtime. It should be able to troubleshoot your entire network to identify the source of a downtime and help you fix it before it morphs into bigger problems.
3. Documentation
Your ITSM should include features that let you document every aspect of your IT network. The idea is to have detailed documentation that anyone can look at to figure out how your network functions. Good documentation will help your staff when they face issues, as they can solve them themselves instead of immediately seeking external help.
4. Request Management
Your ITSM system should offer a tool for people to request services from your IT team. For example, if an employee is finding it difficult to use their work email, they can easily lodge a complaint with the internal IT team to get the problem solved.
More on ITSM
Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) tools make it easier to track and resolve issues across multiple assets, making it simpler to manage a wide range of devices connected to your IT infrastructure.
One of the key issues faced by ITSM is the variety of devices that might be used, as network connections can involve desktop PCs, laptops, as well as smartphones, all of which will need to be kept up to date with security updates, as well as software patch management.
Additionally, ITSM isn’t just focused on the technology but also caters for users, meaning that it covers proper error reporting and logging, technical helpdesk assistance, as well as other ticketing support.
This is all organized to be easy for IT managers to find what they want to resolve problems as quickly as possible, and ensure others are solved before they become an issue.
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