This independent review is part of our 2013 Incident and Problem Review. See all participants and terms of the review here.
Executive Summary
| Elevator Pitch | An improved interface and comprehensive coverage of Incident and Problem Management, with some added innovation to make scheduling work a little easier for Service Desks and support staff alike. |
| Strengths |
|
| Weaknesses |
|
| Primary Market Focus | Based on the information provided, BMC FootPrints typically market to customers with between 500 to 10,000 users (Medium to Large)They are classified for this review as:Specialised Service Management Suite – Offering ITIL processes and proprietary discovery tooling.They provide IT Operations Management integration with their own tooling. |
Commercial Summary
| Vendor | BMC |
| Product | BMC FootPrints ServiceCore |
| Version reviewed | V11.5 |
| Date of version release | Autumn 2012 was the release date for this version of FootPrints. The previous version had been certified under the PinkVerify scheme to 10 ITIL 3.1 processes. This version has been re-verified to the same level. |
| Year founded | BMC Software was founded in 1980 and today has revenues of $2.2bn |
| Customers | BMC FootPrints has approximately 1000 customers across Europe and 5000 worldwide. |
| Pricing Structure | BMC FootPrints can be provided as a Starter Pack and this includes 5 named or 1 named + 2 concurrent user licenses, LDAP, unlimited Self-service and unlimited project workspaces. All additional ServiceCore modules are licensed in the same way. AssetCore modules such inventory management, patch are licensed in blocks of 100 nodes. For SaaS and Managed Services subscription licensing is also available. |
| Competitive Differentiators |
|
| Additional Features | Additional integration is available with other BMC products such as End-User Experience Management and Network Automation. |
Independent Review
BMC Footprints provide a comprehensive end-to-end flow for Incident and Problem Management, and is beginning to benefit from being part of a larger group of products, as functionality from products like RemedyForce add the ability to view process flows (Alignability Process Model)
The tidy-up of the workspace architecture makes the overall interface a cleaner and less confused dashboard view.
They have also incorporated a view of support staff resources by integrating directly with Outlook Exchange to show support staff availability.
Logging & Categorisation
Stand out features for FootPrints when logging a call is the Incident Type, Category and Symptom, which can bring up key problem determination questions.
Their consultancy approach to get that level of granularity focuses on working through what organisations look for in their reports, and working backwards from there.
Tracking and Escalations
As the record progresses through its lifecycle, there is an option to just provide Quick Edits (for example for the Service Desk) as opposed to pulling up the entire record.
FootPrints allows for skill-based routing of the record.
There was no means to look at incidents that seem to bounce around groups, but the audit logs are very comprehensive, and everything is contained within the record.
Any SLAs likely to breach will send a pop up to the agent’s screen and could be configurable in a variety of ways (pop-up, colour change etc.)
Prioritisation
The impact and urgency definitions can be defined in more business-focussed language, and the priority can be solely linked to those values.
Closure
On resolution, FootPrints triggers an email with two links to signify if the end user is happy or not that the issue has been resolved.
Records can be auto-closed.
FootPrints offers the option of re-opening previously resolved records or, if organisations prefer, to link a new incident to the previously closed one.
Major Incident/Problems
Major Incidents (and indeed Problems) can be logged from scratch or flagged from a number of incoming records.
As with a lot of US based vendors, the terminology can veer towards the reference “Global” but this is easily customisable.
The record is easily identifiable in a list with either a globe for the master ticket, or a globe with a chain link to show it is one of a series of records as part of the major incident.
A broadcast message goes out to everyone using FootPrints to notify them of a major incident.
But on the self-service side, an end user can see and subscribe to a major incident.
Incident and Problem Templates
Although none are provided out of the box, FootPrints comes with a Quick Template feature for both incidents and problems, where the record can be pre-populated.
Conclusion
The features to help speed up the process of logging records, and providing initial questions around investigation continue to be an attractive feature in FootPrints.
Adding the integrated Outlook resource view adds to their philosophy of making the Service Desk’s life a little easier.
With each successive release, FootPrints is becoming a crisper, more comprehensive tool, supplementing its functionality with additional elements such as Remote Control, Discovery and Software Deployment modules.
BMC FootPrints Service Management Customers
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.
From the BMC FootPrints Brochure
- Increase first-call resolutions by quickly associating the incident to a known problem and the appropriate resolution
- Improve organisational knowledge by providing the status of known issues and knowledge base solutions to ease troubleshooting
- Track performance against service level agreements with configurable dashboards
In Their Own Words:
BMC FootPrints follows ITIL best practices and supports key processes like incident and problem, change, and configuration management. So what sets it apart? BMC FootPrints is designed for the evolving business with a just-right balance of usability, security and functionality. It’s flexible enough to configure, affordable enough to invest in, and powerful enough to grow with you. The BMC FootPrints family of IT Management products and solutions streamline, automate and improve IT operations. They have been designed to leverage your legacy IT management solutions and enable IT to optimize the management of PC’s, mobile devices, software and IT infrastructure by simplifying and automating the entire ownership experience. Our solutions uniquely integrate the processes that manage IT, not just the data generated by those processes. BMC FootPrints has been optimized for use over the web but equally satisfies organizations looking for a solid and secure on-premise solution. Certified to ITIL 3.1 it can be deployed quickly ‘out-of-the-box’ with minimal configuration and for those organizations seeking to facilitate non-IT service desks (such as Facilities Management or HR/Payroll), the easy-to-design workflow environment makes one-to-many service desks a reality from a single instance of BMC FootPrints. BMC FootPrints is one solution in the ‘One Size Does Not Fit All’ ITSM portfolio and has been specifically designed for mid-sized organizations seeking to deliver excellent services internally and externally.
Further Information
Group Test Index
This independent review is part of our 2013 Incident and Problem Review. See all participants and terms of the review here.
