IBM FileNet Reviews

It's used for content management. It's not for business process automation but for digital, electronic archives: documents, folders, and access to the client's native IBM content. It's an IBM content manager, especially for IBM BPM.

FileNet has many features which support our clients' compliance and governance requirements.

The most useful feature is its persistent storage. Also, the full-text search and attribute searching are valuable. It shows a preview of documents, and makes possible small, event-driven automation: creating documents, editing documents, deleting documents, and others.

For end-users there is a lack of administrative features. The interface of basic FileNet is not very good.

IBM is doing a lot of work to combine the abilities of its major products, BPM and FileNet, into one product, either IBM Business Automation Workflow, or Digital Business Automation. These are two major offerings from IBM. These products are very tightly integrated. I'm waiting for the moment when, in one or two years, it will be only one product which will combine the major strengths of these products. This is the right way forward, from my point of view. IBM is moving quickly in this direction.

I haven't seen any problems. FileNet is stable software as long as it is installed correctly.

The installation of FileNet is not very easy. It requires a very experienced administrator. But if the program installs correctly, it works. It's stable. It takes two to three days to install FileNet in high-availability mode.

Talking about the cost is difficult because IBM has offers that combine different products, and each of these offers has different types of licensing. IBM also has a policy that the actual price for a given customer may be very different from the stated book price. It's hard to say whether it's expensive or not.

I didn't do a deep comparison. Previously, I compared FileNet with some open-source enterprise content systems, especially Alfresco, but I realized that this product is for a different type of customer. FileNet is for enterprise customers, but Alfresco and other open-source BPM products are for small or medium-sized customers.

In terms of a comparison of the features, the open-source solutions are really are missing a lot.

Create a solution combining the strengths of all of IBM's products: IBM BPM, FileNet, or IBM Case Manager, a product which sits on top of IBM FileNet technology.

We have banks as clients with 3,000 to 4,000 employees but the FileNet users number between 100 and 200.

It runs our document management and workflow systems.

We have been able to grow the product and its use through a large number of business areas.

Overall, it has worked well for our business partners and various user groups. We have done some customization from a customer interface standpoint. Usability-wise, it has worked out well for us.

It is utilized by business users in our organization. We have done a lot of customization. We use the product more probably as a back-end delivery mechanism, but that has worked out well for our business people.

We have made our service routes more efficient, as far as moving work through the system and being able to react to customer situations and needs better by improving things, such as, address and beneficiary changes. I know that we have definitely made improvements in the process.

There are regulations on the amount of time that you have to process certain transactions. We have been able to knock that SLA down significantly with some of the products that we have implemented.

We have stuck with the product and sort of expanded on it. It's firmly entrenched in what we do (with legacy and new work).

• Reliability
• Speed
• Extensibility

Some of the user interface stuff might be a little more complicated than it needs to be: the native user interface. However, we traditionally develop our own UI.

From a business resiliency standpoint, it has worked out well for us.

We have seen an improvement from some older products to the P8 version now, from a stability standpoint

It has scaled well based off the user community that we have.

If I had a concern, it would be that we are sometimes not getting to the root cause of the issues from a technical standpoint as quickly as we should. For the most part, it's good. However, when things get a bit dicey with more involved issues, we have had some delays in getting feedback. If I had a concern, it's around the technical support and their responses in regards to things like root cause analysis.

Prior to implementing the first version of FileNet P8, our customer service organization was totally paper-based. They were dropping stacks of service requests on people's desks, and people working directly off of paper. Since implementing FileNet, we have been able to use it as a type of a distribution mechanism. This cuts out the paper process, and we now have the ability to distribute and move work through multiple steps in a business process.

The old process was going around distributing paper, then moving that stack from desk to desk. The advantage of running FileNet is that we've been able to capture the documents at the point of entry. We have been able to distribute work, then based on rules that we have set up in the workflow, route that work to the appropriate people at the appropriate time.

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. As we have grown the environment and done certain things, it has gotten more complex. However, my experience has been okay. With the newer versions, because of our environments have grown, it has become a bit more complex.

We have done some homegrown development. We have used a couple partners to help with some development. We have used IBM resources to help install the original base product. Therefore, we have soft of had a mixed bag in all the deployment experiences. For the most part, they have been pretty good.

We have probably cut out at least 40 percent of what the work process was by easing out that whole distribution of paper.

It serves our needs, and it is performing as expected. It does what we expect out of it. Overall, it is a very good product for what we need in the company.

We do some basic integration with Salesforce and maybe some integration with some of our homegrown applications, but nothing that is overly involved. It has worked out, but it was hard work.

We are not right now using this solution for automation projects.

Lessons learned and advice for others:

• Don't bite off more than you can chew. 
• Do things in smaller pieces. 
• Do your homework upfront with prep tests. 
• Take it slow (implement slowly). 
• Get your requirements upfront. 
• Understand the process your users are looking for. 
  

