What is our primary use case?
The use case we developed is for enforcers, so police and other enforcement type of organizations, and it's our embedded engine for process orchestration and workflow. We use all the BPMN and DMN functionality in the system.
We do not use the AI agent in Camunda yet. We are now moving from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, and the first customers are on Camunda 8. First, we have to finish the migration for all customers with their processes from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, and then we will also integrate AI in our solution combined with Camunda. I am uncertain if you refer to integration of AI in the processes or AI in the products of Camunda.
Camunda does not help us with end-to-end processes rather than running agents in isolation yet, but that is one of the advantages we already discussed with our customers. We first have to finish the migration for all customers.
What is most valuable?
My impressions of Camunda for orchestrating complex end-to-end business processes are very positive because we use it in quite complicated setups with a lot of business rules to combine validation and enrichment steps combined with user interaction. The scalability and complexity supported by Camunda are impressive, and the upgrade from Camunda 7 to 8 was particularly valuable. We were a late adopter because the functionality of Camunda 8 was not mature until about a year or one and a half ago, and now that we have adopted it, the scalability and integration possibilities are much better than Camunda 7.
The best features in Camunda are difficult to pinpoint, but for me, it is the seamless integration of services and human tasks. We can combine this and per customer decide what should be first. The possibility to integrate human tasks and services is what stands out to me, and it is a generic solution rather than something specifically about special tools. It is the whole concept that appeals to me.
Camunda works effectively with handling long processes. We have customers with very short processes of just a couple of seconds or a maximum of one or one and a half hours, and we also have customers with processes lasting two, three, or four months. Both scenarios are supported, but sometimes it is difficult for customers to have insight into all the statuses and tasks. We are now trying to build our own dashboard, which can be challenging when there are long running processes with many different tasks and statuses, especially since we cannot give customers direct access to Camunda dashboards in our multi-tenant environment.
What needs improvement?
Areas that have room for improvement in Camunda include the user interface. We moved from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8, and previously we had Camunda 7 Cockpit, and now we have Operate. The UI of Operate is less user-friendly. It may be a little more modern, but it is less user-friendly, so some insights are missed. The UI could be improved.
Another topic is something that should have been recently solved in Camunda 8, but in Camunda 7, we had a case management system based on Camunda, and we had our own identifiers in our system. It was easier in Camunda 7 to link these identifications, the business identification to the process identification, and in Camunda 8, this was not implemented until the 8.10 release. We really missed that feature, as it made it very difficult to embed and especially for debugging. The combination with the new Operate instead of Camunda 7 Cockpit made it difficult to find specific running processes.
The maintenance of Camunda is somewhat complex. Recently, we had to move from 8.8 to 8.9 or 8.10, and everything was broken, which cost us a lot of time to repair and revert. The complexity is particularly evident because of the architectural changes Camunda made when moving from Camunda 7 to Camunda 8. It took about three years to make Camunda 8 mature, and sometimes it seems they realized they made a wrong decision by switching to a completely different approach. It is not just a matter of pushing a button and installing it; it has a bigger impact than expected, which is indeed one of the downsides we recently faced.
The ability to observe and control processes at runtime, related to Operate, rates at a six in my assessment, so that could definitely be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have approximately eight to ten years of experience using Camunda.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding stability, I would rate Camunda at a seven.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our clients are indeed enterprise-level organizations. For example, we work with Rijkswaterstaat, which manages all the routes and waterways in the Netherlands, and it is a large organization with 10,000 employees, but only a limited number of enforcers, about 200 to 300 users in this type of organization. In the City of Antwerp, we have 300 users, and at the Dutch Railways, we have 800 users, but approximately 10,000 persons work there overall, so it represents about 1% or half a percent of their total employees.
When it comes to scalability, Camunda is scalable, but sometimes it is not always clear how to improve it. Sometimes we reach the limit and have to decide what to extend; should it be memory or processor power? It is a puzzle to optimize in combination with the services. Overall, Camunda is scalable, but it is not as straightforward as one would hope.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the technical support at an eight out of ten. They react promptly and the support is adequate.
What was our ROI?
When it comes to ROI, the question is tricky because we use it as an embedded software solution, so we should compare this only with using a BPMN tool of a competitor or building it ourselves. We do not have the advantages of the process improvements since we work with our customers to make it possible for them to improve their processes. Our customers are governmental organizations, so with fewer people, they can do more enforcement and receive more income from parking, but the problem is we do not receive the extra money. Since there are public tenders, the prices are always under pressure. We offer a solution with business process optimization, and the benefits are for our end customers. They pay maybe a little more than for our competitors, but they save millions, and we earn about 10,000 per year extra. That is the relation based on the public tender and the regulations in the governmental tender market.
The normal discussion for us is about the build or buy aspect, especially concerning Camunda, since we are an embedded software solution and should compare it only with using a BPMN tool of a competitor or building it ourselves. We do not have the advantages of the process improvements, and our customers can do more enforcement and receive more income, but we do not get the extra money. Public tenders put pressure on prices, meaning we provide optimization for customers while they save millions, and we only earn a small amount.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My thoughts on the pricing are that the list price is expensive, but since we have limited use and do not use the user tasks because we create software around Camunda engine, the pricing for embedded is acceptable for us. It should not rise; it is just acceptable for us now. They should not raise the prices because otherwise, it becomes the build or buy discussion. Overall, I am happy with the current pricing.
What other advice do I have?
Regarding the deployment, we use on-premises infrastructure at AWS. We have our own installations, but it is hosted in our own AWS environment, so it is on-premises in the cloud.
In my organization, the number of specialists working with Camunda is very limited; I myself work more as the business process redesign person, and we have three developers.
My advice to others looking into Camunda is to do a proof of concept, specifically for the user tasks. The user task is the most significant cost factor in the pricing model. In Camunda 7, we used the user task intensively, but it was not clear that we were not allowed to use it according to our existing subscription. Be aware of the costs because they can rise if you reach the limit or thresholds. It is essential to think about all components in relation to your subscription, as it was one of our key findings in previous years. Camunda is easy to use, but you do receive the invoice at the end, and that can sometimes be the downside. I would rate Camunda an overall eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)