IBM BPM Reviews

Two things are valuable:

• The system integration layer is valuable because this enables an organization to create a single point where all the key organizational master data is held in different IT applications across different functions, that can be accessed and updated.
• Process orchestration allows an organization to model and execute its business processes across functions rather than operating in functional silos; this works hand-in-hand with the system integration layer.

On top of this, the business rule engine and common user interface allow centralization of any of the organizational parameters and a common corporate interface.

It enabled the development of a new safety critical equipment testing database and the integration of this with the inventory management system and the asset management system. As more systems are integrated, this solution enables a spider web (network) of the business processes so as to develop over time, creating greater levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

The product has developed considerably since I have used it. At that time, the use of system integration alongside the business process orchestration was cutting edge. Now, there are many more mature offerings including IBM BPM. I believe that the integration work was more difficult than anticipated at the time. Also, the product was orientated towards using other IBM technologies such as their IBM Db2 database technology; the solution didn’t play well with the Microsoft SQL Server and there was a stand-off between the two vendors blaming each other for performance issues.

I have mainly used IBM Blueworks Live (as an analyst) and worked with BPM developers who have used the BPMS solution to implement designs, i.e., for about a year.

There were performance issues with the solution, which were related to the IBM – Microsoft interaction (as described above). The browser-based solution does not work well at facilities that do not have reasonably fast networks. This would not be an issue now as easily available data bandwidth has increased dramatically since then.

The solution was probably overkill for the initial application, so I did not experience any scalability issues.

IBM put together a package which included the onsite consultants who were very effective. Apart from the IBM – Microsoft issue, the support was good. I expect that IBM BPM can play with the other server and database technologies much more effectively now.

This was a new venture into the Business Process Management.

The setup was quite complex because the solution was cutting-edge at that time and IBM invested considerably in the implementation, likely at a loss to themselves.

I don’t have information about the IBM BPM licensing but the process discovery tool, i.e., IBM Blueworks Live has three levels of licenses: Editor, Contributor, and Viewer (there is also a Community Member license but I don’t know what that is for). The Editor licenses are for around £80 per user per month. The Collaborator licenses are very valuable for increasing BPM maturity by enabling the stakeholders (particularly the process managers) to collaborate on the process capture and design. Blueworks does not allow a free HTML publishing option, but instead, a Viewer license is required which is relatively inexpensive but has to be bought in packages of 500 licenses. However, it may be cheaper for organizations to pay for the Viewer licenses that are immediately up and running in the cloud, rather than paying for someone to administer publishing to an intranet.

I believe that a Hitachi product was evaluated as part of the tender.

Start with the IBM Blueworks Live to get your house in order first. This is an inexpensive way of introducing BPM governance to an organization and it naturally leads to a BPMS deployment when the stakeholders recognize that the process models that are presented can be automated and the underlying data integrated across the organization.

• Process diagram in process designer
• Task management
• Process instance progress stages
• Dashboard and view
• Process portal and process manager

Good for managing tasks and it has also helped save revenue.

Faster task loading to groups and users is needed.

I've used it for six months.

No, it's very easy and can be deployed in less than 15 minutes.

Yes, sometimes there is a latency with the tasks flow, based on the table space.

Not in terms of users, but in terms of tasks there were issues.

Customer Service:

7/10.

Technical Support:

8/10.

We previously used Tibco BPM.

It was a little complex.

We used a team from IBM to implement the solution.

7/10.

We also evaluated Tibco BPM.

It is a good product for task management and task allocations.

WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus – our main focus was to implement integration across a bunch of systems interacting separately with each other. In this context, IBM’s service bus came up to be good candidate for reducing the amount of relations between distributed systems. This feature has proved itself as a more or less easy to be set-up, tuned and customized for the specific company means.

WebSphere Process Server – while dealing with the problem of systems integration there often arises an opportunity to incorporate some company-specific business processes to the service bus. In case when a business process requires responses from a number of systems, requests to a number of systems to get some reference information or even some sort of human workflow to receive approval, etc. – then such processes may be implemented within one solid medium being able to interact with each and every system using specific adapters.

