Pega Platform Reviews

For an upcoming project, my manager told us to look at all the different capabilities between the Pega, Appian, and the Camunda. We don't know the use case yet. We need to know the use case, however, at this point, we are just exploring different tools, BPM tools.

The integration is good. It can be capable of different integrations. 

There is a Pega Decision Hub, which is just a text-based analytical site. Based upon the text-based analytics and it can decide and trigger a case.

There are a lot of new features in Pega that are great.

I like case management in Pega. For the case management applications, so it's really fast to develop and it can scale and be extended based upon the business requirements.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

The documentation and training available are great.

Pega is coming out with Pega Express, which is kind of a low-code development platform. The business rules can be built in a Pega Express Portal, which is more specifically built for business users and not technical users. That way, even non-technical people are able to build their own business processes easily.

The local development approach is good in Pega, however, cost-wise, it's getting expensive. That needs to be addressed.  

With Camunda, containerization is the most helpful feature. It can containerize and it can have its own deployment process. Pega may be adding that feature in a future release, however, right now, that's lacking and needs to be addressed.

I'd like to see Pega support microservices architecture, which it doesn't do right now.

We have been using the solution for more than six years.

The scalability is excellent. It can scale as much as you need it to. It's one of the great aspects of the product.

I've never directly contacted technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. We have our own internal team that can troubleshoot.  

That said, we used to connect with Pega on issues and it's my understanding that support tickets can be addressed very quickly. Support-wise it's very extensive. 

I also trained in Appian. 

The initial setup is straightforward. There is no complexity. There is documentation around the installation process and upgrade process as well. Pega will also provide you with good training materials in the Pega Express Portal, which is helpful for teams who are planning for new developments. That way, they can learn easily and understand everything.

It's a great product, Pega, however, cost-wise, it is a little expensive compared to other BPM tools. That's where I feel that they can improve.

Now, we are exploring other software, like Camunda. We just want to see the different designs or decide which tool is better for our application.

We are a customer and an end-user.

We have been using Pega for more than six years, and at this point, we also want to just explore the other BPM tools. It's kind of for considering cost efficiency also. We are looking at the cost of the development effort or the scalability of the tool. While I like Pega, I'm just exploring the other BPM tools with respect to Pega.

While it depends on the application you are using, if you're planning for an enterprise application that can interact with different applications, Pega would be a good option.

Sometimes if you have a smaller workflow, for example, if you're just introducing a smaller workflow in an existing application and you just want to leverage only that workflow-related feature, you don't need Pega. You can just have any workflow tool, like Camunda or Appian. Cost-wise, Pega may cost you more.

If you're planning to leverage all the features in Pega, like case management and low-code, no-code and RPA, robotic process automation, and other high level or case management, if you are planning to leverage all these different kinds of features that are available in Pega, just go with Pega. And if you're just planning to leverage only a kind of workflow, you don't need to go with Pega. You can just go with other BP flows or BPM process models like Camunda. 

There are a lot of features that you can explore in fault tolerance and error handling, exception handling, et cetera. There are other items as well if you're in the development stage, and something like Page will likely be helpful. I don't know of other tools that will support anything to that extent.

There are still some limitations in the solution. I'd rate it at an eight out of ten, as there are still some improvements that can be made. 

It is a multi-tenant offering for developing applications. We have its latest version.

Generically, at the moment, it can take things that were non-functioning processes and crossing stovepipes and make them function.

I have found a lot of features valuable. The ability to define processes, build reports, and get insights or analytics on data is most valuable. It is a powerful platform.

The way the IDE works with the chatbox and the taxonomy imports could be a little smoother.

There should be quicker approvals for CDH. It is a bureaucratic approval process to be able to get those particular licenses.

I have been using this solution for two and a half years.

It is stable. Like everything, it depends on the quality of the knowledge of the people who are using it.

I like it. It allows for a lot of multi-tenancy.

