ARIS BPA Reviews

ARIS has many modules starting right from strategy to dashboarding. However, the primary focus of using ARIS is for Business Process Modeling/Analysis - although it is not just limited to process but can cover the entire enterprise architecture for an organization.

We have used ARIS for multiple projects with different objectives, including E2E process modeling, managing IT application landscape, support for eTOM frameworks, managing risk/compliance, rules modeling, et cetera. 

We have leveraged it for multiple client engagements with different objectives of the program, including digital transformation journeys, IT landscape rationalization, process transformation, process improvement, process automation, S4/HANA Migration, process rationalization, legacy modernization, and much more.

ARIS provides the basic foundation for any digital transformation an organization decides to take. 

Firstly, it helps to create the business blueprint for any organization. With clear and complete documentation of the processes, different departments and people involved can build a common understanding of processes. It helps in reducing duplication since there is only one single source of truth across the organization. 

It greatly reduces the modeling effort of the processes since it is based on a relational DB which supports the concept of library objects. For example, you can create a central repository of applications, risks, data, products, capabilities, services, interfaces, technical infrastructure et cetera. You can create them once and reuse them multiple times as required along with your processes. This helps the multiple dimensional analysis of your processes. 

ARIS provides many functionalities and capabilities, including:

1. E2E visibility of the processes which are typically cross-functional

2. Multiple hierarchies of the process provides a different level of abstraction

3. Multi-dimensional view of the process can be created to further support analysis from the system, data, capability, product, interface, infrastructure et cetera.

4. Provides a single source of truth for a process consumed by different departments/functions

6. Strong governance and release cycle management with a built-in workflow

7. Process simulation capabilities to perform what-if analysis

8. Seamless collaboration using built-in mini workflows 

9. Out-of-the-box connectivity with SAP

Although ARIS is already a leading tool in the BPA space for years, in my opinion, there are a few areas that can be made even better, For example:

1. The reporting capabilities and the ability to create custom reports need to be simplified and made easy so that people even with a good functional understanding of the tool can leverage it to create their own custom report. Since, at the end of such BPA/BPM implementations, higher management typically wants to see the value coming out of ARIS and all the modeling effort and this would make it more adaptable for our customers as they would see the value coming out of the tool.

2. As the world is going the way of low code/no code, they should also think of modernizing the report creation in a similar fashion.

3. The integration capabilities with other COTS products should be better. Since every organization uses many applications/systems for day-to-day operations, the easy integration with such systems like SNOW, SFDC, et cetera, will make the adoption easy for the client rather than seeing ARIS as a standalone system with separate license and maintenance costs.

I've used the solution for 12+ years.

The ARIS SaaS offerings are very stable and secure since they are hosted on Azure and AWS platforms which provide state-of-the-art hosting. 

With the SaaS offering, organizations can start exploring the basic functionalities with a subscription-based license. The license can be upgraded and the adoption of the tool can be increased within the organization as needed.

They offer excellent support and customer service. 

We have used many tools, including Signavio, Bizagi, Visio, Nimbus, Mega, et cetera.

I personally found the modeling very easy to start and adopt even for a beginer as ARIS provides a very clean and simple interface to work with. 

The kind of versatility and flexibility that ARIS provides is unmatched by any other tool in the market.

The initial setup is quite straightforward since the Software AG teams take care of the provisioning and intial setup of the SaaS instance based on the requirements. 

Organizations do not need to get involved and invest time and energy in figuring out the infrastructure, security, and access-related issues.

The SaaS offering was handled by the Software AG team itself.

Although not quoting a number, ARIS brings huge value for Organizations that have implemented it. For example, it's bringing E2E transparency of how the business process works in a department/unit since they are typlical cross functional in nature.

Different stakeholders can talk and understand the same language since ARIS provides a single source of truth for processes across the organization. 

Although the largest customer base for ARIS is in large enterprises, the SaaS offering from Software AG starts right from free trial to basic, advanced, and Enterprise versions. Organizations can start small and rapidly scale as required.

We looked at many tools, including Signavio, Bizagi, Visio, Nimbus, MEGA, et cetera.

Since there is a free 30-day trial, I certainly urge anyone looking to invest in process modeling or analysis tools to try out ARIS.

We use ARIS BPA for various operations and processes.

ARIS BPA has a good directory option, which helps to keep track of all of your metadata, and that's very useful.

It would be helpful if ARIS BPA could have a simple database to get the extract of various attributes.

