IBM FileNet Reviews

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.

We use FileNet to store all our content. We have a quarter of a billion documents stored and it works great for us.

It has taken the manual work out of our billing process, and automated it.

We actually use it in conjunction with BPM to auto-bill our customers, based on when the bill gets checked into FileNet.

I would love it if single sign-on was a lot easier to set up. That's the most difficult part of it.

We have it load-balanced, so we don't really have outages. With HA it's very stable.

It could be easier to scale, but in our implementation we can build up a new server and a whole new environment in about a day and a half.

It would be nice if they could make it like containers are working in Kubernetes to auto-scale based on demand.

I've used it quite often. Technical support could be better, more responsive in a timely manner. I've learned to actually open up tickets earlier in the morning because you seem to get better help than if you wait until the afternoon.

We didn't have a previous solution. We went with FileNet as our content repository from the beginning.

When selecting a vendor we like to have somebody that can provide good support and a good business relationship; we like to build relationships with our vendors.

It's very complex. We have a lot of pieces that tie together with our FileNet, like  domains. So it's complex.

I would give it an eight out of 10. What it needs to be a 10 is easier to configure single sign-on.

I would recommend that when you are doing the initial setup that you use fewer metadata fields. The fewer you use the better off you're going to be in the long run, for performance.

It is our integrated document repository that we use in conjunction with Connections. It performs extremely well for us and has been very successful.

It has given us a whole new environment to do document management and document storage. Before we used heavily used file servers and file shares, and now we are promoting the use of Connections. This has made Connections more successful for us.

The integration with Connections, where it is basically transparent for the end users, and very seamless. They can go ahead and store multiple tiered folders of documents in multiple tiered folders without any technical assistance of any kind. It is very user-friendly and easy for them to use.

Continuous work to continually refine and improve the user interface a bit, but it is basically pretty good. Therefore, I do not have any strong impressions of things that need to be changed.

A lot of people are familiar with the Microsoft interface and Windows. It becomes more intuitive if it somewhat mirrors Microsoft characteristics, but it is very usable as it is.

I am not aware of any recent issues. It is very stable for now.

Scalability is one of it strengths. It is growing pretty rapidly. 

We have not seen any interruptions, and I am not aware of any scalability issues right now.

I have not personally contact them. I am sure there are some other people in the company that have, but I have not personally contacted them.

We were using the native files capability of Connections, and it was very limited. So, we were informed that this was an option, and it has pretty dramatically changed our use with the original Connections files option. We probably would not have seen adoption so strongly without it.

I would advise a little on the product early on, but I did not actually do the setup of the product.

The initial setup was a bit complex, but it is a very elaborate application. The people that I talked to said it was not extremely difficult. It took some work, but it was worth it.

I was involved in the decision-making process.

It may be a little complex to implement and take some effort, but with the integration the way it is, it is worth the effort. Once it is in place, it is very stable.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

• Stability
• Credibility.

We are using a lot of IBM products across our company. For the most part, they have a strong track record with us already.

The most valuable feature of FileNet is the storageand records management capability. It allows us to records manage our content properly.

It's allowed us to consolidate content all in one spot, to make it easier to pull out all of the customer-related content for a single customer. We provide better service to the customers. It can be more efficient, if they're not looking in various places.

We've talked a bit about Content Navigator on top of it; some improvements there right now. We use a customized viewer, because ICN doesn't have a couple of features we need around security, restricting content; who can see what content within the repository. We want to roll that out.

We’re also looking at other solutions that work with FileNet. It's a pretty bulletproof back-end solution, but we want to look at what else can we use, the cognitive and so on.

It’s lacking from our standpoint. We haven't done it. There have been different priorities. With things like box and so on, they're rising to the top because we need those types of solutions to go with the mobile or with the customer interactions.

It's been great; very stable; very few issues.

No scalability problems at all.

We have not used technical support, because we have an IBM service team that we use directly. They're not the actual tech support guys, but we do have an IBM team that does a great job.

