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Cherwell Service Management Reviews

About Cherwell Service Management

Easily maintain and configure IT processes across your organization with Cherwell¿s comprehensive ITSM solution.

Learn more about Cherwell Service Management

Pros:

You can easily configure and create Incidents and Change requests; easy to use workflow and very well integrated with Microsoft active directory.

Cons:

The software becomes sluggish at times when the servers get over loaded so the users experience increased load times between screens.

Cherwell Service Management ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
4.2
Customer Service
4.3
Features
4.4
Value for Money
4.4

Likelihood to recommend

8.4/ 10

Cherwell Service Management has an overall rating of 4.3 out 5 stars based on 167 user reviews on Capterra.

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Filter reviews (167)

George
George
Sr IT Consultant in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Higher Education Software, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Cherwell is Great

5.0 5 years ago

Pros:

Ease of administration and support when issues arise

Cons:

Many options. Difficult to decide where to go next

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Financial Services Software, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

An all-in one service management package that works but has issues

4.0 4 years ago

Comments: Overall, Cherwell Service Management has fulfilled its requirements. However, upgrades are finicky and deep customization really can take a lot of work. Some of them are straight forward and some really require a lot of time to get going, more so than you would expect for similar products. (Similar product are, less customizable, however, take less of a lift on what you can do with them which is a trade-off you need to understand going into it.)

Pros:

While not always easy or straightforward, this service management product is highly customizable and can be used for a variety of areas such as a knowledge database, help desk, incident tracking, change management, etc.

Cons:

Customization can take a lot of work and upgrades can often break functionality with no eta or workarounds aside from downgrading or waiting for a future upgrade (which could be a year+ away.)

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Higher Education Software, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Standard functionality but horrible UX

2.0 6 years ago

Comments: We use Cherwell as a ticketing system for the help desk as well as change management system. The user interface is challenging, to say the least. There are frames within frames that have to be scrolled through separately to see all of the information. The text box containing the user's message is so small, it show the tiniest portion of the message. To expand it, you have to pop open a new window, which automatically inactivates the main window so you have to trick the system in order to see multiple tickets at once.
The emailing functionality is clunky - the initial email you send to a customer uses one link but replies after that need to use a different "email" button that is oddly hard to find. When a customer sends a reply, the ticket displays in a different color, but that is the only notification. So if they send multiple messages, you wouldn't know unless you fully open the ticket and that is cumbersome.
There's an inactivity timeout that may not apply to everyone, but it's a hassle. The system times out after an hour of inactivity but it isn't consistent - sometimes it will run for days with no activity and not sign me out and other times it's at 60 minutes on the dot. Also sometimes when I'm logged out automatically, it doesn't actually log me out so when I try to log back in, I'm locked out.
Overall, with the current UX, it would have to be the cheapest option available for me to recommend it to anyone.

Pros:

Help desk tickets are tracked Released changes are tracked

Cons:

User experience Look and feel of the software Search functionality Notification process Inactivity timeout

Cliff
Java Software Engineer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Consumer Services, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

High level of accurateness and flexibility

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: Cherwell Software offers one ITSM product which is aimed at companies with medium and high level of maturity. If you are interested in integrating a flexible and adjustable solution in your organization, then Cherwell Service Management is exactly what you require.

Pros:

The company has expanded its ITOM capabilities and supports a wide range of third-party integrations and extensions. For instance, the example of such a platform can be Exchange Mergeable Application. In a few words, this application gives various opportunities for third-party developers to host their applications. In general, the vendor pleases us with the new program’s opportunities and abilities rolling out pretty frequently. We have given our preference to Cherwell Service Management because of its great visualization capabilities, user-friendliness of the program’s interface, powerful reporting, etc. With its help, our team has automatized numerous processes and tasks. The platform pleases with its accurate dashboards and incredible search abilities.

