SAP Signavio Process Manager Reviews

Our use case is to get a better understanding of our process. We want to get right to the core of it. We went through a multi-year automation journey and we found that most people really didn't know their processes well enough. Signavio is helping us to go back to basics a bit and document our processes in a standard way in a central repository. It also gives us a better understanding of the process so that we can be more targeted, accurate, and effective in the way we do our transformation.

It is still early days, but we have big plans. We want to embed the use and maintenance of the process data into everything that we do. We have various roles and operations from line management and business management to risks, supervisors, and change people. We need to embed the consistent use of a single store, a golden source of data for everything that we do. Our plan is to get the process documented, but then make sure that people use that, so it's not something that sits on a shelf somewhere and people only look at it when there's a problem or issue.

In terms of a business transformation, we've had a couple of successes and good examples, but we're going slowly, so it's going to take us some time to get there. We're setting the foundation for it, hopefully.

Signavio's phone apps help improve employee's workday functions, certainly on the chain side. People that typically pick up a process map for everything that they do are getting a lot of use out of it. The feedback so far is this is great. This is something that we needed. We've gone through a lot of transformation over the last ten years, but this is setting the stage for the future.

The reason we chose Signavio is it's a very robust industrial-grade business process modeling data tool, with data capture behind it, as well as a collaborative nature. A lot of it comes out of the box and requires less technology involvement. It can be run well by business users. That's what we really like about it.

It is also easy to use. We were using Visio, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and Paint until very recently to document our processes. Through this automation program I was leading, we were using another product, which has the word blue in it, which was a leg up from Visio, but still not quite what we were expecting. For us, it's really about the data-driven aspect so we are able to access the data and stitch different things together, especially when you're looking at things in hindsight.

There are a couple of things that could be improved. First, I think the interface itself can improve a bit. I think the interface is still stuck about a decade in the past, if I may be so brutal about it. Some of the buttons are really small, so you can't even see them. I think it needs upgrading to the 21st century with apps and the way we use mobile phones. 

Secondly, although the navigation is fine and the customization is absolutely phenomenal, it is difficult to create different perspectives and views without having to take the data out of the system and use a BI tool. Those would be sort of the two main things from my perspective.

We've been using this product for less than six months.

There have been no major issues, as we are on-premises. We're not on a cloud origin, although we'd like to move to that at some point.

We're actually working on extending our licenses. We want to almost double the number of licenses we have. That's because the amount of engagement we've had has been really good.

Their support is okay. Sometimes, we find that the turnaround time isn't as great and it can sometimes takes a few chasers to get a response, but for the most part it's okay.

This is the kind of question my boss would ask me. He said, "What's the ROI?" I would tell him that the ROI will be in the future. We've had a couple of examples where people have told us that this is what they needed. It gives them the visibility that they didn't have. It is still in the early days, though.

We started this journey with Signavio two years ago. It was actually one of my colleagues that met them at an OpEx conference in the U.S. That's sort of been our top of the list choice since then. We knew we needed to prove to ourselves and the organization that we needed a tool. That's why we used that other blue tool for a year and a half to inform our requirements and get better at it. Then we made a case for it. I think the on-premises version was always important to us. We weren't ready to put all of our stuff in the cloud yet, but I thought we were getting better at it. The collaborative nature of it and being able to customize a lot of things that we wanted without having to rely on technology support is really good. Some of the features like the API for putting data in and out provide a lot of functionality. We did a pretty extensive assessment of other solutions, but we decided that this technology was the best of all.

I would rate this solution somewhere between a seven and eight out of ten, because of a couple of things that we would want out of the box. The whole goal for us is not to be relying on technology to support us, but I can't customize a view or use customer attributes that I created. In some cases, I can use them, but it is very limited. Basically that and the interface are the only issues I have.

We are a transmission system operator that handles the high voltage electricity network in all of Switzerland. There are a lot of core processes and managing support processes, and they need to be very accurate because what we're doing is quite critical.

