Bonterra Case Management vs. IBM Business Automation Workflow

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Bonterra Case Management
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Case Management by Bonterra is a cloud-based solution for nonprofits of all sizes. It's designed to bring data to the forefront in order to bolster a nonprofit organization’s impact. Bonterra Case Management helps organizations to save time and resources because the tool makes managing data more efficient, so that users increase the time spent delivering the mission. Bonterra Case Management offers configurable forms and fields so organizations can customize their experience to their…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
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing for Bonterra Case Management is driven by individual usage and needs of the nonprofit. Organizations aren't one-size fits all, so neither is Bonterra's pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Bonterra Case Management
-
Ratings
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
20% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Process Engine
Comparison of Process Engine features of Product A and Product B
Bonterra Case Management
-
Ratings
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
17% above category average
Process designer00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Process simulation00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Business rules engine00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
SOA support00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Process player00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Support for modeling languages00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Form builder00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Model execution00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Collaboration
Comparison of Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Bonterra Case Management
-
Ratings
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
3 Ratings
20% above category average
Social collaboration tools00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Content Management Capabilties
Comparison of Content Management Capabilties features of Product A and Product B
Bonterra Case Management
-
Ratings
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
21% above category average
Content management00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Small Businesses
Kissflow
Kissflow
Score 6.4 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
TIBCO® BPM Enterprise
TIBCO® BPM Enterprise
Score 7.0 out of 10
Square 9 Softworks
Square 9 Softworks
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(166 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(9 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(6 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(10 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
5.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
4.5
(4 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
2.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
1.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
4.6
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.5
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Bonterra Case ManagementIBM Business Automation Workflow
Likelihood to Recommend
Bonterra
Well suited to tracking aid needed and provided to people; to developing a plan for helping - a roadmap. We use it to also identify which volunteers can help on various projects, to try to leverage volunteer experiences and linking to specific client needs.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Pros
Bonterra
  • Apricot by Social Solutions does a great job of making database administration simple and effective. It is easy for someone in the non-profit sector without much prior experience in similar programs to work on the back end of Apricot by Social Solutions building forms and doing reporting.
  • Apricot by Social Solutions is a generally user-friendly program that our staff of many different ages and abilities are able to utilize effectively.
  • The buildability of the program is a major plus for our organization, allowing us to cater Apricot by Social Solutions with exactly what we need for our programming and services.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Cons
Bonterra
  • Almost every year I get a new customer care support person, and it can be hard to reorient each new person to my unique business case and use of Apricot by Social Solutions
  • In the past, I have had issues with communication from different departments in Apricot by Social Solutions about what I was getting as part of my contract. In my experience, when I had my initial meeting to kick off upgrading our Apricot by Social Solutions instance, the majority of the information the project consultant had was incorrect. I had to send an email to someone else to rectify the situation.
  • If Apricot by Social Solutions was compatible with phones that would be really helpful.
  • I wish the font size and formatting were more customizable when building out forms in Apricot by Social Solutions (e.g., more similar to how customizable Surveymonkey is with different surveys).
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Bonterra
I went to the Summit a few weeks ago to learn about the future expansion and vision of Social Solutions. I already been with Apricot for 5 years and researched other products I still come back to Apricot and where it can grow with us.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Usability
Bonterra
Without any formal IT education, I was able to utilize their articles and videos to teach myself how to configure and customize the software to our organization (although I do recommend their Apricot Admin training to polish your skills). The majority of users are able to adapt immediately with minimal training.Staff that have challenges with technology in general do adapt to using the system once you can create buy in and engagement (although it does take time and training)
Read full review
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
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Bonterra
It is usually available when I need to use it
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Performance
Bonterra
The system does tend to run slowly when pulling more complex reports
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Bonterra
This is a difficult question to answer because when I hear the word "support" I think of this in multiple levels. The customer service on the front end, with my account manager is pretty good. There was a time for about a year and a half where I didn't even want to get to know this persons name because they wouldn't be there there long enough for me to get to know them. For the past 8-9 months we've had the same account manager, and this is helpful as a way to grow our trust in Apricot social solutions as well as the account manager understanding the needs of our organization. The technical support is also fine. The issues we most have problems with is how the technical support is calculated and the lack of roll-over of technical support time. If our account has 1 hour of technical support per month, but we don't need any technical support for 4 months, it would be great to have the ability to use those 4 hours (as time allows per the IT calendar) when we need them, even if it falls within one month. We've also had instances of working with IT persons who didn't seem to care at all about our issues, and seemed eager to put our call behind them and get onto the next without much thought as to why we were calling them in the first place. We've also had instances where the IT person didn't seem to really be listening to what it is we needed, and was heck bent on what they THOUGHT we needed rather than listening to what we actually did need. While we also have had experiences of working with IT persons who were absolutely great at working through issues. They were patient and understanding and would explain why a solution (c)would or (c)would not work. We even worked through those options in real time if they were unsure whether a data solution would work or not. That was great because we felt heard.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
In-Person Training
Bonterra
Online training only
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Online Training
Bonterra
There are good training guides.
Read full review
IBM
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Bonterra
There need to be specialists who know how to best work with an organization developing a new program, not just transferring existing forms to a digital format.
Read full review
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)
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Bonterra
The ability to customize Apricot and the simple interface is incredibly appealing. Salesforce CMS may be more well known, and cheaper for nonprofits, but it's also seen as the "Cadillac" version and is overwhelming for many small to mid sized organizations. The build out can be expensive as well, although there is a more general knowledge about the product and integration options.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Scalability
Bonterra
This software doesn't work well for our organization
Read full review
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
Read full review
Return on Investment
Bonterra
  • Our data reporting capability. We're able to do the most robust reporting we've ever done.
  • Was able to handle our rapid expansion (doubling program in 1 fiscal year).
  • We did have a loss of data near the beginning of our use of the system and never got a clear answer why it happened. Data was never recovered.
  • The cost to add additional users is really high, and there aren't many options to bundle or review user licenses to ensure we're getting the best deal.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Bonterra Case Management Screenshots

Screenshot of a display of a participant's profile to see important information about that individual at-a-glance.Screenshot of The "My Workspace" area of Bonterra Case Management allows users to see upcoming cases, appointments, events, and other notifications in one place.Screenshot of Dashboards provide at-a-glance insights, while Census data integrations allows users to view demographics of the communities served.Screenshot of the streamlined intake process that helps serve more individuals and ensure they are aligned with the correct services to help them succeed.Screenshot of information, kept secure by assigning users specific roles and permissions to specify access levels.Screenshot of Communication with participants to keep them engaged.