The solution should include a simpler database where one can select the required columns or attributes to be downloaded and various reports. Also, the report formats could be simpler.

I have been using ARIS BPA for three years.

ARIS BPA is a stable solution.

ARIS BPA is a scalable solution. We have close to 20 to 30 end users working on the solution.

The solution’s technical support is good.

Positive

SAP is better than ARIS BPA because it has some positive features.

The solution’s initial setup is easy.

It is easy to maintain ARIS BPA. The solution is deployed on-cloud in our organization.

ARIS BPA is a simple-to-use solution with good cloud-based support.

Overall, I rate ARIS BPA an eight out of ten.

I am part of an IT service organization and working in capacity of Advisory Consultant where various customers seek advice for Business Process Analysis. The primary use case is Business Architecture Modeling, however, I've suggested ARIS BPA as an upstream to many implementations. 

I have used ARIS Architect, Designer, and ARIS Connect for various other models to complete overall Enterprise Architecture Modeling be it Applications Models, Information/Data Models or Technology/Infrastructure Models. 

ARIS-Solman Integration is another useful use case when it comes to ARIS BPA.

ARIS BPA supports various model types for business processes, customer journeys, organizational charts, applications, information, and technology views along with product and service views. It brings transparency and 360-degree views of end-to-end processes. 

Also, it avoids needing heavy documentation to maintain attributes/properties of processes, organization units, roles, positions, applications, systems, data clusters, and products and services. This list is still not comprehensive. We can easily customize attributes based on our needs and keep the information up to date. This is another important benefit that ARIS BPA has bought.

ARIS BPA provides a variety of features, however, the feature to look at the same model from a different perspective is amazing. We can show the information/view which is relevant to specific stakeholders. This also helps to avoid creating multiple views of the same model and saves a lot of time. 

Also, creating various queries, ad-hoc queries, and reports (what you see what you get) helped us in analyzing the information which is captured on these ARIS models and helped with rapid impact analysis for our application and role rationalization project.

Simulation is one area that is a bit complex. Nowadays, we are talking of digital twins. We should have simulation functionality offered in a simple way and promote process twin. Also, dashboarding is another important area where some other BI tools provide very aesthetic looks to different dashboards (e.g. PowerBI) - although ARIS Process Mining can bring us that. 

In ARIS BPA, if we are providing a dashboarding feature, aesthetics could be improved and dashboard templates can be added for easy and quick consumption.

I've used the solution for more than ten years.

This can be easily scaled. They have 3 editions that start with a Basic, Advanced and an Enterprise edition. Basic provides all essential features like modeling, sharing and optimization. Advanced will give comprehensive features, provides full flexibility of method and access control. Enterprise addition is complete stack, provides full configurability and integration capabilities.

Customer service and support are flexible and help to guide you through simple queries. If you are implementing the first time, they can assist. For complex implementations, you can always count on them to meet your needs.

Positive

I have used various other solutions as well. However, ARIS BPA provides 200+ model types that give me the flexibility to use different models depending on the context.

The initial setup was not that complex; we could manage it with an installation guide. ARIS Connect is plug-and-play. It is a SaaS offering.

We have implemented everything in-house.

ARIS BPA provides complete suites when it comes to the discovery, design, and analysis phases of implementation. Therefore, the cost it has is just not for modeling. The licensing models are very innovative. You can go with whatever it suits to your organization. The environment starts with basic and moves on to advanced and up to an enterprise-level offering.

I have evaluated multiple other options before selecting ARIS BPA, however, I would prefer not to disclose the product names.

We have three main use cases. One is process management and the second is ICS (internal control system). Our third use case is very important for us: to evaluate the operational risk situation of our company, not only of the company itself but of the whole group. It was one of our requirements to find a system that could, on the one hand, evaluate risks for each company in the group, and on the other hand, conglomerate these risk situations for the whole group.

We use ARIS Risk & Compliance Manager (ARCM) for our ICS. There are different people who have to evaluate the risks and actualize the processes. We have a workflow implemented so that there is a reminder for the people who have to evaluate the risks and the controls, once a year. We also have a workflow for the process owners to assign a process model.

For our ICS, we used to have an Excel- and Word-based solution. It was very complicated and it was not really digital. Now, it's very simple for the people who have to evaluate the risks. They get a reminder from Outlook that a certain risk needs to be evaluated and they can evaluate it and send it to the risk owner. It's a more digital process and has improved things.

