IBM Business Automation Workflow Reviews

The primary use case is to underwrite workflow.

We are using the IBM Automation Platform for Digital Business to do paperless movement of underwriting files. So far, it has been good. We haven't done as many things as they are talking about with AI at the IBM conference, and I'm excited to try some of those things out.

We are using ODM, BPM, ECM, and BAW from the IBM portfolio.

We use automation to process documents, bringing the email directly into the process workflow for underwriting. We plan to expand our use of automation in our organization. We want to be able to read the forms for ACORD documents, or different other type of underwriting intake, automatically and not need to have any human processing interaction.

It helps in a lot of ways. We have moved it from just underwriting workflows to expanding it to document process automation. We have also used it as a service. The process engine itself is a service instead of just a UI, so there are a couple of other groups in our company who have been using it to facilitate their workflow process instead of just writing their own process solution or buying another one.

The solution has helped with decision-making in our organization. E.g., the processing department and some of our underwriting divisions are able to quickly create views, then their processors can very quickly decide what type of work we will do today. This can be controlled by management instead of by email.

It gives us the ability to create toolkits and use them across many different applications. It allows us to write things one time, instead of having to write a diary for every single different application. We can write at once and reuse it.

The workflow of BAW's automation is handled inside of BPM, so we can see what state it is at and how things are processing through.

I am not that excited about the move to using BPM on the web. I like the thick client, because it seems a bit faster. However, I haven't put a timer to it.

Previously, we wrote our own case management solutions, because they weren't there yet. Therefore, I am excited to see what we can do with the new case management tools inside of BAW. However, we haven't used them yet.

We would like to use machine learning to drive rules in ODM. The complexity of the rules that we can write for it is not quite what we want yet.

Technically, it does everything I want it to do. However, the development UI is sometimes a little slow.

The speed of response could use improvement.

The stability is fine. I have not seen any examples of an unstable BAW.

The scalability is wonderful. We have had no trouble with that at all.

We don't have any big issues with technical support. It is never fast enough nor quick enough. You never get to the smart guys fast enough, but that is just normal. I guess I'm satisfied with it.

Our previous solution, AquaLogic BPM, got to end of life and was bought by Oracle. Then, they changed a bunch of things in it, and we didn't like it

The straightforwardness of the initial setup was the one of the reasons that we ended up purchasing IBM BPM.

On our first proof of concept, we did use a consultant.

It has increased productivity on the development side. We have been able to move applications from thought to production quicker.

The solution saves time in development, as well as with time to deploy.

It has been able to reduce operating costs.

We looked at Oracle, Appian, and Pega.

The reason that we went with IBM was because they offered more of a developer-centric model instead of a configuration-centric model.

Don't choose a product until you've actually tried to build a simple workflow by yourself.

Our business users have fairly good usability. The Salient team wrote the SparkUI components, that we use, which allow us to really create a better user experience.

We found that a lot of our processes were very similar, then we were able to generalize them in a way that we didn't expect.

The integration process is fair and normal.

I did the tech track for the first session, then the business level track for the second. The thing that I learned in the tech track was they talked about these things called emitters: this idea of data admission. So, I'm excited to try to use the dashboards that they were talking about. 

We use the solution to manage process workflow. We use it for document exchange, transfer, review, and authorization. We use it mostly for document management. Most of our business and document management processes are automated.

The product is suitable for knowledge management processes. I am satisfied with the product.

The monitoring features must be improved. The knowledge management features can also be improved.

I have been using the solution for over five years.

The product is scalable.

I will recommend the tool to others depending on their needs.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We are using IBM Business Automation Workflow for banking applications.

IBM Business Automation Workflow is useful for helping us design custom user interfaces and processes we require.

IBM Business Automation Workflow could improve the integration. 

I have been using IBM Business Automation Workflow for approximately one year.

IBM Business Automation Workflow is very stable.

We have approximately 200 people using IBM Business Automation Workflow in my organization. We do not plan to increase the usage.

I have never needed to call the support.

The installation of IBM Business Automation Workflow is easy and straightforward. Anyone would be able to do it. If the person does not have any knowledge it could take them 45 minutes to complete. However, if have some knowledge of the basics you can do the implementation in approximately fifteen minutes.

We can manage the solution ourselves.

I recommend this solution to others.

I rate IBM Business Automation Workflow a nine out of ten.

My company is a gold partner with IBM and implement this solution for our clients. At the moment, we have two projects that are using this solution. One is using the solution for asset and green management for wheat in Egypt. We have four hundred silos. Each has its own process for loading and discharging the wheat to the mill - this is all managed with IBM BAW. Our headquarters also uses BAW to manage wheat transfers.

The low-code interface allows us to focus on the business and the rules. But, even though it is low-code, we are able to customize it via JavaScript.

