TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM Reviews

We are using TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM for network deployment workflows. For example, if a customer is interested in getting a NetWorker, there is a workflow where we log in, get the customer details, verify them, and then it moves to the project manager, who assigns assets like IP. Then it goes to internal systems like billing and CRM. It's a workflow for network deployment.

TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is powerful for defining workflows. It is low code, so you don't need a lot of coding, and tasks are just drag and drop. It is also very stable as we haven't had issues with it going down or encountering any operational issues for a long time. The stability and rich features in workflow definition make it a valuable tool.

It is not lightweight and requires a lot of disk space, memory, and CPU. Making it lightweight so it can run on a minimum processor and less memory would be beneficial. 

Additionally, the current workflow is resource-intensive.

The implementation of BPM was done in 2017, so it has been in operation for several years now.

With the current load, TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is stable. We haven't increased the load for the last three to four years, and we have not encountered issues. I would rate the stability an eight or nine.

We haven't had any reason to scale it since our current setup meets our needs. However, I assume it would be challenging to scale the on-prem solution without testing its scalability.

My experience with tech support has not been very good. Most of the time, issues are escalated to level three, where they are either unresolved or take two weeks to address. I did not feel we got enough support from TIBCO, often needing to find workarounds ourselves.

Neutral

The initial setup was complex as it involved a third-party partner, Tech Mahindra, to complete the deployment. We provided them with requirements, and they handled the setup.

We worked with the third-party vendor Tech Mahindra, who was responsible for the initial setup and deployment.

The solution is very expensive, and we haven't expanded it due to concerns over license costs. It is primarily suitable for enterprise-level organizations due to the cost.

We are considering open-source solutions like jBPM for new workflows due to cost concerns with TIBCO. We also discussed UiPath, which is introducing BPM capabilities and could become a competitor.

The overall rating for TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is eight out of ten. 

Although it is a very powerful workflow tool, it is expensive, and only companies with sufficient resources can afford it.

I use the solution in my company for case management and business process management. In general, there are two kinds of use cases attached to the product. For case management, you need to have solutions where you cannot have a predefined process flow. A user determines where the next action or what the next path is going to be depending on certain factors.

The most valuable features of the solution are out-of-the-box case manager and integration support with SOAP and web services.

The product fails to offer good integration with REST, making it an area where improvements are required.

The scalability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

The documentation of the product needs to be improved since there is a bit of a high learning curve in the initial stages when someone starts to use it. Once users are used to the product, it becomes easy to operate, after which they may not go for any other product.

I have experience with TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM for seven to eight years.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.

The solution's technical support is excellent.

The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.

The deployment process of the product involves bundling everything that the solution gives to its users. The product has its proprietary format, which includes EAR and DAT files, and it can be built using TIBCO Business Studio. After the aforementioned processes are followed, the DAT file is deployed directly from TIBCO Business Studio, or you can port it, and deploy it from TIBCO.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises version. The product's new versions can be deployed on the cloud model.

The solution can be deployed in ten minutes.

The product was implemented for process automation in our company since TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM serves as a complete integration suite that helps manage external integrations as well. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks integrates with the downstream and upstream systems while giving an endpoint that could either be REST or SOAP. With the inbuilt functionalities of the product, you need not worry about the load-managing capabilities of the tool since everything in the product is taken care of by the integration suite. Depending on the use cases, the business process management area can be used as a predefined flow. If there are factors that are going to be dependent on user actions, the flow has to be kept open-ended, after which you can use a case manager. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM can be implemented in two methods, and the product supports both ways.

The business processes that got optimized from the use of the product are mostly banking processes and investment banking processes. Wherever there are a lot of processes, a lot of people, and a lot of approvals, there is a need to have quick management without much coding and case management for which rapid development tools are useful.

The state management part of the product is the most valuable in the product.

With the integration capabilities of the product, it is possible to integrate with any of the external SOAP services. You don't have to do anything to integrate the SOAP services since all the underlying serialization and everything else is taken care of by the tool itself. There is no need to get involved in any coding activities, meaning there is zero code integration required.