It's critical infrastructure, so doing things wrong at the core can cause a lot of damage and cost a lot of money, but it can also cause injury or death. It is dangerous, therefore our processes need to be very well understood and need to be run very strictly.

Our employees rely on the Collaboration Hub to understand the processes. They know exactly what to do and how to do it, what the procedure is, and if necessary, what forms to use. We have a few modelers around the company who are based in the business units. They keep up with what the processes are, keep them alive, and keep them updated.

One of the things that are quite easy to achieve with a tool like this is that you start getting together and talking about what you're doing. Being able to show that, graphically, raises the understanding of what all of the team members think we are doing. It is a good way to discuss our understanding, which could be different than it was in the beginning. Just condensing and focusing on this graphical representation unifies our views, which I think is already a big, big step in improving what we're doing.

I think that this solution would help us to carry out the entire process improvement lifecycle. However, I fear that our maturity of processes is not too high. I'm glad that most of the critical processes are there, documented, can be read, and are kept alive. We're not really doing an improvement lifecycle, not really doing metrics measuring, doing improvement, or things like that. We're still one or more stages away from that.

For the time being, I think that everyone in our organization has the functionality that they need.

In terms of improved employees’ workdays, I have seen stability brought to them. I noticed it first about three years ago. This solution has also improved from the modeling side over that time, whereas it has always been easy for the end-user.

I have done a lot of modeling over quite a number of years, and I think that the modeling capabilities in Signavio are state of the art.

The most valuable thing for me is the collaboration hub that can be used by everybody. They can really get their information quickly. It shows them the logic workflows, and also allows them to get the needed documentation, forms, templates, and whatever they need. It's easy to use, you know where you go to get your information, and it's very valuable for everybody.

For us, it would help a lot if this solution had floating licenses. I would consider this to be my number one improvement because we try to involve as many people as possible in modeling, rather than having them just consume work that other people have done. We feel that it is important for people to identify with the processes, and with what we model, so it requires that we have a lot of licenses. If we had a floating license or a concurrent license, then it would help a lot.

Stability has been fine for quite some time, although I had some trouble with the introduction of a new release a few weeks ago. This shook the stability slightly, and unfortunately, it was exactly at the time I was giving a course on using Signavio.

It took perhaps one or two days where it was very slow, and sometimes not responding at all, but it is now back to normal and working well.

We have four hundred and fifty to five hundred people in our company who have access to our processes through the Collaboration Hub. 

We started with perhaps three hundred users in the beginning, which is not a big difference from where we are now, but scaling it was fine. 

In most of the cases, technical support has been quite quick. Not always, but what I liked is that when I had a problem and there was an answer, I used the tracking tool and it was easy to get back to the same person.

This is important to me because I've had experience in other areas where if you need to have three contacts for one topic, you always start at point zero with a new person. This is very boring and I didn't see that. In this way, I think that technical support is good and organized.

Before I joined the company, they were using ARIS BPM. It was perceived as being complex and not easy to use.

The setup seemed straightforward. When I saw it, the solution was up and running.

We used a company called EnerBit in Switzerland. They are a partner of Signavio and they performed the setup for us.

Measuring ROI is quite a complex thing, which is probably the main reason why we don't currently do it. My gut feeling is that we have realized ROI because the license is not too expensive.

I think that the price of the licenses is between $2,000 USD and $3,000 USD per license per year, plus the hub usage. I cannot remember the exact cost, but it is affordable.

The biggest investment is in training the people, and building up the processes and discussing how it should be. That's where a lot of time goes. That's where the money goes. For me, this equilibrium is very good. The money should not go into licenses, but rather the big value is in the content in the end.

We did a GATT / WTO and there were a lot of companies applying. One of our central points was ease of use, especially for the end-users, but secondly for the modelers. I think that Signavio was selected because of this. It was very easy to use.

