What is our primary use case?
We have an in-house management solution that is built on top of IBM Case Foundation. For this reason, we have to be up-to-date with the current versions.
Within my organization, including engineers and the testing team, there are about 70 employees. If we include our clients that we assist with deployment and training, then we are talking about tens of thousands of people.
For each project, our development team consists of a few project managers, one systems engineer, and a few developers.
What is most valuable?
The content management is great. It features row-based access. It allows for broad-based access not only to the documents themselves but within the content. You can use the templates from existing documents for employee onboarding.
There is also a predefined search option that uses icons to retrieve any information you have from different sites and folders.
What needs improvement?
90% of the feedback we receive states that the UI is not very user-friendly.
The icons and images should be bigger. Initially, I felt a bit lost but after a while, I got used to it — with a bit of practice, you can get used to anything.
From my first impression, it just looked like a white page with some small icons. Another thing that is really high in demand here, especially in Qatar, is proper Arabic translation capabilities. Arabic is very high in demand, not just in Qatar but in the Middle East as a whole and Africa. When you translate it into Arabic, the labels and the interface translate pretty poorly — interface only, capability wise, it's fine.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution since 2016.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
IBM Case Foundation is both scalable and flexible. Our clients also agree that it's extendible, flexible and stable.
How are customer service and support?
We deliver support to our clients. We have a full team that consists of around nine engineers. We have channels through email, phone, and a portal where our customers can ask questions and receive support. The portal is monitored by a hub controlled by the ministry of transportation and communication.
This hub is the center of the whole government that provides the licenses. They check the quality of the vendors: how they interact with them, the support level; all of this is monitored by them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used to use SharePoint, but I can't compare the two. I used SharePoint simply for static content and website building.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the installation process. We have a team of engineers who handled the initial setup.
When we installed it over top of our existing solution, overall, deployment took us eight days — four days for staging and four days until we were ready for production.
For Case Foundation alone, implementation takes no more than six days.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
IBM Case Foundation is a little expensive.
It can be purchased separately, but it's also sold and included in the Automation Pack from IBM.
A cloud pack for automation consists of Case Foundation, VPM, Case Manager, Decision Management, Data Cap — all of them together under one license. In this way, the price is reasonable because they are all together.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend this solution.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give IBM Case Foundation a rating of eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