In terms of usage, it is in its initial use areas, but it is rapidly being adopted.

I have interacted with them. Our overall experience is positive. They have some good folks there. Occasionally, their system doesn't realize the urgency of a problem if the problem isn't in production. If your problem isn't currently causing production failures, the turnaround time can be slower than expected.

We don't use Pega exclusively. We've got other stuff in there. There are some things for which one solution is good, and for another set of things, another one fits very well.  It just depends on the application, the tendency, and the purpose.

We brought in experts. Our experience with them was positive.

The advice that I would give is that when spinning, think about if you're setting up a private one. You should also think about your tenant or your organizational control structure for multi-tenancy so that you can have a mix of licenses for tenants while not overly complicating and having to maintain tons of different work control layers. 

Before you start up an app, take a look, run the wizards, and see what you can reuse from the structure. Its wizards are very good to use when starting up. There are a lot of powerful data models and workflows that you can use as starting points. You can also simply reuse and rename them. 

Whenever you're building things, work with your team regularly on the data model supporting it so that you have a lot of reusable capability. So, you enhance it. It is worth the time to meet weekly with your team over your data architecture.

I would rate Pega BPM an eight out of 10. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it is extremely powerful. When you get into it, then you realize that it is far more powerful.

The solution can be used to quickly manage and monitor processes in your organization. 

I have found the solution to be flexible and they provide good support. 

In general, we use web services to integrate this solution with our other tools. It is the main approach we use with this solution and it integrates with all tools that we need. If you want to integrate with other solutions such ThreatFire or similar, it is possible as well. 

The previous versions had good training documents but the updated versions need to improve the documentation.

I have been using the solution for approximately five years.

The solution is stable.

We have a customer that has over 6,000 users using the solution.

The solution provides very good support. They have the experience, knowledge, and are always helpful. 

I have used previously used Camunda, jBPM, and IBM solutions.

The version for private use on your workstation is easy to install. However, if you want to prepare a platform, it is not easy. All good solutions are not easy to install and tend to be complex and because of this, I would not say this solution is any more complex than any other good solution.

The amount of technical team needed depends on the project. For small implementations, we use one to two people and for big projects, we can have over 30 developers.

The solution could be less expensive according to my customers. However, I think the price of the solution is fair.

This solution is one of the best tools on the market right now. I would recommend it to others.

I rate Pega BPM a ten out of ten.

We use this solution for HR automation or HR service delivery.

It is quite configurable, which is the most exciting feature. We can easily configure it as per our needs. 

Reporting is not so clear and not so great. We really struggle to get the right reporting. When we need reporting based on the content of the tickets, we are not able to get it. The MIS reporting is not great. That's one of the reasons why we are switching to ServiceNow.

Its compatibility with the higher versions of Internet Explorer should be improved. It really works well in Mozilla Firefox or any other browser, but when it comes to Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer, sometimes, the layout gets disturbed. The positioning of the buttons changes, and there is some distortion in the layout. I am not sure whether it is our configuration problem or Pega's, but when it is working in Mozilla Firefox, it should also work in Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer.

I have been using this solution for almost three years now. We started using it in late 2017.

It is stable. We haven't faced any downtime or any other issues.

It is quite scalable.

My team would know about it, and I personally don't really get into those details. After the implementation, our teams are on their own. I don't think they are reaching out to Pega support frequently because I don't see any product issues as such. Everything is configurable, and it is running daily.

It is not so complex, but it needs an intermediate level of skill set. It is not so complex, but it is also not so easy.

It is cost-effective for medium enterprises. It is cheaper than ServiceNow.

I would definitely recommend this solution. It is more cost-effective as compared to other products. It is the right product for medium enterprises rather than a highly-expensive solution such as ServiceNow, to which we are switching. When you're implementing it, you should configure it in the right way with all categories, subcategories, and other things.

I would rate Pega BPM a seven out of ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The company has a strategic partnership with Pega. I was the general sales manager. 

