Pega Platform Reviews

Pega BPM is a business process management tool, and a use case for it is case management. There's a problem statement; for example, for bank support, where you need to work on customer onboarding, you'll find customer details verified by a bank authority. Once the detail is verified, the customer will be onboarded. Pega BPM will handle the three steps or stages. You have to create a case where onboarding will be one stage, verification another stage, and then customer registration as another stage, and Pega BPM takes care of the stages or process model.

Pega BPM is very user-friendly, and business people won't have to do a lot of configurations on it. The Pega team also came up with App Studio.

With every release of Pega BPM, new features and modifications emerge, enabling business people to do many things, which helps improve the organization.

The most valuable feature of Pega BPM is step-by-step voice guidance that converts your problem statement into different diagrams and then implements the process.

Pega BPM is a technology, not merely a tool, so it has different industry frameworks. It's customized for various industries, such as financial, insurance, healthcare, etc.

Other valuable features of Pega BPM include AI, decisioning, and robotics. It also has a more intuitive UI. Clients weren't as happy with the UI in the past, but that has now improved.

I also like that Pega BPM has a UI that can be integrated with JavaScript-based, such as React or Vue.

An area for improvement in Pega BPM is security. It's secure, but it still has a lot of vulnerabilities, though Pega takes care of security through upgrades and different patch versions released from time to time.

Pega BPM is robust, but it still needs some improvement performance-wise.

I've been using Pega BPM for twelve years.

There shouldn't be any issues with Pega BPM stability-wise as it's the number one BPM tool in the market, and it's been in the market for forty years. It's pretty stable, though when there's a new version released, sometimes, there's an issue, and the Pega BPM team quickly resolves that.

Pega BPM is scalable. You have horizontal and vertical scalability. One type of scalability is just adding servers. Pega BPM is Java-based and runs on JMS, so you can add different servers. You can add other nodes, or in one node, you can have different JMS, so in this way, you can increase the processing power easily.

Another way to scale is classifying nodes, so based on the job, you can run the nodes and also run the different functionalities of Pega BPM, which is another process for scaling it up.

Scaling Pega BPM isn't challenging because it's running on the cloud, so you can always add and subtract nodes as needed. If your Pega BPM is on-premise, you can scale it horizontally or vertically. It supports both horizontal and vertical expansions.

I've contacted the Pega BPM technical support team many times because of issues I found in the tool that only the Pega core team can handle. I create a service request, then a person from the Pega BPM technical support team will be assigned to the case, then I'll work with that person.

It's normal in a day to experience an issue, need modification, or get help from Pega support. The support process is pretty streamlined. You have to go to the Pega website, create a service request, and immediately someone will be assigned to your ticket, and he will get in touch with you. Quickly, you can get into a call with support and talk to him, so technical support isn't an issue.

My  Pega BPM technical support rating is seven out of ten because you don't get to talk to an expert on the first call. If your issue isn't resolved in the first call, then that's the only time you'll get an expert. Otherwise, Pega's support is good.

Neutral

Pega BPM is the number one tool in the market, so the only reason a client switches over to another BPM tool, such as Appian and IBM, is purely because of finances and nothing else. Functionality-wise and feature-wise, other BPM solutions aren't at the same level, not even close to Pega BPM.

In my fifteen or sixteen years in the software industry, I've never seen a client move to another solution because Pega BPM isn't a good tool. Clients always switch from Pega BPM to another tool because of the cost.

Pega BPM is easy to set up, particularly its cloud version, because Pega will help you do all the setup. Pega also provides a JAR file that you can import to your database, and then once the connection is established, you can start using Pega BPM, so the setup is easy.

Infrastructure setup is different when you do it on-premises. Setting up Pega BPM on the cloud is easier.

There's ROI from Pega BPM because it expedites time to market. You can also complete your work based on a Java tool faster when you use Pega BPM within three months, for example, rather than one year.

Businesses get ROI from Pega BPM, which is why many financial institutions use it, for example, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo; you name it.

