Appian Reviews

We use Appian for client on-boarding, anything onboard related, really: loading institutional clients, tracking that information in a single reporter, doing the follow-up, creating the plan parables for them, and developing for them.

In my organization, there are about 150 users who are currently using Appian on a daily basis. We use Appian very extensively. Every day, there are more than 100 unique logins to the system.

Appian also has very flexible local integration and we have used that extensively to integrate with our Legacy system.

The user interface is good, but it's not perfect. They should provide more flexibility so designers can create a more picture-perfect device. There should be more features on mobile UX development as well. 

Currently, it's easy to use and It gets the job done, but it's not flexible in regards to creating the mobile application from scratch. You have to play within the framework and the rules of the UX; however, that's something that not many customers like. Customers want a flexible mobile application development platform. I think Appian should make a lot of improvements with respect to their mobile application development by providing more flexibility for designers in order to allow them to create their own UX components and control the display of the data onscreen. 

I would like to see more flexibility in terms of the UI. I know that it's not designed to be a big application that allows you to do multiple things, like creating the second year stream of the pie, for example. I feel like Appian has been so instrumental in making their entire product local, and have really improved the user interface design, but the user interface design is limited to authenticated users only — although there are some limited pieces available on the login page. I would like Appian to extend their local capabilities to the login page as well so that we could create an available application that can be targeted to any customer. For example, if you flipped it, you would see information about various products and other information, something that could be very realistic if only Appian would allow these capabilities to be extended to the login page.

I have been using Appian for more than 10 years.

The stability is good. We have been using Appian for our strategy and tactical solutions and it has held up very well for us. The team was able to adapt to the changes of the new version  very quickly and were able to implement the application without any complexities or jumping hurdles relating to development. There were no issues for us. Appian has been meeting just as many of the requirements in my department as the stakeholders have. The stakeholders are happy with the UI and ease of the application. The overall usability has improved and everyone is happy with Appian. 

We believe that the scalability of Appian depends on the expertise of the Appian designers. It completely depends on the skill of the designers — how they design the applications determines the scalability of processes and data. In other words, the platform is very scalable. It stores the data as memory so the data allows us to retrieve the information rapidly; but again, we had already done the data management so the team was focused on data retention and data management. They set up their architecture in such a way that the system and the application can be scaled very quickly, so we are not seeing any problems with the scaling of Appian. 

My team mainly interacts with Appian cloud support who regularly provides them with solutions and advises them about any existing platform issues.

We previously looked at the Pega system; actually, one of our departments is currently using Pega system, but we wanted to diversify our technology base to provide a better experience for our stakeholders. My CIO recommended we make an investment because these two platforms are leading BPM tools offering similar functionalities, including BPM, EI, and case management. So we were calculating the pricing, trying to figure out what the return on the investment would be if we went with one platform or the other and what it would cost us in terms of losses between Pega and Appian.

The initial setup was straightforward. The team was able to set it up quickly, build up the applications and deploy it within six to ten weeks.

We have an in-house team that is comprised of Appian architects, designers, consultants and professionals who are trained on the Appian platform.

I would definitely recommend Appian. It has come a long way and it's a good product. It's entering into the area of a local application development platform. Appian is continuously making product updates every quarter. 

I would give Appian a rating of nine out of ten.

• Process Designer - If properly used, the executable flow itself helps you understand the business flow.
• Call Web Service Smart Service - Web service integrations with other systems are super simple and fast to create, supported by low code menus.
• Write to Data Store Entity - Saving data in SQL databases is done easily using entities. Entities (CDTs in Appian terminology) define relationships and target schema tables via XSD files.
• SAIL interfaces - Writing code that creates forms requires coding skills in Appian SAIL, a proprietary language. The forms are mobile-ready and components can be reused in forms and reports.

Even though the company has made great improvements in online documentation, featuring rich material which includes case studies of real-life use cases, the material could definitely be better in quality and coverage of use cases.

Another point of improvement would be the SAIL forms. The built-in tool used to generate forms does not have debugging support (to view local variables as they change on live preview, and step-by-step valuation) which is a big drawback for form development. Moreover, the script language used to build SAIL forms does not support inheritance or lambda expressions (functions as arguments of other functions), which makes the code base more verbose.