In any kind of product, the database becomes the bottleneck because you can scale it, and the processing part can be scalable, but at the end of the day, there is a formation of a bottleneck wherever transactions or databases are involved. In most of the business process management cases, concurrent users are not that high. The number of nodes can be scaled up. When it comes to the tool, the processing nodes can be scaled up on individual servers and multiple boxes. Like any other Java system, the scalability of TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is node-based. There is a bottleneck when it comes to the database. To what extent the databases can be scaled up to support concurrent transactions is the only bottleneck when it comes to the solution.

In the decision-making and analytics part, the new version of the product supports REST. TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks manages SOAP-based integrations. The product has become simpler for new commerce to learn. The product now offers simplicity to users. The documentation and usability of the product need improvement. The solution's adoption rate can go up after the documentation gets improved and more sample-based scenarios are provided.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

The capacity for distributing the jobs in a workflow is an important feature.

The maintenance of the package could be improved. Once, we had to update a package, and it was very hard to do. Each time we have to update a package, we face a lot of issues.

I have used this solution for nine years. I'm not working on the latest version.

I rate ActiveMatrix's stability a seven out of ten. Sometimes, we face difficulties deploying new workflows. Every time we find an issue, we have to stay with this issue for a long time because it takes a long time to fix it.

I rate ActiveMatrix's scalability a six out of ten. Once we install it, we have many issues with upgrading the other things we need. We currently have about 1,000 final users using the workflows generated using TIBCO.

Every time we need customer support, we call them, and they answer in time and give us a solution.

Positive

It is easy to set up developer environments and other minor environments. I rate setting up environments an eight and a half out of ten. We usually spend more than a day deploying the solution and at least two staff members to help deploy it.

I rate the pricing an eight out of ten because I have heard comments from managers stating that TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM is an expensive tool compared to others.

Because the solution is deployed on-premises, we need to focus on upgrading to the latest version because of its focus on containers.

We need to carefully plan developments because if we do not take care, we will have many issues. I rate TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for workflows. For example, we are dealing with a telecommunication company. We have a client who is interested in an installation site, the MPLS or the internet connection. Usually, there's a process where we have a project manager who will manage that project. He will assign an engineer. The engineer will go to the site to set up the installation. After that, he'll come to those who are responsible for assigning IPs, and he will assign IPs. After that, we do the project closure. Basically, the product is for the various flows just for the custom installations. Usually, a number of activities or a number of workflows are involved.

The workflow feature works very well. We also get very good notifications. At each and every stage, at least there are notifications on where the installation process is. 

The integrations are very good. The BPM is still using the ESB to integrate other systems. 

The scheduling and the calendar are very useful. For example, you can say to the system, for example, that today is Sunday so don't count SLAs and all that. 

In the onboarding, they integrate into our internal active directory. 

We don't have any problems with the BPM. It works.

Maybe they can also consider going to the cloud as most of our applications are dealing with the cloud. I know they have a cloud version, however, we've not tested it. Internally, we don't have the technical capabilities to do anything. 

Ideally, if it can be just simplified so that even our developers can work on some of the workflow scenarios, that would be ideal. Currently, if we have anything that we need even to add, even a workflow, we have to go back to TIBCO. If they can just give us the software, then maybe with a little bit of training, we would be able to work workflows. As it is right now, we have to rely on TIBCO or the service integrators. They really need to reduce the complexity of BPM.

The initial setup is complex. 

Technical support needs to be streamlined.

The cost of the product is far too high.

I've used the solution since 20218. It's been a few years now. 

Stability is an issue on BPM. For example, I can send a workflow from myself to someone else. On my side, I can see that I've sent the workflow to the person. On their queue, however, you don't see it. There are those kinds of issues that we seem to get. That's why I would say that it's not stable. There are a number of issues. One day, users are complaining they can't log in as well. Stability I would rate it at a six out of ten. 

