Vikas Mheoe - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, ERP Deployment at Johnson Controls, Inc.
Real User
A stable and easy-to-deploy solution that provides an excellent user experience
Pros and Cons
  • "The tool has good navigation."
  • "The tool must provide more documents."

What is most valuable?

My experience with the product was great. The tool has good navigation.

What needs improvement?

The tool must provide more documents. If someone gets stuck while using the product, the documents will help them to deal with issues.

For how long have I used the solution?

I am learning the solution currently.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is stable.

Buyer's Guide
ARIS BPA
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about ARIS BPA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

How are customer service and support?

The support team resolved my issues. I rate the support a seven and a half or eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward. The solution is deployed on the cloud. It took us a few days to deploy it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is a bit pricey.

What other advice do I have?

ARIS BPA is my first BPA solution. I heard about it and thought to start working with it. I saw some YouTube videos and gathered some knowledge about it. It was a great experience. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Mansoor Adenwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager - Process and Project Management at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Provides great workflow control with additional data captured providing a holistic view
Pros and Cons
  • "Good at controlling the workflow and relevant key processes."
  • "The reporting and the information query features could do with some improvement."

What is our primary use case?

We use BPA for modeling and documenting in a central repository. We are customers of ARIS and I'm a process professional. 

What is most valuable?

I value the reporting as well as the information query features, they are both very useful. It gives us a common language and a common repository, and we're able to control the workflow and relevant key processes. We're also able to utilize all the additional data that we capture and provide a holistic view of how our processes impact other areas of the organization.

What needs improvement?

Although the reporting and the information query features are good, they could do with some improvement. I'd also like to see better control over the library assets. It takes a lot of effort to maintain all the different types of central libraries. I'd like to see a simplification of the automation in the next update, it's currently quite a complex process. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the system is good. We've had some minor issues when they're running maintenance activities but other than that, the solution is stable. 

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is reasonable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I've also used Bizagi quite a lot but I like ARIS because we're able to extract a lot more information. Bizagi has the ability to start executing processes via the platform, which is a definite advantage over ARIS. Once we model a process in Bizagi, we can configure it and create an executable web service out of it. 

How was the initial setup?

The solution is deployed across the entire company, almost everyone uses it.
We currently have around 600 users, but we're planning to scale up to approximately 2,500 soon. We have around 30 people maintaining the data.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
ARIS BPA
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about ARIS BPA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
BPMexp67 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at iMendos
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
A solution that helps you to collect information, design, publish, and validate processes
Pros and Cons
  • "The technical support is good."
  • "In terms of improvement, the app could use some small details and functionalities."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to collect information, design, publish, and validate the process. We can implement the process according to the improvements that can be retrieved. We monitor the process before the four phases of discovery, design, publishing, and implementation.

What is most valuable?


What needs improvement?

BPA is used to represent reality. We need to find and implement potential improvements from a workshop presentation and then monitor the results. We are not implementing these tools to plan and organize artifacts. This tool covers everything except implementation because that is not the purpose of a BPA tool. However, this tool can interface with implementation tools, and after implementation, you can use APIs and other interfaces to get information back from reality. In terms of improvement, the app could use some small details and functionalities. However, I need more time to sync to get more specific suggestions. We already have interfaces for these four tools, and it is possible to develop interfaces for the other four tools. 

Inside the product, we can have a developer environment where we can create new scripts using APIs or STPI. This is the environment that we use to help interface the tools. In the past, we had many packages of interfaces. The suppliers of the provider preferred to have these package interfaces. We like to open the code, at least part of the code, with APIs and other things like this so that the consultants can create the interfaces with the specific tools. We use APIs and other search tools for this.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ARIS BPA for more than 30 years.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is expensive. People who don't understand BPA or only understand a little bit about it often compare tools with videos and things like this, which are not comparable. They may have a lot of models and artifacts, but nothing is aligned or consistent. Customers prefer to start with fizzes and things like this, and later on, they come back and prefer to use a more professional tool.

What other advice do I have?

