Automation

  • 7 min read

Jira Vs ServiceNow: Which ITSM Platform Is Better?

Team Zluri

24th May, 2023

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Jira Service Management offers a simpler and more affordable solution focusing on agile project management, while ServiceNow provides a more comprehensive suite of ITSM tools with advanced features and integrations that cater to the needs of large enterprises. 

However, they also have other unique capabilities to consider before deciding which tool will better fit your IT team's requirements.

End number of ITSM tools are available in the market, but the ones which will help your IT team streamline their IT process are worth investing in. Jira Service Management is known for its ease of use and flexibility, with a range of customizable templates and workflows allowing IT teams to tailor the platform to their needs. 

Meanwhile, ServiceNow has a more complex user interface and requires more technical expertise to customize and configure. However, it offers a broader range of out-of-the-box integrations and automation features to help IT teams streamline their operations.

Every organization's need varies, so you may be unable to decide based on one parameter. In this article, we'll compare their core functionality, which will help you make the ultimate choice. 

Jira Vs ServiceNow: Comparison Based On 5 Different Parameters 

Organizations need to opt for a platform that meets their requirements to streamline the IT service management process. So it's crucial to dig deep into each platform's capabilities, making it easier to decide which platform can be the perfect fit. 

Here we have compared both tools based on different parameters.

1. Incident/Problem Management

• Jira Service management platform is designed to bring development and IT operations teams together to quickly respond and resolve incidents that take place during the IT service management process.
  
  It sends IT teams real-time alerts whenever an incident occurs and customizes on-call schedules, escalation policies, and routing rules to handle the alerts based on their urgency. 
  
  Furthermore, to resolve major incidents, it collaborates with communication channels like Slack and Microsoft Teams and records all actions that are taking place. So that with its automation capabilities, it can investigate the issue and find immediate solutions to resolve it. 
  
  Also, with its reporting and analytics capabilities, it tracks and analyzes all the incident response activities to identify improvement areas or utilize the same solution for similar incidents that may arise in the future. 

• Whereas ServiceNow serves the same purpose of resolving issues or incidents quickly but does not provide you with the vast incident management capabilities as Jira. It uses contact support to track and fix problems. 
  
  Also, it provides the IT support team with a single-pane agent view that helps prioritize and resolve issues with AI recommendations. 
  
  Furthermore, it gives IT teams a mobile app to triage, address, and resolve requests or incidents on the go so that they don't have to keep switching screens to view requests and incidents, saving them time and effort.

2. Knowledge Management

• ServiceNow provides advanced features for creating knowledge articles, including using templates, version control, and content reuse. It offers self-service features that help employees resolve their queries on their own with the help of AI. Also, it boosts the IT team's productivity with contextual knowledge powered by machine learning. 
  
  The platform offers collaboration capabilities that enable IT teams to work together on knowledge articles. This includes assigning tasks, adding comments, and receiving notifications when changes are made.
  
  Furthermore, it allows IT teams to define multiple approval stages and roles, and it provides customizable approval forms that can be used to gather feedback and comments from approvers. 

• On the other hand, Jira has limited capabilities as it has limited approval options, with only one approval stage and no customizable approval forms. However, it has an advanced self-service feature where employees can search for their queries and obtain relevant articles to help them resolve their questions. 
  
  It gives employees curated search results with its machine learning algorithms that view relevant knowledge articles.
  
  Furthermore, the platform identifies those articles which deflect the most requests so that they can pop up on the search list whenever employees have related issues or queries. 

3. Configuration Management

• Jira's configuration management features don't fall under its core functionalities that's why it's only included in premium and enterprise plans. However, it helps gain visibility into the IT infrastructure supporting apps and services. It anticipates the downstream impact of changes so that the IT teams can manage potential risks and quickly resolve issues when they occur. 
  
  Also, it helps IT teams view dependencies between configuration apps and services to resolve incidents, uncover the core cause of problems, and assess the risk of change. 
  
  Furthermore, it detects changes, statuses and infrastructure configurations to keep the information accurate. 

• Meanwhile, ServiceNow is better than Jira as it uses a plug-in, which is the discovery that helps scan a given network and identifies interdependencies between the IT infrastructure components. 
  
  It provides IT teams with service graph connectors that quickly harmonize external data from key IT systems into your CMDB. Furthermore, with a clear graphical view, it maps and understands complex configuration item relationships across tables. 

4. Request Management

• Jira brings together all the tickets or query requests from emails, chat tools, service desks, and other channels in a single place. Getting a centralized view of the request helps track and categorize all the requests into similar categories, making it easier for IT teams to resolve them. 
  
