CA Process Automation Reviews

We design end-to-end automation solutions for repetitive tasks performed by IT support teams.

This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests. 

CA Process Automation manager is a very powerful production tool. It has built a lot of processes for the following:

• Server deployment
• Onboarding workflows
• Integrations with multiple products. 

It is a true orchestration engine. We have implemented solution for several clients. I could instrument a lot of client requirements in this product. I have seen this product evolve from day one.

• Integration plugins 
• Approval console
• Flexibility within the tool so you can have subprocesses. 
• Easy to debug and troubleshoot.

Our primary use case for CA Process Automation is that we are supporting this technology's digital transformation. This means we are consulting our customers for their business processes, and we make sure that their requirements will be transformed into digitalization. 

• It is very scalable.
• It is user-friendly.
• It allows us to connect all platforms. 
• It allows us to connect people and processes. 
• We have the ability from our business process model that the digital view is very similar to CA Process Automation.

As a developer, the biggest time-saver was its import/export features and versioning. Using template-based process objects and code, I was able to make extremely complex changes with a great deal of success and ease across hundreds of objects, which took minutes, as opposed to having to use the GUI, which would have taken days. The ability to import objects as new versions of existing objects, and the ability to make the prior version the current version aided in development, bug fixes, and deployments.

I used the product to develop a process orchestration “framework” to be used in systems integrations between customer and internal ITSM applications (e.g., primarily for Change Management, CMDB, Incident Management, Problem Management, and Request Management). The framework, which made excellent use of stored procedures, included the following dynamic request-driven features:

• request routing (e.g., ensuring a request from “ACME” gets to its intended recipient)
• request sequencing (e.g., ensuring an update request from “ACME” is held until proof of the insert request from “ACME” has completed, and ensuring requests are processed based on the order they were submitted to the framework, as opposed to the order in which they were received by the framework)
• exception handling (e.g., retrying a step within a particular process, resubmitting requests, timing-out requests, and reporting exceptions back to requesters)
• data validation (e.g., ensuring each request comprised the data needed to ensure the successful delivery of the request)
• data transformations (e.g., data look-ups and data overrides)
• data delivery (e.g., primarily using SOAP and RESTful web services for both synchronous and asynchronous request deliveries and acknowledgements)
• request acknowledgement (e.g., during synchronous request delivery, the framework was capable of producing an acknowledgement request on behalf of the recipient, if one was required)
• relationship maintenance (e.g., the framework supported one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many record relationships between customer and internal ITSM applications)

In order to accomplish all of this, I made use of CA Process Automation objects (e.g., Processes, Start Request Forms, Calendars, Schedules, and Datasets) and operators (e.g., Run JavaScript, Invoke SOAP Method, Execute Process, and Query Database). Using template objects and template code in combination with extremely robust stored procedures and tables, developers were able to release brand new integrations during every two-week development cycle with a very minimal number of defects discovered during testing. At the end of testing, it was proved the product and the framework was capable of serving every design, performance, and support requirement for our day 1 and day 2 operational needs.

If Google could translate ITPAM, it would say “Scalability”. The solution is highly scalable and provides a fault-tolerant environment. The web-based interface allows administrators to quickly see the status and state of each process being executed. The process design is very versatile in a way that adapts to any customer needs/requirements you may have. It gives the developer a bulk of alternatives, such as web services, JavaScript, or simply drag-and-drop technology to create your process.

For ETL purposes, this application accomplishes each requirement for data manipulation.

• Javascript operators
• Pre- and post-execution code
• API integration
• Powershell

We've been able to automate work that would have otherwise been done manually.

The capability of connecting to unlimited number of databases, email servers, and SOAP services.

Before implementing this product, our Problem and Change Management Processes were very poor. We were unable to implement complex business rules, so our analysts had to do a lot of manual activities and we were very dependent on people’s personal knowledge. Nowadays, thanks to CA Process Automation (PAM), we no longer have this problem. Since PAM is capable of running almost any kind of task, we now have all of the processes' rules placed inside of it.

Ease of installation and maintenance – the role management functionality. We can do role modeling with our privileged accounts. Because of our type of our organization, we have legal considerations so Process Automation is an appropriate solution for us. For the end users it might be worse, but for the security division you get a lot of control.

The role modeling helps us to have more control over our users. It help us straighten up the environment with respect to orphaned accounts, which means the environment is more secure. So the benefit is more internal for IT.