SAP PowerDesigner Reviews

The solution is useful for data warehousing. I'm a contractor and I work with various companies. Each of them have different versions of the product installed, some on-prem and some in the cloud.

I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use.

I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all.

I think it's probably one of the best solutions, but it is not at all easy to deploy in a big organization. I think it's a problem because of internal processes, and you have to find the right person to help you. SAP as a whole is a very big, complex animal.

I have used this solution on-and-off for 23 years. 

It is a very stable solution, but we have big issues if we try to bring in FSLDM. I'm sure Power Designer can handle it, but I think it drops the links because FSLDM is such a huge model. You can't always trust it because FSLDM was not developed in Power Designer.

I think it's a scalable solution. In one company we have a 38-user license, but that's a very large bank. In another company, there's only one person doing data modeling.

The complexity depends on the client, the firewall, and the company's rules of who can use and view different things. 

The implementation can be done in-house. The time it takes depends on the client. In some instances, it takes quite a while if there are a lot of firewall issues to deal with and the client wants it deployed in the cloud.

I would not recommend this solution to others who are considering it. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. 

I use SAP PowerDesigner for data modeling, documentation, and it interacts with the other tools. Additionally, we use it for all of the business requirements, such as CDM and PDM.

The most valuable feature of SAP PowerDesigner is the testing of the models, it has the best function. Reverse engineering is very helpful too.

The solution itself does not need to be improved. However, they could add support for different languages.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for approximately 22 years.

The solution is stable.

The scalability of SAP PowerDesigner is good. However, I have not had the chance to test it in a large environment. For my environment, it works well.

The online support from SAP I have used has been good.

The setup is very simple. 

I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited.

I rate SAP PowerDesigner a ten out of ten.

We are using SAP PowerDesigner to design physical and logical data models for new releases of software.

The solution has the basic features for creating entities.

SAP PowerDesigner could improve by being more intuitive and user-friendly. It does not enforce some of the integrity of the model that we would like it to retain.

There are many areas of this solution that needs to be changed.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for approximately two and a half years.

SAP PowerDesigner is fairly stable.

There are five people in my organization using this solution.

We have used technical support but was it was difficult to get in touch with the right person. It was not very clear who the responsible person was. They do not seem to have centralized support, making it difficult to get the person in the right region to help us. However, once we found the right person we had our issues resolved.

The installation is in the average difficulty range.

The price of the solution is too expensive. When we asked for certain licenses in different countries it was unattainable.

We have had some issues with being able to procure licenses for specific countries. We were not able to receive licenses for every location we wanted.

We intend to switch solutions and we have been evaluating others.

I would not recommend this solution to others.

I rate SAP PowerDesigner a six out of ten.

I like the connectivity or the lineage between the models and usability.

Technical support could be better and more human.

I have been using PowerDesigner for three years.

PowerDesigner is a stable solution. 

PowerDesigner is a scalable solution. I worked in a client site where there was a repository, and there were dozens of data modelers. There wasn't a problem.

It would be better if they had a more human IT support system. They are really chuffed with their support desk, they got the dashboards, and you can log your problems.

With another vendor, you log a problem, and they call straight away. You can tell somebody about the problem. They're very nice and personable, and they know you. For SAP, you're just lost somewhere in the queue, and for me, it's not a decent response.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give PowerDesigner a nine.

I'm an IT architect. I make use of this particular tool end-to-end, especially when I design objects. I also can immediately create the frameworks in PowerBuilder.

In just one click, I can create everything that I want.

I can download the solution right onto my PC.

It's a fantastic tool. It offers lots of flexibility. It saves companies pain and it keeps everything consistent. Whatever the idea was that started at the business level can go down to the database level.

It offers a lot of features in one solution. You would have to get multiple other products to bundle together all of the capabilities that you get in just this product.

The one issue I've found goes a long way back, especially from version 6.0 onward. In 6.0 there was a fantastic modeling functionality called "Process Analysis Modeling." It was very simple and very straightforward, yet it covered practically all of the three or four important components, which the software should have.

Later, that capability was taken out of PowerDesigner. It got lost somewhere. Yet it was something that was very, very nice to have. SAP, they missed it somehow. Maybe it was removed in error? If they could bring it back, that would be amazing. 

When we had done some of the model icons to other models attached business process modeling, was far easier. The functionality has gone away. 