The solution is not easy to use. People at the operational level don't have the abstraction level needed for this proposal. When they get information from business people, they immediately decide on the other model. They come with additional information from other business departments and do the same. To do things properly, you need to think about a proper structure based on components. Then, when you get new information from previous areas, for example, IT, you should frame this further information or these recent changes in the structure you previously found. Otherwise, you're constantly reacting, doing a lot of ad hoc models. You'll have a lot of content without alignment, sense, or semantics. 

The first step is to contact the customer. The next step is to present the customer with some proposals because when you present the proposal to them, they may accept or reject it. If they leave it, what will you do? This flexibility allows you to generate different views of the process for different stakeholders. For example, someone in top management might want to see a view from the customer contact until the proposal. Another person might want to see everything. You can take all of the components that you have designed before and create a specific view for them. It’s only about how to design business processes. It depends on the other two. One of the primary and critical requirements is to create business processes based on specific components that are well-linked and aligned together, in order to avoid ad hoc models. Ad hoc models are not very good. They do not work in the future. Usually, people start doing this because it is easier. This is closer to how ordinary people think. 

Still, in the middle and long term, you will realize that it is not manageable because you have to prepare models, a visualization of things, and different models of the same reality. You will not know what the source of truth is at a certain point in time because you have many different presentations of the same fact. For me, this structure is crucial. This is where it should start: defining the system, how you will model it, and the methodology. What are the pros and cons of the method? How will you capture, model, validate, implement, and monitor the information? You must define this beforehand, at the beginning of any project. Otherwise, forget about it, regardless of your tool, because it is more about the concepts. If you don't have the right concepts, then forget about it. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Veronika Ellermann - PeerSpot reviewer
BPM Method and Tools Specialist at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Very user-friendly application; ARIS has an active user community; Content-sharing in the tool to be improved
Pros and Cons
  • "In general, the users really like it and they can get started using it very easily."
  • "The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex and moreover, it needs to be customized if you want to use it."

What is our primary use case?

I have been working with ARIS across different projects in several companies, including a project where we implemented ARIS.

In my current company, we use ARIS for business process mapping, capability management, and process analysis. In some of my previous jobs, we used it as a tool for quality and compliance management, because processes are obviously the basis for audits. In this respect, ARIS always came in very handy.

How has it helped my organization?

It is pretty easy for users to get access to published processes. With regards to published content, I can think of one or two enhancements but overall, it's pretty easy. When you know how you need to do it, then it's a good tool.

ARIS has the largest BPM community in the world, although I don't particularly care about the size. The important part is how active it is. For example, if you have 1,000 people that form a community but nobody is saying a word, then the community is useless.

Software AG is promoting the ARIS community quite heavily, and they may have started to rebuild it with this platform. People tend to use it more frequently and I personally try to contribute to the content. Essentially, for me, the engagement of the community is more important than its size.

As a process management tool, it provides a lot of transparency when it comes to processes. This means that people have a solid basis for discussion and this is important because only when you have a process mapped, people will understand how it works. Sometimes, they will then even say that they have understood the process to be something totally different.

In general, process mapping using ARIS is a really good basis to get discussions going and also for audits to ensure or to prove to the auditor that you have good processes in place.

My gut feeling is that ARIS helps to save us time on business process analysis. However, it is difficult to confirm because we wouldn't be able to measure that. It certainly helps to create transparency when it comes to processes, and thus automatically increases their effectiveness. This suggests that it saves time.

What is most valuable?

ARIS is very user-friendly compared to other BPM tools that I have used. The user has a really modern view when they're using the ARIS Connect platform, which is the web-based part of the application.

In general, the users really like it and they can get started using it very easily.

For some people, ARIS is quite intuitive when it comes to business process management and modeling. In the time that I have spent training people, I have found that there are two mindsets. If somebody is a very organized and structured person then it will be relatively easy to get started with ARIS. However, if somebody is more creative then it tends to be quite difficult for them. That said, these people would have the same difficulty when using other process management tools. The reason is that process management is about structure. For those with that type of mindset, it's really easy to get started.

As an administrator with several years of experience with ARIS, I find that getting end-users set up is a really easy thing to do.

