Nintex Process Platform Reviews

As a Solutions Architect my role is to help my clients implement tools and technology that can build and automate their businesses. While my clients and their environments very widely, Nintex delivers a product that can be used regardless of the industry, division, etc.

In most cases we help clients implement Nintex Workflow to automate business processes that can be tedious when done manually, such as information approvals, notifications, and integrations with other system/data.

The biggest improvement to the organizations that I work with is that it allows the users to reduce, if not eliminate completely, the amount of human interaction, for both complex as well as simple business processes. This allows the users more time to focus on aspects of their work that can have more impact on the longer term strategies of the business.

The Vizio-style designer that runs in the browser is, to me, by far the most valuable feature of the solution. It means that the customer doesn’t have to install any client tools to create powerful workflows.

Another feature that is very close in importance is that it leverages the out-of-the-box SharePoint back-end. This means that you don’t need to install or deploy additional infrastructure to support Nintex Workflow, unlike some of its competitors.

While Nintex Workflow has pretty robust troubleshooting abilities, I think that improving the default logging and notifications would be helpful. Many times we work with clients that have started a workflow, but find that it doesn’t work as they expect, and need assistance in troubleshooting and correcting any errors. That, and offering a licensing model that allows for multiple small workflows, would be a huge improvement to an already great platform.

I have used Nintex Workflow 2010 and Nintex Worflow 2013. I have not worked with a client that has the most recent version deployed.

Overall, I would rank Nintex Workflow at eight out of 10. It is a strong product and is definitely best in its class. It offers strong usability with the in-browser, Vizio-style designer, and can also deliver on some powerful workflow actions. There are times, when dealing with complex workflows, where understanding the application and its nuances is required.

Process automation, electronic forms, and digital transformation in all versions of SharePoint, on-prem and in Office 365. As a consultant and developer, I have used Nintex everywhere, including the SharePoint-agnostic Nintex Workflow Cloud.

In some instances, workflows I’ve built for customers have transformed the business, saving significant time and costs compared to manual, legacy processes. In several instances the savings have been enough to provide the ROI for SharePoint and Nintex licensing, and project costs, within a business quarter.

A well-placed digital transformation solution can reduce turnaround for key processes, enabling businesses to compete with and beat out competition by streamlining their processes and enabling their workforce to get more done in less time.

As a workflow automation solution, being able to route, approve and manage content is one of the few areas in SharePoint where there is a true ROI. Provides the ability to automate SharePoint processes (building sites, lists, updating content).

You can also automate document and content processes, onboarding and offboarding, and general IT and HR solutions.

With an extensive list of integrations with LOB data, your workflows can extend far beyond SharePoint, driving adoption of SharePoint and saving people, departments, and companies significant time in their daily processes. These are huge value drivers for SharePoint and Nintex.

• Built-in reporting on-prem is limited and clunky at best.
• Integration can be fairly technical, and often business rules inhibit product capabilities or force a developer to consider alternate methods for integration.
• Hawkeye is emerging as a reporting solution, but as a V1 product it’s not very useful yet.

Nintex is as stable as your SharePoint farm (on-prem), and in Office 365 workflows are robust. The application functions as expected and any issues with workflows or forms typically come down to design flaws rather than application issues. Nintex has been out and available since SharePoint 2007, so it’s a mature platform.

Scalability is tough. Workflows in SharePoint have the lowest priority of any task, and, in on-prem, workflows execute against the Web front-end servers. If your WFEs are under spec or at spec, workflow load will impact performance, and you may need to up resources or consider adding WFEs to enable large-scale deployments. 

In Office 365, the licensing model will be your limiting factor (subscription for the number of published workflows) so scalability is a non-issue.

Nintex technical support is not great. On a scale of one to 10 they are a three. They are slow to respond, and you often have to wait for or ask for escalation. It’s important to note that they only support "break/fix" – they will not assist with design or development questions. However, the online community and documentation in most cases more than makes up for support.

SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio are alternatives, as are K2 and a few newer players in the visual workflow and forms design arena. These tools tend to be far more technical to use, harder to support, and also have limitations not inherent to Nintex. While Nintex is an expensive solution, the value can be returned very quickly, with the quick development and go-live cycle, as compared to traditional or competitor tools. This is a key value for Nintex.