I was in the software business for a long time, developing SaaS solutions, so I am quite critical when it comes to rating products. I think Signavio BPM does its job, it is easy to use, but it runs a little slow sometimes and it could be faster.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

I am a lecturer at a university. We are using it as a lecturing tool for business process modeling.

We use it in a case each month on a yearly basis. We have a condensed course which runs approximately one month. During this month, we would use Signavio with some assignments for students to model their processes within Signavio Process Manager when having tutorials or computer labs tutorials on the topic of business process modeling.

There is a curriculum provided by Signavio. I enroll students into the portal, then students can go into the portal, open their folder, and design their processes there. I can oversee, discuss, and correct them. The typical case is where the students use the modeler to create processes, then we would discuss them online.

We are using the academic Signavio.com. This is an offering for academic initiatives.

This is one of the tools available for us which has a lifecycle for business process management, e.g., discovery, modeling, and optimization. This is really valuable for our students because they do not have separate tools. Everything is integrated into one tool.

Processes will always affect the outcome facing customers, so Process Manager helps optimize customer-facing processes. If you are having transparent accountable processes, then you can repair or optimize them. That way, you can clearly see what's going on within the processes, and they are more manageable. Then, you can improve and optimize them. Therefore, you improve the customer-facing outcomes.

The number one, most valuable feature is the process repository so we can gather all our processes in one place. Then, students can also see each other's work, having all the comments in one place and attached to the processes.

The process repository is proof of, or an example of, what students can achieve during one course as well as how they have improved their understanding and learning of process management. 

Process Manager supports end-to-end transformation. Students can better understand end-to-end activity and processes as well as how they are run. For teaching, it's process discovery, then modeling, and finally optimization and simulation, partly. Typically, we showcase some simulation of the processes, and this is where we finish. That is why we validate that it's properly designed, but also what are the outcomes of modeled processes. There are also options for discussion on process optimization.

Typically, a business process management suite would cover the whole lifecycle, from discovery to optimization and operations. This is running on the process server and providing some kind of low-code environment for developing business solutions. I think the latter part is missing, where SAP Connector comes in. Specifically, the execution of processes is missing, where you would design forms to take orders. This is typically part of some development environment for the process server to run processes from out of the models.

I think I have been using this solution since 2017. It has been awhile. 

It is stable. I didn't have any issues, bugs, etc. So, there have been no major issues.

I haven't had any problems in regards to scalability.

15 to 30 users are utilizing at any given time, depending on the size of the class. Typically, there are 20 users.

From time to time every year, my account expires, then it has an automated service for renewing access. This is working perfectly because I haven't had any issues with it. There are some broken links within the help section, but the solution is well worth it otherwise.

Positive

We previously used Visio for diagramming, then students would upload their processes to the discussion forum and so on. However, this did not really make things work when you would be repairing, building up processes, or collaborating on processes with teammates. There were some missing features in regards to business processes. The repository was not able to perform with Visio as well as the business process simulation. These are features that we only get with Signavio.

We also previously used the ADONIS:Community Edition. 

We switched to Signavio because we wanted students to cover the whole business process management lifecycle, from discovery to modeling to optimization as well as simulation and theoretical execution. We were looking for enterprise-grade features, like repository and simulation. We could only get this with Signavio, which is the reason why we switched.

The initial setup was straightforward.

The deployment took a month. I registered for the initiative, then they provided me access. After that, I explored the environment a bit. I needed to register my separate accounts so I could have one screen from a teaching/lecturer perspective and another screen from a student perspective. This is so I can test the environment in a manner where I can then provide some guidance for students to complete their tutorials.

I watched a couple of webinars on its deployment as well as some tutorials published within the help section of Signavio Process Modeler. These were very helpful.

We are only able to use the free academic licenses because we have a financial constraint. We are not able to pay for commercial licenses to use this kind of tool.

We did evaluate other options: Bizagi, Microsoft Visio, and ADONIS. We used these three tools prior to Signavio.

As a teacher, I need to follow developments in the field for business process management. We also reviewed IT Central Station.