The costing model for Pega BPM is different. One is a license that you can pay yearly. Another licensing model for Pega BPM is based on the number of cases you create in production in a year. Costing based on use cases is also available for Pega BPM. I don't have information on its exact pricing or costs, though.

I handle different projects that use Pega BPM. Some use version 8.5, while others use 8.7. I also have some using version 8.8 of Pega BPM.

Pega BPM is deployed differently for different projects. Some on the public cloud and Pega Cloud on AWS. Some deployed Pega BPM on-premises, while others deployed the solution on a private cloud. All three versions of infrastructure can be used for Pega BPM.

My organization is a pure Pega organization, so out of one thousand people, at least six hundred people within my organization work on Pega BPM, but my organization is a service organization with different clients. It's an elite partner of Pega, and only ten elite Pega partners exist worldwide.

My rating for Pega BPM is eight out of ten.

The solution is basically a quoting application. When insurance brokers or internal users have to call or do insurance quotes for commercial insurance, we use Pega. The insurance we cover is for outdoor coverage and for a casualty to property, as well as casualty insurance.

The solution's case management is its most valuable aspect. 

It's basically an open architecture based software, which means the main aim of the software is to provide a low-code application development environment. It has several authoring tools on the UI flow and makes sure that you can put in a lot of gadgets and create the screen very quickly using those gadgets.

Right now, it has a pretty good feature set. It has case management and BPM workflow as well as robotic automation. It has decisioning. It has chat and virtual assistant support, and we just implement it on the cloud, therefore it's a pretty robust feature set.

They use something called a unique model-based architecture. During development, where the database and the UI, everything comes from one single piece of architecture. Due to that sometimes the enterprise architecture teams do not like it due to the fact that it forces them to use just one piece of architecture. If these could be more modularized, then it can be easily deployable in different kinds of scenarios in organizations, it would be much better.

However, they are kind of tightly coupled and it's difficult to separate everything out. Still, I would say it is an improvement to consider for the future. Id they could decouple the various components so that it gives flexibility to enterprise architects to deploy what is most needed as part of their enterprise architecture strategy, rather than getting kind of, looking at the only way the product handles, it would be a stronger product.

They are currently spending some time on improving the product with respect to machine learning, especially related to robotic automation. They probably could be a little more adept on that area would help.

It's very difficult to change many things unless somebody puts in the time to figure everything out. However, Pega could learn from all the customer service calls they get and categorize them in order to do an automatic form-based or customer service based response. If they could set it up to everything automatically, then that would save a lot of time and headaches for companies and help them troubleshoot and work through issues faster.

We've been using the solution for almost ten years. We haven't used in the last 12 months too much, however.

We have found a few issues on the solution and we work closely with technical support to help fix them. While it is largely stable, we do find we need to keep up with problems and work closely with Pega directly to address and fix them when they arise.

In terms of scalability, provided you throw hardware at it and you do a proper production implementation approach and alignment strategy, it's scalable. 

You can go up to 2000 to 3000 users pretty easily. It's just that you need to throw a lot of hardware at it and make sure that you manage and create the web servers required. You need to create various pieces such as database servers and things like that, to make sure that you get the performance you need for those 2000, 3000 users.

The solution is being used continuously. I'm not sure about the increase in the usage, but at least it's serving the purpose as needed for the brokers.

It's a complex piece of software. For that reason, we did find some issues and I was kind of instrumental in working with Pega on their global support model. We had weekly calls to review. They have a process to track issues that are unique. Sometimes it's handled by their support network, and sometimes the issue is taken up to be dealt with by working on the next version. For us, triage calls are made every week.

The initial setup is never straightforward. It's always complex. Organizations deploying the solution will need a Pega admin and experts. It's not like anybody can just walk in and install it onto a PC. It needs a lot more performance concentrations and much more integration considerations. Therefore, it's a little complex.

In terms of deployment times, on-premise, it takes a little more time, and I would say it would take maybe about a month. However, now, cloud implementations are pretty quick and go much faster.

In terms of maintenance, we do need someone from the company to help us manage the solution.