I do not find it particularly expensive. We're having some discussions around licensing for external customers, and some of the licensing seems pretty expensive; the records management piece of it that's layered on top. You can get enterprise agreements on that sometimes. For smaller companies, it might be a pretty big ticket, though. If you're smaller, cost-wise, maybe it's not something you need.

If a colleague asked me for advice, from my standpoint, I'd certainly recommend FileNet as an option. I'd want to understand what else they're running, because it depends on what else is integrating with it; do they have workflow, do they have capture, what is it, how well does it play in the sandbox with FileNet? From what I understand, almost every vendor I talk to has out-of-the-box connectors for FileNet, which tells you it's a pretty big solution.

Relationship is the most important criteria for me when selecting a vendor to work with. How do they react to problems? You don't expect no problems; you know you're going to have problems. It's about the reaction to them; how fast are they, how quickly can they get it done, what do they do to address the root cause, and so on; being more of a partner than a vendor.

Also, with working on new solutions, helping me identify what's out there in the market, not just their solutions. I have a big Kofax deployment, and IBM supports us having that. They are not trying to sell us DataCap, because they know we have Kofax. It makes sense, so they support that decision. They integrate well. We have an internal layer that's in between; it's not a native integration. We built something in between, unfortunately; that just complicates integrations. It's another layer, something else that can break. It's customized for us. We're not quite sure why it does that. I think it's because, if we ever went away from FileNet, we wouldn't necessarily have to change the front-end applications, but we have no plans to do that.

We are considering employing IBM box solutions. Right now, IBM hosts our FileNet for us, but we're looking at box as a potential option, so that we can interact with external customers, without having them get into our firewalls, mainly.

Right now, there aren’t any new analytics or content management services that we're now able to provide for your organization. At a recent World of Watson conference, we were looking at some of the solutions. We have Cognos running, but we're now starting to look at the more advanced solutions.

It’s hard to say whether there are any existing services that we're able to provide better now than before because of the implementation of FileNet. I’m not sure.

As far as how the experiences of your internal or external customers changed since we implemented FileNet, we implemented it a long time ago, so that’s hard to answer. Nonetheless, as we've gone along, customers will see slower but steady progress in terms of knowing more about them and being able to retrieve the documents. We used to have a big problem with not finding a customer's document, often. FileNet makes it easier to find, so it gives the customer more confidence.

We've launched mobile applications. Most of the launches so far have not used FileNet, because the deployment of the app was the most important thing. They didn't do a proper back end solution, and now they're following up for the proper back end. They’re catching up, but we'd like to get to a point where we're deploying with them upfront.

I'm not that close to FileNet, but I haven't heard anything negative about its usability.
It's been a really solid product. I've only had this area for about a year, but it's been a really good product; very few problems. We’ve had some technical production issues, that might have to do less with the product, and more about how it's deployed, but nothing major; enough that I haven’t given it a perfect rating. I'm not sure I'd give anything a perfect rating.

We have some projects now with a university in Bogota, here in Colombia. We developed a correspondence process and some administration processes with invoices. We also have a government project where the main process is around the lifecycle of documents. We use FileNet to automate correspondence processes when our clients receive documents.

There a lot of legal requirements in Colombia and companies need to automate their processes around these requirements. We incorporate FileNet in the middle of the process and we collaborate to make our clients' processes more efficient.

We offer FileNet to our clients with IBM's RPA capabilities and help to automate processes.

The most valuable feature is when we combine FileNet with Datacap. We have a lot of client data here. We use IBM Datacap's capabilities to capture data and then we use FileNet's capabilities for filing, to create an archive of documents. 

We also use the check-in and check-out capabilities a lot to enable correct document security for users. 

In addition, we use a lot of workflow for document processing for our clients.

Finally, we use FileNet's ability to expose information via APIs and interoperate with other systems.

