SAP PowerDesigner Reviews

I use it for business analysis to understand my clients' business flows. I use the various tools available in SAP and the conceptual data models to analyze and understand the business flow.

The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems.

Even with Microsoft database systems, it describes the data perfectly. I can just include a picture of the database model into my design specifications, and developers would be able to understand it perfectly.

The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL.

I'm an Apple user and not a Microsoft user, so I would love to have SAP PowerDesigner be available on macOS and not just on Microsoft. Right now, I am forced to install parallels and run a virtual machine on my Apple.

Yes, it's stable, and I haven't found any bugs. Provided that my work files are stored in the cloud, I can access all the models from both my laptop and desktop computers without a problem. The way that they've designed access to the models is quite good.

The interface is way better with SAP PowerDesigner. Other solutions are limited in their designs. They simply focus on the database, for example, and not on the different types of models.

I would advise you to just start using SAP PowerDesigner because it's intuitive. You have to be a software engineer if you want to use it; you have to know what you're doing. You can't use it as a casual user. However, the models use standards, so they're not difficult to use once you know what you're doing. If you want to design a database, there are other tools that have similar conventions, but SAP's implementation is intuitive and easy to understand. So, my advice is to just directly use it.

Apart from some improvements needed to integrate better with open source systems, SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool. It's very easy to use and is very stable. I would give it a rating of nine on a scale from one to ten.

I am a computer designer and I consult to various companies. I use PowerDesigner for my own system modeling, which I then share with engineers and ultimately, the customer.

Examples of the types of modeling I do are insurance billing and banking products.

I do a data-centric design, so for me, the data analysis and design tools are the most valuable features.

The interface is user-friendly. Because of the graphic nature of it, it helps you to be able to manage complicated systems much easier.

Better support for integration with open-source technologies is needed. For example, I try to use open-source databases such as Postgres and MySQL instead of Microsoft, DB2, or Oracle. However, I think it's lacking in capability from the tool to the database.

In the future, I would like to see data manipulation capability where you can actually write SQL queries and manipulate data from directly within the tool.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for more than ten years.

PowerDesigner is definitely stable. I have been using it for a long time and I have had no crashes. It just works.

Because SAP is pushing it and they use it as a design tool, I think it's very scalable for collaboration. However, I have no idea in practice because I'm just using it myself.

In the time that I have been using this product, it has never been necessary to contact technical support. I think that the help files, along with what you can find using Google, are explanatory enough.

The two other products that I have used are erwin Data Modeler and Enterprise Architect. I switched because of the scope and the user-friendliness of the tool. PowerDesigner used in conjunction with SQL Server is quite amazing. They work well together.

The initial setup is straightforward. There's nothing complex about it.

It will take some time to teach yourself how to use the product, but the installation is nothing. It's an hour or two to deploy it.

I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee.

I have been looking for a tool to interface seamlessly into an open-source environment, and what I have found to be lacking is a visual database prototype tool. I would like something like, for example, Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio that can access the data instead of just the definitions for it. I am constantly searching for an open-source tool that can do not just modeling, but data manipulations or data definitions in a better way.

I certainly recommend using this product, although it wasn't cheap so cost is a consideration. Price is a complaint that I have for most design tools in the IT world, as most of them are extremely expensive. Corporations and large companies can use them effectively.

For me, the GUI is definitely a pleasure. At the same time, there is a steep learning curve when dealing with bigger and bigger systems. Fortunately, the tool helps with that.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I use SAP PowerDesigner for data warehouse projects and governance projects, including physical, logical, and conceptual designs.

It is more flexible than other tools and user-friendly, making it easy to adapt. It's valid on the enterprise side as I can create data dictionaries or business glossaries and easily extend them to both business and IT sides. The solution also facilitates easy export and publish my work in different formats like HTML or PDF. PowerDesigner supports various databases, allowing for easy reverse engineering, including Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, etc. PowerDesigner fetches all objects into the design model for further needs.

SAP PowerDesigner makes data governance easy to use. IT or business users can quickly implement database or glossary objects by editing and publishing entries and creating naming standards for both database and business glossary sides. It allows dictionary or naming standard abbreviations to be easily applied to all objects, including conceptual, logical and physical models.

The reverse engineering feature allows you to create a project in your database and show it logically by publishing it for all users in your enterprise. It lets you directly connect PowerDesigner to your databases, whether it's Microsoft or Oracle, and fetch all objects, including primary keys, entities, and stored procedures. You can then edit these objects in your model.

Based on my experience with SAP PowerDesigner, I'd like to see improvements in the DMM feature. Even if I have an ETL tool, I'd like the DMM options to directly connect to ETL tool repositories like Azure Sentinel, Informatica, or ODI, helping me map all object relationships, like source-to-target mapping, directly from the ETL tool's repository.

Forward engineering in the DMM options is one area where PowerDesigner could add functionality. While it's excellent for showing source-to-target mapping and understanding data lineage, it would be helpful if it could also handle ETL functions and coding. I wish I could implement ETL operations within PowerDesigner, especially since I've already mapped and designed everything. Having everything in one place, including the ability to forward engineer databases and work on ETL coding, would be incredibly useful.

I have been working with SAP PowerDesigner for the past ten years.

Stability is also good; I would rate it as eight out of ten.

For scalability, I'd rate it around eight out of ten.

Technical support is decent, though the response time and quality could be better.

Neutral

The setup process for SAP PowerDesigner is simple.

Overall, I'd rate PowerDesigner an eight out of ten.

I recommend the product to other users.

I mainly use it to create application maps and to connect other applications to IOS platforms. Usually, we use PowerDesigner in order to study the impact of modifying columns and the cut-offs in order to deploy a new data model. I also use it to handle change requests on IS, for example, pushing data models or applying the follow-up on changes done directly on other IOS.