With our ICS we didn't have control of the controls, and this is something we are now working on. It is very easy in ARIS to model it and evaluate it. This was something we learned about and a capability we didn't have before.

The browser-based modeling tool is very awesome. It's very easy for the people who use it. One of our aims was and is to use ARIS in a decentralized way. That means we want our business departments to be able to publish their processes and to evaluate risk and controls. For that purpose, we have ARIS BPA and ARCM, which are connected. We model the risks and controls on the process diagrams, and the evaluation of risks and controls take place in ARCM.

ARIS BPA provides very good visibility and control of processes because we have a concurrent license system. As a result, every person in our company and group is able to look at the published processes. We have also built a tree from a process map so that people can navigate through different steps to the process model itself. That works quite well.

The intuitiveness of ARIS when it comes to business process management and modeling is not quite there. We have invested a lot of time and money in building a very usable system. The modeling part is very intuitive, but there are so many possible elements you can use. We had to invest a lot of time to reduce the elements to those we want people to use. If you take all the elements and all the modeling types that ARIS has, it is not possible to model in an equal way.

Also, we are part of a community that has one or two events per year where we can talk about our experiences with the solution. From these meetings, my impression is that a lot of customers do not use the current release. Migration to the next release is very tricky. You can't do it without support from ARIS or from a software kit. And it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to migrate. My impression is that a lot of companies do not migrate regularly because of that issue. There are always a lot of bugs, especially when you adapt the system to your needs. It's very complicated.

We have been using ARIS BPA since 2020.

The stability has been okay. We haven't had any interruptions so far and the concurrent license model works very well. We have enough licenses that people don't have any problem getting into the system.

The scalability is good because it is a modular system, and that was another factor in our decision to go with ARIS. You can buy additional modules to adapt it to your needs.

The solution enables you to start small and grow its use.

For small problems, their tech support is okay. 

For larger problems, it's more complicated to explain to their tech support what we really need. Our experience has been that it's better to buy two or three consultant-days with the consultant who knows our system, because he developed it together with us. He can identify problems very easily. With the regular tech support it takes a long time to explain what the problem is.

Neutral

Casewise – EA & BPM was the system we had before. It was a system that wasn't fit for our decentralization goals because it was very complicated. There were a few specialists in our company who could work with Casewise, but it was really a system for specialists and not for business departments.

The initial setup was complex. Ours is a complicated environment and we had complex requirements. But we had really good trainers from Software AG. They have a lot of knowledge and they were able to help adapt the solution to our needs. But it was a very long process to get the system to where we wanted it to be. It took about a year for the implementation.

We have done two migrations since we deployed the solution. One migration was during the implementation phase, and the second is being done now. As I said, the migrations are very complicated.

We looked at Signavio, in addition to Casewise, among the solutions we looked at in an intensive way.

Signavio was okay, but it didn't fit our needs when it came to risk management, and their licensing system also didn't fit our requirements.

We deployed the solution on-premises because our IT security team is very strict. We don't have any cloud solutions so far. This was one of the topics that influenced our decision to go with ARIS. Other solutions prefer the cloud or develop cloud products in a more efficient way. Our aim was to have a product that works on-premises.

We do not have a lot of experience because we implemented process management, as a strategy, in 2019. Before that, processes were not really the focus of the business departments. IT had processes in mind, of course, but they only used drawing tools that were not management tools. There is now more awareness of process management in our company, not only in IT but in the business departments as well. Still, at the moment, people see it as additional work, but I hope that will get better.

We use it for creating a structured record of our processes and for updating them. We also use it to analyze how strategic changes in our company may impact these processes. 

We work with the cloud solution. We don't have to have anything installed on our computers locally. We designed the processes and the framework ourselves.

With ARIS: 

• We now have a better view of how everybody works in our organization and it helps us to see that everybody is doing the work they should be doing.
• We have more standardization, compared to when we first started, when it comes to describing processes. When we started, we saw that different people in the same unit, who should be doing the same work, performed their work in different ways. ARIS enabled us to achieve more alignment there.
• The solution also makes it easier to solve problems, and similarly helps when there is a strategy change or a new product. It's easier for us to pinpoint where the differences will be, compared to the current way things are done. It helps us respond more quickly to things we change in the organization.

The last point helps us to identify where we have to focus when things change. There are no surprises. We know what our processes are now and, if we know where we are heading with the changes, we can use ARIS to see where the changes need to be made. It helps us to speed up the rollout of transformation processes.