The solution is very, very expensive. It would be ideal if it was a more affordable product.

I've been using PowerDesigner intermittently, not continuously. I have been using a few other CASE tools as well. In my estimation, I've been using this one since 1994.

The solution is quite stable. We haven't had any issues in that regard.

The solution is based on a RDBMS database, a proper or relational database. It is a one to multi-person version. Any number of people can work simultaneously on it. They actually can buy the license for their own computer, that's all. Therefore, it can scale easily across teams. You just need to license.

I have a team of about ten people and we all use it. We're a small consultancy firm. Everyone uses it.

We will continue to use the solution and increase it as required in the future.

We don't need to purchase technical support per se. If there is any emergency bug fix, it's called UBS. They would send it to us, especially if we signed a maintenance contract with them. if you don't have a maintenance contract, you can just ask for the UBS. 

If our suppliers want us to use other tools, we of course will, however, we've been using this solution since 1994. I do not recall if we used anything before that, or what it might have been.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not complex at all. You just install it. You just click on the install button and go ahead and install everything. 

It will also ask if I want a backend repository database. If you say yes, then they will install the database. It is called a Sybase SQL Anyware. Now it is owned by SAP. I don't know exactly what they call it - maybe SAP SQL Anyware or Sybase SQL Anyware. 

In the end, it doesn't take more than five or ten minutes. it's very quick and efficient.

There was no need for any type of consultant or integrator to assist me in the deployment. It's a very simple process.

The solution requires a license for each user. If you want to add another user, you just buy another license. It's pretty straightforward. 

It's an expensive product.

I'm not using the latest version of the solution, I'm using the one that came out before version 16.

When we go to specific clients if they would like us to define it or some other product, what we do is we model whatever things that they want, inside those particular tools. Some of the tools don't have the entire modeling capability that PowerDesigner offers.

If a company has a team of people or even one single consultant who has the capability to design business architecture, software architecture, database architecture, or infrastructure architecture, they should go for this particular product. None of the other products offer all of these capabilities in one tool.

This is especially true when you design on one model. The architects creating them can pull into the next model - whatever they want to create. For example, if I'm designing a business process diagram, we will be able to capture some data architecture. When we reach the data architecture part of it, all the data items, whatever they already created in the business architecture, can be pulled. It automatically creates the database from the ER diagram.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten overall.

We were reverse-engineering several databases and doing comparisons.

The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison. 

In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high. 

I didn't investigate whether we could run business process simulations like you can do with erwin's process modeling tool. I know you can do process modeling in PowerDesigner. I just don't know if you could run simulations of the process.

I used SAP PowerDesigner for a year. 

It is very stable. 

It didn't seem to really need much extendability. For our features, it covered everything out of the box.

There was only one user for this solution, a data architect. 

We did not require any staff for the deployment or maintenance.

I did not use technical support.

Before PowerDesigner we were using IDERA and erwin. PowerDesigner was better than IDERA, but it's obviously a lot more expensive, so IDERA could be a better value.

With PowerDesigner, I had the whole studio. I had the business process solution. With IDERA there are separate downloads and everything so I only used the data modeling studio.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took around one hour. 

I did the deployment myself. 

If you have the money for it, buy it. If you were budgeted, it would be a worthwhile investment.

I would rate PowerDesigner an eight out of ten. It is very complete and robust. If you're an SAP shop, without question you'd want to use it because you can generate your ETL code as well. That also separates conceptual, logical, and physical modeling really well. I don't know if it's as complete though as erwin's solution. But erwin's solution is evolving and getting better. PowerDesigner has some room to improve, but it's still pretty solid.

As part of my consultancy business I provide training for PowerDesigner users, face-to-face and online. Working directly with clients or as part of subcontracted project work, I provide mentoring for users and customise the tool to fit the client's needs.

The majority of my clients use PowerDesigner for various types of Data Modelling and Database activities, along with Data Governance, Process Governance and Enterprise Architecture.

I use PowerDesigner myself for managing my own workload. For example, I use a Requirements Model to manage the tips and tricks I plan to include in my blog, and a customised Enterprise Architecture Model to manage my training portfolio. PowerDesigner includes a 'Free Model', which I use to manage and generate my library of PowerDesigner scripts.