Last but not least, I am missing a team collaboration solution. Only one person at a time can work on objects. This is not a big issue really, because, if you follow the Appian best practices, all objects are pieces that fit single-person workloads.

The platform is super stable in BPMS and rules execution. 

Issues can appear in the following ways, related to development and design choices:

1. The underlying database is facing locking or performance issues. The instability of the database is very quickly propagated in the flows and forms executions (Appian engines/application server) and the platform can become non-responsive, experience deteriorating performance, or create numerous exceptions in running processes.
2. If the platform is used for data-intensive tasks, especially in deep nesting of data manipulation rules, the performance can quickly be affected and may also lead to exceptions.
3. If you don't follow the Appian best practices, and your application is scaling up, then on pick times the performance will be bad or exceptions may occur. This situation can be avoided by identifying potential issues by running the health check diagnostic tool.

Scalability is very good, but there are limits imposed by the underlying hardware and the JVM's heap size. Notably, even with a configuration having multiple application servers, the Appian engines installation is always one. However, the capacity of the topologies is very high and will not be an issue for companies with up to 10 applications per installation and up to 4000 active users per day. Appian provides a sizing document and Professional Services to help with decisions on the subject.

Technical support is considered good, and various levels of support can be selected.

Prior to Appian, there was a Java-based BPMS solution, but Appian was valued for its low-code characteristics that lead to the fastest development cycles in the industry. It was also valued for the scalability, the flexibility on development, the level of support, and the increasing developer base.

Appian has two offerings for its customers, on-premise and Appian Cloud (PaaS). In the case of PaaS, setup is very minimal and straightforward. For the on-premise product, the initial setup is pretty straightforward in most cases but requires a level of systems expertise, especially if you are setting up a high-performance production machine.

After some initial use, tuning the database is advisable. For mission-critical applications, an initial round of stress testing may be a good idea for identifying potential bottlenecks in your applications. Setup can also be tricky if you try to migrate from very old installations which used a different topology. If this is your situation, you may need support from Appian Professional Services.

The alternative we evaluated was Pega BPM.

If licensing cost is not a problem, then Appian is definitely a go, either as a stand-alone platform or with the PaaS offering in the Appian Cloud. When it comes to speed of development, system integrations, BMPS workflows, and digitization of manual processes, Appian is possibly the best choice there is.

There are multiple use cases of Appian. A banking customer uses it more for agent onboarding; we are working on contract management for a manufacturing customer; and we are working on an incident management system for an airport. There are almost seven to eight use cases, as of now. 

We don't use Appian, we are partners and we implement this solution for customers. I'm working on both on-premises and cloud-based deployment. Appian's deployment is hybrid. 

Appian has many valuable features, the first being the ease of development—rapid development. Second, the process of learning the product and tool is faster when compared to its peers in the market. It's closer to low-code, and while it's still not very easy, it's more low-code than other products in the industry. Appian has a good user interface, a seamless model user interface, which comes without additional coding. It can also integrate with multiple systems. 

There are four areas I believe Appian could improve in. The first is a seamless contact center integration. Appian does not have a contact center feature. The second is advanced features in RPA. The third would be chatbot and email bot integration—while Appian comes with chatbot and email bot, it's not as mature as it should be, compared to the competition. The fourth area would be next best action, since there is not much of this sort of feature in Appian. These are all features which competitors' products have, and in a mature manner, whereas Appian lacks on these four areas. I see customers who are moving from Appian to Pega because these features are not in Appian. 

I have been working with Appian for three years. 

The stability and performance are good. Appian is focusing a lot on this because they recently came out with a Kubernetes system acquisition, which is providing them the ability to scale as well as an expansion model that can be as stable as required. The performance is very good, as this solution is available across multiple cloud systems. 

As far as maintenance, it's pretty straightforward because Appian, as a company, comes with very mature hotfixes when required, as well as seamless upgrades. As long as you do not do any customizations—which is not recommended—it is pretty easy and straightforward to maintain, and does not take much effort. 

Appian is definitely easy to scale, especially if you understand the requirements. It's a good architecture. 

