CMW Platform vs. IBM Business Automation Workflow

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CMW Platform
Score 8.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
CMW Platform (formerly Comindware) is a business process management software centered on worklows to build automations. It implements a drag-and-drop interface along with Excel-style rules and forms.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
CMW PlatformIBM Business Automation Workflow
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CMW PlatformIBM Business Automation Workflow
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsComindware Tracker is available for purchase on a per-user subscription plan.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CMW PlatformIBM Business Automation Workflow
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
CMW PlatformIBM Business Automation Workflow
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
CMW Platform
-
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
CMW Platform
-
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
CMW Platform
-
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
CMW Platform
-
Ratings
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
21% above category average
Content management00 Ratings10.04 Ratings
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User Ratings
CMW PlatformIBM Business Automation Workflow
Likelihood to Recommend
7.4
(68 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(3 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(23 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
CMW PlatformIBM Business Automation Workflow
Likelihood to Recommend
CMW Lab
CMW has less integration capabilities, this is something that can definitely be improved in the future. On a side note, the MS Outlook integration option is excellent. The UI is decent for its purpose and the platform is well suited for a range of business requirements - customer order management, document tracking and approval management. You name it, they have it.
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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
CMW Lab
  • Graphical workflow builder capability makes it easy to set workflow in form of spreadsheets to improve visibility.
  • Workflow automation in the cloud unifies tasks, documents and resources in real-time.
  • Integration with outlook makes it easy to manage workloads direct to the email.
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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
CMW Lab
  • I would like to see Comindware Tracker come in a free pricing tier.
  • I would like to see Comindware Tracker offer more granular roles to be assigned to workflow users.
  • I would like to see Comindware Tracker integrate with more ERP systems and to offer more import/export/migration capabilities from other workflow management systems.
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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
CMW Lab
Very likely.
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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
CMW Lab
You don't have to be from IT to get started and working on it. They have made it really simple from almost everybody to work on it. You get comfortable real quick as it is similar to Outlook. Max to max you won't take more than 2 weeks to get a hang of it
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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
CMW Lab
It's more of drag and drop functionality. It is quite easy to set up. Creation of form is very easy. Support Team of Comindware Tracker is good and very friendly. It is efficient in terms of task management, project management, team management, vendor/client tracking.
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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
CMW Lab
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
CMW Lab
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
CMW Lab
Other than trying Comindware Tracker it is newer to me, I have used Adobe software multiple times and are familiar with their products. I won't stack Comindware Tracker against them because they both are amazing. I like using Comindware tracker because it is easy to use and is great for me, it helps optimize and maintain my workflows.
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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
CMW Lab
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
CMW Lab
  • Comindware Tracker is versatile and can be used to automate common business processes.
  • Comindware Tracker offers process adjustments and visibility in real time.
  • Comindware Tracker anticipates the organization's document and data management in a unified way.
  • It provides analytical analysis as well as complex reports to help us run our business more efficiently.
  • It is ideal for the automation and execution of processes by classifying tasks.
  • Comindware Tracker helps in quick and easy simplification of operations.
  • Comindware Tracker improves the agility of routine activities.
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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

CMW Platform Screenshots

Screenshot of Graphical Workflow BuilderScreenshot of Drag'n'drop Web-form DesignerScreenshot of Collaboration toolsScreenshot of Workflow automationScreenshot of Workflow trackingScreenshot of Outlook intergration