IBM BPM Reviews

We currently use IBM BPM in our company to digitize platforms, to ensure that whatever we are currently doing in terms of manual operations, gets digitized. It means that anything a customer needs becomes an STP journey straight through processing instead of requiring any manual work. We chose IBM BPM because of that. I'm the head of enterprise platforms and we're a customer of IBM. 

It has a good user interface and I think the easy add option to build features with deployment in six to eight weeks is one of the key features. Also the add option, being an industry linker, simplifies things with the scale of production and all our production processes.

We place a lot of importance on security and one area they could make improvements in is to definitely increase the vulnerability and security patches to make it more robust and stable. As a financial institution we're always concerned about product and security vulnerabilities, it's an important parameter. The product could be more competitive in terms of cost. 

In a future release, I'd like to see more business related KPIs that can be measured from a digital transformation perspective. If they could build more on analytics reporting and help businesses to derive more benefits out of the solution that would be beneficial. I think they need to probably make it more business friendly and get more insights based on analytics.

Both stability and scalability are fine. I think we have been able to manage the monumental growth of the processes over the last three to four years. It has been pretty encouraging. It's been a success story for us. 

We get very good support from IBM on whatever issues and challenges we have. I think they are very quick to respond. We have a good, healthy relationship with IBM in this regard.

I'm pretty sure licensing is on the pricier side, but it depends on the use case and the benefits that you realize from your investment. There are different versions of the product; a standard edition and an advanced edition. Each is based on the number of PC users, CPU's that you license out, and the cost varies based on your instrumentation and the number of processes.

I have no serious complaints, it's basically the combination of pricing and the security vulnerability that are concerns. I think they also repackage a lot of their products within the new upgraded version of IBM BPM, a BAW - Business Automation Workflow. 

For anyone contemplating using this solution, it's important to study the entire landscape of your business operations. A solution needs to be chosen based on your business needs and there are multiple solutions available. If you're a smaller company, for example, there are other tools like Zing that have less scalability, but it's a reasonable alternative. If you're in the big league, then IBM BPM is the way to go forward.

We have used it for e-office. We have done a unification in a shared service center for our procurement activities and payment, and we have rolled out almost 180 processes.

We were on version 8.6, and we have recently upgraded to Business Automation Workflow (BAW).

Its workflow and integration with SAP are the most valuable features. It is also a stable solution.

We are a government organization, and we are the largest government power sector in India. We generate around 30% of power in India. Therefore, our processes are quite complex. Although IBM BPM is a low-code or no-code software, if you want to have extremely complex workflows, just the business process diagrams are not helpful in creating those workflows. While implementing complex workflows, only the process flow diagrams did not help us. We had to write a lot of Java scripts and Java queries to achieve what we wanted. 

Its integration capabilities with the SAP environment have to be improved. At present, we are only talking at the web services environment level. Its price also needs to be improved. It is currently expensive.

Previously, Active Directory required a heterogeneous environment, but now they want a homogeneous environment. We had onboarded employees through Microsoft Active Directory, and now I have to implement Microsoft AD only from the cloud for my vendors.

I have been using this solution for more than two years.

It is definitely stable. It comes from the IBM stack, so it is a stable solution, but the stability also depends on the partner who is developing your IBM BPM solutions. There could be issues if your partner has not written the artifacts or the business process diagrams properly or the checks and balances are not proper. IBM BPM interfaces with so many things. It interfaces with middleware, ECM repository, SAP, etc. Therefore, all the checks and balances have to be properly coded. Otherwise, certain problems or errors will keep on cropping up. You require really good developers who can develop these kinds of solutions.

Because it is an on-prem solution, we had initially provisioned sufficient cores and storage. It is at an enterprise scale with the data center and the disaster recovery center. So, we can scale up, and there are no problems. We have already done it. 

We have around 15,000 users of this solution.

IBM is managing our solutions.

Its price is on the higher side, and it can be improved. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. There are no additional costs. 

I would recommend this solution to others. It is a good solution. The only thing is that you should have a good technical team to implement it before embarking on this journey. It is not an easy solution.

I would rate IBM BPM an eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature for the organization is the Document Store. It helps us for storing documents for the organization.

The product and environment are very easy to use. With a single click, we can move from the environment into the product.

The issue that we have is with archiving and housekeeping. They don't have a mechanism to achieve processes, data sources, and data. We are currently struggling in this way and would like to get a solution for it.

Having a document viewer would be helpful. As it is now, the system requirements are such that reviewing documents is on a single page. The problem is that with business nowadays is that there are too many requirements.

We have been using IBM BPM for about four years, since 2016.

This is a stable product.

It is a bit difficult to scale.

Sometimes, we face unknown issues. It's our goal to gather information and logs that we need to take. There should be a solution where we can easily monitor what is happening in the system. The system should provide us with a way to implement things such that it is scalable.

