IBM FileNet Reviews

We've been in the FileNet business for 25 years and we have found that 80 percent of our customers use FileNet for Accounts Payable processing. That's the single biggest pain point that larger customers are trying to resolve, uniformly, across industries: ingesting invoices, matching them up with purchase orders, doing the three-way match with receivers - if they're a manufacturing or distribution outfit - and then, potentially, if possible, automating the approval and payment of those invoices so nobody has to touch them. Then, they can focus on approvals and touchpoints only when they have to, and escalate when they need to based on grants of authority and delegate if somebody's not there. They can also make sure they get their prompt-payment discounts and the like.

The other big use-case area is always compliance: Records retention, how do they prove that they're complying with policies and procedures and with regulatory issues - HIPAA, PII, etc.

In terms of how this product improves the functionality of an organization we work with, the Accounts Payable scenario is one. Let's say you're a high-volume purchaser, a retail operation, and imagine that you are getting paper invoices for every case of pineapple and every case of Planters Peanuts that you are getting, and every one of those invoices has to be filed in a filing cabinet. Now instead, we'll scan those in, they get filed automatically, and you trash the paper. And you can find them when you need to find them.

Probably the best example of efficiencies that we've seen was, we worked with a port authority. They get in several large container ships a day that they have to get unloaded. Their customers are either the consignees or they're the trucking companies that move the containers on and off the dock. Every ship that comes in gets a voyage file. When they billed their customers, if a customer called in with a question, they had to go find that voyage file. If somebody else had that file, the person looking for it couldn't answer the question. They were running a first-call resolution rate of 15 percent or less. When we took all the voyage files and started scanning them, putting them online, they raised their first-call resolution rate to over 80 percent. If you resolve their question faster, they pay you faster, and that's money in the bank.

The way that FileNet sets itself apart is along a couple of different dimensions. The first is there aren't very many ECM solutions that scale properly, both up and out. We have customers who hold billions of documents. There aren't very many that can scale that far, and that can also scale out so that they can handle lots of users, lots of documents, and that understand how to handle external users.

Then there are security issues. Everybody ties into Active Directory and things like that, but on top of that are the extra layers of security for encryption, so they can meet standards required by PCI and by HIPAA: encryption at rest, encryption in flight, encryption in the database, all together. There are really only three products on the market that know how to do that, and FileNet is one of them.

First of all, let's be clear, it's a relatively mature product. It's been around, it's been finely-tuned to handle the vast majority of what customers want it to handle. Most customers probably only utilize 20 to 30 percent of the feature functionality.

In terms of functionality, what customers might be looking for is a little more in terms of native-records retention. Records Management is an add-on product. If there were just a little more of that built into the core functionality, that would be helpful. Just like when you set up the document type or the document class, it would be good to be able to indicate the retention for this data. By being able to turn that on, customers might more often default to doing record purges rather than keeping everything forever. But that's just a small item.

We're fully certified to provide first-call technical support to our customers, which we do for the majority of our customers. Our customers like doing that with us because instead of logging into IBM's site and opening a PMR and all that, they call me and say, "Fred, remember that thing we saw two weeks ago, well it happened again. What do we do about it?" And because I have to live with the problem, I don't first have to ask them what version they're running, etc. We can solve it much more quickly.

On the other hand, IBM's technical support itself is very professional, very capable. You have to learn how to work with them. We know what they want. Before we even open a PMR, we go collect what we know they will want and we send it to them. When they say, "Okay, where's all this information?" we tell them to look at the attachment. They go off and we get a resolution more quickly that way.

It's a pretty complex product to set up because it has so many touchpoints. You have to integrate with your Directory Services, you've got a large database component, you've got a large web services component, you've got a large storage component, and you've got a big security component. At the same time, you've got an application server that you have to set up. By nature, it's a fairly complicated setup, it's not for the faint of heart.

