Appian vs. Autodesk Construction Cloud

Appian works great for automating manual processes and integrating multiple systems through its toolset. It gives great flexibility for establishing rules for approvals, routings, escalations, and the like. Because of the low code toolset, it's very easy to deploy and make changes as needed as processes evolve and as the organization learns to utilize the system better. Minimal maintenance is required to support the applications build on the platform. Some of the automated testing integration with tools like Jenkins is limited so that may be an issue for some.

Incentivized

Well Suited: Autodesk Construction Cloud is cost effective, user friendly, and robust. They aren't nickel and diming you for use of each module. Once users are on-board with the system it creates an ecosystem that all users "go to first" for an answer. Less Appropriate: As a Developer, there are some hiccups as it is designed more for the GC (general contractor). A template option that is Developer forward would an improvement.

Incentivized

• Allows at a glance workflow documentation which assists in the need we have for information readiation.
• Drag and drop interface for workflow development greatly speeds our apps time to market.
• Using the advanced features of Appian, we are able to create working sites in a fraction of the time it would take to do so using "traditional" development.

Incentivized

• Meeting Minutes: Simple to use and adapt from Agenda to Minutes, attach reference documents efficiently, and assign accountability to attendees.
• Budget/Cost Reporting: There is a learning curve, but the visibility of budgets and costs from inception to closeout is beneficial for the user and makes reporting to investors simple and consistent.
• Document Management: The version history on drawings "sheets" is very helpful when managing a project through design and construction. Issuing addenda, drawings, or tracking down a change in design is simple.
• Pay Applications/Change Order Workflow: the customizable workflows along with time stamps of reviews and response makes tracking down status and bottlenecks very easy.

Incentivized

• Search issues when type ahead and database search are used in the same field.
• Buttons implementation where user is require[d] to click on the button description - if clicks on the button outside that text - button will not work.
• Problems with using certain off-the-shelf performance tools like WebLoad or Neoload. That is because of different dynamic variables being used internally in Appian - which these tools are unable to correlate. We are still investigating using other tools like Jmeter to overcome dynamic correlation problem for performance testing.

Incentivized

• Managing Data
• The footprint large projects leave within Desktop Connector and Mitigating that data
• REMOVE "add up to 80 projects" from the Desktop Connector Select Projects Screen! It is better to cycle the project data in/out for syncing latest greatest rather than have users load up their desktop connector full of projects and let data stagnate/have to be racked to update.

We recently renewed our license with Appian. We are convinced that its flexibility, relative ease of use, the support they provide, there mobile advancements and their general willingness and desire to see us succeed all contributed to our reason to renew our agreement with Appian

I don't make these decisions and its what the company wants

Appian is a low code environment, because of this, a very good visual interface is required. Appian is providing a feature-rich dashboard [that] we can use for building the dashboards and other interfaces. Appian also provides patches and releases to enhance these features. A developer can start off development just by going through a basic course from the Appian learning community.

Incentivized

It is overall a very great product in terms of usability. Some features need some work like RFI tools and contruction administration tools. As the product develops I imagine these becoming more important and easier to use

Incentivized

5 major outages in the last year, some on days of major deliverables or deadlines... dependent upon AWS

The data mitigation is complete garbage. Any cloud collaborated model takes 2x to load in the Autodesk Construction Cloud environment that if it was saved locally or to on prem servers. We had our systems and bandwidth all evaluated to be applicable but the data downloads and sequencing through Desktop Connector leaves much to be desired.

Appian is one of the leading low code business automation platforms that support RPA, decision rules, case management, workflow automation, and machine learning all in a single bundle. But it is also harder to implement and replace the traditional business process.

Incentivized

Autodesk staff intervention often required to support IT when normal installs and direction was erroneous

As analyst I participated in a developer boot camp. At times it was hard to keep up but most of the time it made sense. Trainer took the time to explain and slowed pace down to answer questions etc.

Incentivized

Great to have hands on folks to answer questions. Live training worked better for real time scenarios.

Very boring; hard to get through quickly, but rather effective in demonstrating the use of the platform.

Incentivized

Good as any other online content, not incredible. There was a cost associated with this training

It was really seamless. SaaS in the true definition of the word. We logged on and started using the product. Very easy.

Incentivized

Be prepared for nothing to work originally, and support staff to fight change and be cumbersome at properly learning how to use in my opinion.

Appian has enormously transformed and keeps on updating the product every quarter to meet the latest needs of the world with new innovations & technologies being integrated within the platform. What gives more pleasure than a product that keeps on continuous[ly] improv[ing]?

Incentivized

Procore's user interface is not as user-friendly. Next steps are not as obvious and the overall graphic design is more old-school. I do however like how Procore lists the specific issues that you are assigned on the home page. Procore can be more difficult to navigate and it's hard to find attachments.

Incentivized

Required yearly upgrades and contracts a opposed to one-time purchases

Not applicable/harder to implement across larger workforces or large-scale projects

They were attentive and thorough when their software releases caused errors

• I believe it has negatively impacted our release dates. There may have been a misunderstanding as to the learning curve, even though it is "low code."
• The look and feel of the applications created using Appian have uniformity and it's easier to have "reuse" between applications.
• There is less developer control when it comes to features. I think this mainly has to do with the amount of plugins available. I would think there should be many more available plugins. But again, our use case is probably different than most others.

Incentivized

• Make us easier to manage files
• Coordination model more easier
• Keep internal file secret to external by managing access to our Autodesk Construction Cloud system

Incentivized