Oracle BPM Reviews

We suggest the tool to our customers.

The solution provides extensive functionalities. It is very powerful. It provides advanced features like timeouts and splitting the workflow out of the box. Escalations and timeouts are critical features. The solution’s integration capabilities support our customers’ existing systems very well. The dashboard is very powerful. I rate the customization capabilities of the tool a nine out of ten.

The product must reduce its cost. It will help it compete with other open-source tools evolving in the market.

I have been working with the product for six or seven years.

The tool is stable.

I rate the tool’s scalability a nine out of ten.

We have 24/7 support for critical issues.

Positive

The person implementing the solution needs technical skills. Camunda is much easier to implement than Oracle. It doesn't need a developer. A configurator or an administrator can implement Camunda.

The only reason why I recommend Camunda over Oracle is because Camunda is open-source. However, Oracle’s performance is better than Camunda's.

Apart from the existing solutions, we also had the option to have our own custom workflow for development. We are partners. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

I implement the solution and my colleagues use the solution for data lineage. Recently we’ve started using the solution for glossaries.

I find the data lineage features most valuable.

There are some difficulties in reading the data lineage because if you are using packages or something similar, you cannot deep dive in it. You have to maintain it manually.

I would like to see Oracle enhance the solution automatically reading from SQL. That would be great for function packages. That might be difficult, though.

I’ve used this solution for years.

I rate the product’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten. My client is an enterprise business.

Technical support always answers, but they take a long time or misunderstand the issue.

Neutral

I rate the solution’s initial setup a four out of ten since it’s quite difficult. The solution took a day to deploy.

We received the product packaged into the Oracle database solution.

If you are working with data and data flows and you have data or business glossaries, I highly recommend the solution. I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We have used Oracle BPM on projects involving, financial customer on-boarding, accounts payable, loan origination, and capital expenditure approval.

On a recent project, we were able to seamlessly integrate multiple ERPs into a process. On the same project, we integrated content images and metadata from Oracle's WebCenter Content into the process and its user interfaces. Using BAM, the customer now sees key performance indicators they need to make decisions (e.g., revenue saved through discount achievement for AP invoices).

Oracle BPM is easy to use for both the business and developers.  Both personas design process models in a common format, tailored specifically to their skills.

Often overlooked in software evaluations, the integration to underlying databases and applications is an essential element on almost every BPM application. Oracle BPM's tool for service and application integration is the best on the market to accomplish this.

Being able to view and manage the environment is essential during the entire lifecycle of a project. Oracle BPM makes it easy for process stakeholders to manage and optimize their processes.

Oracle BPM Suite is based on the widely used industry standards that both the business and technical people are already familiar and comfortable with.

Specific features that we have found valuable include:

• Process modeling - fully supports BPMN 2.0 palette of tasks, gateways and events for both the business and technical sides.
• Business rules - Business rules can either be embedded as an integral part of a BPM process or are invoked by the process.
• Integration - Oracle BPM is layered on top of Oracle's SOA platform, a proven standards-based approach to exposing and integrating databases and backend services using Java EE Connector Architecture (JCA) adapters.
• Metrics Reporting - a key aspect of Oracle BPM is its ability to gather key performance indicators as work items flow through the process. These metrics are easily surfaced in dashboard reports in both the out of the box end user Workspace tool and its greatly improved Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) tool that comes with the product.

Although it is a robust product, its learning curve can be steep without having the proper training and mentoring on the first project.

As with most BPM projects interaction with people is a key element. Creating user interfaces the end users see and interact with as work item instances travel through process can be challenging. If ADF is used, most companies struggle due to its complexity, steep learning curve, and the need to tune it for performance. The web form design tool in Composer (currently an OEM product from Frevvo) is simple to use for citizen developers, but can be lacking in the functionality most projects need.

To get around these issues, the architecture is flexible enough to allow the use of other UI technologies. On new projects we now create and edit forms using Angular JS using REST services. This has made our developers much more productive and the forms perform better.

Version 12c of Oracle BPM, which came out in 2014, took a while to gain maturity. We have now worked through the initial bugs and 12.2.1.3 is a robust release. Oracle BAM that comes with the product has been greatly improved in this version of the product.