We've been committed to this product for a long time. We like the product a lot. It's top of the line, it's robust, it's reliable, as long as you implement it the right way, which takes some training and some time. You have to know where the bodies are buried. A lot of people make mistakes when they first do it. We did, we learned, but we did it years ago. It's an industrial-strength, enterprise-class product and they don't come much better.

It is about simplicity. It designs and builds the process, then adds document facilities for the documentation. Therefore, it is easier to model the process and include documents in this process.

It improves processes. For example, it can improve staffing for human resources.

It has the ability to mix document management and process automation. For our customers, it is very attractive that they have a solution which documents their structure and the structure of their data. It also designs the process to complete the automation.

Preforms could be useful for specific projects.

It works for all types of enterprise companies. For larger enterprise companies, there might be other solutions. In general, it should work for all enterprises.

I do not really work with the technical support. The solutions that we are implementing are brand new.

Usually their support is good, though you would have a support contract. I will mention that I think the support could be better, and it could improve.

The initial setup is straightforward. You will need people who know what they are doing, but otherwise it is straightforward.

The reporting is good, and customers value that about the product.

We use it for content management and to manage documents. It has performed well.

It allows for multiple people to access content at the same time.

It is very flexible.

It is stable as long as you create the right environment. We have had issues at times, but just because of configuration issues.

It is very scalable.

It was used in a customer environment. 

IBM FileNet was used for combining incoming paper documents, as well as electronic documents. The environment consisted of FileNet, Documentum, and SharePoint. Each product was first tested, then used for different business processes.

My experience with FileNet leads me to rate it as a six out of 10. It needs a lot of development effort. Programmers have to translate user needs into IBM FileNet, which causes misinterpretations.

It is mainly a document repository for our business.

We are not a first-time user of ECM. Benefits are those typical of an ECM solution and are not specific to FileNet.

Document security.

We are looking at FileNet on AWS cloud. To date, even our IBM rep cannot be certain if it will work. Similarly, Amazon did not clearly state that they can work with IBM FileNet.

The objective for this solution is for secure transfer of accounting information between servers to enable payment of insurance.

Streamlines file delivery throughout the company.

The most valuable feature is the guarantee of delivery, although in some cases this guarantee of delivery fails. Development in code appeared to solve this lack.

• Accounting
• Collection
• Operations

We use it mostly as our content management system. It is our system of records, so it is where we store all our engineering, HR, admin documents, etc.

Instead storing our documents offsite (physical documents), we are storing all of our documents electronically. Therefore, we do not have an outside storage fee.

• Document storage
• The ability to search
• Check in/check out

I would like to see expanded search features, like content search. The search needs to be improved. 

Stability is perfect.

It is very scalable.

Technical support is very good.

We previously had an in-house solution.

The initial setup is a little complex. The installation and configuration to start up needs expert level knowledge.

There are lots of components to the product. Make sure before you invest that you know which components you need.

It is a very stable, scalable system, but it needs a little improvement. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor:

• Price
• Name
• Expertise
• Reference.

Reference is very important for us, because we are a government agency and prefer to have a government agency reference.

• Enterprise content
• Document management
• Worker's management, which we are currently not leveraging. 

It is performed fine. It is a robust solution.

From the document management side, it is able to integrate with some of our other systems, such as SAP.

It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation. Although, there are a lot of opportunities that we have not leveraged yet.

• The document management elements
• The worker's management pieces
• The distributive environment capabilities

We run a global corporation with locations all around the world, therefore the distributive environment is important.

I would like to see Azure AD added.

It is a good, stable system.

I have found that it scales well.

I would rate the technical support as medium. I do not like the login process. It is not great. 

Getting an ID, and the IDs across the different things. IDs used to solve similar problems.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

If you are planning on managing records, go with a OpenText, FileNet, or Documentum. A lot of times companies go with SharePoint as a default, but there are some pain points around worker's management in SharePoint. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Company's position in the industry within that particular technology field. We want market leaders. A company who can support an 80,000 person company which is global.