I really like the large variety of functionality that ARIS provides. If you look at it from a methodology perspective, you have more than 100 different diagrams or model types that you can choose from. It's really flexible in all of your modeling needs.

You can easily model process diagrams, but you can also model bowtie diagrams, UML diagrams, and more. ARIS has a really wide range of functionality. 

I really like the EPC modeling because it allows you to model not only the doer's perspective, which is often done with BPMN notation, but it also allows you to model the contributors or the people who are accountable or informed in your processes. When it comes to manual processes or semi automatic processes, this is really useful because this is where you can improve a lot.

What needs improvement?

The Risk and Compliance Management tool is rather complex. So, we customized it. Customization was done by SAG and was done fast.

The facility for sharing content should be enhanced. For example, it would be nice if you could share content with viewers who do not explicitly have access to the model. As it is now, if you share a process with somebody that does not have access to the model, then the person receives a link that simply tells them they have no access.

Particularly, when you're in the process of modeling something and you want to share it because you want to get feedback from your colleagues, I would appreciate being able to share that content. It could be valid for a period, such as 24 hours or one week. This is something that would help.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ARIS since 2009. This has been in various positions in different companies.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability has increased a lot since I began working with it. I remember in one of the earlier versions, perhaps version 7 or version 9, there was a lot of trouble. We would run into unexpected errors, some of which were quite severe. Since then, however, there have been some errors, but it's pretty much stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There are different roles depending on the employee. We have regular employees who can read or view content. They can also comment on it. We also have employees, such as team leads, with modeling privileges. There is a big variety in terms of the different roles that people have.

We have approximately 130 modelers that use ARIS. When I run training sessions, I shift licenses from one person to another.

I don't have much experience with scaling but for our current use cases, it is sufficient.

ARIS definitely enables you to start small and increase usage over time. This is very important to us because it requires you to have a process-driven mindset in the company. This mindset becomes part of the organizational culture, and culture is something that evolves over time. Importantly, developing the proper mindset is a journey so you need to start small and then grow, otherwise, it will not really work. That's the nature of cultural development.

Generally, as process management is something that evolves over time, we expect our usage of ARIS to grow. Some people are early adopters but for others, it happens a bit later. Right now, the speed is increasing when it comes to the adoption of process management, which means that more people are using ARIS and have been requesting modeler licenses. This is something that is quite good.

How are customer service and support?

I really like the support and I would rate them an A+.

Their response times are really good. Whenever I have a question, I get an answer, or at least I know that somebody is taking care of my ticket really quickly.

They do not close tickets without asking, which I appreciate a lot. So, from time to time, I've received an email notification asking, "Hey, can we close this ticket? Did we answer your question sufficiently?" This is also something that I value a lot.

Support also asks for feedback. The head of the global support team has also checked with me whether I had any ideas for improvements. The fact that they are always seeking to become better is another thing that I really like.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have some experience with other BPM tools but nothing as extensively as ARIS.

One of these is Signavio, and the ARIS interface is more user-friendly. Also, when I tested Signavio a few years back, they did not have as wide a range of functionality available.

How was the initial setup?

From an implementation perspective, it was rather straightforward.

My colleagues at my previous company found the technical installation documentation really difficult.

As an end-user and ARIS administrator, I knew what the different steps were in order for people to start using it. From this perspective, I found it really easy.

Leaving the technical aspect aside, because it took our IT department quite a long time to deploy it, I was able to complete my part of the implementation in less than a week.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Their license model is really difficult to understand, and licenses are quite expensive. However, with the new subscription model, it's fair that you can rent licenses for a specific time and then give them back. From that perspective, it's okay.

In general, the licensing model is not clear and the complexity is growing. In the past, I was not able to get information whether new functionalities are available for us. This situation has been communicated and should improve: For me as an administrator it is annoying when people ask me about new features and functionalities, and I tell them what is coming, only to later find out that the feature is not available for us. After some discussions you find out that you need a license. This has happened to me two or three times and it is really embarrassing.

What other advice do I have?

In our test environment, we use version 16 of ARIS. However, in our production environment, we use version 15.