It has also definitely helped us to save time on business process analysis. It's now easier to find processes. We have them clearly described and we don't have to work through a pile of Word or PowerPoint documents. We just go to ARIS and we can search and navigate in the system. It's easier to access things. We are now doing more work with the same number of people, without these people having too much on their plates. We're more efficient and we all benefit from each others' best ways of working.

A basic feature that most other tools like ARIS BPA have as well, is a database with all of the relationships in the system. It makes it easier to have more standardized processes across the organization. The database also makes it possible to run reports and do analysis, which is kind of cool.

What also makes it good is the way we have set it up so that we not only have the processes in place, but we also have relationships specified with our IT systems and our organizational chart. That makes it possible to analyze things from the systems point of view and regarding the organizational part of the company. It all comes together in one tool and that is what gives us the most value at the moment.

We use the modeling technique called BPMN, which is a standard way of describing processes. It's independent of ARIS, but ARIS facilitates working with it. All the objects are available in ARIS, which makes it quite intuitive. For me, ARIS BPM is easy to use because I have known it for quite a long time. Others need some training before they can use it properly. They need a basic understanding of how the tool works. But overall, the intuitiveness of the solution is quite good.

Also, access to the solution is good because it's a cloud solution, and the performance is quite good. It's well-organized.

There are reports available in ARIS and you can modify them a bit if you want something more specific, but it's not that easy to adjust them and make modifications. It would be nice to have some kind of tool to do that, something that is more user-friendly for people who are not too technical, so that they could create reports the way they want them. That would be a good feature. That would also help in the adoption of ARIS.

At this company, I have been using ARIS BPA for a year and a half, but I'm quite experienced in using the tool, having used it for about 10 years.

The stability of the solution is quite good. I haven't had any issues with it. Maybe years ago it was less stable, but it's quite stable now.

We don't have that many users, so it perfectly suits our company. ARIS enables you to start small and grow the use of the solution over time, although it's quite expensive. So if you want to start small, it's quite an investment for a small company. But it's perfectly suitable for growing.

I am the administrator of the solution and we only have a subscription for 10 other users and two other designers.

We have used it very extensively over the last 18 months, but due to our strategy for growth, which is a little bit different, and because of what the pandemic has caused, we are not really growing the process area. We may have even turned it down a bit. That's a shame, but we have to focus on other parts of the organization at the moment.

The technical support is quite good. I have had a few interactions with them by email. There are formalities to the process. I have to put my issues in a certain format and then they will respond. 

It might be easier if I could have direct contact, just easily pick up the phone or chat or just write a quick email, so that we could find a solution. There might be some room for improvement there.

Positive

When I started here, we didn't have anything other than descriptions of processes in Word on PCs around the organization. We wanted to have that available in a more structured way.

I have a good deal of experience in setting up an ARIS environment, so I knew quite well what I needed to do. For me, it's not really that complex. We set it up for our needs.

We had it ready within one month, approximately. It's quite important to think about what you want to have, which areas you want to touch, and what you want the results to be. 

It's important to take some time to do a good implementation of the tool. Our implementation strategy involved investigating, defining, and describing what we wanted to have; what we wanted to describe with the tool, and what benefit we wanted from the tool. In that way, we could set it up, from the start, in a way that we wouldn't have to rework it in a few months or a few years. It's better to take some more time to set it up well than to start in with it directly and then see, in a few months, that you're missing some parts.

I created a framework in which we could capture all of the processes across the organization, from IT to delivery to logistics to HR and finance. Gradually, we have been filling it. We have defined five layers of detail. I interview people who are working with the various processes in the field, and I try to describe them as they are right now. When there are changes within our organization, when we have a new product or we have a new strategy, we also look at the processes and see where these changes will impact them. Based on where the impact might be, we can more easily pinpoint what we need to do when adopting a new strategy or a new product.

There is not that much work involved in maintenance of the solution. The maintenance of the content, on the other hand, depends on the business you're in. For us, it's our day-to-day work, making sure that all the processes are in place and correct. But the maintenance of the tool itself, the more technical part, does not require that much work, about half a day per week.

I did it myself. Because of my experience, I didn't need other people to help me with it.

The ROI depends, for our company, on how big we grow. The intention is to grow and we need a tool in place, like ARIS, to make our growth happen. We have to be in control and we need an overview and insights. If we can achieve the growth we're thinking about, the return on investment should take a few years.