Oracle BPM's runtime architecture scales quite well. Each Oracle BPM project is deployed as a composite EAR file that runs in a compiled manner. The environment can be clustered.

Customer Service:

Customer service is good overall. The escalation procedures work and when they say "7/24" support they mean it.

Technical Support:

Other than the issues encountered in 12c initially, the issues have been handled well by customer support. When the need to escalate has occurred, tickets were escalated and resolved.

Initial setup requires the knowledge of someone familiar with Oracle SOA Suite and WebLogic.

On an initial project, consider getting outside mentors to work with your team. These mentors can be in-house or outside consultants. The vendor is not required in most cases.

Oracle BPM is used as a tool integrated into another system. It helps in business process management and the generation of reports, predominantly at the end of the month.

For any new deployment of any system, it helps in improving some efficiencies, which is the reason for having the system.

It is easy to use in a business processing suite.

Oracle BPM should allow integration with external, common APIs.

I have worked with Oracle BPM for approximately two years.

Stability issues arise mostly due to internet problems. Without a stable internet connection, the stability decreases.

I would rate the scalability of Oracle BPM an eight out of ten.

I have not directly interacted with Oracle's technical support. I generally use online manuals, guidelines, and AI solutions for support.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward.

The licensing is expensive. It needs to be more affordable, especially in the Kenyan market.

Based on my experience, I would recommend Oracle BPM to other people.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use this solution to offer a business process management platform with user-friendly self-service capabilities and powerful MIs.

This solution is a one-stop-shop platform for all business workflow needs, using our own middle-tier and front ends. OBPM is used only for the engine behind the platform.

We rolled out a business process management platform using this solution.

This solution has given us a quick time to market, the ability to integrate with the rest of the corporate applications, and the ability to hire talent in low-cost locations.

The most valuable features of this solution are the robust workflow engine, service-oriented architecture, and BPM modeling capability.

The API interfaces could be more robust. Existing APIs in the product need to be fine-tuned, made more robust and flexible for adoption.

The product should be made available with all its current capabilities addressing known shortcomings on the cloud. 

I would like to see current out-of-the-box MIs enhanced, offering more interactive capability.

Introduce machine learning and AI capabilities.

Change the front end and the ability to offer forms for business users.

The licensing model is good.

We used this platform for some of the sales code related transactions we were doing, as well as to manage the process from the backend system to the front-end system. 

One of the most valuable features of Oracle BPM is the workflow itself. It is quite intuitive. 

Oracle BPM could probably be improved with respect to the cost. When you are using this product, it'll be a bit costlier for the ROA. I think they should do some discounts on these products, especially for the licenses. 

I used this solution for three years. 

This product is stable. 

Oracle BPM is scalable. 

In our organization, there are 200 users of this solution. 

I have contacted Oracle's technical support, and I didn't face any problems during the process. Their support is quite intuitive and customer-friendly. 

We were previously using Camunda BPM. 

This solution is easy to install. We have a dedicated team for installation and configuring these applications. We never face any issues, and if there are any version conflicts or anything, we can reach out to Oracle's support. Our complete team is comprised of 60 people, but our Oracle BPM team is 10-15 guys. They are a combination of developers and infrastructure support guys. 

We implemented this solution through an in-house team. 

The licensing for this product is very costly. We pay for a yearly license to use Oracle BPM. 

I rate Oracle BPM a nine out of ten. I would definitely recommend Oracle BPM to others. 

In version 11 our primary use case was for traditional BPM on business processes and in the latest version, we implemented case management files. We stopped using it around four months ago but when we did use it, we used it on a daily basis in production.

Our company is based around Oracle processes. It provides a lot of flexibility in its processes. 

I can't say something specific that is especially valuable about Oracle BPM. Overall, it is a very good platform. 

We have had some issues with version migration, from one version of processes to another. We would have to call Oracle Services but on a day to day, we didn't have any issues. 

I would like for the design of the migration of process instances from one version to another to be more visual. It would be very helpful to have visual tools in order to design the equivalence of tasks and process payload between versions. Until now bpm database migration has been needed.

I would also like more UI flexibility, the ADF framework is too Oracle-specific. 

I have been using Oracle BPM for around four to five years.