We are currently doing a proof of concept project for the ARIS Risk and Compliance Manager. I believe the ARIS GRC has some potential, although it's a rather complex tool, which you definitely need to customize if you want to use it. It offers so many functions and functionalities that if you haven't had a real profound training of it, you will not really understand. So, at least in the beginning, you need to reduce the complexity of the tool. This is the approach that we took with the proof of concept project.

To this point, we have not used the ARIS process mining capabilities ourselves- but did a proof of concept with SAG. The support we received was really great. We haven't used the RPA functionality (yet). We are in the pre-project implementation phase of the AI-enabled translation services.

My advice for anybody who is implementing ARIS is that from a tool perspective, limit the functionality for the end-users. I strongly recommend using filters and to start small. Only allow limited functionality and a few attributes because the more complex a system you start with, the more difficult it is for a user to really understand how it is supposed to work.

That said, if anybody does have problems then I recommend contacting support. I've never experienced a situation where support was not willing or was not able to help. To assist them, it may seem like a standard practice but I suggest adding screenshots because it facilitates communication with them.

New users should also contribute to the ARIS community because the bigger the community is, the more powerful it is. When you have, for instance, new enhancement requests or feature requests, then this community can help to push these new features into a new release.

There is room for improvement but overall, I really like working with ARIS.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Andi Frei - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Process and Data Leader Fabrics Division at W.L. Gore & Associates
Real User
Top 20
The solution can be used for process modeling and the repository of processes
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution provides integrations to ServiceNow and other systems, flexibility of connectivity, and reporting."
  • "Sometimes, ARIS BPA breaks down, and its stability can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use ARIS BPA for process modeling and the repository of our processes.

What is most valuable?

ARIS BPA has the kind of database structure to report from across all the models, roles, and systems. The solution provides integrations to ServiceNow and other systems, flexibility of connectivity, and reporting.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes, ARIS BPA breaks down, and its stability can be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

We had ARIS BPA in our organization for ten years, but it was never really leveraged. We have been using it more heavily for a year now.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 500 users are using ARIS BPA in our organization.

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup seems to be a bit difficult.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend ARIS BPA to other users.

Overall, I rate ARIS BPA an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Interprise Architect/Chief Architect/Project, Portfolie manager at KLH-Consulting
Real User
Quickly gives us a picture of what business processes are being used across the entire organization, and which can be reused
Pros and Cons
  • "you want to do modeling with the old notation form, ours was EPC, you can use the same object in the BPMN because the database is built in a way that you can use both things. So you only have to define it once, and if the notation form is BPMN and those kind of activities, you can use the same EPCs, so there is a connection between them."
  • "From an architectural point of view, when you're looking at the business area, you can find all the information you have to use as an architect."
  • "Also, the UML parts have been improved very much in the last two years. And it's very powerful now to combine the BPMN and UML parts in the product, because you can make a connection between them, so that you have the right interoperability between them. So if you're doing data modeling, you can use your class diagram and bind that to the BPMN part."
  • "One of the issues is, when you are defining databases, the way they use entities and relationship diagrams, the way we can define data, like data models, there is still a part they could improve."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use for the solution is as an enterprise architect tool, but in the start it was about processing; modeling all kind of business processes. And that was before I even mention BPMN. Today, we have switched to using BPMN to do all the different kinds of business process modeling.

This product is supporting it very well.

How has it helped my organization?

I'm now working as an independent consultant, but in the past, when I was using it we could really quickly get a picture of what kind of business processes were being used across the entire organization, and which could be reused, and be sure that no one else is doing it another way. 

For example, the HR part, in that organization there were about 20,000 people working there. From an HR point of view, they had to do everything the same way, when they were hiring people, or when they were paying money, etc. There, we had a strong opportunity to define, describe, so that everybody could go in and see, "Okay, that's the way you have to do it. We have to follow these rules."

We could also create a good connection between the description of what we were doing the application. In this part, it was primarily SAP - and ARIS was coming from the SAP world in 1992, I think it was around then. They started as an independent firm, so they could do these things. That's why it's a very strong part, from when it started, but it has been developed now as an enterprise architect too.

