Pega Platform Reviews

The workflows are the most valuable features, particularly for us, because we were attempting to automate processes by utilizing workflows to provide a hands-off comparison between the bot and the human.

Also, the out-of-the-box reporting, visibility, and dashboards are extremely useful. 

There was a lot of room for improvement on the RPA front because the product was still in its journey for more than one year. The product was still in its early stages of development. We spoke with the Pega team and provided our feedback.

On the BPM front, I believe it is pretty standard and an industry leader. 

We have experienced a few technical challenges, particularly triggering the workflow through file drops and accessing files. Those difficulties are more of a cloud versus on-premises issue because everything was on the cloud, and they were unable to retrieve files from on-premises folders. As a result, we had to resort to workarounds.

I believe they could work on more integration of their RPA and BPM so that it becomes seamless for anyone, and then it becomes easier for a human versus machine interaction using the same BPM. They said at the time that it's on their roadmap and should be coming soon if it hasn't already. But those are the things that, in my opinion, would make a better BPM, where it would function as an enterprise orchestration layer, collaborating with humans and bots in the same way and delivering the business process.

We completed a couple of BPM projects using Pega BPM.

I have been working with Pega BPM on and off for the last two years, and I have completed two BPM implementations in the last three.

It's a scalable product. There are no challenges with the scalability of Pega BPM.

Technical support was good. Especially for us, their product team was with us, as was their support team, and all of these workarounds were only possible with their assistance.

I worked on Newgen BPM two years ago.

We work mostly with BPM but we did a PoC on RPA. The RPA was unable to work.

The initial setup is simple because it is in the cloud. We haven't spent much time setting it up, it was up and running for a few weeks.

In terms of business flows, our implementations were not overly complex. We were able to launch it in an Agile mode, and we were able to deliver, in two or three sprints spanning four months. Every four to five weeks, we were able to release small flows to enable certain business functionality.

Pricing is a little on the high side. One of the challenges where a certain lower level of cases was unable to justify the cost. If your process is not that complex, and it is very simple, then the implementation timeline is obviously short, but licensing becomes a little costly, and it sometimes does not cross the business use case. 

The benefits you receive are not worth the price. 

They should have a solid foundation of business processes in place before embarking on this journey. If the case is small or the process is not complex, they should use a smaller and simpler BPMS. The primary reason is the cost. However, if they are considering it at the enterprise level or for a more complicated process, Pega is, in my opinion, the best option.

I would rate Pega BPM an eight out of ten.

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.

We are developing campaigns and business solutions on top of Pega. It is a part of the campaign management solution that we have. We are also using it for the core business. We are offering personalized content, personalized product, and personalized information for each of our customers. Pega is one of the main products for us for pricing, catalog, and content. It is being used for everything.

I have a lot of experience in this kind of industry, and Pega is one of the best solutions in terms of performance, capabilities, and the way we develop. 

It should have integration with non-relational databases. A lot of databases are non-relational, and as a company, we are planning to move to NoSQL or open-source databases. It would be good if we are able to install and use Pega on a NoSQL database. 

They can also try to tailor or organize the company a bit differently and go more towards the microservice concept.

I would like Pega to develop machine learning and intelligent AI algorithms. They have a good foundation in terms of the model and the stuff that we are using for some customers, and it will be good to onboard as many machine learning algorithms as possible.

I have been using this solution for a couple of years.

It is one of the most stable solutions, but you need professional expertise. If you are working in a professional way, you won't have issues. If you install it on top of any provider as a database and you are not able to tune the database, you will have issues. Every product has bugs, but it is a more stable one.

We have 25 to 30 customers who use this solution.

Their technical support is fine. There is always room for improvement, but overall, it is fine.

I have used different products and shifted to Pega. In the past ten years, I developed an in-house solution, and I also hired a company to develop it for me, but that was not enough. Now I am relying on Pega in Google Cloud, and it is running my business strategy and everything else. It is one of the best solutions in this category. I can't even compare it with other products. Based on Gartner's ratings, Pega is one of the top ones.