This product was able to decrease the amount of relations between distributed systems and isolate systems, letting them retrieve and send information having only access to ESB.

I've been using it for two to three months for evaluation.

Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010

• Development simplicity
• Transparency from a monitoring perspective

It allowed us to automate some important logistic-related business processes.

• Scalability
• Performance

I've been using Lombardi Teamworks from 2009 until the present. However development of new features stopped in 2011.

There were issues with the blue/green deployment model, specifically old instances of BPM processes that didn’t handle correctly with new revisions of the same processes.

Yes, but they were related to issues with our underlying infrastructure component like application servers or databases.

Yes, unfortunately the event manager component of Lombardi didn’t scale well, so that became our bottleneck.

Customer Service:

9/10

Technical Support:

We didn’t have a BPM before, but now we use Oracle.

It was a mix of a vendor team and in-house team. All members were new to BPM so we started from scratch, but we've managed to develop some best practices.

• The simulator of process execution
• Toolkits and workspace for sharing resources
• Adapters for different technological environments
• SOA infrastructure, embedded ESB
• Backup (export) and restore (import) system (Snapshot)
• Speed and ease of deployment + governance / version management

The scenario was a process of renewal of customer contracts, the improvements were :

• Faster: industrialization of the renewal process with the automation of certain tasks and a clarified organization can handle a case 3 times faster.
• More efficient: the renewal part by weight of non-renegotiated contracts processed instantly and adjustments made possible by monitoring the real-time tasks significantly increase the capacity of quantitative and qualitative processing contracts.
• Less expensive: the time saved as well as automated controls in place to avoid human errors and double entry treatments are examples of significant gains.

The tool needs to offer more configuration options than coding options. Develop the intuitive side to reach some functionalities (help).

I used the solution for about 6 months to develop an application based on health services process.

Yes, especially integration and browser's version compatibility problems. We also had some performance issues due to the lack of technical architecture knowledge.

None

None

Customer Service: GoodTechnical Support: Intermediate

Did not use any other solution

It was complex for some of us (IT but non technical profiles)

We were the vendor team and worked with IBM

N/A (Confidential)

No

Be careful about the technical architecture and migration planning/resources

We use the solution to develop and deliver products. 

IBM BPM needs to have a better and modified interface. 

I have been using IBM BPM for five years. 

I would rate the product's stability a nine out of ten. 

I would rate IBM BPM's scalability an eight out of ten. Our clients have around 2000 users for the solution. 

Technical support is helpful but there is a delay in response. 

Neutral

We have used OpenText before. 

The tool's setup is neither easy nor difficult. I would rate it a five out of ten. However, it is difficult only in the traditional environment. Set up is easy if you move to the cloud and containerize. One person is enough to handle the tool's maintenance. 

We have a team for IBM BPM's installation. 

The solution is expensive since it is an enterprise application. 

I would rate IBM BPM an eight out of ten. 

I mainly use BPM to automate our internal workflows.

BPM helps us with automation and with assigning and delegating tasks.

The most valuable feature is the ability to customize your rules and put them inside the tool. I also think BPM is easy to do development on.

An area for improvement would be the user interface of the portal itself.

I've been using IBM BPM for around four years.

BMP is scalable both horizontally and vertically.

The configuration is not that easy, and the initial deployment took three months. I'd give my experience with setting up a rating of three out of five.

I used a third-party team to implement.

The pricing is quite high, I would rate it two out of five.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten.

On-premises

It's mainly focused on the banking use case, specifically the retail banking business.

I find the process design and UI design to be the most valuable features. Because they are common in working with the product.

The options for customization could be improved. More customization using your own code would be beneficial.

I have been working with this solution for 12 years. 

It is a stale solution. I would rate the stability a seven out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It suits our use cases well, so it's adequate.

We have around a thousand end users using this solution. 

The response time is a bit slow. The quality of customer service and support is good on average, but there's room for improvement.

Neutral

It's a simple setup.

We deployed it ourselves. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a seven out of ten. There is some room for improvement. 

I would recommend it. It's easy to use and implement.

On-premises