Cons:

The company has a tendency to reassign account people. Maybe, the reason for that is the high speed of their self-development, who knows. But still, it may cause little difficulties. Where we see problems with Cherwell Service Management is that this program requires a lot of computer memory to run correctly. In addition, the program will be a real pain without a strong infrastructure from your side. What’s more, this solution does not have any web version.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Higher Education Software, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Cherwell Ticketing Software

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Cherwell has been great overall. Have used it for around 3 years and have had almost no functional issues with it during that time.

Pros:

Cherwell does a great job of keeping track of tickets across multiple teams with seamless integration. Makes ticketing for a large IT Dept. with over 12 teams easy. The software is customizable and allows for automation in just about every facet of the program. Tasks that take up to 10 minutes can be done instantly through the One-Step feature.

Cons:

The software is lacking in visual design. It's functional but getting information to be readable and look good is very hard and takes quite a bit of work in the dashboard manager.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Food & Beverages, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Excellent help desk product

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: I've been working with Cherwell for 4 years. The product is extremely stable and safe. Through personalized screens it is possible to have a complete view of the activities that are being requested by priority, demand and responsible.
To search for an extended call, the tool has quick and well-designed consultation screens.
I also manage the process changes using the tool.

Pros:

The ability to create customized panels with all the demands that are being requested, filtering by responsible analyst.

Cons:

When we have a large number of queries on personalized screens the product loses a lot of performance. Creating micro-slowness. Even in the transition of their product. This could definitely be better.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Broadcast Media, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Cherwell and its uses...

3.0 4 years ago

Pros:

Configurability. It is highly configurable.

Cons:

The complexity to configure it. It was a major challenge configuring it to our needs.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Consumer Goods, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Cherwell was decent but with too much customization it become cumbersome and clumsy.

3.0 7 years ago

Comments: The best benefit is the ability to create and track tickets for your Service Desk, I would warn that you try to use it as out of the box as possible.

Pros:

Cherwell has a great user interface and a low learning curve. We were able to use it rather easily after we had done the customization.

Cons:

Customization is difficult and leads the the overall experience to decline I think. We had very specific needs and the changes we made were not done too well, especially since the consultant we had didn't know how to do them. We had to make all the changes ourselves and the system ended up slow and clumsy.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Requires alot of cutomization

2.0 5 years ago

Comments: Software needs a lot of backend work and creates more issues then it resolves.

Pros:

User limitation and liscensing. Lots of flexibility in reporting and searching.

Cons:

Required lots of cutomization. Slow to run searches. Lack of ability to customize alot of setting that are important but ability to customize some that are kind of pointless.

Brian
Brian
Help Desk Analyst in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Decent ticketing system

5.0 6 years ago

Pros:

Very straight forward to use. Haven't noticed any issues

Cons:

No negatives at the moment. I will update review if any are found

Robin
Application Support and Development in US
Government Administration, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Best ITSSM Platform - Indespensible in Delivering Our Services

5.0 8 years ago

Comments: Cherwell implements 11 ITIL process out-of-the-box which helped an immature organization like ours start practicing ITIL. It's automation capabilities are vast and robust. The single best part of this product is its philosophy. It is completely customizable to fit your organization's needs and if Cherwell doesn't do something another tool does or you want to continue to use that tool, Cherwell integrates with many tools natively, through merge application functionality, and lastly through general customization. Simply put, if you can dream it, Cherwell does it...and if it doesn't, it will integrate with something that does.

Pros:

Everything! It is customizable to fit my organization's needs. I happen to be a programmer, but I don't need to be to develop and configure Cherwell. It implements robust and customizable frameworks that allow you to use it as you need to. Cherwell doesn't dictate ITSSM, it's your partner in it.

Cons:

The customizability allows unwary or naive implementors, developers, or Cherwell Admins to make changes that ultimately reduce the awesomeness of the product. The biggest area of this is in implementing business processes. Before making changes, consider whether you business process is as effective as it should be, rather than making the product implement a poor-performing process.