What is most valuable?

The good thing about using this tool is the repository that gives us the opportunity: If you want to do modeling with the old notation form, ours was EPC, you can use the same object in the BPMN because the database is built in a way that you can use both things. So you only have to define it once, and if the notation form is BPMN and those kind of activities, you can use the same EPCs, so there is a connection between them. That is why it's a very flexible tool.

Furthermore, you can use this tool as an enterprise architect tool. So from an architectural point of view, when you're looking at the business area, you can find all the information you have to use as an architect.

The most important part of it, from my point of view - the way I work with it - is from an architect point of view. What I'm using it to handle, from the top-level management part, is where we talk about the strategy, then down to the business part, down to the information part, down to the application part, and to the technology part. So I use everything in the tool.

But, if you have to see it from a BPMN prospect, it will be the BPMN part of it. 

Also, the UML parts have been improved very much in the last two years. And it's very powerful now to combine the BPMN and UML parts in the product, because you can make a connection between them, so that you have the right interoperability between them. So if you're doing data modeling, you can use your class diagram and bind that to the BPMN part. That's a very strong part of it too. Had now implementet the Danish public ad on "Plusprofil" to the UML packed.

What needs improvement?

I have been talking with developers for many years, and it was before using your UML class diagram and those things for defining data. One of the issues is, when you are defining databases, the way they use entities and relationship diagrams, the way we can define data, like data models, there is still a part they could improve. By using the UML part, you would use that instead of the old fashioned way of an entity and relationships diagram. But there they have a still point where they could improve.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a very stable product. In all these years, I think once or twice in the beginning it gave me trouble, but never with stability. It's a very stable product. There are a very few bugs. When you find a bug, just give them a call or write to them and they will fix it. Today they are coming out with two major releases every year. They are really fast to go in and say, "Here is the update for that." So the stability is very good. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's also very good at scalability. If you follow what they are saying, how many users you should put on, etc., no problem.

The biggest challenge today is that people will not pay to have the right technology installation. For example, is there enough room for you at the network level to work with this product? In the new version where we can switch between the heavy one or the light one, the browser, there is no problem. It works. No problem.

How are customer service and technical support?

The level of technical support is very high. Very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

No, I didn't use a previous solution. If you ask me, if I have to choose between different kinds of solutions, I would prefer to use this. It is the most flexible and most user friendly product you can get. I would not switch. But, of course, when you are consulting, you also have to use other tools. Now, today, I'm also working with one of other tools, like HOPEX from MEGA. It's also one of the biggest tools that you can use. If I have to choose, I will choose ARIS instead of MEGA.

Of course, there are different things they can do, but I would still prefer to use ARIS. For the moment.

How was the initial setup?

Every tool, like these - with so many different things you can do with these tools - you need, of course, education about the tools, and you have to make choices. What part of it will you use? It is always like that. When you work with it during one or two days' education, I think you will be very capable of using it in the area that you would like to work in.

For example, if you are using it in BPMN, one day of education and you will already be one of the best people to model BPMN with this tool. Still, BPMN is a big area to go into. Start small but think big.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You will never get a fixed price for this product because they will go in and ask you what kind of environment would you like to set up? How many people will you work with? How big is your organization? 

Today, they have a fixed price to say, "Okay, just to start the business area, buy two licenses for modeling and eight people that can look into the product." They have this kind of fixed price. It's 50,000 Danish Krone. If you divided that by about six, then you get the pricing in dollars.

From my point of view, no, it is not cheap, but it is not too expensive because you get this big organization behind it, technical support, and all those things. It's not so expensive to use. It's a Rolls Royce in this field, I know that. Even for small organizations, they can get so much effect from using this tool, in a very fast way, so the money will be back in the customer's pocket very fast. 

Still, when you are going out, negotiate and find the right price. You will never get a fixed price: "It costs this and, if you take ten of these, seven of these and eight of these, and then it costs this." No, you negotiate every time.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

At that time, in 2002, it had to be connected to the SAP environment. The ARIS tool set at that time was one of the biggest in this area, and that's why we were choosing it. There was something else, but it was not as good. Not stable for the SAP environment. I think it was because of the SAP environment that we choose this product, not others.

