BIC Platform Reviews

We use the solution for drawing the processes.

The tool was used for digital transformation. Our company operates in the automotive industry and needs a transition to digitalization. We utilize the BIC Platform for documenting and modifying our processes, as well as incorporating various elements such as KPIs. It serves as a fundamental tool for numerous aspects of our operations.

The central dictionary is a valuable feature.

The solution could improve its connectivity to other systems. For instance, I need new connections to KPIs. KPIs are linked to processes, I can't access the dictionary of processes to make KPIs.

I have been using the BIC Platform for four months.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is difficult. There are 500 viewers and 50-70 users using this solution. We use it about two or three times a week.

I rate the solution’s scalability a six out of ten.

I have used Camunda before.

I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight to nine out of ten.

We use BIC Platform for process design and workflow features.

The product is easy to use, and it has different roles. It is an online platform, so many users can simultaneously use it according to their assigned roles.

The product’s most valuable feature is roles. So, we can assign different roles for every person as per their specific department.

The product needs improvement regarding the confidentiality of the domain information for the key administrator. Additionally, there could be an enterprise architecture feature included in it.

We have been using BIC Platform for three months.

It is a stable product.

We have around 1000 BIC Platform users in our organization. Scalability-wise, it is an expensive product.

I have contacted the product's technical support team. We encounter time zone-related issues working with them. Thus, our first preference is to find solutions online.

Camunda Platform is inexpensive, has a free version, and is easier to use than BIC Platform.

If you have the domain rights, the setup is not an issue. The deployment takes two weeks.

We received assistance from BIC with the deployment.

We can connect to the design process easily by using the product. I recommend it to others and rate it a seven out of ten.

I'm the chief executive and managing consultant and we are partners with BIC. 

I like that this is a low-cost and very user friendly solution. They also have different models to offer depending on the needs of the customer. Their training is web-based and very easy to understand and follow. They have excellent support so I really like to work with them. 

In the latest version they've included data mining or process mining so the design, the DRC, the execution automation in the data mining is great. The company has sessions where they present the different models so we can know what is most suitable to our needs. We were in competition with a company in Australia and we've just been notified that we received the tender. I'm in awe of what the software can do. The best part is it's really affordable for the African market. With the new tender that was just awarded to us, we are going to implement all four models.

I know they'll be looking into this in the new version but one thing they could improve is the manual. There's a process you follow with the modeling process diagram where you proceed step by step. Somehow, the manual doesn't follow the logical flow so you have to go back and do it again or change the numbering. The manual needs to be changed to fit in with the diagrams. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

This is a stable solution. 

The solution is definitely scalable. 

The support is in Germany and there's just a one hour time difference so we don't have to wait for a response. They respond immediately. If we have a problem and they don't have an immediate solution, they'll put us on to someone else to solve the issue. It's been two years, I really can't complain.  

The initial setup is very straightforward. We were up and running within a week or two. We also did some training through the company. It was very easy, not a lot of stress or problems. 

I may be biased in answering but I would definitely recommend it, because currently I like the tool a lot. My long term goal is really to see whether we can set up the tech office in Africa with the BIC Cloud. It's so easy to do the modeling and to connect your processes.

I would recommend testing the solution and see how it goes. We normally ask for a month to test the tool, play around with it and get some experience. You can then make a decision based on that. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

The main use case is for the quality management of our clients' systems. Clients need to be able to model their processes and also to do auditing using different standards like the ISO 9001. Most of the time these are the main use cases for our clients.  

Usually, you have the choice to have the installation on-premise or the cloud, but for our installation, it is on the public cloud and we are moving to a hybrid cloud to better serve our purpose. What we have now is what I call a pilot version. My goal is to use this while becoming familiar with the product differences before deployment to the hybrid cloud later on.  

As a former user and administrator of BIC Platform, there are some major improvements to share about BIC Cloud BPM:

UI and UX have drastically improved

Modelling notation portfolio did also expand with new possibilities (BPMN, DMN) and offline modelling capability

Master data management as well as the user access and authorization management new concept reduce efforts for the application administration   

From my experience here to this point, I think the new workflow design is quite helpful and it is straightforward and intuitive. There have been some major changes in comparison to the old BIC platform. In the older standard, you had to manage the master data manually as an administrator. Within BIC Cloud they have a new conceptual model. Now when you are creating a new object, at the very beginning of the process you can send it through an approval process. So you only use approved objects from the start. Then you get to take care of the inconsistencies with the object later, manually, which is quite handy from my point of view.  

The new cloud release has some new features which are nicer than the previous version did not have. But even some of the core features or tools which were built-into the previous version were incorporated and kind of polished a bit to make them even better.  