Our primary use case is document management for eliminating paper.

We shred all our paper and no longer need the cabinet space. We used to have about six to 12 inches of cabinet space per customer, which is now gone.

The tool is used by business users in our organization. Productivity has increased because retrieval is easier. Documents don't disappear when someone is retrieving them.

The solution helps us with compliance and governance issues because the documents are all available. 

Having all the documents available has improved our decision-making quality.

It gets rid of paper.

It is perfectly usable as a back-end solution without a user interface through the use of APIs.

When information is available (by having your documents available), your case management is better.

It is really not useful for us as a front-end tool. If somebody wants to access documents, I would not let them use the FileNet interfaces.

I would like more controlled APIs, tools, exception handling, and ways to globally monitor it. Something that would make it a true back-end system. 

I would like to have more governance features with more supervisory layers.

Access control integration would be nice. You can actually control access, but it's not that easy to integrate. It is all up to our software to make sure that we do the job, and we don't always do. We all screw up.

The API needs improvement.

It is stable, and it works.

It is very scalable, and scalable enough for us.

We never used the technical support. We have enough in-house knowledge.

I didn't like using paper. It's painful.

The initial setup is straightforward for us. We have so many years of experience with it.

We have in-house people.

The physical space that we have gained back pays for the service. Therefore, it has reduced our operating costs overall. We have definitely seen ROI. I would estimate $30,000 a year.

While it does not save on retrieval time, what we do save very significantly on was when person took a document, then misplaced it. Or, somebody else needed it when it is in somebody's hands. At least one document in a thousand was not placed back in the right spot, then you needed to look for it. That was tricky. You hoped it was somewhere in the vicinity, and not on a different floor. Thus, it saves me on decision quality, because if the document is not there, then I am making the decision without it.

When we started with FileNet, they were pretty much it. The alternatives were not serious. We looked at using just file systems with PDFs, etc. FileNet was the best solution.

We have integrated FileNet with other solutions, and the integration process works.

The biggest lesson that I learned from using this solution is to slow down. Think five years ahead and don't worry about today.

15 years ago, I would look at my problems of the day and try to solve them, or maybe at my problems of the next year and try to solve them. Today, I look at my problems five to ten years from now, then try to think of them and go towards a solution, as much as possible.

The primary use for this solution is customer and client demos, in order to share it with them, if they have a requirement for this particular type of capability.

We position a product or solution like this to a client where there is a great fit, and it does have a return on investment in terms of efficiencies, cost savings, or job role function acceleration.

We position the solution for client-facing opportunities. The internal use of it would be in terms of testing and prevalidation. Therefore, the internal use is what would be considered our informal R&D lab situation in partnership with IBM.

It improves out client and customer functions, which is paramount to our business model. It enables customers and clients to quickly and readily access the content that they need in real-time, without any delays.

Indirectly, it does have the potential to provide a high level of audit capabilities, in terms of being able to track the success of a person's job role in a workspace.

The most valuable feature is the way in which it enables clients and customers to quickly access the content and information that they use for everyday functions.

There is a high degree of usability with this solution. It is highly compatible with our clients' and customers' work environments, making it easy to deploy and implement.

It would be nice to have additional integration features, which could be integration with IoOT-based products and solutions that also have automation requirements on the IOT side. Anything can be integrated from a Gateway or API perspective would be a plus.

It is highly stable.

It is highly scalable.

The technical support is very robust.

That is our role as an adviser. As a trusted adviser to our clients and customers, we would have discussions with them that would identify this particular type of requirement, then identify it in the client/customer review.

We are the partner who works with either the customer or client for deployment.

My advice would be to have that upfront requirements discussion with your clients and customers early on to ensure that this solution is indeed a fit for them. If so, explore other automation products and solutions which might run sidecar to this one from a more deep dive automation perspective, since clients and customers seem to have an increasing propensity for absorbing automated solutions at this time.

Even a simple, straightforward approach to one-stop solution implementations, like this, one can provide significant gains in terms of accelerated job role functions and efficiencies that clients and customers really like.

The solution increase productivity. The working example is that of a client who has been using a different type of product or solution which had roadblocks, issues, or challenges that frustrated them, making it more difficult for them to access the necessary content. Whereas, this solution is able to streamline the process for them, making it easy and still resilient for their business model.

It definitely saves time in terms of enabling the customer and client to access more content, if they want to. The prior content that they were accessing is now accessed in an accelerated fashion, allowing them to get onto other business tasks of greater value.

We have not integrated the solution with other solutions yet.

It has the potential to improve business process or case management.

It can be used in conjunction with automation, but it is not positioned as an independent, standalone automation solution.

I rated it as a nine (out of ten), because of the robust nature of the solution, its stability, and the ease of being able to position it from a requirement's perspective with clients and customers.

We store our medical records.

