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ARIS BPA vs Planview Portfolios comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ARIS BPA
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Design (5th), Business Process Management (BPM) (7th)
Planview Portfolios
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Architecture Management (13th), Project Portfolio Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

ARIS BPA and Planview Portfolios aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. ARIS BPA is designed for Business Process Design and holds a mindshare of 7.5%, down 9.1% compared to last year.
Planview Portfolios, on the other hand, focuses on Project Portfolio Management, holds 7.7% mindshare, up 6.2% since last year.
Business Process Design
Project Portfolio Management
 

Featured Reviews

Tamer Eldamanhouri - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers teams with robust business process modeling capabilities
They should examine competitor solutions to identify differentiators. One issue related to ARIS BPA is its integration with AI; it has AI features for cloud solutions, yet many in the government sector in Kuwait do not view the cloud as viable. Software AG should focus on developing AI models for ARIS BPA on-premises, particularly in user interfaces, as well as creating predefined business processes for common areas such as HR and finance. This aspect is crucial for adapting to the market's needs and streamlining custom solutions. While they have been helpful regarding pricing, I cannot compare ARIS BPA to other business process modeling tools because I understand some competitors have significantly lower costs than ARIS BPA. To maintain market share, good discounts should be provided to customers.
EduardoMaya - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that gives you all the information you need to plan detailed projects
The initial setup was just a little complex. I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten. Deploying the solution took two weeks. While deploying the solution, we had two instances, one for the IT team and one for the business team. And we had to connect the two and explain things to the team. Only two people were needed to deploy the solution, me and another person.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution has come up with a web portal that makes it easy to model and show to clients."
"ARIS Reporting – Helps download valuable content from the tool in multiple formats."
"There is a module designer, that one is very powerful and it creates very good reports."
"The ease of use is the most valuable. I have tried a number of BPMN packages, and I find the user interface of ARIS BPM easier and more intuitive than others. If your team is knowledgeable on BPMN, it is really pretty easy to figure out on your own because it adheres to the standards extremely well. I have tried Bizagi, BizFlow, and a variety of such solutions, and I just liked ARIS BPM better."
"The maintenance capabilities of ARIS BPM and the strong underlying database are particularly valuable."
"We chose ARIS because of its good reputation and familiarity with Software AG Tools."
"I like everything about ARIS BPA. I've used it for a long time and it's a fantastic tool. There is a list of things ARIS has that other solutions do not have."
"​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.​"
"We are able to see where everyone in the team is in terms of hours, where there is capacity, and where we can actually add them, e.g., other projects that they're not currently staffed to."
"The Kanban board has really helped us be more agile and we can keep track of everything that is ongoing."
"Enterprise One has enabled us to eliminate Excel. We don't track financials anymore in an Excel format, which the company was doing before. Even now, being a new portfolio manager four months in, I'm able to just pick up my project. I'm able to see where I am right now. That improvised it to be more automated. The only missing part is the integration between tools. I'm not able to see my full schedule, but I know what are my important milestones are like watching the financials and all that stuff."
"The solution’s integrated product portfolio has transformed our organization’s delivery because people are a lot more accountable. When you have no accountability, then people don't always deliver the way that you want them to. Once you get accountability, they know that somebody is watching and the way that they manage their work changes quite a bit."
"The look and feel of it is pretty clean."
"We use expenditures quite a bit. We put in forecast expenditures and then we actualize them below the line in the little box in the bottom tray. Being able to track the project with relevant milestones is also valuable. Milestones are valuable because it helps us to keep the project on track. The expenditures are valuable because we need to be able to understand expenses that are beyond the regular resources in the projects."
"Planview has helped connect funding and strategic outcomes with work execution. That is the key use that we have for it. We use it to validate the work that we're doing and the funding that we need. The difference between the previous version and current version for us would be the ICPM and the way it gives us different scenarios. We can go in and build that out."
"I would say it works really well for forecasting remaining effort, especially in terms of forecasting the dollar amounts. We've gotten pretty good at adjusting rates because we have a lot of contract workers."
 