In the future, ARIS might help us save on development costs associated with business process transformation. At the moment, we just describe the business processes without going too much into detail regarding the technical IT solutions. That connection is there, but not too extensive at the moment. But if we improve that part, we will definitely see some cost savings there.

If you want customized reports in place and you cannot create them yourself, you have to get them done externally, so that would be an extra cost.

We briefly looked around at what was in the market, but with my past experience with ARIS, the choice was quickly made to use this tool. It might be a bit more expensive, but it has a lot of possibilities, so we didn't spend very long searching for other tools.

If you start working with ARIS, first investigate very well what you want to achieve. You can use it for different kinds of goals. You need to know what you have and what you want to achieve. Then you have to create a setup. So the requirements are quite important to the design, before you start working with the tool. That's the most important thing you need to do.

The tool functions quite well and you can put every process in it, but it's also important to look at your organization and make sure that people are willing to work with processes. That means you have to do some educating, in addition to the technical solution ARIS provides. Be sure that all the management positions participate in describing their processes and that managers encourage their teams to work in and use ARIS, and to do their work in the way things are described. There are these kinds of change-management issues to be aware of.

The fact that ARIS has the largest BPM community worldwide is not that important to me, because I don't use it very much. I only use it to pose some technical questions. I have used some other frameworks, such as the eTOM APQC Frameworks. So I generally get my knowledge from other sources, rather than from the ARIS community.

When I came into the company, I immediately started to implement ARIS, so I don't have a clear view of how things were done before. But everybody in our organization is more and more aware that we should use ARIS and that we are benefiting from it, although I can't clearly define the benefit compared to how things used to be.

I'm very happy with the ARIS solution. The ARIS Advanced product we have would work quite well for most of the companies. A very big company, like a multinational, might want to have something that is on-premises, and to customize it a little bit, but for most companies, what we have is good enough.

We use BPMN for process design. We check our processes. There is the start event, then there are the tasks and steps as well as risks on the steps and controls. In the end, there is a result event of the process. There is a hierarchy model through the processes themselves to locate, classify, and build a whole tree off of the complete process design. So, we try to get the complete process model in all the layers. It is not only about flow diagrams. You also need the hierarchy system in the process design to get an idea of which business area it is, which products we handle there, etc. This is to get some kind of a systematic approach to a wide area of the complete company, e.g., which services are delivered from whom and how it is organized.

We separated the fields. We had some kind of internal control system, which was one use case for us. We had risk management and how to get a picture up of the actual risk evaluation. We had the policy management separated. We started process management. This is all integrated on the technical side and the tools' side. We tried to get the different solutions out of the one system to see them as different solutions with different responsible people with different roles behind them. 

It fits all together, so there are no completely loose ends, where there is one philosophy and one architecture behind it. We managed to get it a little bit separated, but it has good connection process management, internal control systems, and a risk system. It is very well-integrated.

We are using Connect and ARCM. ARCM is the ARIS governance, risk, and compliance module to do workflow-orientated stuff, e.g., how much is your risk.

Another use case is value chain processes. These are in a hierarchy built up through the company and our business use cases since we have export and capital market services. At the bottom, we decided to use only a business process model notation (BPMN), which made it possible for us to integrate on this flow chart. This integrates risks and controls directly on a flow chart, making it easier for non-super process experts to get an idea of the steps, controls, and risk as well as how this all fits together to get a good overview at the starting point when working with these processes.

In normal, day-to-day business, when a process is drawn, our expert team can review the processes, risks, and controls. They can do that completely themselves on a technical level. There is a review step from the process expert to her/his boss, then it is approved and published. After that, we use the risk evaluation and control execution using ARCM Risk and Compliance Manager, where they can do everything with the risk, e.g., how much is our risk? How much is the risk now? They evaluate that and do a controlled execution. We use the ARIS APG programming to get the approval and publication processes. 

Now, we have a fully automatic-supported risk evaluation each quarter. I only need to take the results and put them together for the board's report. That is a big improvement. 

The implementation of the completely decentralized process management, meaning that business departments can simply document their processes and flowcharts to improve their businesses, is now in one system. They have a list of business applications that are used within the process documentation, where there is one list of organizational departments interacting within this process. It has everything that we normally would want to have if we use an integrated process management system that works fine. Therefore, we have possibilities that we did not have before. 

If you ever tried to draw a picture in a browser app or with a cloud service, it is normally a painful death. ARIS works perfectly on diagrams in the browser, so I was excited. I like it because there have been so many bad experiences in the past with drawing or doing something in a browser. Normally, it's always painful because it's coded badly. With ARIS, it is really well-implemented. It's simple. 

