ARIS BPA Reviews

I used to work for the company who set this solution up for customers. However, I am now an end-user, and perform the role of system architect.

The most valuable features are business process modeling and reporting. They show all of the business and operational processes, which are banking processes. It also allows for managing and reporting on them. The entire bank can follow and manage their own processes.

I would like to see a simpler process for integrating with other tools. When we tried to integrate ARIS with other external tools, it was not easy.

I would like to see the reporting aspects improved.

We have had some problems in terms of stability, although technical support has always helped. Overall, I can say that it's stable.

My impression is that this solution is really scalable.

On the configuration side, we have six users. One architect and the others are designers. We also have people that publish in the company library, and all of the employees follow the processes from there. We have approximately two thousand end users.

We are very satisfied with this solution's technical support. They answer quickly and try to solve all of the problems. They are the best.

My understanding is that the initial setup was easy.

In terms of pricing, it would be nice if it were more affordable.

I would recommend this product because it is really easy to use.

This is a good solution, but it needs better integration with external tools and it is expensive.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case is for process modeling.

It has helped us design processes in a step by step, logical manner. It has helped in putting the product manuals, procedures, and policies all in the same database. It has clearly defined setting up the SLAs for each and every process and measures the SLAs at the end of the process execution for each transaction.

The most valuable features are the leveling of processes, interfacing of processes, extracting the reports, and process manuals out of the system; the whole landscape.

It takes a long time for a new user to start working with ARIS, so perhaps it could be more user-friendly in terms of the complicated construction conventions that it uses. Making it more customizable and easy to learn would be a benefit.

In the age of artificial intelligence, the system should make suggestions as to what to do, and how to do it, rather than depending on the book or relying on the trainer to figure out how to get started.

It is quite stable and there are no issues. We are using the three modules: ARIS Architect, ARIS Designer, and ARIS Process development.

In terms of scalability, it is quite easy. It is only a matter of procuring licenses and training people, and then they can start.

There are approximately six hundred users, including four administrators and five process designers. The rest are end users.

The solution is used quite extensively, and we plan to increase the number of users in the coming years.

Technical support from ARIS is quite responsive, and we get help whenever we need it. With the processes, it becomes a bit complicated because we have to refer it to our IT department and they have to open a log. Because of the time difference between the Gulf and the support team, it takes longer to get things resolved.

We hear back from the support team in 24 to 48 hours.

For BPM, we started with ARIS. We were not using a solution previously, except for designing the processes on Microsoft Visio.

The initial setup was a complex affair for us. We had to engage in six months of training, in-house, with a trainer. A group of people were trained and then finally started process modeling on ARIS.

Over the six months, it was easy, step by step, where we had to follow one thing at a time and there was a lot of time to practice.

We used a consultant for the deployment.

We did not look at another vendor. We had installed a core banking system, Temenos T24, and they were the ones who recommended ARIS, back in 2011.

As for staying with this solution, we have to look at the alternatives available in the market. If something better comes up, and we can make an evaluation and make a shift, why not, but as of now ARIS is a good solution for us, it is working well.

I do recommend ARIS as a tool for others. It is a very helpful solution for process modeling, process measurement, and simulations. It has the ability to scale up, as well as integrate with other systems within the organization to get real-time information from dashboards and reports. It has a lot of capabilities.

It has helped us in designing the processes, measuring the processes, governance of processes, making revisions and changes in processes, and incorporating the regulatory and statutory requirements into our processes very easily. It has very well served our purposes and needs.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The reporting by ARIS is clearly helps us see which resources are doing enough.

The most valuable feature is that you can relate different aspects of an organization to each other, and you can clearly define the rates seen in the application. And, with all of the reporting you can clearly see which resource is doing the most and which resource is not doing enough. So, there is an over or under capacity visualization.

One of the biggest challenges is to realistically enable the defined structures of the processes that you have in ARIS documented, and then actually implement them in the business. If you could see the way those structures and processes are not used then you could identify the bottlenecks that are the real issues and make the necessary changes. But, instead, there is a discrepancy between all of these group processes and all of the documentation that has been in ARIS. When you are going through the business, it's like "Oh, we did like this...How can  you ensure that those processes are actually really followed within your business?" How that is possible, I do not know. From our automation perspective, I think it will be easier because then you can link your EPS or whatever you want or two levels down to your actual application. This application is automated and then you can know "Oh, this piece of code is doing that task always like that." And, that would be great to be able to manage real process and code, as well as everything from ARIS. All of that information is difficult to implement and enforce.

In terms of room for improvement, it may be nice to give access to whatever information in ARIS for a non-process kind of person. And, if you do not understand the basic labels, then there should be training for those people. Perhaps provide simple graphics to help those training sessions.