This is a low-code software where you can just drag and drop on the user interface. There are also a lot of quality integrations such as TMS.

The SCADA Systems are very sophisticated and have a hard time integrating with our older scales.

The technical support in regards to the partner side needs some improvement.

I have been working with this solution for three and a half years.

This is a stable solution that we have been able to use as a distributed system. Each silo works independently and updates are all pushed to the cloud. In the event that there is a shortage in communication, the silo is able to operate completely independently from the headquarters.

This is a very scalable solution.

The technical support based upon the licenses for the client is very professional, dedicated, and very fast.

We are still working on the initial setup. we are in the first stage which is deploying our most important silos (twenty to twenty one of the four hundred total). The whole process will take us about eight months for all four hundred. We have support engineers that are available on-site 24/7 for the first stage, from there, everything will be managed remotely. 

There are between eight and ten engineers working on this product for the development, four to sic system administrators/database engineers, plus roughly twenty team members for QC/QA.

Licensing varies by use-case.

I would rate this solution an eight our of ten.

We use it for automating workflows for medium to large-scale processes.

It streamlines who is doing what, at what time. It has increased productivity. Employees spend less time worrying about whether or not they need to work on something or checking the status of an ongoing process. Generally, it has saved time and improved business processes.

It has integrated UI and deployment models, and it has a deep set of consultant and service provider ecosystem features.

The usability of the solution, from an application developer's perspective, is strong. From an infrastructure and deployment management perspective it's okay. For business users, the usability is strong at the task- and work-completion levels.

The usability could use improvement at the data-visualization level. Also, there is room for improvement around the effort it takes to stand up and develop the solutions that are more complex, although I think that is getting addressed.

I would like to see more streamlined install and provisioning; preferably containerized IBM BPM would be helpful.

The stability is average. Once it's up and running and stable, it remains stable. But there's a little bit of extra effort needed to deploy and manage and configure both the on-premises and cloud solutions.

The scalability is better than it used to be.

The solution's technical support could use improvement. The IBM BPM platform, at least from a cloud perspective, still requires using IBM support, which is not very responsive. On premises, the product under the covers is a little bit more complex than some competitors.

There was no preexisting solution.

The initial setup was complex. The product isn't containerized, and the complexity of provisioning the proper footprint for what you need is difficult to judge ahead of time, until you get into the weeds of setting it up.

We are using the solution for automation projects and we have seen neutral to slightly positive ROI.

The biggest lesson I've learned using this solution is to start small and show success with a smaller-scale process application.

Start on the cloud, start small, and focus on your customer experience before the technical requirements.

We have integrated the solution with other solutions. It was a positive process for compatible and built-in integrations, and limited for more broad, generally-available integrations.

I would rate this solution at six out of ten because it needs to evolve and transform more quickly than it actually is, as compared to its competitors. And there is still a relatively high total cost of ownership to actually implement, support, and stand up solutions.

The most valuable feature is automation, which is quite strong and we are quite happy with it.

The setup and installation process could be made easier.

Technical support is in need of improvement.

We have been using IBM Business Automation Workflow for almost two years.

This solution is really stable.

Scalability is good. We can effortlessly expand and we are quite happy with that.

In my company, it is used in multiple departments. There are between 50 and 60 people using it at this point in time. In addition, we have six or seven people that make up the development team. It's quite good.

Going forward, we are expecting more requirements for automation and we will increase usage with demand.

We have found it tough to get the proper support from IBM. Sometimes there is a lot of duplication of work because we send out something, and then they continually ask for additional details. Eventually, we give up. Then, the next time we have a problem, we have to explain everything from scratch. It takes a lot of time.

Prior to this solution, we were using UiPath and some of our processes are still being handled by that system. In time, we may collapse all of them into this product. 

The setup is a little bit complex. It is not a lightweight solution.

We have four or five people who take care of the maintenance, in-house.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to be sure to fully understand the processes that you want to automate. This has to be done in advance of starting. Also, according to their plan, the license model should be worked out properly.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We are a consultancy, so we resell the tool. We also do projects with Business Automation Workflow. I am in sales, but this is what we do as a company.

We use it for billing, logging our hours, and project management, which is our biggest use case and our core business. We have seen the tool help increase productivity in these areas.

We do use it in our organization. We call it, "Like drinking our own champagne." We use it for a lot of our internal processes and see a lot of operational efficiencies all across the board.

Everybody in my company is an expert in this tool. There is no lowest common denominator. There is nobody in the company who doesn't use this tool professionally, except for some nontechnical employees who use it for entering hours. It is very usable, but a lot of that comes down to the design of the application. The tool is only as good as how you use it.

We have used the solution to improve business process management in our organization. This is sort of the fundamental point of the it. On the case management side of the fence, but we haven't really used that component internally.

