TIBCO EBX Reviews

My basic role in this entire process is in terms of QA, and ours is a data management use case. TIBCO EBX is moreover for a data management tool. It is the master data management tool, MDM tool. We work with different tabular structures, and the basic benefit that I could see was that normally we use databases for all those tabular related details. In terms of TIBCO EBX, it gave us a UI representation of the same.

Normally, if you have to do the same thing in SQL or Oracle or any of the DBs, you need to write those queries for inserting, for creating, for deleting, and all those things. But here in TIBCO EBX, it was much easier because it was all UI representation. Even for business users, it was quite easier; you don't need so much technical skills to work in that particular application. You can just have a plus icon where you can create, then you have an option to delete, save, and all those functionalities.

It also provided flexibility in terms of multiple out-of-the-box functionalities, for example, exporting the files in different formats. It's not only specifically Excel; you can have it in CSV format and many other formats that we have in the tool. This was one of the good features when you compare it with the normal database and when you see it in the UI representation format. It also has some customized perspectives to be built. As per the business requirement, you can build the perspective. If there are certain views that the business wants to see, they can build their own perspective and see it. Similarly, they can make their own customized views. All this flexibility was being provided which made it quite helpful for both the business and IT. I work from the IT point of view, but being a QA, I need to understand the entire functionality of the products. It kind of brought my understanding closer to the business points as well. From the business perspective, it was quite helpful to them.

I have been working with TIBCO EBX for close to five years now. I have worked with different versions because when I joined the organization, I was working with 5.8 version. Then later we switched to 5.9 and then recently we were working on the migration task of 5.9 to 6.1.

I normally have had complex data requirements in my organization where the customizable data model feature of TIBCO EBX has been specifically beneficial. We used to have this kind of parent-child relation creation, and we had also included an Angular framework where the parent-child relation hierarchy pattern was being discussed. We used to have some hierarchy views, and these hierarchy views are inbuilt or out of the box functionality of EBX itself. You can just go to any table, click on the hierarchy view, and it will give you a hierarchy structure of that particular table. If you have a parent-child relation with ten levels below, you can see the complete structure in that hierarchy view. If you go from the tabular format, you won't understand it as easily. If A is a parent of B, B is a parent of C, C is a parent of D, you won't get a clear view to understand the hierarchy deep down. But if you switch your view from tabular view to the hierarchy view, you can see these views very clearly, and it gives an easier understanding to the user to see how deep the hierarchy is.

The solution is used for managing a Master Data Management tool. Instead of storing the data in the database, we are using this tool to organize the data based on the domain, such as organization reference, master data, and product-related information.

I am working as a support executive. We deploy a new feature every month and provide support for it. For the development part, I am not much aware of it. The developer develops it and gives us that file, and we deploy it on this platform.

In a database, we create the tables manually and set the data types while creating it, such as VARCHAR and integer. However, in TIBCO EBX, it automatically lists it out for us to select the data type we want to create for that particular table. Additionally, maintaining the access part is overall manageable; we have a separate section for maintaining access for different user groups, and we can segregate it based on this.

We have separate data models, such as organization reference. If we want to update the data for that particular domain, we can use that particular perspective. We have this workflow, and if we hit launch, we can access all existing data space. We add the new data and review it before submitting it for approval, so the reviewer can check what changes have been made.

It is basically for managing data and specifically master data for clients, such as big corporations who have multiple millions of data, including clients, products, etc.

The best features of the TIBCO EBX solution would be ensuring data quality by using Match/Merge add-ons. It has multiple add-ons to search for data in TIBCO EBX. It is pretty performant. Matching the new data inserted on the software is done in a timely manner and it is pretty efficient. It is easy to work with as a developer as well. It is easy to code, especially because it is coded in Java. It is pretty clear in terms of documentation and how to use it. It might be a little bit complicated, but when you get used to it, it gets easier and easier.

Good data modeling would help. Maintaining a purging process for unused data or closed data spaces is important because we can take a copy on a data space and work on it and then merge it or not. If we are testing, we do not merge. Purging those unused data spaces would be good for performance and for leaving some space in the database as well. That could enhance performance.

It has an indexing mechanism that indexes because you have the database on a server and you have the application in another server. What TIBCO EBX does is it has an index. It indexes the data on the current server, on the application server. This can enhance the performance in terms of searching, altering the data, and accessing the data. It is pretty quick, thanks to the indexing, because it does not have to go to the database server in each consultation of the data. It can point to the index and get the data.

TIBCO EBX us used for master data management.

What I find best about TIBCO EBX is its workflow modeling capabilities, which is a very good for a master data management tool. It has good match and merging capabilities, which are essential features in a master data tool. There are numerous out-of-the-box capabilities as well.

Currently, we are using TIBCO EBX for MDM purposes. We get data from different sources and perform sanity checks on this data. Then we store and publish the data.

The features of TIBCO EBX are highly customizable, which is something I appreciated. We can customize every part of it. We can set where the labels appear, how they appear, and their order. We have all of these capabilities readily available.

We can implement rules, regulations, and constraints that are highly customizable. Everything is in Java, which could be considered a drawback. Currently, they are implementing some normal use-on-the-go rules, but most functionality remains in Java.

TIBCO EBX really helps because not everyone uses the same structure. Some use similar models, while others use different ones or might need changes in the future. We can have any sort of data model, any kind of data structure, table format, and we can reuse them. For instance, instead of a single country field, some might need multiple variables such as primary country and secondary country.

We can import data directly from files. If not, we can use SQL views or queries for importing. These are the main integration capabilities in TIBCO EBX.

The workflow functionality is excellent in TIBCO EBX, including the UI. In workflow, we can have multiple steps and implement rules and regulations within the workflow itself. If something is incorrect, specific actions can be triggered. This helps data stewards by implementing sanity checks that can throw errors or redirect the flow, preventing incorrect data from being populated.

The UI has improved, and while the matching scenario still has some challenges, it performs better than before.

I am using TIBCO EBX to build a business and administrator EBX tool.

The most valuable features of TIBCO EBX are the workflow and interface.

This solution allows the user to have complete control, and is 100% customizable. 

Plus, this gives us a multi-domain tool. Meaning that we can manage both our own, and our customers product, and create interlinks between them, letting us analyze the data more easily.

We would like to see the community an documentation for this solution be developed. At present there is very little tutorial documentation available, and limited community support for issues with the product.

We would also like to see support added for the mobile MDM, so that the solution can be integrated with handheld and IOS devices.

We are using TIBCO EBX for the data governance of our accounting system.

TIBCO EBX has centralized several master data tables, which were very often in private Excel sheets of accountants. With EBX it was possible to put a data governance process for the core accounting application, which was otherwise not possible.