IBM Blueworks Live vs. IBM Business Automation Workflow

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Blueworks Live
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Blueworks Live is cloud-based business process management software that provides users with a collaborative environment for documenting, analyzing, and building business process mapping.N/A
IBM Business Automation Workflow
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
IBM Business Automation Workflow is a solution that helps users automate digital workflows to increase productivity, efficiency and insights — on premises or on cloud.N/A
Pricing
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Considered Both Products
IBM Blueworks Live
Chose IBM Blueworks Live
Haven’t compared to any others
IBM Business Automation Workflow

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
IBM Blueworks Live
8.1
21 Ratings
1% below category average
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
20% above category average
Dashboards8.018 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Standard reports8.320 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Custom reports7.818 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Process Engine
Comparison of Process Engine features of Product A and Product B
IBM Blueworks Live
8.1
21 Ratings
4% below category average
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
17% above category average
Process designer8.321 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Process simulation8.817 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Business rules engine7.919 Ratings10.04 Ratings
SOA support7.616 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Process player8.319 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Support for modeling languages8.320 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Form builder8.116 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Model execution7.616 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Collaboration
Comparison of Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
IBM Blueworks Live
8.6
21 Ratings
5% above category average
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
3 Ratings
20% above category average
Social collaboration tools8.621 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Content Management Capabilties
Comparison of Content Management Capabilties features of Product A and Product B
IBM Blueworks Live
8.8
18 Ratings
8% above category average
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
21% above category average
Content management8.818 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Small Businesses
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
Score 9.0 out of 10
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(23 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(5 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Blueworks LiveIBM Business Automation Workflow
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
It's an excellent tool for quickly creating detailed process maps and diagrams on the fly right when you're collaborating on process design or changes. I love the ability to step through a path using the Playback mode. The glossary and use of metadata in the documentation for process steps create a lot of useful analysis and reporting options. If you commit to using Blueworks across a whole team/dept's workflows, you can get some great insights on process opportunities (automation?) and challenges very efficiently.
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IBM
Have your process first on paper Its important to first document the process before venturing into BPMS. It will save a lot of pain and heartaches. A BPM tool is no magic bullet, it merely automates your process. Its upto you to put visibility and tracking on top of it. Provide monitoring so that you get a chance to improve your process continously. BPM is not an application If you are trying to build an application with BPM, chances are that your are alraedy failing. BPM must be a strategic initiative for an organization. Yes, you build Dashboards, Reports and other software in BPMS, however you do it at a process level not at an application level. http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2011/05/bpm-initiative.html Know the difference between process data and business data http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2011/05/lombardi-best-practices.html http://bpmstech.blogspot.com/2012/02/bpm-system-architecture.html
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Pros
IBM
  • Cloud based, hence quick and easy access without any installation requirement
  • Easy and intuitive, making modeling much easier
  • Visio import is one of the best in Blueworks
  • Low cost compared to some other tools in the market
  • User management is quite easy from an admin perspective
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IBM
  • System does a great job normalizing business process and automating order processing tasks. Before TeamWorks, the process was much more manual and more expensive staff ($65k to $70K) were required to manage the process. Since implementing TeamWorks, we need much lower-skilled workers to manage order processing.
  • System ensures that we have consistent data across all systems.
  • Rules engine is really the “company playbook” – it is the heart and soul of how the company works. It handles thousands of orders per day
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Cons
IBM
  • In particular, we have had problems with the availability of the service because the platform frequently crashed.
  • Is not easy to pull some indicators.
  • We would like to be able to see a different interface, long ago with the same.
  • Payment process is not easy.
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IBM
  • The system gets crashed when many instances go into the queue stage. The system even crashes and sometimes restarts automatically when the load on the server increases. We had to develop a separate software for this and maintain the same.
  • We cannot manipulate the data during run time. It is difficult to develop user-interfaces with complex functionality.
