IBM BPM Reviews

• Workflow implementation
• It follows BPMN notation.
• Quick to automate workflows. Allows for quick design and build of the workflow.
• Strong integration capabilities in both Standard and Advanced version.
• In-built ECM capabilities as well.

It introduces process orchestration with adherence and process optimization into the organization. Also, it provides visibility and insight into the process within an organization.

• Development of user interfaces
• Load time (performance) of the user interfaces

I have used this solution for nine years.

• Product is pretty stable, if sized correctly with the right platform architecture.
• Even the version migrations have improved and simplified for IBM BPM 8.5.x.

No.

Ajax services are most important to me, but currently we've moved them more into status closed. This is because we are using the HL7 version of iBPM. Thus, the one thing that I love about them is that they make it easier to integrate with other systems, especially with the use of smaller files.

It's ability to hand over processes. There are stages of the process from one user to another, and also the ability of keeping a session. Because I'm in a financial institution, where you are originating an account for a customer and could possibly frustrate a customer. You have to keep the account's permissions process simple.

Previously, you find that 115 in the system would be for onboarding, and that was how to engage the customer's profile. Then, you have to engage with multiple other systems to actually pay that account.

The nice thing about the BPM is that it is able to hold all of those sessions to say, "Okay, this is one, two, three, then I take this process and hand it over to another system, which will also do some work, then once they are done they come back and then I pass on the information to another system."

So, the integration that the different systems use, it's what has been most valuable.

When you have to integrate files for enterprise applications. We call them ESIs. This requires a lot of work, because you have to first create the EF file and integration designer, which takes quite some time, before you can be able to consume a website.

I've been using it for two years now.

Yes, we did actually. When we were initially installing 8.5.7, it deleted the server. We encountered a lot of issues when we had to migrate processes in the old version to the new version. This was happened recently, because we only started with the 8.5.7 server this year around June.

It is quite a scalable product. On one of our projects, we are running something like 50,000 processes a day. We're able to actually handle that efficiently without a lot of hassle.

It doesn't require installation. The user doesn't have to install anything on their system. It's all in the update. So, that makes it easy to scale.

I'd have to say 10 out of 10. Because I have never called their tech support, but they always make sure they attend to whatever problems we face. Not sure that's why they attend to us only, quickly, or maybe just how their tech support team works, but from my experience, I would give them a 10 out of 10.

It wasn't complex. Putting an app on is quite easy.

No, they were the only option at that time. Also, in terms of keeping up with the industry, they're always bringing new updates and you get updates every two months. That was actually a major factor.

My advice for them would be to use the product for what it's intended for, and to not try to make it do anything rather than what it is intended for. Because there you will come across problems which you might not find the right software. Also, find people who are skilled in the product. Most of the time, when you come across problems, they were not caused by the product, but caused by the people using the product who are not very skilled in terms of using it.

It's mostly about the process designing and the additional features with IBM BPM, with the tester coach wherein you can interact with the interface while you're designing the process.

We do implementation for various clients. Most of the clients are BFSI clients, Banking and Financial Sector clients.

It's under performance, maybe the moving from one activity to other activity, or one process step to other process step takes awhile. It can be because of the database thing, so it's to do with the database processing. If the processing gets better, it would be more efficient.

Around three years.

It is a stable product, and there's quite a lot of support from IBM.

When you start implementing a new BPM in your organization, there's some questionnaires that have to be submit to IBM and IBM gives the hardware specs according to that. The performance and the load have to be taken by the system.

I would give them a seven out of 10. The organization that I'm associated with is an IBM partner, so we have priority support.

The initial is not complicated, and it's not easy; It's medium.

No, we were clear with what product we were going to go with based on our research.

When compared to other BPMs, it's very efficient for the developers to develop and deliver on time with an effective process.

Process Design, Integration Services (UCA), Event Management, Web Service Provision.

It has reduced the amount of code that we write in a process to achieve the required functionality. Also, the integration with our core product (UI interface) has improved and allowed flexibility for user assignment and management.

More features for user management and dynamic role change.

Three years.

Apart from the usual fixes (which any product encounters), generally the product works well in production.

Based on the sizing and hardware capability, we don't face any scalability issues.

The possibility to add Java code as embedded .jar, that increases the flexibility of the solution.

BPM products are there to optimize the business flows in mid to large organizations. IBM BPM does that pretty well. Currently we use it for the automation of virtual machine provisioning in private clouds.

• The user interface builder could be more powerful and easier to use.
• The real-time process reporting functionality is limited to human activities – there is no visibility over the system tasks.
• IBM BPM uses JavaScript as a programming language for the server-side. I don’t know why it’s not Java, as it’s more powerful and the JavaScript part is translated into Java anyway.
• Sending complex data from the user interfaces to the server side is not achieved easily.

Three years, constantly.

No, stability is good, even with hundreds of new process instances per day.

Scalability depends greatly on the application server, WebSphere Application Server in this case. I haven't encountered any issues so far.

I would say that I like its GUI designer the best. Using it, I have created elegant, user-friendly, and performant end-user graphical interfaces that allow end users to complete their tasks in the most enjoyable and easy way.

We implemented it on our own attendance system. Employees have been able to record hours for projects much more easily and HR can view various statistics, reports about it.

Installation and configuration could be simplified. Performance on large scale requirements could also be improved.

Five years.

Not really. Not that I can remember.

No. Scalability is actually a strong point of IBM BPM because it is designed to run on IBM WebSphere which can be scaled up easily if required.

IBM technical support is great. Customers can receive very good support from business partners too.

We did have experience with other solutions such as Appian, jBPM, Activiti BPM. We switched to IBM BPM primarily because we had customer demand for that product, and it has been that way since.

Like I said, IBM BPM installation and configuration, migration, and upgrading can be a bit complex because you need to deal with a large set of data that involves databases. And product metadata always needs to be in good shape.

Usually, it's best for customers to start out with the Express edition to understand and see what value the product provides. Then they can upgrade to Advanced if their requirements increase and they know how to use the product properly. Starting out with Express can also help reduce the cost for adopting the product.

Yes. Appian, jBPM, Activiti BPM, Camunda, Bonita BPM, Pega BPM.

This product is fully capable of enabling organisations to achieve business process improvement goals. Although, like any software project, IBM BPM can fail if you're not doing it right.

You must have business buy-in before a BPM project can start. A BPM project will be more likely to be successful if executives understand and appreciate the value it can provide.

Also, you need a strong partner to help with the technical stuff; building up a satisfactory IBM BPM solution requires skill.

Responsive Portal + Process Federation Server. This set of solutions offers a unified worklist to our customers.

Unfortunately, I am an infrastructure SME and architect. This question would be more related to development team and business process team.

There is a lot of room for improvement of the dashboards.

Started with v7.5.0 in 2011, but a few months later we updated it to 7.5.1. I have been working with IBM BPM since 2011.

Yes, v7.5.1 was the worst. v8.0.3 started to be more stable, but still complex to update. v8.5.6 is more reliable but we faced lot of problems with some development issues.

UI is amazing for development, and ever since they adopted responsive UI the implementation is easier to adjust on demand.

BPM has become a backbone of our organization, handling major processes. It not only automated the key processes but also highlighted areas that require improvement and acceleration points.

Though I am quite satisfied with the product, and especially the introduction of responsive UI, I still believe that the overall development environment must be desktop based rather web based.

Since 2009.

None.

None.