Today, I would say, from an architectural point of view, it was a good choice. You will see that in the EU, they also use it in the customer area for defining BPMN processes and data. So, they are using this in the EU now as the main product for these areas.

What other advice do I have?

It is not a challenge to implement the product, not even from a technical point of view, because if you have rights to do things, it takes less than two hours to implement the whole package. Download the product and then just run it.

You have to go to the top-level people and talk to them and say, "Okay, what is your strategy to get a good view of your business?" If they say, "We would like to have something help us to manage, what kind of strategy that we have, what kind of rules, principles that we have to follow, that can give us a picture from the top-level and then traceability down to business areas." 

For example, here in Europe, we have a new law called GDPR, data protection. That's coming in here in May, in the EU. This product can help you to be sure that you will not get in trouble when they come and ask you, "Have you completely made all these different kinds of process descriptions that show us where you are using, how you are using the data, etc?" Here you have a product that can support that.

If you want to have the full picture, also from an architectural point of view, then you should buy a product like this or something similar to this. You have to go up and find the best. ARIS is among the top in industry reviews, and I would recommend it. But I am also using one of the others up there as well.

Again: Where do you need it? That's a very important question to ask. Where do you want to put in? If it's in the BPMN area, use ARIS. It's a very easy way to use it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Consultant at KAFD DMC
Consultant
A user-friendly tool that can extract different reports while being stable
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
  • "An area where it lacks and can be considered for improvement in the future is if we can somehow automate or learn how we can automate different processes."

What is our primary use case?

We are modeling different processes and documenting all of them using the solution.

What is most valuable?

It's a really nice and user-friendly tool, and we can extract different reports from it. We have had different processes modeling and everything done with the solution. With the solution, we were using it for documenting, and then now we are updating all of these. So it's been great software for everyone.

What needs improvement?

We would have appreciated it if the company who has sold the software could show us how we can create our own reports, apart from showing us how to extract different SOPs and run our own scripts. So that would have been helpful for us.

An area where it lacks and can be considered for improvement in the future is if we can somehow automate or learn how we can automate different processes. So, it's like The processes in which we initiate a request, and we can follow where the request is and how the workflow management is being done in different software. So if you can somehow learn how we can do it, it will be great.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using ARIS BPA for two years. I am a user of the solution. I don't remember the version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine to ten out of ten.

My designers are very few in number, but there are a lot of users. Also, we have a lot of viewers. We have around 10 designers and more than 2,000 viewers. We frequently use the solution in our company.

How are customer service and support?

The support for the solution is good. I rate the support a ten out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, I used Microsoft Visio for process mapping.

How was the initial setup?

The solution is easy to install. It wasn't hours but maybe days to do the deployment, but it was done swiftly. It wasn't an issue.

I don't remember how many days it took to deploy. But currently, we have multiple designer licenses. So now the deployment doesn't take long. We can use it. Also, I wasn't involved in the installation process.

What about the implementation team?

If we get stuck with the installation part, we request the provider company to let us know how to proceed.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I can't speak about pricing because I was not involved during the installation days.

What other advice do I have?

It's a great system for viewing, modeling, and everything, extracting different kinds of reports. So the only thing is that the users must understand how different reports can be extracted. What are the different attributes or the fields, what is their purpose, and learn how analysis can be done. So we need to do the aforementioned things, and overall it is great software.

On a scale from one to ten, one is worse, and ten is the best, I rate the overall solution a ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Lead Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Seamless collaboration, excellent technical support, and provides a single source of truth
Pros and Cons
  • "ARIS provides the basic foundation for any digital transformation an organization decides to take."
  • "The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report."

What is our primary use case?

ARIS has many modules starting right from strategy to dashboarding. However, the primary focus of using ARIS is for Business Process Modeling/Analysis - although it is not just limited to process but can cover the entire enterprise architecture for an organization.

