Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review BizTalk is well suited as middleware. Where you wish to translate an input file into an output file and send it to some endpoint. In our case, we used it to convert and send files to SAP. In many ways, it very flexible, and you can do almost anything you want with it. In many ways, it's a better solution than your SAP XI or PI as middleware, since it's much less expensive, and allows you do interface with non-SAP systems.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review It is very user friendly. Users can change rules during run time and change workflow. Huge capacity for queueing messages. It supports all types of adapters like Oracle, Salesforce, SMTP, FTP, etc. Also users can built custom adaptors. If users want to dynamically deploy their solution without any downtime, this is a perfect solution. BizTalk will be a good fit, especially for public-facing websites. Well-proven in the market. I used it when developing a website for Virgin Trains, catering more than 800K user requests per day. Helps in load balancing. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Microsoft BizTalk is over engineered for some situtations Microsoft BizTalk can be frustrating to use as it forces you to use the GUI as opposed to code Microsoft BizTalk is very resource intensive to create integrations Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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
Read full review BizTalk will always be required at this hospital.
Greg Walia Technical and Application Support Specialist
Read full review Usability 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.
Read full review I gave a 7 because this product BizTalk does need time and training to get familiar with the usability and features, it is not that easy to use.
Greg Walia Technical and Application Support Specialist
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review BizTalk Server has been supported for more than 15 years. It is well proven in the market. Microsoft has provided excellent support with technical issues.
Read full review In-Person Training 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.
Read full review Online Training Very boring; hard to get through quickly, but rather effective in demonstrating the use of the platform.
Read full review Implementation Rating It was really seamless. SaaS in the true definition of the word. We logged on and started using the product. Very easy.
Peter Newnam Development Team Lead for BPM, Integration and Special Project Teams
Read full review Make sure you have everybody and all depts. On board during testing on test server.
Greg Walia Technical and Application Support Specialist
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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]?
Read full review BizTalk was selected here mainly because it is easy to integrate to a .NET application (most of them are Web Service, WCF SOAP, WCF REST and Web API) and many backend databases are
Microsoft SQL Server . Another benefit is that the monitoring job is easy to set up and centralize with other .NET application monitoring jobs.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review A positive impact has been the quicker turnaround time of a part request and that part showing up in SAP using Biztalk as middleware. A somewhat negative impact has been the somewhat insufficient error logging/message capture settings that Biztalk provide. This has caused occasional delays when attempted to create parts for the business. A somewhat negative impact has been the need to have a specialized developer who understands Biztalk to troubleshoot issues with the Biztalk and SAP interaction when creating parts, and when adding new fields to the parts. Read full review ScreenShots