  Furthermore, its self-service feature empowers employees to find answers to common queries using the self-service portal. It provides relevant articles to provide employees with the help they need with the involvement of IT teams. 
  
  It also links support tickets to crucial incidents and helps employees view the status changes, providing updates to maintain transparency. It shares status information via direct integration with Statuspage. 

• Meanwhile, ServiceNow also offers AI-powered self-service for employees, making it easier for them to request apps, services, and solutions to any issues anytime on any device. 
  
  Furthermore, its chatbot-embedded portals allow employees to search for answers using keywords related to their queries, and relevant articles will be viewed on the portal. Additionally, the mobile interface helps IT teams manage requests and collaborate with chat channels on the go and get real-time notifications to take immediate actions to resolve the requests.

5. Pricing Structure 

• Jira's pricing structure is quite budget friendly as its premium models start from $20 per agent per month, it is free to use for up to 3 agents, so if you are buying for more than 3 agents, you have to pay for the same. Enterprise scaling high-velocity ITSM offers a premium plan that costs $40 per agent per month. 

• On the other hand, ServiceNow offers free trials, and its premium plans start at $10,000 per license annually. However, you need to connect to the sales team to obtain a custom quotation. 
  
  In short, Jira is more affordable than ServiceNow, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. ServiceNow has a more extensive range of features and capabilities but also comes with a higher price tag.

After comparing the two closely, you might have understood which tool will cater to your specific needs. However, when it comes to choosing the best, your quest shouldn't end with deciding between two platforms. 

As there are other efficient tools available in the market, one such platform is Zluri which offers excellent functionalities to streamline IT operations and can be a better alternative to Jira and ServiceNow.

Now, what is Zluri? What types of features does it offer? Here's a quick guide.

Zluri: The Best Solution For Automating App Access Management

How can a company boost its IT team's productivity while enhancing the employee's experience? The simple solution is automation, which frees IT teams from managing app requests manually and reduces employee waiting times.

But, which tool's capabilities will enable this? Zluri is the ideal solution for you. Zluri is a powerful SMP that successfully and efficiently streamlines the IT service management process. How does Zluri do that?

To make it more clear how it practically works, let’s take an example. An employee is hired by the organization to be part of the HR department; upon provisioning, he was given access to BambooHR, PCRecruiter, and other HR tools. However, now he has been transferred to the procurement department to adjust the workforce. Now, he will require procurement applications to start with the work, so he put forward access requests.

But the employee needs to wait for a while to gain access to the applications, as the request will go under multiple processes, which take days and sometimes even weeks to complete.

So here’s where Zluri comes to the rescue. It offers an Employee App Store, a self-serve model, allowing employees to choose any applications in the EAS and gain access to it within no time. All they need to do is raise a request for app access, the IT team will get notified of the same. They will further verify the application details and employee’s identity and securely grant them access with just a few clicks.

Now, employees no longer have to wait for days to gain access, improving the overall employee experience. 

But you might have a question like, what if the employee wants access to an app not available in the EAS? They can put in a request for it. This request will proceed to IT teams, who will verify all the related application details, like threat level, risk, score, compliance, and more. Once IT teams verify that it is secure enough to onboard, the app request is sent forward to the procurement team to obtain the required application. 

Zluri, with its SaaS buying capabilities, will acquire the application at the best deal. Once obtained, the application is forwarded back to IT teams, and then IT teams grant the access request to employees. 

But, the IT teams can also deny the request if the application is not secure enough, and the status of the same will be notified to the employees. IT teams provide employees with other alternatives to the app present in the organization's SaaS stack.

This was all about enhancing employees' experience, but does it benefit the IT teams? Yes, it does; it automates the repetitive app request management task, saving their effort and productive time. It doesn't stop here, Zluri in place helps IT teams get a centralized view of all the app requests, allowing them to analyze which requests need to be prioritized based on urgency. 

How do they get notified? Whenever a request or ticket is being raised, they get notified the same through emails, so no more missing out on requests. 

Additionally, with Zluri, IT teams have full control over which apps will be viewed on the EAS and can customize it according to specific needs. This will mitigate security and compliance risks, as employees won't be able to view the application, which can hamper the security system.

So, make sure to book a demo now and try out Zluri's other excellent features such as data recovery, user lifecycle management, asset management, and more that can be an added bonus and be a perfect fit for your organization. 

About the author

Team Zluri

Team Zluri