IBM has a lot of documentation but the kind of information in a lot of the documents can be confusing to our clients. It would be easier if they used video tutorials. Right now, the information is too hard to understand, and there is a lot of it. If they used videos I think FinalNet would be easy to use for an end-user.

The technical information is hard to understand at times, especially on the installation of the product. And that's particularly true when you have to install FileNet with high-availability.

In addition, there are a lot of use cases for FileNet as a platform. There are other tools on the market with demos or models, ready-to-use use cases that can be configured. With FileNet, all projects we have to be developed step-by-step. IBM should develop some use cases or pre-configured models, across use cases. That would help us speed up implementation a lot.

FileNet is stable because the web application server is a very powerful tool. The problem is that people don't always correctly configure this tool. If the people doing the configuration are not the right people, the client has problems. But the web application server is very stable when configured correctly.

Scalability is good. IBM is one of the platforms that we can upgrade. They have different versions and new versions and upgrades happen without a lot of issues. As a developer or partner, we can take advantage of the flexibility of the scalability.

There are three levels of support. The first one is local support which relies on our experience as a partner. At the second level, we use IBM support for our clients. Sometimes, an issue we have is when our client has an older version for a given component. IBM has told us that some of these versions are no longer supported and an upgrade is required. After that, they can give support. But if we are on the correct version or release, the support is good.

In terms of ROI on the automation processes, FileNet is so expensive in Colombia. So return on investment takes time.

A lot of companies here need solutions like FinalNet. Its capabilities are very good. However, when it comes to pricing, IBM needs to make an effort to improve the cost. That's the main issue regarding use of FinalNet in Columbia.

In our company, we have three different tools for documents services. One of them is FileNet, another is Laserfiche, and there is a third one. But our company has an agreement with IBM where there is flexibility on pricing.

One of the main differences between IBM and its competitors is the pricing. In this market, IBM is the most expensive platform. But IBM has a lot of components in one package. We can use this advantage to offer just one package with all these components. With the competitors, we may need to combine technologies. Sometimes customers feel that having a lot of different vendors for one solution makes things hard to maintain. With IBM, we have just one platform with multiple components, making it a very good solution in terms of maintenance.

Support is also important after the initial implementation. That's one of the differences between IBM and its competitors

You need to be patient when you first use FileNet because the information is hard to understand. People often learn a lot when they go over the licensing agreement because it gives them all the possibilities of the platform. You also need technical expertise to use the platform. In addition, it's important to use support after implementation. Keep updated on the versions of the product and try to use all its capabilities. Don't try to customize the product code because that may lead you into difficulties.

I would rate FileNet, overall, at seven out of ten. It's not just about the platform. It's also the skills of the people around the platform. That is the most important thing you have. The platform is good but it's the people who know the platform who can be hard to find.

As a developer, I am usually supporting this solution. I do things to automate it and make it work for our clients.

We are using automation with cell towers. They are putting all the different information about different cell towers into FileNet, so they can search to know where the different cell towers are. Cell towers are still always evolving, even with 5G. This project has paid for itself, as it would take a lot of manpower in order to find out this information and search for it quickly.

We have increased the productivity of accounts payable. Instead of processing invoices manually, which are coming from vendors, we can now process them digitally. We can index and organize them, then refer to them later, paying things on time.

It does help with compliance and governance issues. We are able to look for things quickly to get back to court cases.

We can often refer to the system to help us to make decisions. We are also able to get the information quickly.

The solution helps improve business process and case management in our organization.

We can move things from paper to digital, making things searchable and easy to access.

The usability is really good. Our business users are pleased with it. They seem to get what they are looking for, and it's very efficient.

We have had different problems and IBM has resolved those different problems.

The stability is getting better. It had a few issues for a while. Our old solution had problems at the beginning and those issues got better, then we move to a new solution. While the new one still has problems, they are getting better.

It's absolutely scalable. It is scalability as far as the servers and systems. The physical systems can scale by being able to attach and hook into different automation that we create and when we link things together.