I think that the user experience could use a lot of improvement. 

It would also be good to have a connection with CMDB. In particular, the gap analysis. Usually, when we work on a project, on enterprise architect tools, we start with a paper version and then connect the CMDB. PowerDesigner cannot analyze the gap between reality and the theoretical schema we build.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for about four to five years.

It is quite stable. The tool is widely used among big companies here in France and North Africa. It has evolved through the years. When it comes to stability, I would give it a ten out of ten.

It can handle everything. It can reproduce all data models, all connections, all APIs, and so on. I would give it a nine out of ten. 

So far, I have not had any need to contact SAP's technical support. 

I would say that the Linux and MEGA are intuitive, but not complete. Linux cannot track down the data model inside the databases, but it's very intuitive and user-friendly. So PowerDesigner is complete, but it's for experts and cannot be used by junior teams.

The onboarding of the solution is very difficult when we're creating a project from scratch. Even with the new version of the design, it's very difficult to create a new project and start building blocks around it. It is a very efficient tool once the first scheme is created, the first version. Then we create the business view, then the platform view, then the application view, but what could use improvement is the user experience. We cannot start without a very long tutorial, and I would say it's not very user-friendly.

The licensing model is quite expensive. It costs approximately one hundred thousand euros to initially set it up.

I would rate PowerDesigner an eight out of ten.

The solution is useful for data warehousing. I'm a contractor and I work with various companies. Each of them have different versions of the product installed, some on-prem and some in the cloud.

I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use.

I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all.

I think it's probably one of the best solutions, but it is not at all easy to deploy in a big organization. I think it's a problem because of internal processes, and you have to find the right person to help you. SAP as a whole is a very big, complex animal.

I have used this solution on-and-off for 23 years. 

It is a very stable solution, but we have big issues if we try to bring in FSLDM. I'm sure Power Designer can handle it, but I think it drops the links because FSLDM is such a huge model. You can't always trust it because FSLDM was not developed in Power Designer.

I think it's a scalable solution. In one company we have a 38-user license, but that's a very large bank. In another company, there's only one person doing data modeling.

The complexity depends on the client, the firewall, and the company's rules of who can use and view different things. 

The implementation can be done in-house. The time it takes depends on the client. In some instances, it takes quite a while if there are a lot of firewall issues to deal with and the client wants it deployed in the cloud.

I would not recommend this solution to others who are considering it. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. 

We were reverse-engineering several databases and doing comparisons.

The most valuable feature is that it is a very fast reverse engineering process. It does a very expansive comparison. 

In terms of improvement, the pricing is a bit high. 

I didn't investigate whether we could run business process simulations like you can do with erwin's process modeling tool. I know you can do process modeling in PowerDesigner. I just don't know if you could run simulations of the process.

I used SAP PowerDesigner for a year. 

It is very stable. 

It didn't seem to really need much extendability. For our features, it covered everything out of the box.

There was only one user for this solution, a data architect. 

We did not require any staff for the deployment or maintenance.

I did not use technical support.

Before PowerDesigner we were using IDERA and erwin. PowerDesigner was better than IDERA, but it's obviously a lot more expensive, so IDERA could be a better value.

With PowerDesigner, I had the whole studio. I had the business process solution. With IDERA there are separate downloads and everything so I only used the data modeling studio.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took around one hour. 

I did the deployment myself. 

If you have the money for it, buy it. If you were budgeted, it would be a worthwhile investment.

I would rate PowerDesigner an eight out of ten. It is very complete and robust. If you're an SAP shop, without question you'd want to use it because you can generate your ETL code as well. That also separates conceptual, logical, and physical modeling really well. I don't know if it's as complete though as erwin's solution. But erwin's solution is evolving and getting better. PowerDesigner has some room to improve, but it's still pretty solid.

My primary use case for this solution is to design databases, but I have also used it to design processes.

I also know how to add new features and program using the API. We added some new features to PowerDesigner about five years ago.

The most valuable feature is that we can convert CDM (Conceptual Data Model) to PDM (Physical Data Model), and then prepare an SQL statement to be executed.

It has a powerful engineering feature where if you change the data on a secure server then it will change it in PowerDesigner, too.

This solution has good tools for big data, where you can manage large and complex databases. By comparison, tools such as Enterprise Architect and Visio have problems with big databases.

This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler. Also, the simulations for BPMN modelers are not integrated well enough. If we want this functionality then we have to use another program. Compare this to Visual Paradigm, where we do have a good simulation for the BPMN modeler. 

It is a very stable solution, which is one of the advantages of using PowerDesigner, especially in big databases.

I have not had to speak with technical support for this solution. 

The setup of this solution is easy, but using it is rather complex.

Everywhere that I have used this solution, it was installed by somebody else such as a consultant. However, the installation was easy.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

My primary use case is for data modeling which I then share with our IT department. We are customers of SAP and I'm a data consultant and GDPR.

I really like the import-export feature. It has a specific template that's helpful for importing metadata and that's very helpful for me. 

The tool requires a level of specific knowledge in order to be able to use it so it's not user-friendly at all. It could be more intuitive. I'd like to see better data quality and a dictionary feature in an upcoming release. 

I've been using this solution for six months. 

The solution is stable. 

I don't find this solution to be scalable. 

We're currently looking for external support because SAP are not very proactive when it comes to support.

The initial setup is somewhat complex, although I've seen worse. We work with the vendors to implement this product. Deployment time was around two weeks and the installation took a day. The solution doesn't require any maintenance. We currently have 10 users, and we want to expand that but because the tool is not user-friendly we haven't done that yet. 

SAP is quite expensive, particularly as there are other softwares and tools available that are cheaper or open source, that offer additional features and functionality. With SAP you need to pay extra for some features.