We have more than 7,000 users.

Our experience with technical support varies depending on the issue. Sometimes, we get an answer immediately, whereas other times, it takes a while for things to be resolved. For example, recently we had some issues that took seven or eight days to resolve.

The initial setup and deployment are really easy.

This is a good product and I definitely recommend it.

We will be updating to the most recent version next month.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We are doing a lot of transaction processing for 401ks, moving processes out of a legacy workflow system into IBM BPM.

Our workflow processes are initiated from the web. They will start a process on the back-end, and move throughout all the steps necessary to process distributions, loans, and relevant transactional work. 

We started with Process Server, even before IBM BPM, so it was 2006 to 2007. When IBM bought Lombardi, we converted over. So, it has been quite a while.

It has improved my organization quite a bit. It brought awareness to what our business processes are, even to the business side, who did not necessarily know what they are.

There are a lot of things that you get out-of-the-box: Timers and so on, which took a lot of effort and code before.

It is being able to see the process, and understanding what the process is versus having to bury it in code somewhere. 

Better reporting. I do not think that we are fully taking advantage of what it already has yet.

I have an interest around the robotic piece, and integrating that with the processes. I think that is certainly a good direction to be going. 

So far, it is stable. We do not have a ton of processes moved over yet, but the ones we do have seem to be working pretty well.

We still have a lot to move to figure it out.

I have not had to deal with that side of things. We do not have anything that is down, so I am guessing technical support must be doing okay.

We have a different area that works with getting everything built up and installed. The migration process sometimes is a little bit hairy going from one version of a progress to another. Other people take care of it, so I do not have to worry about it.

It is a pretty good product. It does everything we need it to do.

Previously, our company's business automation process was slow. IBM BPM's schedule and response functionalities are excellent. So, our customers are happy with it. We implement the solution for our customers.

My clients utilize IBM BPM for various business processes, ranging from correspondence management and vacation requests to expedited legal cases and numerous committee meetings. There are countless use cases in which IBM BPM proves to be a valuable tool for my clients.

Our customers have experienced a lot of benefits. So now, they have automation in place to implement internally or externally in their environment. This has enhanced the customer experience and made it good. The product has many BPM tools, which help eliminate bits of work. Also, information is now available and accessible according to their security or role in their businesses. They can now increase their process in the Middle East. They also do manual work using the tool. The tool also helps them ensure that they are able to follow policy compliance. In short, the tool helps in a digital transformation, and so IBM BPM increases the efficiency of our clients. All of the aforementioned reasons increase the revenue of our clients and our company.

Customers find the tool's capability to scan and compare it with other products in the market to be valuable. As a top business process management technology, it is comparable to the cloud-based automation tool BAO, which appears to be a fusion of two solutions, IBM BPM and IBM Case Manager. Customers can cover their work-related issues, or problems can be covered with IBM BPM. Customers can streamline their operations and automate certain processes while managing their security. So I believe there are a lot of advantages one can reap using the tool.

Currently, the tool's interface is created using a forklift upgrade, which is proving unhelpful. I hope IBM uses something from IBM Content Navigator to make the interface easier to navigate.

In the past, IBM BPM has worked on certain features to make it a container solution.

I have been using IBM BPM for four to five years. I work as a system implementer for IBM. Also, I am using the solution's latest version. We have a lot of customers using it since it is an affordable tool.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution that can be scaled up or scaled down, including the components or processes of IBM BPM.

Our company handles ten customers using the tool.

The technical support of the solution is excellent.

The level of complexity involved in setting up the system depends on whether the business processes are simple or highly complex. Based on our experiences, we deal with the complex setup required for complex business processes. Our team has gained valuable experience in implementing the product and handling complexities with the help of our customer support.

The tool's deployment model depends on the country where customers are located.

The product itself has a feature to take care of the deployment process.

During the deployment process, the first stage involves development, distinction, and protection. In the second stage, servers are deployed on nodes. As someone from the development side, I do not handle the deployment myself. Instead, we install the solutions and configure the environment on our customers' dashboards. After that, we can deploy our solutions or applications on top of it.

We only need a few people to carry out the deployment process.

The maintenance and deployment of the solution are very easy. Also, installation of the latest release is an easy process.

I think it's a reasonably priced tool, but it's important to consider which customers should buy this solution. It's designed for enterprise customers, not small ones. Small customers may opt for another solution, a small one, or a resource. However, it's a reasonable tool for enterprise customers, especially for governance purposes in their space. Also, according to IBM's policies, the cost of the solution will increase as the need for it grows. Therefore, the cost varies for different companies. We have been working with many solutions for over 25 years, and we have a lot of enterprise customers in Saudi Arabia. Some of our customers have been with us for 25 years.