The process repository is really valuable. This is something I cannot get with other tools. 

When you are selecting the business process management suite, you need to make sure that you have end-to-end coverage of the business process management lifecycle, not just to model the business processes, but also to run and optimize it. This is hard to achieve. An option is that you can check whether your selected solution supports a complete lifecycle. Another part is that you can export process models and run them on different process servers, not being locked into a certain vendor.

Students will contact the businesses, but this will be over the phone for a single session to learn about their problems, then they would design a process. However, they would not validate outcomes of the process with customers or their business contact. We can benchmark it towards some kind of business best practices, e.g., what are the typical sales processes or order to cash, but we cannot really judge the overall improvement in real life.

There is potential for students to build up a business process repository for a company that they are investigating. Typically, they would now design just one process for a certain case, but for their seminar work, they are examining a real-life business company that are typically smaller companies. They would talk to managers there, then design not one, but many complete end-to-end processes. There is also support for business process level. Therefore, we have a top-level process, then you can break that down. This is meaningful for students to have a better overview of the process landscape within certain companies.

I haven't really tried to export the processes into a process server, but this is a valuable point. What do you do with the models that you design? Obviously, the best outcome is to run it, then analyze it for potential operational outcomes. However, we are not able to do that because we don't have a platform for this.

I was not aware of SAP Journey Modeler until recently. 

I would rate it as eight out of 10.

We use this product in our Integrity and Compliance Organization. The product is not rolled out throughout the whole company. When I changed my job I brought Signavio with me because I started using it in another department and thought it made a lot of sense to have it in our Compliance Management Systems Processes. It is a way of documenting and sharing the processes with the compliance community.

We haven't started the life cycle improvement because we are still working on the as-is process documentation. 

We use Signavio to create our processes for digitalization and software development, also, for the improvement of the software we have. We have both, software improvement and process improvement for our compliance platform, for example.

We don't cover the use of business transformation. In our area, we work in the way of the process documentation and the sharing of the information with the Collaboration Hub, but in another department, they use, for example, Workflow Accelerator for the cloud migration and the transformation process.

The most valuable feature is that this is a 100%, web-based software as a service solution. This was the reason we chose Signavio. We are working in different countries, so we need a product that is easily accessible from everywhere and is easy to use, especially in collaboration for all users. It can't be complicated.

For me, it's really easy to use this product, and it helps to model processes and to comment on them.

I love the collaboration function, especially the option to invite people who don't have any users on the licenses. This is beneficial to use and work on processes and model processes.

The user administration, the user-group administration, and the license models need improvement.

In discussions with other departments or people, a problem that I always have is the license models. They are called licenses.

This solution is stable. We have not had any issues or bad experiences, and also the support is very good. If we had an issue they would help resolve it.

This solution is scalable. It has increased from when we started with only two licenses for our department, to now having three more departments with ten licenses throughout our company.

The Signavio technical support is very good.

The initial setup is straightforward. You can set it up in the way that you want if you know it.

Not everyone should set it up on their own. If you have your administrators and people who know the system then they can set it up the way that you want.

Also, you have the support available from Signavio.

Signavio is not a strategic investment in the company. It's more for us and improving our work environment. It's a tool used to assist us in the documentation, knowing what to do and in the sharing of information. These are the benefits that this solution provides.

It's not an investment in the monetary sense, but the investment is to have a tool that we can use to become better in our process and especially in finding software. For example, when you know your processes, you know what you want then it's easier to look for different software to suits your needs.

I know other models, that have concurrent licenses, and I love it. It would be easier to promote it in this way.

When I was looking for a new product, I had a difficult time finding a solution that covered one hundred percent of the service. Also, it was a challenge to find a good configuration, mostly in the customization, which costs money when you want to set it up in your own way.

Signavio was really flexible and very customer-minded, and this is what I really liked. 

It is so easy to use, with good support.

There may be other solutions that have more functionalities, but for me, this is not what I was looking for. I wanted to have a product where I knew what I was purchasing, I didn't need extra features adding to the cost. 