Setup is simple and straightforward. There are a few prerequisites for installation, but the Nintex documentation for on-premise installation is solid and, if followed, the installation will run very quickly. It does involve some downtime so planning is required (several IIS resets during installation). However, it’s one of the easier things to install in SharePoint.

In Office 365, installation is as simple as installing it from the store and adding the app to the site collection, so could not be much easier.

Nintex products are expensive, but valuable. Licensing in on-premise was historically based on a perpetual model, where you’d license per Web front-end. However, they are switching exclusively to a consumption (subscription) model, where you purchase the number of workflows you think you’ll use in your environment, and can scale up from there. 

I suggest talking to a Nintex partner for licensing advice and guidance for your specific needs.

We have tested and evaluated numerous competitors, the principal of which is K2. However, K2 is equally expensive when you get down to specifics, and requires a dedicated infrastructure, whereas Nintex resides on existing SharePoint Servers. K2 is also far more technical in nature. It does have some benefits over Nintex (principally high-volume workflows – think point-of-sale or hundreds or thousands of transactions per hour), so careful evaluation of your needs is important in selecting the right tool.

I have also developed workflows using SharePoint Designer and Visual Studio, but again they are far more complex and longer to develop, as compared to Nintex.

Get a trial, talk to a technical sales rep, and just go in and try to build something. It’s pretty amazing how easy it is to use, and trials are good for 30 days. Talk to a premier partner if you can.

1. SmartObject makes the center of data management, where developer and/or someone can call to it with only one place. SmartObject will return data from other system (such as MS-SQL, Oracle, SharePoint, SAP, etc.) to solve requirements.

2. K2 connect for SAP, easy to make interface between SAP with K2 connect for SAP service designer. Developer can design interface without coding and transform it into SmartObjects.

3. Workflow, to support more complex business processes, logic and data flow without coding.

4. SmartForm, fast and easy to develop web form to connect to SmartObject and workflow. Where you can create web application and ready to release to users within an hour.

• Supports conditional approval by business logic very easily
• Multiple approvals
• Notice of approval by email

Performance. Some customers ask why K2 is slow? Upgrade to current version will get the better performance.

More than 7 years.

Easy to makes deployment package.

Found less in the current version.

No.

Eight out of 10.

Eight out of 10.

K2 is my first and only one solution that I recommend.

Setup is easy in standalone. Distributed setup is complex and requires more network knowledge.

I’m working in the development field and do not know much about this.

No, my team was trying to map requirements to the K2 solution.

K2 makes your work simple.

Scalability, good performance, and the K2 designer to create workflows/screens are the most valuable features.

There are several products. One of them was a product to improve the claims management of an insurance company.

The Management console needs to improve because sometimes it is too difficult to manage the workflow instances.

I have used this solution for two years.

In previous versions, I found different issues in regards to the stability. Currently, with this version, it seems that those issues have been resolved. The same has been experienced in terms of the scalability.

Technical support is not so good, i.e., you should have a good contact inside the company, because the service desk is not that efficient.

The initial setup was absolutely complex. It is so difficult to configure the previous versions. But in the new version, the installation has improved and it was much better.

It has a good price for the licenses as compared to the other market solutions available.

It is a very good solution to implement simple workflows with little integration.

The integration could be better, but for simple workflows with simple integrations, it is a good product.

Nintex Process Platform’s most valuable feature is workflow. It is flexible and shares an update quickly. It is easy to maintain as well.

The product’s support for the mobile platform and its ability to handle artificial loads could be better. Its capabilities from the customer’s perspective need improvement. They should add repair and remediation features. 

We have been using Nintex Process Platform for more than five years.

It is a stable product.

It is a scalable product.

The initial process was easy for me to execute. However, it is complicated for those who don’t have any experience working on it. We deploy the product on the Windows servers. The deployment includes planning user access management.

The product’s price is competitive compared to other vendors.

Nintex Process Platform has a good workflow and efficient local support services. I recommend it to others and rate it a nine out of ten.