ProcessMaker is a process automation platform that helps organizations optimize and scale their business operations. By combining workflow automation, AI-driven decision-making, and advanced analytics, ProcessMaker empowers businesses to streamline complex processes, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experiences.
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.
The task mining component is well suited for processes where there are a lot of steps performed in a variety of systems, particularly by a single individual on a team. It also requires a robust activity ID to be able to track an activity. It is not well suited when trying to track a process where the content is in an email.
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.
User interface. It is clean and easy to understand. You won't get overwhelmed the second you log in.
The workflow maker. With a drag and drop interface, you can easily visualize and implement what you want on the screen. Out of all the programs we tested, this one had the easiest process maker and designer.
Ease of understanding. My biggest recommendation would be that this program is easy to access for anyone. There are complications (see negatives) but this program can be implemented quickly and efficiently, and nearly anyone can learn to use it. You will not feel like you are in the dark with it.
Complications when you get to the more advanced pieces. When trialing, I found that the more advanced a process got, the more complicated it got for me in coding. When you begin using the more advanced features, you will find that you need to have a basic knowledge of coding - otherwise you won't go any further. This was my sole issue. Unfortunately, it was one that would have brought the school to a grinding halt if they were to ever get more complicated than they were.
I gave this overall rating for ProcessMaker due to its overall flexibility, design and ease of use for most. Examples of this from us include it being an excellent and trustworthy tool for automating processes, the abilities and capabilities for real-time process tracking and the web-based accessibility and implementation which allows for easy access and management of the tool.
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.
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.
Before making the decision to get ProcessMaker, we assessed different and best options in the market, which are also quite competitive. KiSSFLOW, Blueworks Live, and Bizagi, being the most relevant and ADONIS, to mention the ones we consider the most relevant and capable of meeting our needs. In the end, we went for ProcessMaker because of mainly three things as described before: 1. Real-time process status tracking. 2. Metrics and dashboards. 3. Ease of use for constructing diagrams.
The capability is robust and quite industry agnostic. It would benefit significantly with some out of the box models - e.g. procure to pay on SAP and similar. They could also develop industry specific examples which could kickstart the implementation for organizations.
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.
I'm using Communication edition to introduce BPMN in my organization. I can build the first process in a short time, make my boss more confident with my job.
But, with ProcessMaker, we need more time to design code to handle the process, and without PHP/Javascript Programmer, it seems hard to work with more and more processes online.
However, IE Browser is not well supported, somewhat let the user confuse.