  • In order to consume external services that follow HTTP protocol, we need to use IDE for that, and consuming services from IDE takes a lot of time to give a response.
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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
No answers on this topic
IBM
This particular decision will be made by other people. Overall IBM BPM is the best BPM engine that I have worked with. It is implemented at our company and IT and business are already somewhat familiar with it. Therefore if asked I will recommend renewal as long as the price is reasonable.
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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
IBM
• The system is easy enough to use but, by definition, is a complex tool. However, they have done a good job generally balancing tool complexity / capability with usability. When comparing to MS Biz Talk, for example, Biz Talk has less functionality but is actually harder to use.
• Software is very flexible. For somebody with the right technical background, it’s quite easy to write some Java code to overcome any hurdles or make the product do what is needed
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Support Rating
IBM
I have gotten great response for the very few times I needed support.
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IBM
Issues can be raised through tickets and it works based on the priority of the issue. The Support Team response is also good and the solution is provided in a short span of time. In a case where the issue is serious, they try to find out the root cause and provide an alternative for it.
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In-Person Training
IBM
No answers on this topic
IBM
• Attended on premise sysadmin training for 4 days, 8 hours per day. Although further follow-up training was available, I never felt the need to go back. Training was very hands-on with real modeling (rather than just following a manual). Very effective.
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Implementation Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
IBM
• Very satisfied – not too difficult at all.
• We had a consultant available as part of our contract, but we didn’t really need to use (except for some advice on ActiveDirectory and single sign-on)
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
Blueworks Live was part of a project deal. We did not keep it after the project. We found there are many solutions offering similar or superior capabilities - the fact that Blueworks does not fully support the universal BPMN standard was a big letdown for us. The pricing also did not make sense as a standalone solution.
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IBM
Pega Pega is a comprehensive suite which offers a unique theme of BPM development in the market. A no-coding approach based on rules with inheritance makes Pega a very powerful product. However Pega, falls short on integration centric capabilities and very rigid to customize. On the other hand IBM comes with array of products which suits needs of varying degree. Advanced integration is solved by BPEL Process Server which has support for state based patterns and mediation. Dynamic rules and event management can be solved with WODM, Cloud to on-premise connectivity with Cast Iron, Enterprise gateway and security usecases with DataPower, Social BPM with IBM BPM , WODM, mobify with Worklight. Pega has a little bit of eveything here and there. It solves the dynamic rule management, brings out the flavor of Social BPM and mobility with Antenna ( I guess) and predictive analytics as well in one single suite. There are certain usecases which needs to have a little bit of everything, however this little bits and pieces of functionality when its blows, Pega would have problems to scale. With IBM its a bit nightmare to maintain a variety of technologies, however you can wish to go for one without the other and go for something only when you truly need it. Pega vs IBM Its difficult to pick a winner. In nutshell when you want a full scale BPM with rich integration capabilities go for IBM BPM. On the other hand if you hava mature integration capability already, Pega can yield quick results for you as well. Pega's strength is its methodology. IBM BPM's strength is integration. Actually you can't go wrong with both in terms of implementation. My strong recommendation is to invest time to process analysis and pick a good vendor to support consulting and implementation.
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Scalability
IBM
No answers on this topic
IBM
It scales from small team interactions to business processes serving thousands of employees, as well as straight-through-processing needs that go well beyond. Of course, scale is always in the eye of the beholder, but IBM BPM does a good job of giving you all of the hooks, APIs, and data that you need to take on whatever scaling approaches you need to meet the load
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • We spend less time searching through notes and messages trying to figure out which process we liked most, which worked best, etc
  • We can view processes and simulated processes in real time
  • It easy to share and collaborate with other team members and get their feedback
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IBM
  • It has added value to the upper management to give visibility into what is happening at any time in the enterprise.
  • Boosted employee morale because it gives them all the information to work the case/task in a single location.
  • Identifies bottlenecks and improves the turnover.
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ScreenShots