ARIS BPA Reviews

My first use case using ARIS was in a Brazilian tax project for a global cosmetic company. All the flows had to be analysed by the global team regarding the core model synergy.

Creating all the flows related to the "As-Is" process of the organization that must easily see the possible improvements and compare them with the best practices from marketing.

The BPMN notation and the share flow through users. It is nice to see all flows in a common, shared space for all the stakeholders to view the same thing and the same language.

The usability. Others tools are easier to manage without same complexity that ARIS has.

It is a complete tool, but it is not so user-friendly.

Primary use case of the solution is for implementing the digital management system of a company, documenting processes, documents, IT system, roles, and organization, and, of course, their interconnections.

ARIS is really flexible in terms of what you can do to customize your methodology, so it supports various flavors of management system implementations. For example, some companies have a greater focus on Risk and Compliance management, SAP implementations and roll-outs, process improvement and reorganization, etc.

I can give a good example from one of my last projects, where I worked as an external consultant. At an oil and gas company, ARIS really made a big impact in offering an integrated solution where all of the employees could easily access the relevant information on critical safety processes, thus lowering the risk of accidents and potentially harmful events.

In other projects I’ve worked on, I’ve seen that it really helps people working on SAP template rollout projects, as all project members have more or less common information about which company-wide processes are part of the rollout, and what are the specifics in the local process variants.

The most valuable feature is the flexibility of the solution to fully customize the methodology according to the company's needs, and to enforce that methodology with features like filters, semantic checks, and reports.

Also, there is a really powerful reporting API that allows you to create almost any kind of report you want out of your process and document repository.

The functionalities for search, query, and social collaboration are getting better with every new release of the tool.

The whole redesign of the content publishing platform, and move from Business Publisher to ARIS Connect portal was a great move.

There are some things in the collaboration module that could be improved a little, such as the functionality which dynamically pushes notifications to interested people when a process changes during the Release Cycle Management workflow.

Also, while the dashboarding solution for integrating all kinds of process-related information from company sources other than ARIS is getting ever better, my personal wish would be to have a module that is more targeted to an Agile implementation of some modeled processes (model–to-execute).

ARIS has an internal fully customizable workflow system called APG, which is very good, but it’s targeted mostly at creating workflows related to ARIS content, and not general workflows to support other processes inside a company.

I give it an eight out of 10, but I’m really happy with the product in regards to the primary use case.

I use ARIS Express mainly for additional presentational graphics. It gets my ideas across more clearly to my colleagues. I use it on my laptop and run it on Windows OS.

It has helped me get some ideas across more clearly to my colleagues. For example, how to conduct access management/administration rights distribution during a new implementation.

It is a well-featured, functional product. This is its biggest feature.

I could use more icons and other graphical elements.

ARIS Express is free.

Platform that it supports covers legacy and new. Caters to moving older objects into an integrated DB, relatively popular ones: SQL, Oracle, etc.

No product is complete. As technologies evolve, so must the tools to support them. End-to-end visibility and real-time are areas that will need greater attention.

No issues with scalability.

I do not believe that there is a site in this country that has exceeded the scalability limitation.

Judging from my perspective, all the forums appear to have topical discussions. Also, requested a latest GA version date and received a response.

Staunch user of Visio, ArchiMate. A requirement for a client, decided to explore deeper. Alfabet.

The Aris version that I have is straightforward.   

Although digital business transformation (e.g. IoT, Blockchain) is top of mind for many IT professionals, many companies are facing legacy systems consuming operating budgets and have limited visibility into their enterprise architecture. It is increasingly difficult to meet RFC (requests for change) deadlines and digital business transformation demands. Therefore, a simple and easy to use enterprise architecture is important for implementing an effective digital business transformation program.

However, enterprise architecture (EA) and the frequently used methodology TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) have an image problem. Business and IT leaders are frequently bypassing the enterprise architect because they have the following issues:

1. The enterprise architecture and TOGAF are not practical to complete and are difficult to explain.
2. The EA terminology is difficult to understand and not aligned with operational departments.
3. The EA governance methodology and EA models are difficult to understand and to maintain.
4. Too much focus of project delivery and IT architecture 

Because of these issues the enterprise architect, and business and IT leaders, are not always aligned and do not fully cooperate to resolve the EA issues at hand. Most of the design decisions are made by business and IT leaders who are not always in line with the vision of the enterprise architect. This has an impact on the quality of the EA. In order to improve the cooperation, the enterprise architecture should be presented in a more practical and simple way.

Needs to be driven from the top, must standardise and simplify centric environments. Architectural principals - governance a must.

1. With a tool like ARIS, it helps to maintain a single source of truth regarding the processes followed within an organization. This creates a more efficient organization with just one single view of the processes across the organization and eliminates any ambiguity. 
2. The analysis and reporting capabilities make ARIS the best tool for process modeling. In addition, the flexibility and versatility of the tool can be gauged by the sheer number of model types it supports which is close to approximately 200.

Any organization big or small should have the capability of capturing the process details of an entire organization using this tool.

Process modeling and process analysis. Due the meta model of the tool, it forces a particular way for the processes to be modeled in the tool, which in turn helps to carry out the analysis and generate reports for business and senior management. This helps the business make an informed decision.

Needs flexibility in automation of the modeling processes and real-time analysis of data, not just a static view.

Since ARIS 9.X was released, the product has not been as robust and responsive as the previous versions.

None.

I would rate it as a seven out of 10. There is not enough documentation provided for the tool's support or administration.

No previous solution was used.

The setup was a bit complex compared to the previous version of the tool.

It is on the higher side.

No.

Excellent product if process modeling/documentation is its primary purpose, not automation of processes.

I am modeling BPMN in ARIS to be ready to execute on webMethods and describing business requirements in relationship to BPMN’s tasks to technical and business references.

Objects can be reused across different BPMNs and processes, so we can design new processes quicker and easier.

The matrix model makes building relations easier.

The integration between ARIS, webMethods, and project versions needs improvement.

Visualizes processes which helps the business see pain points.

Overall BPM modeling functionality is very good. Lots of features to speed modeling for experienced users.

• Price is high.
• Newer versions (9.x) are technically more difficult to maintain.

Yes, there have been stability issues with v9.x.

No issues with scalability.

Poor to acceptable depending on issue, but mostly poor.

Technically easy, but BPM and EA are complex and require considerable pre-planning.

Negotiate. Price is high so make sure you’re getting the best deal.

Consider less expensive options.

• Fully-reportable database over Visio
• Heavy dashboarding with ARIS Aware
• Automation capabilities
• Direct SAP connection

Procedurally and architecturally improved analysis across the board.

• Price
• User interface (UI)

We have used this product for six years. ARIS products and releases from 7.2 through ARIS 10. We were even invited by SAG as a partner for version 10's sneak peek.

Rarely.

Best product for full-size enterprises and their efforts.

SAG could improve, but there is a vast network of community users.

Tried many BPA tools, but ARIS seems to be the best fit for the largest efforts we have focused efforts on.

You could walk someone through it, but I would not recommend trying it on their own.

It is well worth the investment in the enterprise.

Visio, Blueworks, Signavio, and ARIS. Absolutely choose ARIS or Signavio.