The technical support is very good. IBM has support which goes around the world, which is pretty good. They have a ticketing system that we are able to use to get support from when we need it.

IBM Services is where we get help. We have a good connection with IBM.

We switched from FileNet IS to FileNet P8.

We are always continuing to move forward. IBM continually offers new products on their roadmap, then we follow along with that roadmap, what is supported and what won't be supported. 

The initial setup was straightforward as to what we were trying to do. However, all the details and different technical things that we were trying to figure out became complex. 

We deployed it in-house.

The solution saves time and money. It helps us to be able to accomplish the goals of our business, as opposed to being tangled in the weeds of what we could do. This solution takes cares of for us.

It reduces operating costs, probably in the millions of dollars.

Try it because it works. There are many alternative solutions, but this one has worked well for us. It has been scalable, and there have been different automation that we have been able to surround it with that have helped us to make it even closer knit to the clients' business needs.

It is very integratable, which is good. We have a lot of different integrations that goes on with it. It allows for a lot of hooks into it, so we can use code. There are also different components which are available with it, even out-of-the-box.

It is advanced and further along than other products.

There are always different ways to do something. Sometimes automation and technology will help resolve these more than we think.

• Enterprise content
• Document management
• Worker's management, which we are currently not leveraging. 

It is performed fine. It is a robust solution.

From the document management side, it is able to integrate with some of our other systems, such as SAP.

It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation. Although, there are a lot of opportunities that we have not leveraged yet.

• The document management elements
• The worker's management pieces
• The distributive environment capabilities

We run a global corporation with locations all around the world, therefore the distributive environment is important.

I would like to see Azure AD added.

It is a good, stable system.

I have found that it scales well.

I would rate the technical support as medium. I do not like the login process. It is not great. 

Getting an ID, and the IDs across the different things. IDs used to solve similar problems.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

If you are planning on managing records, go with a OpenText, FileNet, or Documentum. A lot of times companies go with SharePoint as a default, but there are some pain points around worker's management in SharePoint. 

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Company's position in the industry within that particular technology field. We want market leaders. A company who can support an 80,000 person company which is global.

The most valuable features of this solution are:

• The ability to do version control in the documents that are stored within the IBM FileNet solution.
• To be able to retrieve the history accordingly.
• To be able to work with those in a microservice environment.

The data can be integrated into a microservice architecture. It has allowed us to more deeply integrate the ECM or the FileNet solution into various aspects of our product, where we may need to provide user access to documents, that might be within FileNet. They don't need to open up a specific page or request mechanism to get to them. They can be embedded directly within the page itself or the app itself or within the context of whatever the user is doing. Thus, this just improves the overall efficiency and productivity of our organization.

We've actually had this solution since 2008, so we've had it for a long time; it's really not new to us.

The stability has been good.

Scalability is excellent and actually, it has been really great. It scales really well.

Previously, we were using just a file-based solution. It was not an equivalent solution and that was the reason as to why we moved over to IBM.

It really comes down to our ability to work together so as to address the gaps that we may have, i.e., between what FileNet needs to offer and what we need.

Ensure that the product itself matches the needs in your particular vertical. There are a lot of ECM products in the market space today that actually will vertically integrate into a given space. Whether it's the insurance, banking, manufacturing or whatever vertical that you're talking about, these ECM products will customize into that space so heavily, that it may supersede the existing functionality that you may have today. It's important that you look into what is it that the vendor is trying to resolve. Is it really meeting the gaps that you have? Lastly, does it extend beyond what you need it to do? These are all important factors to consider before selecting a product.

We always look for the ability in our vendors to provide their products in an integrated manner or that it will be integrated into our product seamlessly. This really comes down to the level of the APIs that they present. 

We look at various other factors before selecting a vendor, such as, Are the products themselves scalable and have they been tested out? What's the experience of the vendor in the space that we're in, i.e., for our specific vertical? Finally, we also look at the other customer recommendations.