Austin
Senior Infrastructure Administrator in US
Financial Services Software, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Highly customizable but watch for bugs

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: In the grand scheme of things, the software works very well. We are able to tailor it to meet our requirements for separating Incidents and Service Requests without too much of a learning curve. This has allowed us to obtain accurate metrics that were previously unavailable. The ability to customize everything has also opened up options for other teams to use the software instead of relying on email because other ticketing systems are too restrictive.

Pros:

Cherwell gives you the ability to do almost anything you want/need to do. It's built in workflow (One-Step) feature is great for automating repeatable tasks. The extensibility and integration options are also huge benefits. Being able to link into pretty much any other application with a SQL back-end is huge.

Cons:

There are quite a few bugs especially when it comes to the browser side of things. Customizing the Customer Portal lacks a functioning WYSIWYG interface and if you're a hosted customer, you have to open a ticket to have support restart IIS services before some of your changes go into effect. This makes creating/modifying a Customer Portal very painful. The Browser Client for technicians is also quite buggy. With the amount of "out of the box" features the software comes with, be very careful.. As some of these features are misconfigured out of the box and require either scouring the whole system or relying on a third party vendor who knows where the bugs are and can fix them. If you ask me, this is just a way to force you to use a consultant for implementation.

Clayton
Student Technology Assistant in US
Higher Education Software, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

The best way to manage inventory and tasks.

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: We have the ability now to easily keep an eye on all service requests from any client at any time. It is very helpful to be able to pull up any information about a request from any machine so that our team can work together.

Pros:

I like this program has a customizable interface that shows our team a consistent track of our progress. And, I like that we are able to search all tickets that have been created anywhere on our team for easy reference.

Cons:

I dislike that, at times, certain tickets really require me to fill out a specific piece of information before saving the ticket. While it depends on the major service that I select, it can slow down the entire team by making us manually fill out this at a certain time.

Niru
client support analyst in Canada
Automotive, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

CRM Software used for Helpdesk

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: Overall, cherwell has allowed our team to collaborate on many levels across the organization. We can create,track, monitor and assign problematic cases that come to our helpdesk from clients so we can best assist them and find a resolution.

Pros:

I like how cherwell provides a database of all our incidents created from agents at the helpdesk. This allows us to collaborate and best assist our client with issues that arise. Cherwell service management allows admins to customize dashboards and ticket templates to best cater to the orgainzations needs.

Cons:

Fairly easy to use interface, its straight forward however sometimes we experience issues with slowness of lagging. The software becomes sluggish at times when the servers get over loaded so the users experience increased load times between screens.

Robert
Professional, Tech Ops in US
Information Services, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Widget disparity between client application and web browser

4.0 8 years ago

Comments: All widgets are available in both the client and web parts of Cherwell, however, the widgets viewed in a web browser lack the same visual quality that you see in the client. Mainly graphs and grids differ between the client and web so much so that either widgets are doubled to accommodate the differences or separate dashboards entirely.

Pros:

The application is incredibly customizable. You don't have to figure out how to cram a custom process into a fixed application, you just create your custom process with all and only the things and functions it needs, but still have the capability to link it to existing objects and processes

Cons:

The lack of web browser compatibility development. However Cherwell is a company that actually listens to it's customers and they are constantly improving.

Steve
Service Desk Manager in US
Environmental Services, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Cherwell just works and I love to tell others about it

4.0 8 years ago

Comments: From the moment that we met the Cherwell folks in 2014 we knew that they were the right fit for us. They listen to their customers and they truly care about our needs and they encourage user input and interaction. There hasn't been a need that we've thought of that we either haven't been able to do or haven't been able to find an answer from the user community.

Pros:

It's extensibility. There hasn't been anything that we haven't been able to find an answer for so far.

Cons:

When building a new business object there are so many options and check boxes (that's good). The problem customers face is that we don't know exactly what all those check boxes do so would like to see additional documentation on those.