From an operational perspective, it is quite stable. 

If you do it right, a good scalable product is what you come up with.

We had an ARIS technical person that would consult with headquarters when we needed help. She found it quite frustrating. They did not always understand what we were telling them and they always gave some answer that did not always provide the necessary resolution. So, that has been a bit frustrating for us. Eventually, the issues were resolved. 

Setup was straightforward. 

Obviously to bring knowledge and know-how that you don't have in house.  Also somebody that is unique. And,from a vendor selection perspective, if one could know up front "Okay I know you know you've done a million of these things and you support like a lot of people and you've seen it all, but don't lose that ability to see something for the first time for real and think outside of the box." I think that's key.

We also used Enterprise Architect.

It is used primarily as a process documentation and repository platform. It's also used to organise desktop procedures.

• It has allowed us to promote the awareness of process management across our enterprise.
• It has allowed us to model our enterprise process architecture.

• The reports capability
• Object relationships
• Architectural definitions
• Multiple model types
• Semantic check capabilities

• ARIS Connect capability: Ability to switch from a vertical step view to a horizontal.
• Displaying role allocation matrix models in ARIS Connect.

All macro processes and processes in the area of ​​continuous improvement were modeled in the company. These were done with the primary purpose of documentation and having a centralized place for processes.

ARIS is an important tool for my organization. This tool is the core of our processes and different business areas.

BPA, the modeling tool, is the main module used because of our need for documentation.

Areas for improvement include sales, prospecting, shopping, customer service, after-sales (claims and advice for the client), and all processes pertaining to customer loyalty.

ARIS BPM is an excellent platform to define, design, and analyse business processes. We have used ARIS to establish business process frameworks in organizations based on various frameworks like CMMI, EFQM, Malcolm, etc. Also, ARIS BPM is used to analyse, simulate, and optimize business processes.

We are a BPM consulting organization. We have improved processes in various industries like insurance (payout and claim management), hospital (admission and discharge process), manufacturing (order to dispatch value chain), and many more. With ARIS, have implemented effective enterprise process architecture and business architecture. 

1. ARIS process modeling and analysis: It allows integration of end-to-end business processes with the organization's vision, strategies, and business objectives, through visual management.
2. Business Process Analysis: We can simulate, optimize, and analyse business processes based on various business requirements. It assures our rolling out the best processes.
3. Process Governance: Change management, process reviews, workflows, etc.
4. Process Simulation: To do the various what-if analysis. 

Training is one of the important aspects for process awareness. As soon as a process is rolled out, process training is required. If ARIS could generate output in PowerPoint, it would be great for business users.

Simplify Cloud offerings

We used MS Office, Visio to define, analyze and maintain business processes and architecture. But these tools were neither much useful nor easy for business analysis. 

The primary use for the solution is as an enterprise architect tool, but in the start it was about processing; modeling all kind of business processes. And that was before I even mention BPMN. Today, we have switched to using BPMN to do all the different kinds of business process modeling.

This product is supporting it very well.

I'm now working as an independent consultant, but in the past, when I was using it we could really quickly get a picture of what kind of business processes were being used across the entire organization, and which could be reused, and be sure that no one else is doing it another way. 

For example, the HR part, in that organization there were about 20,000 people working there. From an HR point of view, they had to do everything the same way, when they were hiring people, or when they were paying money, etc. There, we had a strong opportunity to define, describe, so that everybody could go in and see, "Okay, that's the way you have to do it. We have to follow these rules."

We could also create a good connection between the description of what we were doing the application. In this part, it was primarily SAP - and ARIS was coming from the SAP world in 1992, I think it was around then. They started as an independent firm, so they could do these things. That's why it's a very strong part, from when it started, but it has been developed now as an enterprise architect too.

The good thing about using this tool is the repository that gives us the opportunity: If you want to do modeling with the old notation form, ours was EPC, you can use the same object in the BPMN because the database is built in a way that you can use both things. So you only have to define it once, and if the notation form is BPMN and those kind of activities, you can use the same EPCs, so there is a connection between them. That is why it's a very flexible tool.

Furthermore, you can use this tool as an enterprise architect tool. So from an architectural point of view, when you're looking at the business area, you can find all the information you have to use as an architect.

The most important part of it, from my point of view - the way I work with it - is from an architect point of view. What I'm using it to handle, from the top-level management part, is where we talk about the strategy, then down to the business part, down to the information part, down to the application part, and to the technology part. So I use everything in the tool.

But, if you have to see it from a BPMN prospect, it will be the BPMN part of it. 

Also, the UML parts have been improved very much in the last two years. And it's very powerful now to combine the BPMN and UML parts in the product, because you can make a connection between them, so that you have the right interoperability between them. So if you're doing data modeling, you can use your class diagram and bind that to the BPMN part. That's a very strong part of it too. Had now implementet the Danish public ad on "Plusprofil" to the UML packed.