We did solicit outside assistance for the implementation. We actually used both the Pega professional services in the beginning for a short time and then a subsequent implementation was done by an integrator.

There are multiple models. They have enterprise licenses for each server, for the product version. If you're doing it on-premise they also have per user basis on their cloud. 

It depends on what your specific need is. Those vary from customer to customer, depending on the number of users and the volume of business and things like that. There's no, set price, or a specific quote and everybody just follows it. It's more they work out the enterprise licensing agreements or per user basis with respect to each client.

I joined the company when those decisions were already made. I wasn't part of that decision. However, in a lot of places where I've consulted as a digital transformation consultant, we did definitely compare Pega with competition such as Appian and other BPM, and even Salesforce and other workflow systems as well.

We're just customers. We don't have a business relationship with Pega.

Pega BPM is definitely one of the topmost BPM packages out there. It hits all the right notes for a containerized implementation. The only thing you need to be careful is that you definitely need experts to help you along the way, in both the design and the requirements capture. They have an excellent requirements capture tool as well. However, if somebody needs to be trained on that, you need the help of experts, both on the software architecture as well as business architecture as well as the Pega admin. Eventually, these kinds of positions will either require a company to staff up or they will need to work with a system integrator. 

Most of the companies work with system integrators due to the fact that Pega professional services are definitely very expensive. Organizations will work with a company life Cognizant or Accenture or others to really help them out along the way.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We have integrated a tool with Pega. It is used for project management. We use it for customer process management, insurance, and licenses.

The frameworks are built over the core Pega platform. All the codes are already built. A user can directly use the framework according to their needs. All the corresponding data models and processes already built in the framework can be reused with our custom layer. The tool reduces our costs. It is faster to implement.

The solution has everything. It is model-driven. It generates its own code. It has a rules engine. Previously, Pega had its own UI. Now, we have Constellation DX API. It helps us have any user interface we need, like Angular or React. API helps create work objects in the workflow.

The licensing cost is very high.

I have been using the solution since 2004.

As long as we have a license, we get support. The support is good. We must have a contract with the vendor.

Positive

The administrators deployed the tool in my organization. It took one to two hours. It doesn’t take much time to deploy tools in the cloud.

There are different licensing models.

We integrate the solution with different business tools. The integration is very straightforward. We have custom wizards to take care of the integration. If everything is set right, integration does not take much time. I recommend the tool to others. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use the solution basically to run any custom process that the client wants to have, or needs to run their business on. For example, the approval process or any kind of business process that can be run using the Pega Platform.

It's low code. That is very useful. A business value architect will have zero coding to do, and he can create a business flow on top of that. The technical developer can handle further things. 

Apart from that, the kind of APIs that they support is also very nice. It also has a lot of APIs out of the box. It can directly connect to Fitbit, it can directly connect to Google Maps, et cetera. That API exposure is also a good thing. They are very easy and very reliable to use, the APIs.

The setup was simple. 

It's a stable solution.

The solution has very helpful technical support.

It can scale pretty well.

A few things I would like them to improve include, first of all, that they don't have any open-source learning platform. To learn Pega, you need to be a partner. If someone just wants to learn Pega for the sake of learning, they won't be able to do so as they don't give access to that.

I would like to have an integrated process mining capability inside Pega. It will be like an entire digital transformation thing then. You don't need two or three sources. Similar to Signavio. Signavio runs BPM, it does modeling, and it is having process mining as well. In Pega, we have modeling, we have RPA, and we have BPM, however, we don't have process mining right now.

I've been using the solution for three years.

It's quite stable. This means we haven't encountered any issues. And even if there are issues, their support is very responsive.

The product is quite scalable as it's a low-code platform. 

The solution adjusts well to different devices. They have this adaptation that if you open it on a tablet, then the screen will adjust accordingly. If you open it on a PC, the screen adjusts it accordingly in Pega. Android as well.

There are more than 25,000 people on the solution.

We've worked with technical support in the past. Whenever there's downtime or whenever something is not working, we need to get in touch with the Pega technical team.