We have used ARIS for multiple projects with different objectives, including E2E process modeling, managing IT application landscape, support for eTOM frameworks, managing risk/compliance, rules modeling, et cetera. 

We have leveraged it for multiple client engagements with different objectives of the program, including digital transformation journeys, IT landscape rationalization, process transformation, process improvement, process automation, S4/HANA Migration, process rationalization, legacy modernization, and much more.

How has it helped my organization?

ARIS provides the basic foundation for any digital transformation an organization decides to take. 

Firstly, it helps to create the business blueprint for any organization. With clear and complete documentation of the processes, different departments and people involved can build a common understanding of processes. It helps in reducing duplication since there is only one single source of truth across the organization. 

It greatly reduces the modeling effort of the processes since it is based on a relational DB which supports the concept of library objects. For example, you can create a central repository of applications, risks, data, products, capabilities, services, interfaces, technical infrastructure et cetera. You can create them once and reuse them multiple times as required along with your processes. This helps the multiple dimensional analysis of your processes. 

What is most valuable?

ARIS provides many functionalities and capabilities, including:

1. E2E visibility of the processes which are typically cross-functional

2. Multiple hierarchies of the process provides a different level of abstraction

3. Multi-dimensional view of the process can be created to further support analysis from the system, data, capability, product, interface, infrastructure et cetera.

4. Provides a single source of truth for a process consumed by different departments/functions

6. Strong governance and release cycle management with a built-in workflow

7. Process simulation capabilities to perform what-if analysis

8. Seamless collaboration using built-in mini workflows 

9. Out-of-the-box connectivity with SAP

What needs improvement?

Although ARIS is already a leading tool in the BPA space for years, in my opinion, there are a few areas that can be made even better, For example:

1. The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report. Since, at the end of such BPA/BPM implementations, higher management typically wants to see the value coming out of ARIS and all the modeling effort and this would make it more adaptable for our customers as they would see the value coming out of the tool.

2. As the world is going the way of low code/no code, they should also think of modernizing the report creation in a similar fashion.

3. The integration capabilities with other COTS products should be better. Since every organization uses many applications/systems for day-to-day operations, the easy integration with such systems like SNOW, SFDC, et cetera, will make the adoption easy for the client rather than seeing ARIS as a standalone system with separate license and maintenance costs.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for 12+ years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The ARIS SaaS offerings are very stable and secure since they are hosted on Azure and AWS platforms which provide state-of-the-art hosting. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

With the SaaS offering, organizations can start exploring the basic functionalities with a subscription-based license. The license can be upgraded and the adoption of the tool can be increased within the organization as needed.

How are customer service and support?

They offer excellent support and customer service. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used many tools, including Signavio, Bizagi, Visio, Nimbus, Mega, et cetera.

I personally found the modeling very easy to start and adopt even for a beginer as ARIS provides a very clean and simple interface to work with. 

The kind of versatility and flexibility that ARIS provides is unmatched by any other tool in the market.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is quite straightforward since the Software AG teams take care of the provisioning and intial setup of the SaaS instance based on the requirements. 

Organizations do not need to get involved and invest time and energy in figuring out the infrastructure, security, and access-related issues.

What about the implementation team?

The SaaS offering was handled by the Software AG team itself.

What was our ROI?

Although not quoting a number, ARIS brings huge value for Organizations that have implemented it. For example, it's bringing E2E transparency of how the business process works in a department/unit since they are typlical cross functional in nature.

Different stakeholders can talk and understand the same language since ARIS provides a single source of truth for processes across the organization. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Although the largest customer base for ARIS is in large enterprises, the SaaS offering from Software AG starts right from free trial to basic, advanced, and Enterprise versions. Organizations can start small and rapidly scale as required.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at many tools, including Signavio, Bizagi, Visio, Nimbus, MEGA, et cetera.

What other advice do I have?

Since there is a free 30-day trial, I certainly urge anyone looking to invest in process modeling or analysis tools to try out ARIS.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are the SI partner of Software AG and work across geographies to deliver ARIS sol together for our clients.
Flag as inappropriate
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free ARIS BPA Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free ARIS BPA Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.