Another aspect that I would say is a major improvement is that now you only need access through a web browser. You do not need to have a software client for modeling and a web portal. You have both directly accessible through one interface: the web browser. You may even model offline because it uses the browser cache to store temporary information about current models you are working on. This is very handy in case you lose your connection or you have a situation where you cannot get directly through to the internet.  

There are just some things in the new product that are not really functional issues but improvements that BIC will have to make. For example, there are some small features that I feel are missing as of now. From an administrative perspective, you might not have the ability to trigger specific actions on a set of workflows.  

For example, let's say the interface is showing you a list of currently active workflows. Sometime you may find yourself in a situation where you need to select many workflows at a time. An easy example would be that — for whatever reason — you have 1000 or 2000 active workflows and you need somehow to delete them or just to stop them. It is preferable to be able to do this in one click to apply the change to all of them. So I think this is something that is missing which could probably be easily implemented. Right now it just seems omitted. I don't know if the omission was possibly due to a performance issue or if it was chosen by design. But from an end-user perspective — especially as an administrator — this capability to make bulk changes might be a handy solution when dealing with a large volume of workflows that you have to apply a simple command to in a similar way.  

From my point of view at the moment, all the most important features I am in need of are available. All the tools necessary for daily business for process modeling are there. There certainly is room for improvement. Many other features might be important depending on the specific use case. For instance, there are many notification features that already exist within the tools. These could notify people with different roles based on the specific workflow that is being triggered, which is pretty nice and efficient. I think the tool is quite stable right now, which is positive, and I don't believe it does require further additional things — especially if these are small things and to get them in would be rushing the development. If that may somehow affect the stability and usability, I would rather wait.  

Something that would also be improved in the workflow is just a cosmetic change. But it could also be a functional change. As an end-user, I do expect to be able to make selections of a set of workflows and apply some specific action to the group. If you have a list, then you should be able to select all the list items or part of the list and apply changes to that selection. This might be just something very easy I believe, to fix from their side.  

I have been using BIC for quite a long time, but we have been using this particular product, BIC Cloud BPM, just since the beginning of the year as it was only officially released in November 2019.  

From my experience at this point, it is a stable product.  

From my perspective, and because we do not use this tool as a mission-critical application, we don't have a great need for scalability and building on it. But I believe that even with such a scenario this tool is well-designed for potential scaling. If you have a huge workload, the cloud version is a good approach for managing the peak demands that would happen, even unexpectedly.  

Estimating from the current number of processes, we currently have more than 2000 users. For maintenance, we really require very few people, especially because this is a scenario where you have the cloud-based application. With the cloud, you do not care about maintaining the infrastructure. The applications and database servers — all of the servers that are using the architecture — are taken care of by the cloud service provider.  

As far as technical support is concerned, I think the team is reactive when it comes to routine issues. But there are not often issues — especially not issues related to infrastructure. There are very few problems in the cloud because the infrastructure is monitored and taken care of in a proactive way. Contacting technical support is more something we do for a consultation about specific use cases. For example, we might have a question about what the best way is to handle a particular need when doing the modeling or some fairly specific thing. For both of these situations, we have the option of getting additional training that is available from the provider. We can book some training based on the role people on our team play in our own quality management. In all, working with support is very straightforward. It is easier than it used to be.  

The initial setup really is done by the provider. If you have an on-premises solution, I think you might most likely be more concerned about where the database resides. If you would like to set up a single sign-on module, you can couple this with your agent services to make login easier for your end-users. That would also be also possible in the configurations.  

Good level of expertise (some integration challenges)

Company wide BPMS tool sustaining a long term quality management best practices to achieve the expected process maturity level but also cutting operation and maintenance costs related to the former tool in use

We have a kind of a custom license package. For most users, there is a demo version or trial version which you can acquire that has a specific amount of licenses available. I think you can just get those on the company website and you can switch them to another language version. But for each enterprise, there is something of a custom approach to pricing because the cost depends on the need. If you need further integration — maybe with some other systems like SAP or another internal system of your own which you would like to interconnect with BIC — all of these things may be taken into account. You might also pay a kind of a basic package for support and maintenance because it is done completely by the service. I can tell you that in terms of licensing, the company has a very specific policy. But because they base your costs on your needs and the company's size and use that to set up the licensing scheme, pricing is different per enterprise.  

I would say my advice to others considering this solution would depend on how big their workload is and the quality management policies they need to maintain. If you already are mostly running on active directory service and have some exposure with SAP and maybe even CRM systems, it will make it easier from the very beginning to purchase the cloud-based solution.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate this product at an eight.