ARIS BPA Reviews

ARIS BPM is an excellent platform to define, design, and analyse business processes. We have used ARIS to establish business process frameworks in organizations based on various frameworks like CMMI, EFQM, Malcolm, etc. Also, ARIS BPM is used to analyse, simulate, and optimize business processes.

We are a BPM consulting organization. We have improved processes in various industries like insurance (payout and claim management), hospital (admission and discharge process), manufacturing (order to dispatch value chain), and many more. With ARIS, have implemented effective enterprise process architecture and business architecture. 

1. ARIS process modeling and analysis: It allows integration of end-to-end business processes with the organization's vision, strategies, and business objectives, through visual management.
2. Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes.
3. Process Governance: Change management, process reviews, workflows, etc.
4. Process Simulation: To do the various what-if analysis. 

Training is one of the important aspects for process awareness. As soon as a process is rolled out, process training is required. If ARIS could generate output in PowerPoint, it would be great for business users.

Simplify Cloud offerings

We used MS Office, Visio to define, analyze and maintain business processes and architecture. But these tools were neither much useful nor easy for business analysis. 

We are a solution provider and ARIS BPM is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

The most valuable feature in the latest versions is the connect portal, where you can do modeling in a very simple manner using the web-based portal.

If you look at the administration function, it is rather complex.

If you want to create new reports then you have to use JavaScript, or ARIS script as they call it, which is beyond the competencies of most people.

I would recommend to Software AG that they move to SaaS as soon as possible. Currently, they have a cloud offering, but they don't really have a SaaS business model in place. They are still thinking in terms of licenses and my recommendation to them would be to stop doing this and move to SaaS ASAP because all of the other competitors are moving in that direction. As a SaaS, they might reconsider the positioning of the ARIS portfolio in the markets and to have, for example, specific pricing or specific environments for mid-size companies, instead of just a single implementation for enterprises.

I have been working with ARIS BPM for between 16 and 20 years.

In terms of stability, it depends because there are several possibilities for how it is hosted. If it is on-premises then I can't say anything in terms of stability. However, the Amazon cloud is quite stable. We offer our own cloud environment and over the past four years, it has proven to be really stable.

Overall, if you look at the environment, it's quite stable, and if you look at the product, it's also very much improved in the last years.

My clients for this product are enterprise-level companies.

There is room for improvement, especially in the communication area. If you have Software AG as technical support in a partner environment, there is obvious room for improvement here.

I have worked with a lot of similar products including BiZZdesign, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, and Bizagti. We are also currently doing a lot with GBTEC BIC.

At this time, I would recommend the BIC product from GBTEC the most because it comes down more or less to a newly developed ARIS environment, but in better shape. The core code of the product is new, and you might say, in general, that this is a better product. Also, if you look at the functionalities that they are building, it is less complex. It's more of a SaaS product and it's much easier to use.

This product is rather complex to set up.

Currently, ARIS is just targeting enterprises of, for example, one-billion-plus companies. For these organizations, the price is fine. This is absolutely not the cheapest solution in the market, but for large companies, the price is fine.

If one were targeting companies of perhaps a hundred million and a billion, then the price might be a bit on the high side. For companies below a hundred million, then it's too expensive I would say.

My advice for anybody who is implementing ARIS BPM is to have a good organization in place first. You really need to have ownership because if you implement ARIS and start using it there you have quite a few admin functions that you need to have in place. For example, looking at conventions, filtering, reports, account management, etc. There's a lot of work to be done and ownership in this regard is very important.

In summary, this is a good product but there is room for improvement in several areas.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

For integration purposes, where files or data from different systems are generated and passed on to the next one in the format accepted by that system.

Interactions between several systems with different data formats are made easy, which basically holds the whole system together. This is effective middleware.

MFT is quite attractive. A large amount of data is passed in almost no time and it is quite easy to use.

The data in the pipeline could be managed better. Sometimes previously-used data would be reflected in present variables.

• ARIS Reporting – Helps download valuable content from the tool in multiple formats.
• ARIS Query – Helps visualize relationships between various components/elements of an enterprise.
• Occurrence Copy – Helps create a relational database which in turn helps in carrying out process analysis.

ARIS helps in creating a central repository of all processes of an organization in a standardized manner. Thus, it has helped in carrying out our business processes in a standard manner across the globe.

• We should have the ability to download ARIS EPCs to Visio.
• ARIS should also have the ability to import swimlane Visio flowcharts.

I've used this product for over six years.

I haven't encountered any issues with stability.

I haven't encountered issues with scalability.

A seven out of 10.

I did not use a different solution prior to ARIS BPM.

Complex.

Prices are high. However, they are worth it if the organization utilizes the tool to its full potential.

Casewise, IBM BlueWorks Live, Orbus.

We use the solution for enterprise process management. It helps us to find gaps and improve the processes. 

I am impressed with the tool's integration. It also facilitates collaboration in the organization. 