We only get emails if something went wrong or the semantic checks are integrated, which means you can't publish it. If there is the smallest mistake in it, then you can't publish it at all. It is only allowed to get the symbols which are permitted. Therefore, everything is perfect on the technical side, and on the control side, no mistakes are published. You can check the deep semantic process. For example, if it does not make sense, but it is formally correct. If it's correct on the technical side, but it does not make sense when you have to read it. That is the human interaction that you need. However, what is technically possible is implemented to get good results.

I had this decentralization mission where I had some friendly fights with the consultants of Software AG. My opinion was the business department should be able to publish their processes and do all their evaluation stuff in ARCM themselves. It has to be a one stop shop. I want a one stop shop to go from ARIS BPM to ARIS ARCM, because having everything go through that would be an improvement due to the inputs that we made with Software AG. They will make it possible that the trigger sent from BPM to ARCM will start their object generation. Although, they did something in SR 16 for our business needs, and that was great.

The process needs to be straight-through. This means, if the process experts say, "Okay, I'm finished. I sent the process to my boss," and the boss says, "Okay, it's great. The documentation is right," and they can give approval. Then, the process experts can click on it, and five minutes later, they will get the risk for the evaluation. After that, the process expert says, "Okay, it has this and those risks. We could lose this amount." So, they send it again for approval back to the boss. The boss reviews whether the risk evaluation is right, then it is approved. Finally, it is finished in one hour (in a best case scenario). The yearly process documentation can then be completed without the action of any central process management board. 

We have been using it since Autumn 2020, which is about a full year now.

It is a stable product. 

We did one upgrade throughout the project. Now, we want to wait until the end of the year for SR16.

There is almost zero maintenance to maintain its design from a central process management or risk management team standpoint. Decentralized business departments can do their jobs all by themselves. Sometimes, there are questions, like, "Can you help me? I'm lost. What am I doing here?" For example, if you have new bosses in new jobs, then they do not know what to do. 

In 2020, we did a lot of presentations, videos, and training. They had to do these on the training systems to evaluate risks and processes. We knew if they did not do it themselves, then they would learn nothing. If they did it themselves, then it was possible to learn to work with new tools. So, the normal maintenance should be really low. 

We have a concurrent license system. We have about 80 persons in-house decentralized in all the business departments who received their training. We have a lot of information, material, and how-to videos to ultimately support them so they can do the processes themselves. It is completely decentralized. Once finished, they can send it to their boss to approve it, then it is published. We have a central expert team in process management, who cares about how ARIS should be used.

Because we use it within a concurrent license system, everyone within the group can read the publications of errors and do risk evaluation at the same time. We now have 15 to 30 people (out of 500) who can use it at the same time. 

The help desk of Software AG is great. We had some problems. This happens in projects, where you do something stupid, then it does not fit together. The data is not useful. You try to do some test cases and put something in the system to determine how it works. The support was always really professional. The software developers and help desk did a really good job. I am really a fan of Software AG because they are a very competent business partner.

Positive

Before, we used Casewise from London for centralized process management. That was our old tool, which wasn't bad, but it was only for three heads in the central team. It limited us completely. Then, they were bought by erwin in New York, and erwin is on the data governance side. Casewise was now a small part of a big company and wasn't being developed or improved as ARIS is. Therefore, it was quickly clear to us that we would go with ARIS.

We started with the idea at our company in February 2019. We got in contact with Software AG around June 2019 to do some kind of proof of concept, learn about the design, the idea, and philosophy, e.g., how to solve such problems and how to get process management within a fully integrated tool. 

Before, we had Excel lists and some types of Visio diagrams, which were put together based on the process description. That wasn't okay. We always had to do it on a central basis, take the documentation, work it through and give it back.

This solution was really an improvement on the efficiency of our process management, documentation for end-to-end development, business processes, and business departments, who complete freedom and empowerment to do it themselves. That was a big improvement.

Luckily, we had Software AG implement the ARIS Connect platform, the web-based platform, with this broad possibility to use it in a concurrent way. In 2017, that was what we wanted. We wanted the system to be used by the business experts and leaders in the business units in a decentralized manner. 