I would tell those planning to use the solution that they need to start using it gradually over time before scaling up to achieve the best value from the product. They can eventually implement or automate all of their systems. For me, it is one of the best products globally. Over the years, IBM has been able to merge two solutions into one. For Business processes or integrations and to deal with whatever issues customers face, IBM BPM can help to automate such business processes. Overall, I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

BPM is an internal workload tool, so I use it to move the funds between different accounts for client onboarding.

The most valuable features are the integration capabilities - BPM can connect with almost any legacy or advanced system - and that you can design and implement UIs.

BPM could be improved with more flexibility in integration and by decreasing the learning curve, which keeps increasing with each new version.

I've worked with this solution for ten years.

The stability varies because it involves a lot of other components like databases, so sometimes if something goes wrong there, it can't recover from the fatal errors.

BPM is scalable, though not automatically.

IBM's technical support is pretty good.

The initial setup is of medium complexity.

As long as you have clear use cases, you can do pretty much whatever you want with this tool. I would rate BPM as eight out of ten.

I am a Solution Architect and I support both cloud and on-premise versions of IBM BPM. I use the solution for banking applications, such as account opening, fund transfers, corporate and credit limit approval process. In the insurance sector, digitalization, underwriting, life insurance claim settlement process, and vehicle claim settlement process. 

This solution has always been lacking in the user interface (UI), it needed to be improved a lot. However, from the acquisition of Spark UI, the UI is much better. Overall the solution is robust and has the ability to integrate with any product for complex workflows.

IBM BPM integrated with Spark UI and the UI is now much better, but they still need to improve the UI because competitors have predefined templates and other additional features. In these competitor's solutions, you are able to use the templates, map your data, and the form is ready to use. With this solution, you need to write a lot of code to have the same quality as the competitor's templates. It would be a benefit to make this platform more towards low-code or no-code. 

The REST web service integration needs to improve by providing other features, such as different security options.

In an upcoming release, they should add video calling capabilities to the solution. I work mainly in the Middle Eastern market and many of the bank companies use video Know-Your-Customer (KYC) to call the customer directly from the BPM tool. They do this for customer verification, such as document and identity authentications. Additionally, every organization at some point would like to send out letters to their customers, for example, welcome letters, but there is no easy way to do it with this IBM BPM. There needs to be a template available or an attachable generated PDF document that can be made easily within this solution.

I have been using this solution for approximately 10 years.

This solution is very stable. When looking at all the features reliability is one of the strongest points of this solution. It has greater scalability and stability compared to the other competitors, such as Appian.

The scalability is really good. The scalability of IBM BPM is one of the best in the market because you can scale seamlessly. You can add any number of user licenses, CPU cores, or other components.

Most of the customers I have are enterprise companies using this solution.

The support is not very good. When we raise the Problem Management Report (PMR) for any support, they usually take a long time to respond. They tend to ask a lot of questions instead of evaluating the system themselves by doing screen sharing sessions or other troubleshooting evaluations. There are times when we finally get a response from support but the solution they gave is not helpful and the issue remains.

I rate IBM BPM customer support as seven out of ten.

I have been using this solution for a long time and for me the setup is not difficult. However, it is a little complex if it is your first time or when you compare it to competitors. The length of time it takes to do the setup depends on the hardware environment, but it typically does not take very long.

The price of the solution is fair for an enterprise solution that has both cloud and on-premise deployments and when comparing to competitors. Recently IBM has introduced Cloud Pak which allows for more flexible licensing options for automation and other features.

I have evaluated Appian.

I rate IBM BPM a nine out of ten.

We do claims processing and BPM is the product that we use to have the member ID's and codes added to it.

Process Portal is where most of our business users log in and complete their work, that's the main use of interface. 

We don't use it in conjunction with IBM Case Manager or any other IBM information product.

It is helpful in processing at least 200K claims, so during open enrollment it's huge for our company.

It saves a lot of manual work, a lot of data entry work. That's how it has positively impacted our processes.

The workflows, and using them to process the claims and send files back.

It will be good to have the RPA. I learned that that's coming up, the workflows are going to have RPA in them, so I'm looking forward to that.

Except for the Lucene the index - we had a couple of issues in the Process Portal where the Lucene index went out of sync, and we had to work at least 15 - 20 hours to have it back in sync with the database. So that was big for us last year. 

If that's improved, or if that's removed, or if there is a workaround for the Lucene index issue, that would be great. 

Scalability is good. We are looking into rolling out BPM for newer projects as well. I can't say we are seeing an ROI from being able to scale with it.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup. We worked directly with IBM.

I rate it a nine out of 10. It's not a 10 because of the Lucene index issue. That cost us a lot of efforts in the production environment.

It's a good solution in terms of stability and processing and response. We haven't ventured much on the other features that IBM BPM gives, like Business Space and Business Process Choreographer. I think other than the Process Portal issue, the other things are good.