This is a customizable product. It's low code and can be restored quickly if needed. 

The solution is expensive and it put many of our customers off. After a while, the company was no longer prepared to work directly with customers which created problems. 

I recently stopped using this solution because I changed jobs but I had used it for 18 months. 

The product is stable. 

The technical support is very good. 

Positive

We helped our customers implement this solution because the company had its own in-house dedicated team. 

This product is quite expensive. 

This product is suitable for pretty much any size of organization. I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Pega BPM can be deployed on-premise and in the cloud.

All the scalability issues are addressed with Pega BPM because you can create enterprise-grade solutions with the architecture it has.

Pega BPM has a use case in every sector and area, such as manufacturing, insurance, vendor suppliers, and vendor collaboration hubs.

The most valuable feature of Pega BPM is its architecture.

Pega BPM could improve the UI, it is poorly designed to have a good UX experience.

I have been using Pega BPM for approximately six years.

Pega BPM is stable.

Pega BPM is enterprise-grade and scalable.

The support from Pega BPM is very good.

Using Pega BPM on the cloud is simple. Within five minutes you can have your own Pega BPM instance.

The licensing model from Pega BPM is too complex and is more expensive than other solutions, such as SAP. The overall price of the solution depends on the use case.

My advice to those before purchasing is the UI capability is not good and the cost of the implementation generally is higher in the implementation.

I rate Pega BPM

They use it for marketing and case management. It is also used for workflow process automation and market intelligence, using the solution’s AI capabilities.

The case management functionality of this solution has been most valuable.

There is a scarcity of resources who have worked with this solution before.

I have been using this solution for eight years.

This is a stable solution.

This is a scalable solution.

I would rate the customer service for this solution a four out of five.

Positive

The initial setup for this solution is not that complex.

The enterprise product has the best features as a cloud product. It is the market leader in the BPM space.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I mainly use Pega BPM to look at conversations and try to create a better experience for the customer.

Pega BPM's most valuable feature is the use of CDX to solve problems.

In the next release, Pega should include process mining.

I've been working with Pega BPM for three years.

Pega BPM is stable - I haven't seen any glitches because of usage or anything like that.

Pega BPM is scalable.

Pega's technical support could be better.

Neutral

The initial setup was complex.

It was easy to learn, adapt, and go through Pega BPM's low code builders. I would give Pega BPM a rating of nine out of ten.

I've been using Pega BPM for insurance underwriting, claims management, and pricing.

What we like about Pega BPM is their case management feature which we find powerful. We also like its workflow capability.

The licensing model of Pega BPM is tricky, especially for first-time customers, so it's something that they could improve.

The technical support team for this solution could be faster in resolving tickets.

I've been using Pega BPM for five years.

We are satisfied with the stability of this solution.

We have been able to use Pega BPM in different lines of businesses for the past few years, so we find it scalable.

We faced some issues so we had to contact technical support. We raised the ticket and it was resolved. It took a week, but it was resolved.

We implemented Pega BPM with the help of a consultant.

This solution's licensing model needs to be improved.

It's a yearly subscription, but there are no extra costs apart from the standard licensing fee.

I'm using one of the latest versions of Pega BPM: version 8.

It was the IT side, with the help of a consultant, who handled the installation of this solution, so I didn't have much visibility into whether it was easy or complex. It was done over a period of seven to 15 days.

The number of end users using Pega BPM in our organization is 35 to 40.

Deployment of this solution did not take many people: just two people, but for maintenance, we have three people, so deployment and maintenance requires a total of five people. All of them are engineers.

We use Pega BPM almost on a daily basis. We currently don't have any plans of increasing its usage.

I'm recommending this solution to other people, particularly if it is a good use case for them.

Pega BPM is the first business process management software we were able to try. We had an old tool we were using, but it was not a BPM software. 

My rating for Pega BPM is eight out of ten.