Of our customers who use Appian, I would say most of them are medium-sized. Next would be large-sized, and then there are not many small-sized customers. Medium- and large-sized companies mostly go for Appian. 

I would rate the technical support of Appian about a seven out of ten because there is definitely room for improvement when compared to the other product support we are seeing. 

The initial setup is a simple process. If it's on cloud, it does not take much time. If it's on-premise, you have to have all the required hardware. It takes around four hours. 

We implement this solution for customers. 

Appian is very flexible in their pricing. In general, Appian's pricing is much, much lower when compared to competition like Pega or other products. Appian also has a flexible licensing model across geographies. Pega usually goes with a single licensing cost—which is a US-based cost—for all global customers, and it's costly. Whereas Appian has a different regional licensing cost model and it can be cheaper, depending on geography. So Appian's licensing is very flexible, and cheaper when compared to other competition. 

The pricing is pretty straightforward. If you're going for a cloud-based deployment, there are no additional costs because you're just going to be on the cloud. However, if you're going to deploy it on-premise, you would need to install software, so you might have to procure your own database and servers and everything. The current recommendation, and what most customers are going for, is the cloud because it's easy to maintain. There aren't really any costs except for the licensing. 

Pega and Appian are both good BPM platforms. The area where Appian has the advantage is that it's really low-code. It takes much less effort when compared to Pega, both for developing and for setup and implementation. Within about 30 days, maximum, you can build out a product in Appian, whereas it will take you much longer in Pega. However, in regard to the four areas in which I believe Appian is lacking, Pega has all those features in a mature manner: seamless contact center integration, advanced features in RPA, mature chatbot and email bot integration, and next best action.

I would rate Appian an eight out of ten. 

If you are looking for a fast, rapid rollout of applications and you have multiple medium-scale and small-scale processes that you want to roll out at a faster pace, with ease of maintenance, then Appian is a good product to go with. Appian can also be leveraged for large-scale implementation—for example, financial service customers, for loan origination or claims organization—but you would really need to understand your requirements in order to achieve this with Appian. Whereas with Pega, it has framework for loan originations and everything, which Appian doesn't come with. Appian is a plain vanilla product, and if you go for a large-scale core implementation, then you should have enough information and requirements to capture it. Appian is best suited to mid-scale and small-scale processes and a rapid rollout. 

We use Appian for business process management.

I like how quickly you can build applications. The low code aspect of it is really useful to get things out to market quickly. Compared to other code tools that I've seen, Appian has a more robust rules engine.

I've been an Appian consultant for three years now.

Appian virtually has a 99.99% uptime rating. It's very stable. 

Appian is very scalable. There's a lot of options for bigger enterprises, like high availability. It's enterprise-grade for smaller to mid-sized businesses.

I have used their tech support, honestly, I'd probably give their support a rating of eight out of 10. They work pretty hard to try to figure out what's going on if there's an issue.

I wouldn't say their response time is long, but it could be quicker. 

There's a one-time setup fee. I think they usually set it up for you. For the typical business user, it's straightforward as they don't have to do anything.

The pricing can be a little confusing to customers. Clients sometimes have to lay out their whole set of use cases and get them approved for specific types of licensing— it's on a case-to-case basis. I think that they're very actively working on improving this, but it can be quite difficult to work out the licensing.

Other than the pricing concerns, it's a really great platform. 

If you're considering using Appian, my advice is to work with people that have experience building solutions with it, because that's going to lead to fewer problems down the line.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Appian a rating of nine. It's a great business management platform.

We use Appian for some exam results, and related material, as well as some publishing solution material.

The workflow designer is the most valuable feature.

It's pretty good as it stands at the moment.

In terms of usability, there is a learning curve.

Licensing fees could be reduced.

I have been working with Appian for a year.

Appian is a stable solution.

Appian is scalable.

In our company, we have approximately 100 users.

Appian's use may be expanded in the future. It's a bit of a niche on the exam side right now.

According to my understanding, the technical support team is quite impressive.

It's fine; there's no need to improve technical support.

We are also working with Salesforce.

The initial setup is fine once you get your head around it, but there is a steep learning curve.

We have developers to maintain this solution.