It is stable. Normally, any issues we faced with stability had to do with version migration.

We had around 300 - 400 direct users using this solution. We required around five people to support the product. 

We haven't spoken to their technical support directly. 

We did not previously use a different solution. After Oracle BPM I used Camunda. Camunda has a different approach. Oracle is heavier in the sense of requirements but it's better for a complex organization in terms of integration to the environment.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would give it this rating because it's stable and it's well integrated with the Oracle platform but there is always room for improvement. 

We use Oracle BPM for development in a test environment. It is not used in production.

The best part about this solution is that the feature set is complete. When you compare this to other engines, it is very complete.

The Workspace is a full, rich application where most users can find what they want. It shows them a list of their work.

The analytics, activity guide, and advanced features like correlation ID are very good.

The stability of this solution deteriorates when more than one thousand instances are concurrently active.

The Oracle database is not an easy product to maintain.

I would like to see the next version of this solution be simpler and more transparent about what is happening at the level of the database. This would allow users to better understand problems.

The technology that is being used for the UI needs to be updated to make it quicker. Oracle is using the ADF technology, which is a very heavy framework. Oracle cloud uses the JET framework, which is much faster and consumes fewer resources.

Oracle needs to return some of their focus to the Fusion products, rather than concentrating so heavily on cloud-based technologies.

Overall, the engine and the UI both have to be made lighter.

We are only using this solution for development, so we do not have many users. However, I know about some of our customers, and one of them has approximately two thousand users. At peak times, there are approximately one thousand concurrent users.

Sometimes a user will have thirty instances, which means that during the peak, there may be thirty thousand instances active in the engine. This level of scalability, however, requires a solid implementation by a team with a lot of experience.

Working with Oracle support is not easy. First of all, most of the time they want you to have a sample case or scenario that they can follow up on. However, in a production environment, you cannot create a sample scenario. For example, you see some errors that are the result of a heavy workload, but this is not something that you can reproduce. It is impossible. Also, these are the kinds of cases that you need support for.

At the same time, if the issue is minor, such as something that you need to set in the configuration, or policies that you need to set in the environment, then the support is ok.

Ultimately, in a huge production environment, the support is definitely not mature enough.

This solution is not used in our production area because of our licensing, and also because of a change in policy whereby Oracle is pushing its customers to the cloud. We are not interested in moving to the cloud and are now instead considering Camunda BPM.

My understanding with Camunda is that the engine is very small, and is not resource-intensive. It requires less in terms of administration. It seems to me that if I have a lot of users then it will be more stable than Oracle. Also, the maintenance will be easier because the application is smaller.

The license will be cheaper for Camunda because, with Oracle, you need to have the database, Weblogic server, the BPM server, and lots of other products.

Finally, I have looked at Camunda’s performance on Youtube and other sites, and it seems to be better than that of Oracle.

If you have an enterprise system then one person is required to maintain it, full-time. Oracle database is not easy to maintain, and in an enterprise application, you need to have a DBA. Normally, if you have one person for Weblogic and one person for the database, it’s enough.

The length of time required for deployment depends on the number of different instances. For example, if you want to have forty BPM and forty processes then the deployment will take a long time.

At the moment we have a deployment of forty instances, and it takes about twenty minutes to run. Most of the time, we need to restart the server because of some kind of error, such as a memory problem. This is absolutely not good in a production environment. The product is not yet mature enough in this regard.

The price of this solution, or with another like Camunda, does not matter because if the organization is rich enough to use a BPM then money is not the issue.

My advice for anybody who is considering this system is that if they have a good and knowledgable team to support them then they can depend on Oracle. However, if they want to learn this product, for example by going to Oracle university, and then go into production, they are going to be disappointed very soon. As soon as the system reaches a large number of users, everything changes. No information that they get from Oracle university will help them. The only thing that can help is experience and a deep understanding of the environment. Finding a problem may require going beyond the BPM and deep into the database.

This is a product that you can count on. It is an enterprise-level solution that is suitable for very large BPM, and it fits well with the Diagramo system.

When it comes to maturity, this is suitable for an enterprise and I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Other solutions, such as Camunda, may not fit all of the needs of an enterprise. On the other hand, for stability and high availability, I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.