To play BMC's advocate, I recall hearing that either this or a future version will use an open chat protocol, so you can integrate it with tools like Microsoft Lync. Also, based on the demo I saw it seems like the chat isn't directly tied to a specific person in this case, but rather it's more like what you see on the web with the annoying "click here to chat with a sales person" when you're shopping online. I haven't installed it but based on the demos it seems like all it provides is an alternative to a phone call to a support hotline. There are some benefits there, as you can have one technician working with several people at once, and use interactive scripts to make the customer think you are talking to them although it's just a bot.
The flaw in the whole thing is that it is based on the concept that users are willing to use a chat client. In most organizations I've found that not to be the case. This will hold especially true when the users find out that there is the "bot" capability where they can't be sure if they are even chatting with a human or software. I also agree with those who think BMC would be better off spending their time cleaning up their current ITSM suite as well. The money that went into the chat client could have gone into giving Task Management an updated interface and better visibility from the Home Page, for example. Thanks, Shawn Pierson Remedy Developer | Energy Transfer -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Baker Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 1:49 AM To: [email protected] Subject: BMC Chat 8.0.00 experience? Hello, I have to say, and am prepared to be flamed for doing so, that I see BMC Chat as a great example of marketing spin. Many large corporates run internal chat clients (ie MS Communicator) and when I work on-site, the support people will use it to communicate with me. There's no need for another chat client, nor is anyone going to login to ITSM to use one. If a service desk representative wants to record a chat conversation, they can select-all, copy, and paste into a text field within an incident ticket. And surely it's not very ITIL? My understanding, and I'm no expert, is that the levels of service desk are there to ensure one can not circumvent the system and 'chat' to the geek everyone knows who can solve problems without following the process? The Chat feature feels like BMC are trying to solve a problem that's already been solved - unless it's aimed at hosted/BMC On Demand users, which is equally troublesome given corporates won't like chat protocols heading through firewalls. When I read ARSlist and see people raising issues ("Performance problems for three months" [two days ago], "Caching issues", "Mid Tier takes 15 minutes to start"), issues that have persisted for years, I do wonder why someone decided a chat client was a good idea rather than focusing on genuine problems raised by AR System administrators. Go on, flame me :) John _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years" Private and confidential as detailed here: http://www.energytransfer.com/mail_disclaimer.aspx . If you cannot access the link, please e-mail sender. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org "Where the Answers Are, and have been for 20 years"