The solution is used by business users in our organization. However, in our organization, the business users are connecting into the FileNet system via a set of middle tiers. Their user experience is based on their middle tier application, not my back-end. This middle tier is an integration that we have done on the product.

All ECM systems save time, especially on systems that are well-designed, because the users can retrieve their content in a much quicker and more consistent fashion.

• The uptime
• Stability
• The speed of retrieval

We found that it is incredibly usable and rock solid. FileNet P8 is probably the most usable, extendable option out there in the ECM space.

I understand that video is becoming more prevalent on some of the content which they are storing. We are very happy with that.

It is ability to display legacy content needs improvement.

I've never come across anything better for stability.

The key way that this product has improved the way that that our business functions is by its stability. Its ability to remain up despite other pressures, its consistency, and lack of downtime are really the greatest things that it brings.

There is difficulty in the upgrade path when new versions come due every other quarter.

Absolutely best in market for scalability. You can scale it, and it just keeps on going.

I evaluate technical support every time that I make a technical support request, and they do very well. I am very happy with them.

My previous system, Image Services, was being sunsetted.

The initial setup is very complex, but we expected that. This should be expected with this product. The setup process was complex because it was a migration from the previous system, which was also a FileNet system, and image services. This was a multiyear effort which involved enormous challenges due to the volume and complexity of the data.

We used a business partner for the deployment, who was 100 percent top-notch.

I would recommend finding a business partner who is skilled, then staying with them.

There were no other vendors on my shortlist.

Our primary use case is a medical record, and there isn't an enormous amount of business process management that occurs around that. However, we have seen limited improvement in business process management. 

We expect to be using the solution for automation projects by the end of the year.

Content never dies is the biggest lesson that I have learned from using this solution.

I would rate it a nine (out of ten) because of its scalability, uptime, and support.

Our primary use for this solution is implementing business automation from document collection, capture, and indexing through management and workflow up to document analytics.

This solution has improved our organization in terms of automation, business process management, and document control.

The most valuable features for us are Wex (Watson) for search, Datacap for OCR/ICR, and Automation Anywhere for RPA.

This solution could be improved with the ability to present the file system from FileNet.

Our primary use case for this solution is document storage and retrieval - Workflow.

IBM FileNet has given us a much better platform than our previous ECM platform. It's more stable, more flexible and more powerful. The only downside is that it takes a dedicated staff to maintain it and the learning curve is pretty steep.

The features that I have found most valuable include the Data Capture and Case Manager features.

Simplifying both training and maintenance would be an improvement.

We did not have any stability issues.

It's very scalable.

IBM technical support is pretty good.

We were previously using a different solution but the previous platform was obsolete.

The initial setup was fairly complex. You will need help from IBM or a third party.

We implemented through a vendor team. We did not have a great vendor experience initially based on not having a clear set of deliverables.  

Hard to calculate since the old system was so bad.  A couple of improvements were noted immediately:  

1.  Training time was cut for the new system by 80%, 

2.  The business unit was able to absorb a 30% increase in workload with adding staff or overtime, and

3. Processing errors dropped by 40%.

1. It will be more expensive than estimated to setup.  
2. You will need to double the staff while you are running the old system and installing the new system.
3. Depending on the number of documents to be migrated, make sure you understand the potentially massive amount of time and effort required to migrate the existing content to the new platform.

We looked at multiple vendors: Perceptive, Hyland, and Dell EMC.

Do not underestimate the staffing component or you will fail.

On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best I would give IBM FileNet an 8 out of 10.

It is usually the client's system of record for their documents. In addition, it can be used for digital assets, like video and recordings.

It provides a centralized system of truth around their documents. It also allows them to automate their processes and gain efficiencies in cost reductions. 

It puts governance in place around the content and processes:

• People can only see what they should be able to see.
• It is auditable, so you have an audit trail.
• Access levels can be set to certain parts of the document based on role level.

Our most valuable feature is it's highly scalable. There can be up to billions of documents or content items. It can support thousands to tens of thousands of concurrent users. There is also tight integration between the content and process functionality.

I would like IBM to improve with each release, continue moving towards a continual, tighter integration, and build solutions that take advantage of all the different modules the platform has from one place.

It is stable.

It is used by large enterprises. It has to be scalable and robust for them to use. We have seen that on multiple projects over the years.

We work very closely with IBM and their technical service as part of a solution proposal. We also work with them to support and implement our client systems. It's a team effort.

We have been using the platform over the years. They have continued to make the product easier to install. With the new release of container support, it's becoming even easier to install. The trick to it is the design architecture which allows you to scale, and also putting in performance tuning for the scaling to happen.

Some of our customers are IBM shops and work with IBM exclusively, but there are also customers who look at other solutions.

Overall, IBM has a great end-to-end solution. I would highly recommend it.

Most important criteria for our customers when selecting a vendor: stable and scalable. Performance is a very big deal for most of our customers, and knowing it's a secure platform as well.