We haven't used the process intelligence function.

I don't use all of the functionalities, but with what I have used, I would say that it's a product that I like to work with. There are some small points that I would change or think that could be better, but they are minor.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The solution is used to run business processes. We're able to automate the data from SAP.

We can use the tool to shorten the process of creating tickets. It depends on the type of ticket, though. It is useful for updates.

The product is very useful for office processes. It is also useful for cost-cutting. The solution provides data mining and AI features. We can compare between two companies or departments. We can see if a salesperson is using the best practices to work. The product gives us the process that the users follow to get things done. We need not write it down.

Huge organizations have responsibility charts to know who is doing what. We can better judge whether we want to automate any processes. It’s a next-level tool. It has a huge future.

It’s the only tool for processes that engage shareholders. We can interact with the management more. The solution is great for banks, pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, and agriculture. It is suitable for non-manufacturing processes. We can use it well in offices.

The solution is complex. Signavio doesn’t provide the scalability that small businesses need. The solution is hard to use. We need some specialists. I rate the user experience an eight out of ten. If we want to get data, evaluate it, get insights, and make changes, we need someone skilled.

I have been using the solution for some weeks.

The solution is stable because it is connected to SAP.

The product offers scalability. It’s not easy, though. We have about 15 users.

The initial setup is complex. The time taken for deployment depends on how much potential you would like to receive from the tool. If we need to get a lot out of the tool, we need training from a specialist. Sometimes, we need more than one person. We need a whole team. The specialist and the team will cost us more. The solution is cloud-based.

The solution is expensive. It is suitable for huge enterprises.

The product provides more insights than Bizagi.

The solution is worth it if the company is a huge corporation with money. It will cost some money, but it can bring a lot of insights and save 20% of the time wasted on processes. Since the product is not cheap, the management wants to see results. There is huge pressure on the process managers to get and work with data. Some customers want to know whether their processes are straight and there is no waste. We can compare with companies and see which tools are cheaper. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

We are using Signavio mainly in the context of tax compliance management systems. We are supporting clients by documenting their processes, risks, and controls within Signavio. We also use Signavio to import processes into a workflow management tool.

Signavio is only a part of what we are doing, maybe 10% of a project. What's important for our clients, however, is to get that transparency about the processing. This is really the success we can show by using BPMN modeling.

This product helps change the way we approach business transformation. I don't know if it's really the Signavio tool itself. It's the BPMN modeling. This helps with convincing people and supporting them throughout their transformation.

Signavio's way of handling is really an advantage. It's quite easy to use, without too much training. That's the main point for me.

It's quite difficult for clients to change from describing their process in variety to a process modeling tool. This tool helps convince them in the projects, by using BPMN modeling, which is a close step of automation. There's a code that can be machine-read and so used for further automation.

My team does not use the process intelligence function but other colleagues of ours do use it. It's helpful, but there is still a long way to go for Signavio to be a leader in this area. There are other tools.

I think the intuitive handling is an issue which they should be more focused on, especially as we have issues with the glossary. If you want to implement Signavio within procedures in contact with other software, it's quite difficult to integrate and you will have several points where you have to double and triple the work because you cannot maintain the data centrally. With other solutions, we can integrate it and have only one data transfer, to import and export with other solutions. A glossary is still limiting us.

From time to time we have performance issues with Signavio, but in general it's stable.

Their technical support team is quite responsive but we are so deep in the details that we are really challenging them. I think my team in some cases knows much more than their technical support.

With regard to BPMN modeling, I would rate it a seven to eight out of ten. With regard to other functions, I would say four to five.

My company's clients mostly want to migrate their current solutions to SAP S4/HANA to check the processes the tool offers.

The most valuable features of the solution are the ease of use and the connection to the document management system.

The workflow automation of the solution is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using SAP Signavio Process Manager for a year and a half to two years. I work as an SAP consultant in my company. I work with the former versions of the solution, like SAP R/2 and R/3.