I have been talking with developers for many years, and it was before using your UML class diagram and those things for defining data. One of the issues is, when you are defining databases, the way they use entities and relationship diagrams, the way we can define data, like data models, there is still a part they could improve. By using the UML part, you would use that instead of the old fashioned way of an entity and relationships diagram. But there they have a still point where they could improve.

It is a very stable product. In all these years, I think once or twice in the beginning it gave me trouble, but never with stability. It's a very stable product. There are a very few bugs. When you find a bug, just give them a call or write to them and they will fix it. Today they are coming out with two major releases every year. They are really fast to go in and say, "Here is the update for that." So the stability is very good. 

It's also very good at scalability. If you follow what they are saying, how many users you should put on, etc., no problem.

The biggest challenge today is that people will not pay to have the right technology installation. For example, is there enough room for you at the network level to work with this product? In the new version where we can switch between the heavy one or the light one, the browser, there is no problem. It works. No problem.

The level of technical support is very high. Very good.

No, I didn't use a previous solution. If you ask me, if I have to choose between different kinds of solutions, I would prefer to use this. It is the most flexible and most user friendly product you can get. I would not switch. But, of course, when you are consulting, you also have to use other tools. Now, today, I'm also working with one of other tools, like HOPEX from MEGA. It's also one of the biggest tools that you can use. If I have to choose, I will choose ARIS instead of MEGA.

Of course, there are different things they can do, but I would still prefer to use ARIS. For the moment.

Every tool, like these - with so many different things you can do with these tools - you need, of course, education about the tools, and you have to make choices. What part of it will you use? It is always like that. When you work with it during one or two days' education, I think you will be very capable of using it in the area that you would like to work in.

For example, if you are using it in BPMN, one day of education and you will already be one of the best people to model BPMN with this tool. Still, BPMN is a big area to go into. Start small but think big.

You will never get a fixed price for this product because they will go in and ask you what kind of environment would you like to set up? How many people will you work with? How big is your organization? 

Today, they have a fixed price to say, "Okay, just to start the business area, buy two licenses for modeling and eight people that can look into the product." They have this kind of fixed price. It's 50,000 Danish Krone. If you divided that by about six, then you get the pricing in dollars.

From my point of view, no, it is not cheap, but it is not too expensive because you get this big organization behind it, technical support, and all those things. It's not so expensive to use. It's a Rolls Royce in this field, I know that. Even for small organizations, they can get so much effect from using this tool, in a very fast way, so the money will be back in the customer's pocket very fast. 

Still, when you are going out, negotiate and find the right price. You will never get a fixed price: "It costs this and, if you take ten of these, seven of these and eight of these, and then it costs this." No, you negotiate every time.

At that time, in 2002, it had to be connected to the SAP environment. The ARIS tool set at that time was one of the biggest in this area, and that's why we were choosing it. There was something else, but it was not as good. Not stable for the SAP environment. I think it was because of the SAP environment that we choose this product, not others.

Today, I would say, from an architectural point of view, it was a good choice. You will see that in the EU, they also use it in the customer area for defining BPMN processes and data. So, they are using this in the EU now as the main product for these areas.

It is not a challenge to implement the product, not even from a technical point of view, because if you have rights to do things, it takes less than two hours to implement the whole package. Download the product and then just run it.

You have to go to the top-level people and talk to them and say, "Okay, what is your strategy to get a good view of your business?" If they say, "We would like to have something help us to manage, what kind of strategy that we have, what kind of rules, principles that we have to follow, that can give us a picture from the top-level and then traceability down to business areas." 

For example, here in Europe, we have a new law called GDPR, data protection. That's coming in here in May, in the EU. This product can help you to be sure that you will not get in trouble when they come and ask you, "Have you completely made all these different kinds of process descriptions that show us where you are using, how you are using the data, etc?" Here you have a product that can support that.

If you want to have the full picture, also from an architectural point of view, then you should buy a product like this or something similar to this. You have to go up and find the best. ARIS is among the top in industry reviews, and I would recommend it. But I am also using one of the others up there as well.

Again: Where do you need it? That's a very important question to ask. Where do you want to put in? If it's in the BPMN area, use ARIS. It's a very easy way to use it.

For integration purposes, where files or data from different systems are generated and passed on to the next one in the format accepted by that system.

Interactions between several systems with different data formats are made easy, which basically holds the whole system together. This is effective middleware.

MFT is quite attractive. A large amount of data is passed in almost no time and it is quite easy to use.

The data in the pipeline could be managed better. Sometimes previously-used data would be reflected in present variables.