Catherine
Director, ITAC in US
Higher Education Software, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Cherwell

5.0 5 years ago

Pros:

Flexibility and customization - if you have the time, you can build it.

Cons:

ADA, mobile and browser apps (thick client for PC only)

Forrest
Developer in US
Hospital & Health Care, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Bane of my existence

2.0 6 years ago

Comments: I would seriously consider NOT working for a company that uses this software for change control.

Pros:

There isn't anything I DO like about this software.

Cons:

It's slow, clunky, looses my actions constantly. Submitting a change request is an arcane ritual of pain and suffering to ensure it gets through all the channels.

Delcia
Senior Technical Analyst in US
Translation & Localization, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Once you go Codeless you'll never go back

5.0 8 years ago

Comments: Cherwell has allowed our I.T. to really mature our IT and Business processes. We have made huge gains in providing our I.T. department with dashboards that provide real-time information. We no longer spend hours gathering reporting information. With Search Manager and Report Manager, you'll wonder how you ever did with out these. They are huge time savers and the best part of working within Cherwell Service Management is that you don't have to rely on Vendor support or Developers to re-customize and configure. It's all at your fingertips. Cherwell has certainly made our lives easier. We are looking forward to future gains that can be made with this super great ITSM tool.

Pros:

It's codeless and super friendly

Cons:

I don't have any cons at this point

Kevin
DBA in US
Higher Education Software, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Cherwell for Change Management

5.0 8 years ago

Comments: We did our implementation of Cherwell in an unconventional way. We started with the Change Management module because that is what we needed the most. From there we tackled Problem Management and then Incident Management. It was amazing how quickly we got Change Management working for Calvin IT. We did not have C.M. before so this was not only a technology project but also a culture change. Cherwell Software provided both a easy starting point out of the box and a easy path to make the changes we needed. The quick win in Change Management allowed us to tackle Problem and Incident with great momentum.

Pros:

Easy to customize and develop new business processes

Cons:

The portal needs to be responsive - the objects are currently static.

Swetha
Integration Specialist in US
Higher Education Software, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

This is our ticketing system

2.0 7 years ago

Comments: We track trouble tickets and have cases that are attached to the tickets that way we can keep track of work

Pros:

Keeps track of incidents and cases that have been created and we use this to help people with any kind of trouble tickets

Cons:

It's very hard to integrate with. The options don't always work and once the incident has stayed you can find that it doesn't exist even if it has numbers. The customer reps aren't always helpful

Jason
Sr. User Support Specialist in US
Retail, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Alternatives Considered:

Great product!

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: Very good

Pros:

Easy to use once you are trained. Easy automation.

Cons:

Can be difficult to work around the "codeless" design for those with coding backgrounds

Sean
Infrastructure Architect in New Zealand
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Used for tracking our incident, service request and change management

4.0 8 years ago

Comments: Able to quickly create new incidents, service requests or change requests that can then be sent to the right people for action or approval.

Pros:

Looks to be very flexible, I'm a user rather than setting it up but the forms look like they are very easy to set up and you can pretty much do whatever you need as part of getting the right information for the ticket being logged.

Ray
Process & Technology Leader in US
Education Management, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

My Favorite Toy

5.0 8 years ago

Comments: If I can dream it, I can configure it in Cherwell. I love to describe it as playing a chess game with 5,000 pieces. My colleagues repeatedly ask, 'Can this be done? My usual response: give me 5 minutes and I will roll it out.

Pros:

It can be configured in almost unlimited ways.

Cons:

The features are so robust, sometimes I need assistance to find where to configure a tool.

Anthony
Service Desk Senior Analyst in US
Banking, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Best ITSM Tool Around

5.0 8 years ago

Comments: I've used/demo'd several different ITSM tools and Cherwell is by far the easiest to use and admin. My favorite part of this product is the Dashboard Manger. Creating intuitive dashboards has never been easier.

Pros:

Dashboard Management

Cons:

Admin tool, could be easier to use. But may also simply be lack of training on my end.