Cons

"Since this is a design tool, seamless interface to make the process flows executable."
"The solution's processes are huge and it is not easy to get an overview of how things work. It needs to improve the interface. I would like to see the product include a better overview of processes and improve search."
"The workflow approval process could be represented better in the overviews."
"User interface (UI)."
"I would like to see the reporting aspects improved."
"There should be a more intuitive tool when creating reports."
"There is not enough documentation provided for the tool's support or administration.​"
"​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."
"When I started working with Planview, I didn't know anything about project or resource management. I had to learn everything: the admin side, then the user side of it. Probably, in the beginning, I would implement in the blueprint or workshops more demos. A live demo of how the system works because we would like a little deeper dive in how the application works for us to understand what we need to provide, what we are doing, what we will be doing. Because in the beginning, it was so overwhelming, and we didn't know anything about the tool."
"It would be great to see Planview incorporate agile interfacing/methods in it. Like CA Clarity and other leading PPM tools – Planview should enhance or develop the interfaces to ingrate with other market leading Agile tools."
"The reporting capability and access to the fields for our system administrators to have access to the data without having to pay Enterprise One to get the data that's needed to create custom reports for management to create reports need improvement."
"When we first deployed, there were some issues. We never got to the root cause of why they happened. Since we didn't have any history with it, we weren't quite sure if this was a standard operating procedure or it truly was a glitch."
"I think some of the administrative aspects of it could be a little easier, especially when it comes to designing reports. The reporting coming out of it could be a little bit better."
"Even though Enterprise One is easy and user-friendly, it could provide better training like a demo. Providing more tutorials or sessions would really help."
"We had issues with the data rephrasing."
"The only area that I can see currently needing improvement is just the modernization of the look and feel of it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is inexpensive."
"The product is a bit pricey."
"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. 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."
"ARIS BPA is too costly from a licensing perspective."
"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."
"ARIS has different licensing mechanisms for different modules, but they are perpetual licenses. So you pay once."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The pricing and licensing costs are available on their website. They will assign a relationship manager to assist if you show further interest in their products."
"We overbought our licenses. We looked at our needs three to four years down the road and tried based our contract on that. However, we were over aggressive. We use about a third of the licenses that we have. We're looking to adjust the makeup so we can start utilizing the amount of money that we are spending. Right now, we're overspending, and my organization is not seeing the value in Planview because we are paying so much for licenses that we're not using."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $50,000 USD annually."
"In the time that I've used it, we've doubled up the amount of dollars on our intended projects."
"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
"When we went through that process, I believe it is competitive with others on the market. However, there are less expensive options available. It's a more premium offering at a higher price."
"The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
"We have portfolio managers, resource managers, project managers, and time reporting licenses. These are the licenses that we have."
"We are on the Flex licenses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ARIS BPA?
The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are its flexibility and reporting.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ARIS BPA?
Pricing for ARIS BPA is average, not cheap or expensive. It's cost-effective and worth the money we pay.
What needs improvement with ARIS BPA?
ARIS BPA needs to be more accurate when generating documents. While it covers many blueprints and functions that I need, the document generation feature could be enhanced for better accuracy.
What do you like most about Planview Portfolios?
Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) syst...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Planview Portfolios?
Planview Portfolios is not too expensive. You get what you paid for.
What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?
Enhancements are needed in: Advanced reporting and analytics: While Planview Management provides robust reporting and analytics capabilities, further enhancements could include more advanced data v...
 

Also Known As

ARIS, ARIS BPM
Planview Enterprise One, Troux
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tesco, Weifu, Airbus, Siemens, Proximus, Alicorp, Sekerbank, Bancor, Philips,Sky, Emirates NBD, Dubai Municipality, Suva, U.S. Army, Australia Post, Westfalen Weser Energie - ARIS serves customers across all industries and of every size worldwide. Companies trust ARIS as the market leader for process excellence with more than 30 years of experience in the market, 10 million users worldwide, from 1 user companies to the Fortune 500.
UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Camunda, SAP and others in Business Process Design. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.