Neutral

I'm also aware of Appian. Even if Pega says that it's a low-code platform, when I compare it to Appian, Appian is more low code when compared to Pega.

The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. 

You need to pay for licensing. It was quite expensive. I'd rate it four and a half out of five in terms of how expensive it is. 

My organization is a service provider for Pega. We're implementation partners. If we use it completely depends on what the client wants and needs.

If you are using it for the first time, you probably should have a consulted implementation partner as well. That said, it is easy to use. It shouldn't be a problem. It's very flexible.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. We generally don't encounter any issues as far as Pega is concerned. Whenever there's an issue, there's a quick resolution. 

The solution offers business process modeling when it comes to processing your models or maybe your workflows. 

Every company will have a process where it goes from case initiation to different stages based on the business need or business requirement. Pega helps get processes routed to different or next stages depending on the business rules and based on where it needs to be routed. 

Out of the box, Pega provides processes where the assignment will be picked based on some criteria or many other attributes. It's purely based on your business needs. It ensures the process is routed through the correct criteria from start to end and helps manage the entire flow, the process, and everything.

The solution offers many use cases. 

The case management is great. 

Pega provides a lot of advanced smart shapes wherein you can just create a case for using the smart case itself. You can integrate or maybe add any integration points you need there. 

A lot of Pega is out-of-the-box. You can use it as is or configure it in just one click.

The UI part needs improvement. 

Some integrations can make it unstable. They need to strengthen the integration aspect and make the process more seamless. 

It would be nice if Pega provided suggestions while users were on it. It already gives you some warnings, however, in relation to specific rules, it would be ideal if Pega could provide suggestions to help users make improvements here or there.

I've used the solution in almost every project I've worked on. 

We have hundreds of people using the solution in our company. 

The scalability is good in general. I would rate the ability to scale eight out of ten. 

Technical support has been good overall. 

Positive

I worked on a Vis ID tool and a BPM tool. It was for a short span of time. Pega was far better than that.

While it is not too complex to set up, you do need to understand the solution and know the rules. 

We have people in place just to set up the pipeline and everything. The Pega team has to work with the system team to set up everything and maybe one or two people are involved over there. From the core setup perspective, it's the role of a developer who has to do it. There's typically a lead and two or three developers that handle the setup and validate things once deployed. 

We did have some help from Pega during the initial implementation. Mostly, we handled the setup in-house. 

We have witnessed an ROI while using the solution. 

The pricing is quite good in general. I'd rate it nine out of ten in terms of affordability.

We've deployed the solution both on-premises and on the cloud.

It's a pretty good tool. If you're using it as an adjusted rules engine, Pega gives you the flexibility to integrate with different applications seamlessly. You can give the responses back as well. It has scalability. It makes it easy to maintain rules and you can delegate things seamlessly from Pega when you're doing that. 

I'd rate it nine out of ten overall. 

In the Middle East, ministries such as the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and Ministry of Municipalities, are using Pega Platform as a front-end application for their citizens.

Pega Platform is excellent for enterprise-level solutions with integrations to entire systems, including case management, service orchestration, CRM, decision-making capabilities, digital process automation, and AI-driven functionalities. It allows for a unified platform with features like case management, BPM, service orchestration, low-code development, digital process automation, CRM, and decision-making, all integrated into a single platform.

In the Middle East and Africa region, Pega was not very strong from the user experience standpoint. To address this, Pega introduced Constellation, which allows a user to build a more engaging visual experience.

I have been working with Pega Platform for over a decade now.

From the platform standpoint, I haven't contacted Pega for support unless it is a product issue or a new feature issue. I never needed support from the platform standpoint, but if additional features are required, we have regular meetings with the product team for feedback.

Positive

Top banks in the world, such as the government's HMRC in the UK, see the return on investment with Pega Platform as they use it at an enterprise level.

I work with Camunda for pro-code projects and OutSystems for other requirements. Camunda is a good BPM engine, but it does not provide comprehensive features like Pega. For simple case management, alternatives like APN and Camunda were mentioned.