In terms of support, sometimes we get the engineers that are assigned. They don't understand the internal workings of BPM. The other issue is that sometimes they are so specific. For example, one engineer is only specific to a certain component. If there's another component where they suspect the problem is, then they have to refer you to another engineer. It would be more efficient and much better if the engineers could just have at least a holistic view of the internal workings of BPM. 

Right now, with every scenario, you raise a ticket maybe to BPM, they will assign you an engineer and that engineer will assign you an infrastructure engineer, and then the infrastructure engineer might take you back to application engineer. Then that engineer will pass you off to the support engineer who will say it's not a support issue. It's just a lot of getting passed around.

The initial setup is complex. We were just upgrading from one version to another and it took us almost two days just to do the upgrade. If just upgrading components takes two days, then to me it's a bit complex. Some of these upgrades should take one or two hours. 

Now, we are doing them overnight or maybe over two nights just for the upgrades. I don't know the inside workings of BPM, however, it looks or sounds complex.

The solution is crazy-expensive. 

It's hard to rate, as I don't have something similar to compare it to, however, based on my experience, I would rate it at a seven out of ten.

I won't recommend any TBCO products based on their prices alone. Their prices are just crazy. Right now, I'm just reviewing some of the open-source software. There's one called jBPM that's an open-source BPM, that also has an enterprise version. To me, the only thing that I don't like about TIBCO products is their ridiculous pricing.

It is used for on-premises and cloud integrations. It has a number of products for on-premises integration. 

It is the best product because of its stability. ActiveMatrix 5.x is highly stable in production, and the downtime is very low. I have worked on a lot of service projects, and the engine is very stable, robust, and scalable. The development and change requests can be pushed quickly, and the mapper activity and SSLT kind of features are also good. It is easy to do changes, testing, and deployment. 

Its deployment is very easy, and we can automate a lot of scripts for our on-premises solution. I work for an investment bank, and we have automated a lot of processes for our customers. Previously, we used to develop scripts and tools. With version 6.x, everything is moved to Maven and other things. Environment handling is done mostly through DevOps tools. As compared to Mulesoft, the deployment and configuration are very easy in TIBCO.

ActiveMatrix is in the middle field. MuleDB is more on the engineering side with Java and other things. SnapLogic is there are on the higher side with very low coding. TIBCO stays in the middle like IBM or Oracle. TIBCO can move towards IBM's way of doing. IBM has a big market and many varieties of products and good integration, which TIBCO doesn't have. It can have better integration.

TIBCO's transition to the cloud is a little slow. As compared to Dell, Boomi, and Mulesoft. TIBCO took the steps a little later.

TIBCO's ID was far better and easier to work with previously. TIBCO's 5.x ID was very good, and the development environment and the transition were easy. Version 6.5 onwards, it is a stable product, but it would be good if they can do something similar to version 5.4 with version 6. They should concentrate on this API market. It will give them the strength and the ability to grab the market back. 

I have been using ActiveMatrix since 2006.

It is very stable. It has very low downtime.

It is highly scalable on-premises. In my project, we have about 30 users. For the maintenance, we have about four or five people.

Fortunately, we have employees who are familiar with the product. It is not open source. Therefore, when you get a bug, you don't get much information on the internet to troubleshoot problems, like in Java, Mulesoft.

Its deployment is very easy. It takes one to two hours for deploying the product. You only need to know the order. The configuration environment and everything else is very easy.

There are some discussions about perpetual licenses and conversions, but I'm not much familiar with them.

I would recommend this solution. It is a highly stable, robust, scalable solution.

I would rate TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM an eight out of ten.

Our primary use is for internal governance.

The customization is the most valuable feature. The BPM is very good.

The interface is very user-friendly. I like that it's an end-to-end product and complete solution. 

I'd like to be able to see into the development area of this product, and not just the administration. I'd like to see some of the development features.

The solution could offer better integration capabilities.

In general, the solution is stable, but we have had to deal with some instability occasionally.

The scalability of the solution is limited.

Their technical support is good. I've had to reach out a few times when I couldn't resolve something myself, and they helped.

I didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment took about four hours. About seven people currently work with the solution.

I implemented the solution myself.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I would rate the solution seven out of ten. Sometimes it's not stable, but it is a complete solution. It takes time for development. An hour for development, is a long time, for example, in my opinion. It is easy to use but has many black box complaints. You have to write to support because of these complications.

We use the solution to build BPM workflows for users.

The TIBCO product helped us solve an interfacing issue between platforms that may have been more difficult with other products. 

My favorite feature of the solution is not actually a feature specifically for the BPM ActiveMatrix. It's a general feature used for the entire platform. It is the integration through the TCI which we needed. Because we are using both the BPM and the TCI, we need the proper integration platform. The BPM itself is average from the point of view of the features of a program. The real advantage is that the three products are tightly integrated with one another and the solution, for us, works well. 

The BPM setup could offer more options. The connectivity right now is poor because not a lot of protocols are supported. So, we had some trouble setting up a proper BPM connection to access cloud data.

BPM ActiveMatrix integrates with TCI and we are using both, so from an integration standpoint, it ended up being a good solution for us. The user interface for the BPM is quite average. It's a drag-and-drop interface so you can very quickly build workflows for users. But the functionality is a bit average in that you only have drag-and-drop and no real ability to customize for more difficult tasks.

The ability to write code would help. It's okay in many cases to have something that is drag and drop because it is simple. I have a data model and I can connect the data model to our data source. I build my user interfaces in a drag and drop way, so it's quite simple. It's also simple to deliver to mobile tablets and so on. But sometimes things are not so simple and you need to write some code to make some specific adjustments not covered by the drag and drop components. In that case, we are forced to use the TCI and there are many more steps to transform source data into data delivered by the interface. So, if you can code directly in the BPM, some things that are a little bit more complex would be possible. That would make it a better tool.

The application itself is quite stable. They continue to improve in that way. Every six months or every quarter the company is pushing out new updates. It's a cloud solution so it's continuing to evolve. From the reliability point of view, it's quite stable. We didn't have any issues with scalability except the decisions to scale intelligently.

Scaling is just a matter of clicking on the number of instances for a deployed application and changing it. It's quite simple. The problem obviously is how many licenses you actually need. If you have, for example, 50 or 60 licenses, you have to be very careful because every time you scale it counts as an additional application. If you don't have people using the licenses, you are spending more for nothing. You need to deal with your licenses intelligently. If you pay more, you can have more space for more users. If your licenses are not being used, it was not worth paying more.

I'm not directly involved with the technical support because there is another guy here in the company that is in charge of this. So, I cannot say anything definitive about support. We had one issue with the BPM. I know that we contacted the support. In that case, it was because all of the protocol we wanted to use wasn't supported. They just couldn't help us at the time because it was something not supported by the platform. They gave an answer. It wasn't the one we wanted. Maybe they will do more development.

There is no initial setup but this is because we are using the cloud version.

When you buy the license for the cloud version, you have full access to the website. So the platform is ready to use as soon as you make a contract to use it.

I would rate this product a seven out of ten. We are just at the beginning of the cloud era for the BPM. This is the same for other vendors like Azure with PowerApps and so on. There will be a lot of room for improvement. But they are still useful products for production. I rate it a seven. It is good, but not so good that it might not be better in the future.

The most important thing is to understand that using the cloud platform is completely different from the on-premise installation. You need to really understand your business needs because it's a completely different environment. It's very useful for filling gaps in your business processes. Different solutions are available and it is flexible usually on demand. If you are using Salesforce or a CRM and you should be using other cloud solutions in your business processes, it's okay to have a cloud solution. But if you're a company that relies on on-premise systems, maybe the cloud solution is not the best solution because of how you usually go about your business. So, maybe you need to choose the on-premise solution. 

It's very important to define which is the best solution for you by understanding the advantages and disadvantages and not just follow the suggestions by the vendors. TIBCO is trying to push the cloud solution because all the competitors are going to the cloud. But you really need to understand what are your business needs and use it if it is the best solution for you.