We were able to complete the installation ourselves.

The price could always be better.

The full user license is quite expensive. It's cheap if all you want them to do is look at things, but if more people use an Appian app to update their information, it becomes more expensive.

Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.

You must consider what your use cases will be and ensure that there is a fit, because it is not a cheap option, you must ensure that you get a good return on investment.

I would rate Appian a seven out of ten.

We use Appian to automate processes that we are currently doing manually. We are working on an agile project. We have 500 people using this solution, most of which are operational.

This particular project started with four cases, or four processes. Next year we plan on doubling this and implementing eight more cases.

Prior to Appian, when we were handling a particular process manually, it took 40 days to resolve. After Appian was implemented, it took only seven days. The improvement in time is amazing.

I find the BPM the most valuable feature. It is easy to develop as it is a local solution. Appian is quick to understand and develop.

Appian could include other applications that we could reuse for other customers, CRM for example. This would make implementation quicker.

I have been using Appian for three years.

We had some concerns with the stability of Appian when we had a lot of cases. During normal operation it is a stable solution.

Scalability depends on how much you want to embrace the capacity of Appian. If you have a lot of cases, 150,000 for example, the stability will not be good because the memory required is so heavy that the RAM that you need is backed in. If you pass a certain number of cases, and the processes are complex, the situation is not suitable for Appian.

I have had no concerns with customer service. 

The initial setup of Appian was straightforward. We have an architect on our team who did the deployment. The deployment depends on the environment. For us, configuration took a day and to deploy no more than an hour.

We use one person, the architect, to maintain the program.

The ROI has been good. Profits increased because of this solution, this is why we are going to implement eight more cases next year.

The cost can be improved, however it is not too high for the customers here in Spain.

My advice before starting to implement this solution you need to consider what you want to do in Appian because everything is not possible. Sometimes when you think BPM process, you think that the interface application is the same, but it's not.

I would rate Appian an 8 out of 10.

Appian can be used to helps organizations build applications and workflows.

The solution's most valuable features are the regular periodic and quarterly updates, they are very useful updates. They keep improving the solution more often, and that helps the platform or code always be up to date with the latest features.

The solution could improve by being more responsive when dealing with large quantities of data. Additionally, they can make the decision or rules engine better. It cannot handle too many rules or too many decisions at once.

I have been using Appian for approximately six years.

The solution is stable.

The technical support is amazing. They have high availability when attending to tickets. The extent to which they go to support you is amazing. They go down deep into the issue you are facing and get you to the right expertise. You can access support through forums and the telephone which they respond quickly with details on a solution.

The standalone and distributed environment installations are straightforward. There are clear instructions, documentation, and support available. However, the installation into a distributed environment can be more challenging.

I have had assistance from Appian support for the implementations.

The license is a bit expensive and the pricing model is sometimes confusing for new users or business users. It is difficult for them to know what volume of usage they will have to be able to purchase the best-suited license at the beginning.

I rate Appian an eight out of ten.

Process Automation and Forms Digitisation, implementation of organisational wide processes rather than use of COTS.

Appian was not selected by any of the organisations I've worked with to date for production use.

Form building capabilities and well thought out process modelling are key points to this product.

Support for complex models really needs significant improvement

Flexibility in the architecture is not there

Management or reusable assets is extremely limited and poorly designed

Business rules are not aligned to industry best practices

Authoring tool slow to use resulted in limitations on how quickly solutions can be built

Integration to project SDLC (such as testing methods, build systems etc needs work)

Trial/evaluations only.

This product is targeted to mid size companies and not highly scalable complex processes.

Customer Service:

Average, although a small responsive team Appian has been fast growing stretching their ability to service customer needs.

Technical Support:

Reasonable, stronger than say IBM or Oracle technical support but it is still critical to engage in a full POC activity with this product to ensure it fits your needs before proceeding with an implementation. The closed nature of the platform means there is limited to no help outside of that technical support team which is already stretched based on the ever increasing customer base.

Compare this product closely to open source options, IBM and Pega. For simple solutions using simple models Appian may be sufficient and would provide better ROI than investing in building a team to support a more complex tool but for complex models I'd look for a stronger tool-set.