If you're looking for a solution at the enterprise level with comprehensive features, then Pega is suitable. However, if you only need a simple HR system or a small case management application, other tools might be more cost-effective. Pega Platform is comparable to SAP in terms of its dominance in digital process automation and business process management.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We primarily utilize it for automating a multitude of business operations, including finance, accounting, manufacturing, and product development. These processes play a crucial role in managing our day-to-day operations and we find that the automation provided by our use of this technology streamlines and simplifies these processes greatly.

The most valuable feature of Pega BPMI would be the academy courses, specifically the Product Development Network (PDN). Additionally, our organization has a dedicated Customer Engagement Team that we work closely with to achieve our goals.

The training aspect of Pega BPM requires significant enhancement. There should be more opportunities for third-party training and engaging events, such as hackathons where individuals can share their expertise. Additionally, the training structure itself should be more organized, as I have received feedback from my colleagues in the COE that the current training approach is overwhelming and requires excessive referencing to obtain accurate information. Another area for improvement would be the user experience with regard to RPA. Simplifying the IDA for citizen developers would make it easier for them to adopt the RPA tool.

I have been using Pega BPM for approximately five years.

I rate the stability of Pega BPM an eight out of ten.

I rate the scalability of Pega BPM a nine out of ten.

The setup of Pega BPM is not complex.

I rate the initial setup of Pega BPM a six out of ten.

I rate Pega BPM a seven out of ten.

In conducting our evaluations and comparisons between UiPath and Pega BPM, we found that both systems hold a comparable standing. Although, it is evident that UiPath outperforms in certain aspects such as user experience and ease of use in the development process. On the other hand, Pega BPM excels in addressing complex customization needs and offers more cost-effective solutions. Ultimately, our assessment concluded that both systems score equally in terms of their capabilities and effectiveness.

UiPath is best suited for smaller-sized companies. Pega BPM is better suited for large-sized businesses. 

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Pega BPM a seven out of ten.

It's built on the base core product.

Pega provides a lot of out-of-the-box capabilities in terms of rules. You need not write anything. If there is anything that's specific to your company's need, then you'll go ahead and do a "save as" and work on those activities. That said, PegaRULES already provides most of the out-of-the-box activity for sending emails, sending correspondences, or most of the items that you do on general web applications.

Pega helps speed up and create rules around sending in correspondence as transmittal things, for example, PDFs, et cetera Pega gave us a lot of out-of-the-box rules we could just apply. It already converts from bytes to streams and PDFs to any other format, and it generates and gives reports to users. You need not worry about what Pega does inside, the back end. Everything is handled and you just benefit from the work it does behind the scenes. 

The rules Pega provides for almost all the areas are great. Pega provides a lot of flexibility or out-of-the-box rules. You do not need to write your own code. It's a low-code solution which makes it very easy to use. 

The setup process is pretty simple. 

It's not too expensive.

It is stable and reliable.

The solution can scale.

Technical support is helpful. 

The UI needs improvement. 

Some integrations can be a bit complex during implementation. 

Other than that, we have not come across any missing features. It's been very good across the board. 

I've been using the solution for nine years now. 

The stability is decent. It's reliable. I'd rate it eight out of ten overall. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The scalability is good. I'd rate it eight out of ten overall. 

Technical support has been quite good overall. We are happy with the level of support we receive.

Positive

We previously used a VPN tool before. This solution is far better. 

The solution is fairly straightforward to set up. It's not overly complex. That said, some of the integration is a little complex. Apart from that, everything looks good.

It doesn't take too many people to deploy the solution. 

We have witnessed an ROI while using the product. 

The pricing is very reasonable. I'd rate it none out of ten in terms of affordability. It's not overly expensive. 

We have the solution deployed both on-premises and on the cloud. 

If anyone is checking out Pega or maybe trying to use the tool, I would say just go ahead and do it. It's a pretty good tool in the market, and users can easily deploy it to try it out.

I'd rate it nine out of ten overall.