It is a highly stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company mostly deals with enterprise-sized clients who use the product.

The solution's support takes a lot of time to resolve an issue after the user opens the ticket with the technical team.

I rate the technical support a three out of ten.

Negative

I have experience with Celonis.

I rate the product's initial setup phase a seven to eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

The time for the product's deployment phase varies, but it is an easy process if you know what to do and if you want to deploy it. On average, the deployment process can be completed in two or three days.

The solution is deployed on a public cloud.

I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.

The use of SAP Signavio Process Manager within our organization's workflow was done in different ways. Some of the tool's users used it for process modeling, while others used it for workflow automation. The overall target for most of the customers is workflow automation.

The specific business processes that were improved in our company from the use of SAP Signavio Process Manager were a lot of manufacturing and tax-related processes.

The collaboration feature of SAP Signavio Process Manager is the most beneficial for process optimization.

I haven't used the simulation feature in the product.

I rate the product's ability to support collaboration among team members a ten out of ten.

It is difficult to motivate people in our organization to start using SAP Signavio Process Manager, though I believe that it should have been quite an easy process. People need to be trained on how to use it, and many people are scared of making mistakes while using the tool. A bigger change is needed in the beginning to motivate all employees to use the tool.

I rate the overall tool a six out of ten.

• Document processes as a baseline for further improvements 
• Design to be processed for ERP transformation (MS Dynamics)
• Training material for new employees
• The connection between several other pieces of information (templates, work instructions, learning videos etc.) which is very helpful for employees
  5 process managers designing processes
• 2000 employees with collaboration hub licences to have access to all processes
• Training videos based on processes in Signavio
  
• Introduction of a new ERP system based on designs to be processed

Employees love the intuitive nature of the collaboration hub and use it as their knowledge center. Access is very easy and the processes are intuitive. 

Even people that were reserved in the beginning love this tool now. Thanks to Signavio we have taken a big step from "Why can't we continue with the processes in Word documents" to "Wow, that's amazing".

We could increase the transparency and speed for the new ERP introduction. The status and changes by the new system are now clear to everybody and it is a great tool to train the people.

• High acceptance of the Signavio Collaboration Hub by our employees (what is the highest value for us)
• Easy to use for process modeling users by drag and drop
• Modeling convention check automated based on the defined setup
• Easy access for collaboration hub users by single sign-on
• Linking different processes to each other
• Collaboration, everybody can contribute to process improvements
  
• Excellent deployment program
• Fast response to questions/issues
• IT feedback "fastest and easiest Single Sign On (SSO) we have done so far"

• There are some small graphical bugs, but they are addressed immediately by Signavio to their product development team.
• The Stanard process model based on best practices would be helpful. Especially if there are no processes in place already to have an outside view on best practice models.
• Document management system to mange templates, checklists, work instructions. upload is possible but no version control etc. Signavio is not a document management tool yet.
• Focus also on other big ERP solutions (not just SAP).

I have been using Signavio since the beginning of 2020.

No issues with stability (SaaS).

High acceptance of the Signavio Collaboration Hub by our employees (what is the highest value for us). So we use it in all legal entitites.
Also there are interfaces to other IT solutions that are helpful, e.g. EAM

Support has a fast response to questions/issues.

We used MS Word.

Implement a professional BPM tool to make processes available to everybody

Straightforward initial setup, that was well prepared and all our questions could be answered.

We used the SIgnavio team (Premium Deployment Program)

We saw ROI in 12 months.

Due to COVID the deployment program took place remote via GoToMeeting. But it worked very well and the whole program was well prepared and very helpful for us. We chose the premium deployment program, which allowed us to continue with monthly Q&A sessions with Signavio. This was very helpful for us and together with the Signavio consultant, it was more like a real team-work. We really appreciate that.

Signavio is not the cheapest provider but also high value.

We evaluated several solutions.

Signavio is a great BPM tool with high acceptance among our employees