Its installation is straightforward. I don't see any big issue. We are using it on Google Cloud VMs. We are not using Pega container, but I know another company that is using it fully in a container.

For its deployment and maintenance, you need highly skilled people.

We mostly have a yearly license. 

I would recommend this solution. I have been recommending it to different customers across Europe. It is a professional product, but you should know what you are doing. If you don't know what you are doing, you might think it does nothing, but if you are mature enough to understand the power and potential of Pega, you can do magic with it. You should have the know-how, and you should know a customer's expectations. 

One of the reasons why some customers are getting a lot of success is because we have Pega and Data Lake or big data platforms close to each other. Data Science runs the algorithm on the Data Lake, and we propagate the data and the segment to Pega. This way the customer gets a high value. They are doing a great business because they have the potential data, and they can combine and build campaigns and segment customers on an individual basis. After that, your big data is in real-time, and you have real-time notifications. You are doing everything in real-time.

I would rate Pega BPM a nine out of ten.

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.

Our customer base is varied, ranging from insurance to banking to government. In the insurance domain Pega is used for things like policy, as middleman management, policy administration and claims administration. In the banking realm, it's used across multiple areas from CRM systems, customer service, sales automation, and things like loan origination, payment investigations and payment arrangement management. In the government sector, it's used particularly as a case management software to manage processes.

Most of our customers are enterprise businesses, we are partners of Pega and our company functions as a system integrator. I am co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. 

One of the valuable things in the solution is that Pega offers a unique environment where its entire architecture is very unified, meaning it's used free across multiple areas. In other products, say IBM, and other solutions, the products range across several solutions and include separate components for analytics, separate components for the UI and a separate component for business roles. Pega, on the other hand, is one unified architecture and that is very valuable. The second thing is that Pega is model driven architecture so building something up on it from models is very quick. 

From a room for improvement point of view, what I've seen is that many customers want solutions that directly meet their requirements so while Pega has somewhat vertical solutions on Pega customer service and sales automation, industry and customer experts expect more out-of-box solutions to be readily available on Pega.

It is the same for additional features - the customer expects more business solutions to be directly available on Pega. For example, when I say business solutions, Pega could have a business solution on customer service, a business solution on sales automation. Pega may not have a proper business solution for LOS, or Loan Origination System. These are common business solutions which could be made available in the solution, it would be very good if they could focus on the direct business solutions which customers expect over here.

I've been using this solution since 2003, so 17 or 18 years. 

As enterprise customers are using it, you can tell it's stable. It's one solution which we've basically used and worked both on-prem as well as on cloud and it's one of the other unique value aspects of Pega, that the same solution can work on cloud as well as on-prem. 

From a scalability perspective, it's scalable. In terms of high volume, we have some applications based out of Vietnam which have millions of cases, so in terms of the number of cases, it's highly scalable. We have other customers who also have a high volume of users. 

Because I've been working with Pega since 2003, I can see the improvements that have been made in terms of how they go about establishing contact with customers. These days, it's pretty easy and accessible.

Initial setup is quite straightforward. Deployment time is based on the actual size of the project. On average, it can take anywhere from three to five months to build. Usually, the team servicing from our side is around five to seven people and from the client side it's usually a project manager and a couple of others. 

PegaRules is a very powerful rule engine. It's a very powerful platform to build any sort of solution onto. Where a customer makes mistakes is when they underestimate the business expertise of a partner, so they really need to ensure that initial implementation is right. It is very important to understand who is implementing it on the ground. If they don't understand the business requirements and the required business outcome of management, it can be awkward, and not in line with expectations.

The main thing I have realized is that understanding the business problem and understanding the required outcome for the customer is very important. One of the biggest business areas is to focus on understanding problems and the kind of business outcome the customer requires. It's really about understanding the big picture. 

I would rate this product a nine out of 10. There is always room for improvement, but I've seen many customers getting very good value out of this solution.