When you start the solution, you eliminate every useless variant that you do not need, then it is really simple. At the starting point, you need to learn how the philosophy of the solution works. You need to deal with the solution as if you are taking a normal car through the woods. You can't normally. You have to think, "Okay, what is it built for? How is this model designed?" You then need to get in contact with the design and philosophy. After that, you can do a good job. It is a big mistake to say, "No, they have to code everything around our old company stuff because we always did it that way. So, we need to stay with the old way." Then, you are lost and will never have any kind of success. 

At the start of the project, we set up some testing and development implementation. It took us one to two weeks for our IT and Software AG's IT to get it up and running. Before we were productive, we had to edit the publication database as well as all the backups, restore processes, and all that stuff in a production environment. We also had to put brain power in it. That was for part one and two of the processes (installation and implementation), which both took one to two weeks. That was net five to 10 consultant days or IT expert days to get up this step in performance and excellence. The implementation was about two days. 

We put a lot of brain power and personnel power into the project. We also had consultants who supported us very well through the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, we had the chance to implement it quickly.

Go with a consultant. In every solution, e.g., ARIS, there are a lot of consultants with experience over the years. Many companies bring in their experience to provide general solutions for general problems, since these problems are not individual to a company.

From the mid-2019 to Autumn of 2020, we always had support consultant days remotely or a consultant who visited us to develop the method as well as do all the processes and risk management stuff, which have to be customized.

We only worked with Software AG, who integrated the consultants, e.g., IDS software developers. They brought them to us because we needed to implement some improvements on the ARIS ARCM governance, risk, and compliance model. We did their multi-object handling, which means you can approve 20 risks with one click. So, it marks all the risks on the list as okay, pulls them through, and then they are finished, which we loved. There were also some user interface optimizations for mass objects. 

We have seen ROI. The quality has improved enormously. You do not always get faster because if you want to improve quality, then you have to sit in, think about and work with it. Therefore, you need a good tool. 

The management board really likes it because it is well-adopted by employees with no problems using it.

On our evaluation list, we also looked at Signavio Process Manager, but there were so many differences. They were millions of miles between ARIS and Signavio Process Manager. Therefore, we did not think about which tool to take. It was completely clear that we should get ARIS because it was the best solution for us.

The process could be so simple. The question for the business units is always, "Okay, let's think about this." If the process is what we brought into ARIS, then how can we make it better? They shall use their brain and time to improve and think about their business. ARIS is only a tool. They should not be focused on, "Oh, how can I work with this tool? I'm so confused." Everything should not go into the tool. They should use their brain and energy to think about their business. 

We are still developing our process management method. We are still using it, but we are also improving it to get it more integrated, have more detail, and have process management be more connected with our internal control system. 

It was hard to do process management on a yearly cycle on an annual basis. It was helpful for us to have ARIS as a tool for this, but we also learned that it is a really complex job to do process management through the year on such a high quality level. You have to think about a lot of questions. These are all processes approved every year. All the stuff seen is, "Okay, I have to do that, and I have to do that. I have to check that they looked it through for the first half of the year. Then, they have to do the rest in the second half of the year." All this gets operationalized. With this tool, we now had process lists that we could deal with. 

You need a clear aim to reach for and it should not be too big. You should separate it in some way. If you want to do more than one thing, then handle it as if you want to reach for aim one, two, and three. This makes it easier than doing big bang projects where you never get to an end. 

Separate your aims and focus on them. For example, we started with different starting times. In September 2020, we started risk management. In November, we then started with the internal control systems. Step by step, we are now pulling our process management up. We are still improving on the methods. 

This solution has been my baby the last three years, so I would rate it as 10 (out of 10) because I gave everything to make it the best.

ARIS was used to capture current business processes in ARIS EPC through a series of workshops. Level 1-3 VACD, Level 4 EPC (Event-driven Process Chain) and FAD (Function Allocation Diagram), Activities, Roles, Metrics, Risk and Control, RACI, etc.

It was used to operationalize new business processes and also in preparation for a case management system migration to Salesforce. The management, team leader, and staff were trained to read the EPC process model and taught how to navigate ARIS in the production environment. 

The selection criteria for ARIS as the preferred BPM was questionable in my opinion.

The main reason it was chosen is that it was on the government "approved" product list.

The solution was too complex/advanced for the organization's requirements and a big team was hired to manage the administration of ARIS and maintain it.

The choice to model the business process in EPC instead of BPMN was made by the organization and no fault of ARIS; ARIS is most certainly capable of modeling in BPMN. There's a lot of time and effort spent to help staff get their head around how to read an EPC in ARIS.