It helps develop applications very quickly. Once clients get used to it and familiar with the methodology, then they don't feel so locked in. It is able to add this element of agility to our clients' software development lifecycle. That is my favorite thing about it: You're not so locked in as you used to be when developing applications.

The tool is really great for rolling processes out quickly without being too locked into them, so you still have the ability to come back and make alterations and grow. Let your processes grow with your business and keep that competitive edge through your operational efficiencies.

No matter what somebody's technical experience level is, the tool can start adding value immediately. Even if that is just an analyst who doesn't have any technical background, they can use some of these no quote accelerators to get things from ideation to deployment in a matter of minutes.

Technical people can use the tool to build custom widgets. They can just start coding if that is their comfort zone. Though, I might not recommend it. Obviously, you should always use what is there first, then when you find the deficit start to think about code. 

I would definitely like to see a unified interface between the BPM side of the house and the case side of the house. Something that just seems a bit more cohesive, because right now there is sort of a disconnect between the BPM and the case side of the house. That makes it a bit of a hard sell sometimes. That is definitely first and foremost on my wish list.

There were some issues with it historically. For example, people didn't like the UI, but the UI is great now.

It is very stable, as long as when you build it, you adhere to best practices and build things correctly. I can't say it enough, "A tool is only as good as how you use it." It is a good tool.

It is all about how you build it. The tool is only as good as how you use it.

The technical support is pretty good. I have definitely been frustrated at times, like opening PMRs, then getting later responses than I would like. However, I also realize that the support team only has so much bandwidth.

We are a consultancy on this tool.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

The implementation is very straightforward. It is very clear what each artifact type does and how they're supposed to work. It is very low code, and that low code element is continually getting better with every release. It has a lot of configuration options and is very intuitive, even to business users. 

However, once you have to get in the weeds and start scripting, it is still straightforward if you're a coder. But, if you're not, then there is a bit of a learning curve there.

Customers see ROI. 

When you're talking about ROI, we've seen infinite ROI considering that our licenses is as a partner. It's saved us from buying licenses, HR systems, and other things that we just built out ourselves. The solution has also saved us time.

It might take three or four difference licenses to get something like the functionality that we have with this tool, since what we have is custom to us.

It is pretty usable. There is still a market for people like us, which means that it is not 100 percent usable. There are also some really good accelerators in the market to even increase the usability. In general, it is very usable. As long as you have a good understanding of the process, know what you are doing, and are not falling into pitfalls, then the tool is easy enough to use. It's pretty low code.

The solution helped us with compliance or governance issues to some extent, but it is not really something that we internally use it for. I've seen it in several use cases external to our consultancy where that is the case.

The integration process is great. Every integration is unique and has its whole gamut of complexities. In general, it has the tools there to make the integration simpler and a lot more straightforward. The tools exist: Web Service connectors, subconnectors, drag and drop REST calls and SQL calls. The components are there, but that doesn't mean it's just going to work. I've seen this happen several times, but I don't think that is any fault of the tool.

I have seen a lot of use cases where it does have an effect on decision-making.

We do automation projects with this tool for a living. However, internally, it sort of depends on if we have a use case that fits the tool. If we have some resources that are available to sort of build something like that, then I will use it.

The vision of the product is very good. They are on the right path. The emerging case in process is a no-brainer, Anybody who has been in this space for awhile realizes that processes aren't structured or unstructured, and there is a lot of fluidity. While the vision is there, I just don't think it's quite there yet. This goes back to that there is a pretty strong disconnect between the case functionality and process functionality.

Biggest lesson learned: How to visualize processes and visualize improvement areas/problem areas. I really like that the tool is visual. E.g., if you get a chart that is expressing some sort of information to you, and until you can interpret the chart, you can't really act on that information. The visual component of the product: seeing processes, flow lines, boxes as are activities, swim lanes, and all these BPM concepts, which are visually displayed throughout the application, helps you understand what is happening. It helps me bring myself up to speed. 

I can go into an organization that has complex processes with no explanation. By just using this tool, I can pretty well understand what is going on. I might have some questions like, "Why did you do that?" I might not know how they got there, but I know what the organization does.

The primary use case is for defining business processes. 

The business process modeling is the most valuable feature. 

In terms of improvement, it could be less complex. It's quite a complicated software. 

I have been using IBM Work Automation Workflow for a year. 

It is stable. 

It is scalable but it depends on the amount of infrastructure you use. 

Their technical support is good. You get what you pay for you. 

We haven't really used other solutions. We had something in-house before this. 

It is not easy to deploy. You need a specialist's knowledge first which adds half a day to the deployment.

It's IBM, it's always expensive. 

Decide what you are looking to do and make sure that this solution does that before you go for it. 

I would rate it a six out of ten. To make it a higher score, it should be less complex.