The architecture of PowerDesigner is designed with extensibility in mind, supporting comprehensive customisation and automation features which allow customers to make the tool fit the way they want to work, embedding those new features directly into the tool itself. For example, the built-in Template Language enabled me to add a feature to export the structure of a Data Model as a JSON-format file for ingestion by a Data Governance tool.

Even if you don't customise or extend PowerDesigner, the tool is still the easiest modelling tool to use, with spreadsheet-like editing capabilities, the ability to link to or replicate (in a managed fashion) objects from a different model. The bi-directional traceability between objects and models is also a key differentiator - whenever you connect two objects together, that connection is visible from both objects (this may sound obvious but, believe me, other tool vendors don't seem to think it's important enough).

SAP have invested a lot of time and effort into improving and extending the capabilities of the PowerDesigner Web Portal. Following the most recent release, users can create and edit Conceptual, Physical, Requirements, Business Process, and Enterprise Architecture models using a standard web browser as well using the client software.

I'm looking forward to the day when the Web Portal supports every type of model, including Logical Data Models. I also would like to see better support for NoSQL databases.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for fourteen years. 

There are organisations with hundreds of users, very large models, and very large repository databases. It works.

The documentation is excellent, and more comprehensive than that supplied by the competition. However, even the best software documentation doesn't support you through your day-to-day modelling activities, which is why I wrote a book "Data Modelling Made Simple with PowerDesigner".

The technical support is very good, utilising SAP' standard customer support portal. I have interacted with technical support at another vendor, where everything is done by email, making it very difficult to keep up-to-date on a case.

I have used many modelling tools (possibly more than 10) over the years; when I set up my own consultancy I had a choice of tools to focus on, choosing PowerDesigner. I do also provide some consultancy and customisation for Idera ER/Studio Data Architect.

It's very easy to install. If you want to install a simple repository database, that's really easy as well - SAP provides a licenced copy of SQL Anywhere, which you can deploy anywhere (as the name suggests).

The list price for PowerDesigner is competitive for the base Data Architecture features when compared with the major competitors, especially when you consider the features that SAP don't charge for such as the Repository, Web Portal and 'Viewer' software. However, the pricing for small consultancies needs to be improved. The competing vendors often have special offers that make the tool more affordable, which is vital for data management consultancies that have to buy the tools that their clients use.

A powerful modelling solution has to be selected, implemented and managed in the same way as any other enterprise software - before you evaluate tools make sure you've documented your modelling process and the metadata you need to manage. Run a 'Proof of Concept' first - so you actually know what you're letting yourself in for and how much work you may or may not have to do to get it to work the way you want.

Often, a customer will want to migrate from another solution onto PowerDesigner. That's how I primarily use the solution: migrating things over to this solution.

We use it to set up the conceptual model. From there, we will take the physical model, where we can start the different DDLs. We will use it to generate the DDLs for the database teams to implement it.

The generational DDLs and the graphics are the solution's most valuable aspects.

The solution is a very pragmatic tool. It's quite easy to use.

The solution is very good for data modeling on a conceptual and physical level.

There are a lot of design tools that are very complicated to use, and customers will not use them in detail. I find the solution to be one of the best tools in the range.

I don't know of any features the solution is lacking.

It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product.

I've been using the solution for a while. When I use the solution, the need to use it is driven more from the customer's own needs and not from my own. 

I haven't had any feedback from clients that would make me believe that there are stability issues.

I don't have any direct experience with scaling the solution. It's not something that I handle.

We've never contacted SAP's technical support. I don't have any direct experience with them.

We occasionally do migrations from MEGA HOPEX to PowerDesigner.

The initial setup was straightforward. It's not complex at all.

However, it depends on how big your environment is. It's difficult, but approximately in one week, you can start creating the capabilities and then it depends on what you want to achieve. 

The problem for the migration part is the setup of the conceptual models and the physical models. If you do the modeling between the conceptual and the physical from a migration point of view, then it becomes more complex because you have the generation of internal keys.

We don't have a business relationship with SAP. We prefer to keep our relationship independent and have no direct relationships with them at the moment.

It's certainly a good strategy to migrate to this solution from another tool, but I wouldn't recommend anyone start using it by trying out a trial-and-error strategy. An organization must think first about the migration strategy if they already have a tool and want to migrate before they start. A trial and error approach will waste a lot of time. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's easy to use and you can get good pictures out of it.