The tool needs to improve its support since they take long to respond. 

The tool is scalable. 

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Platform that it supports covers legacy and new. Caters to moving older objects into an integrated DB, relatively popular ones: SQL, Oracle, etc.

No product is complete. As technologies evolve, so must the tools to support them. End-to-end visibility and real-time are areas that will need greater attention.

No issues with scalability.

I do not believe that there is a site in this country that has exceeded the scalability limitation.

Judging from my perspective, all the forums appear to have topical discussions. Also, requested a latest GA version date and received a response.

Staunch user of Visio, ArchiMate. A requirement for a client, decided to explore deeper. Alfabet.

The Aris version that I have is straightforward.   

Although digital business transformation (e.g. IoT, Blockchain) is top of mind for many IT professionals, many companies are facing legacy systems consuming operating budgets and have limited visibility into their enterprise architecture. It is increasingly difficult to meet RFC (requests for change) deadlines and digital business transformation demands. Therefore, a simple and easy to use enterprise architecture is important for implementing an effective digital business transformation program.

However, enterprise architecture (EA) and the frequently used methodology TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) have an image problem. Business and IT leaders are frequently bypassing the enterprise architect because they have the following issues:

1. The enterprise architecture and TOGAF are not practical to complete and are difficult to explain.
2. The EA terminology is difficult to understand and not aligned with operational departments.
3. The EA governance methodology and EA models are difficult to understand and to maintain.
4. Too much focus of project delivery and IT architecture 

Because of these issues the enterprise architect, and business and IT leaders, are not always aligned and do not fully cooperate to resolve the EA issues at hand. Most of the design decisions are made by business and IT leaders who are not always in line with the vision of the enterprise architect. This has an impact on the quality of the EA. In order to improve the cooperation, the enterprise architecture should be presented in a more practical and simple way.

Needs to be driven from the top, must standardise and simplify centric environments. Architectural principals - governance a must.

Our primary use case is for process modeling.

It has helped us design processes in a step by step, logical manner. It has helped in putting the product manuals, procedures, and policies all in the same database. It has clearly defined setting up the SLAs for each and every process and measures the SLAs at the end of the process execution for each transaction.

The most valuable features are the leveling of processes, interfacing of processes, extracting the reports, and process manuals out of the system; the whole landscape.

It takes a long time for a new user to start working with ARIS, so perhaps it could be more user-friendly in terms of the complicated construction conventions that it uses. Making it more customizable and easy to learn would be a benefit.

In the age of artificial intelligence, the system should make suggestions as to what to do, and how to do it, rather than depending on the book or relying on the trainer to figure out how to get started.

It is quite stable and there are no issues. We are using the three modules: ARIS Architect, ARIS Designer, and ARIS Process development.

In terms of scalability, it is quite easy. It is only a matter of procuring licenses and training people, and then they can start.

There are approximately six hundred users, including four administrators and five process designers. The rest are end users.

The solution is used quite extensively, and we plan to increase the number of users in the coming years.

Technical support from ARIS is quite responsive, and we get help whenever we need it. With the processes, it becomes a bit complicated because we have to refer it to our IT department and they have to open a log. Because of the time difference between the Gulf and the support team, it takes longer to get things resolved.

We hear back from the support team in 24 to 48 hours.

For BPM, we started with ARIS. We were not using a solution previously, except for designing the processes on Microsoft Visio.

The initial setup was a complex affair for us. We had to engage in six months of training, in-house, with a trainer. A group of people were trained and then finally started process modeling on ARIS.

Over the six months, it was easy, step by step, where we had to follow one thing at a time and there was a lot of time to practice.

We used a consultant for the deployment.

We did not look at another vendor. We had installed a core banking system, Temenos T24, and they were the ones who recommended ARIS, back in 2011.

As for staying with this solution, we have to look at the alternatives available in the market. If something better comes up, and we can make an evaluation and make a shift, why not, but as of now ARIS is a good solution for us, it is working well.

I do recommend ARIS as a tool for others. It is a very helpful solution for process modeling, process measurement, and simulations. It has the ability to scale up, as well as integrate with other systems within the organization to get real-time information from dashboards and reports. It has a lot of capabilities.

It has helped us in designing the processes, measuring the processes, governance of processes, making revisions and changes in processes, and incorporating the regulatory and statutory requirements into our processes very easily. It has very well served our purposes and needs.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

My first use case using ARIS was in a Brazilian tax project for a global cosmetic company. All the flows had to be analysed by the global team regarding the core model synergy.

Creating all the flows related to the "As-Is" process of the organization that must easily see the possible improvements and compare them with the best practices from marketing.

The BPMN notation and the share flow through users. It is nice to see all flows in a common, shared space for all the stakeholders to view the same thing and the same language.

The usability. Others tools are easier to manage without same complexity that ARIS has.

It is a complete tool, but it is not so user-friendly.