The EPC modeling is very detailed, the semantic check is helpful, and auto-layout simplifies the formatting.

The process interface is valuable for identifying the upstream and downstream processes.

The approval process for the ARIS EPC from the design, staging, and production environment is pretty good. You can obtain feedback on the process model; however, this functionality seems a bit limited by today's standard as some other BPM allows you to comment on the objects within the process model, which makes gathering feedback and making changes easier.

ARIS EPC & FAD features and functionality does not feel like they are not designed for business users. Instead, it feels like they are geared for Process Modelers and Technology users who are focused on System Interface, User Interface, Risk and Control, etc.

Trying to read an EPC in a screen Top-Down while dragging the screen is next to impossible. 

The model graphics can be exported in PDF, but the model is too small to read.

In my experience, once the organization creates the process model in ARIS EPC, it will take approximately two years before most organizations ditch any effort to update it. It takes more effort to maintain it than the value that an organization gets out of it.

The requirements for events after the rules, whilst accurate, simply take up too much space and makes the process model difficult to read.

Connecting the upstream and downstream process interface is a pain.

The auto-layout is a great feature but does not work as expected all of the time, as lines appear to overlap and can be confusing to read unless you click on the line to highlight it.

We have been using ARIS BPM for two years.

It's pretty stable, at 95% in my experience. There was the odd occasion when the system was down and it took 48 hours to resolve the issue.

More licenses can be added as the demand grows, it just costs more.

Visio was used initially prior to ARIS. Visio lacked the BPM functionality.

It was implemented through an ARIS vendor and the level of expertise was good.

I would suggest trying at least three vendors and obtain written quotes.

The setup cost and pricing depend on the license (Modeler, Viewer, Administrator).

ARIS was the only government "approved" software that the organization was "allowed" to purchase. This was a questionable decision.

My advice is to try different BPM providers and download the demo for 30/90 days to see if it meets your organization's needs. A basic tool means that you will outgrow it quickly, whereas top-end solutions may be too costly and difficult to implement.

Our customers have generators on their facilities, and we manage those generators to provide services to the grid and reduce their costs. It involves peak shaving and that sort of stuff. We use ARIS BPM to essentially automate the communication to the grid and the generator and then update all of the account information regarding those transactions.

The ease of use is the most valuable. I have tried a number of BPMN packages, and I find the user interface of ARIS BPM easier and more intuitive than others. If your team is knowledgeable on BPMN, it is really pretty easy to figure out on your own because it adheres to the standards extremely well. I have tried Bizagi, BizFlow, and a variety of such solutions, and I just liked ARIS BPM better.

I use it strictly for developing the business process model. I don't use it for the actual automation. I do that with Vtenext. I have standardized on Vtenext, and I don't use ARIS BPM anymore. The Vtenext UI is just as good, and it is much more tightly coupled to the underlying object model. I can get more done in one session with Vtenext rather than first going to ARIS BPM, then importing, and having to edit it for tight coupling.

I have been using ARIS BPM off and on for six months.

I would not comment on this because we use it primarily just for the business process modeling and not the automation. So, I really can't comment on scaling. We have four users who are using this solution.

We never contacted them. Its user interface is good and pretty intuitive. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

We implemented it through an in-house team.

I would recommend ARIS BPM depending upon the use case. I would generally recommend Vtenext first. I found Vtenext on GitHub as I was looking through and trying out lots of BPMN and BPA stuff. I used their product, and it is a really good product. We've now partnered with them.

I would rate ARIS BPM an eight out of ten.

We use it for enhancing systems. 

The solution is user-friendly and easy to use. 

They should make improvements as per customer requirements. 

I have been working with Aris BPA for three years.

It is a highly stable solution. 

It is a scalable solution. One hundred users are using the solution. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It does not require much maintenance. 

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

We use the product for modeling business scenarios and processes. It helps in designing BPMN and functions.

ARIS BPA is customizable as per specific business requirements. It is flexible to structure and arrange essential components in business models.

The platform’s most valuable feature is object reusability. It has occurrence copies, which help us reuse any object in any model.

The product is difficult to use for someone without prior knowledge of working with it. It requires a certain level of administration training.

We have been using ARIS BPA for three years.

It is a stable product and quick to use.

We have 30 to 40 ARIS BPA users in our organization. It was highly scalable the last time I checked it with the technical advisor.

We have deployed the product on the cloud.

I rate ARIS BPA an eight out of ten. I advise others to appoint an executive with specific knowledge about the product.