IBM Business Automation Workflow vs. MS SharePoint / SQL

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
MS SharePoint / SQL
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
MS SharePoint / SQL refers to Microsoft Sharepoint, a web-based collaborative platform, being used in tandem with Microsoft SQL Server to provide business intelligence analytics and reporting. They can provide BI content such as data connections, reports, scorecards, dashboards, and more.N/A
Pricing
IBM Business Automation WorkflowMS SharePoint / SQL
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Business Automation WorkflowMS SharePoint / SQL
Free Trial
YesNo
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 Business Automation WorkflowMS SharePoint / SQL
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
IBM Business Automation WorkflowMS SharePoint / SQL
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
20% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
-
Ratings
Dashboards10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Process Engine
Comparison of Process Engine features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
17% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
-
Ratings
Process designer10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Process simulation10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Business rules engine10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
SOA support10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Process player10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for modeling languages10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Form builder10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Model execution10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Collaboration
Comparison of Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
3 Ratings
20% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
-
Ratings
Social collaboration tools10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Management Capabilties
Comparison of Content Management Capabilties features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
10.0
4 Ratings
21% above category average
MS SharePoint / SQL
-
Ratings
Content management10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
8.9
55 Ratings
8% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings8.936 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.753 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings9.145 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.0
52 Ratings
10% above category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings8.942 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings9.652 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings8.030 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.750 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.1
56 Ratings
9% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.852 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings8.048 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.845 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings9.740 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings10.032 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.2
34 Ratings
13% above category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.933 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings10.032 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings10.029 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.3
67 Ratings
8% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)00 Ratings10.059 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model00 Ratings9.062 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)00 Ratings9.566 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)00 Ratings9.053 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.2
57 Ratings
15% above category average
Responsive Design for Web Access00 Ratings9.754 Ratings
Mobile Application00 Ratings9.133 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile00 Ratings8.038 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
IBM Business Automation Workflow
-
Ratings
MS SharePoint / SQL
9.3
37 Ratings
16% above category average
REST API00 Ratings9.028 Ratings
Javascript API00 Ratings9.926 Ratings
iFrames00 Ratings9.027 Ratings
Java API00 Ratings9.025 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)00 Ratings9.032 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)00 Ratings9.923 Ratings
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User Ratings
IBM Business Automation WorkflowMS SharePoint / SQL
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(8 ratings)
8.8
(74 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(4 ratings)
8.8
(7 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.7
(7 ratings)
In-Person Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Business Automation WorkflowMS SharePoint / SQL
Likelihood to Recommend
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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Microsoft
A simple and important scenario well suited is that you can configure alerts to notify you when the production server fails. another best feature is the report server is the central component of reporting services. For me something less appropriate is that the admin must ensure optimal performance for farm operations, they recommend that you install SQL Server on a dedicated server that does not run other farm roles and does not host databases for other applications.
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Pros
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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Microsoft
  • Flexible - able to make any changes we would like vs traditional service desk system.
  • ROI - We were already using SharePoint for internal intranet, so we are simply getting more use out of licensing we had already committed to.
  • Easy to use for end users.
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Cons
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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Microsoft
  • It is hard to setup and nightmare
  • It requires a of infrastructure, thus it could be costly because of requirement and licensing required for everything to run smoothly
  • If it is not setup and organized properly from the beginning it could be maintenance nightmare
  • It is hard to have "test" environment to do patches or similar
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Microsoft
This was a long-term buy-in from a corporate perspective, to remain in the SharePoint space. Migration is certainly possible, which is good for planning and having options further out. At this point, the only planned migration is to eventually move the architecture up to SharePoint/SQL 2013. At that point, we will be able to leverage some greater efficiencies, some enhanced content design and management features, and some more current social features. It is well worth a full consideration in any shop looking at a new implementation of or migration to SharePoint (although you will probably be considering 2013 versions or beyond in those discussions), but the platform should be a strong competitor to any alternatives. Realizing the capability of a fully-branded and customized website was not part of the original choice for the architecture at Lincoln, but seeing it implemented and functioning now with this capacity far beyond original expectations has certainly cemented plans to continue using it.
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Usability
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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Microsoft
SharePoint is very complex. This makes usability somewhat difficult from an IT perspective. An IT generalist will be able to pick it up and run with basic tasks. More customized functions would require significant specialized training and therefore limit what a standard user would be able to achieve. From an end user perspective, it's pretty straightforward to use.
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Support Rating
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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Microsoft
It's been fantastic in terms of Premier Support so far. If there is an issue and if you report if the product has an issue, they will act upon it immediately. In some cases, if you design/develop something using the platform, Microsoft appreciates it and... publishes it on their public website. But you have to wait for some time if it is a non-Premier Support issue as you may experience delays.
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In-Person Training
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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Microsoft
Not implemented in best practice way, there are many customizations
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Alternatives Considered
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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Microsoft
At the time of the two large projects, SharePoint was the enterprise solution so we were required to use that. We have since lobbied the enterprise teams to review and consider Atlassian Confluence and were successful. Confluence is cheaper than Sharepoint which is why we wanted to bring that in. The enterprise has now made Confluence an enterprise solution as an alternative to SharePoint. After using both I think SharePoint has many more add-ins than Confluence. It has much more customization ability than Confluence. SharePoint is not good for mobile readiness. Confluence is so there is a difference that might lead you to Confluence over SharePoint. I would also say that SharePoint is very document-centric and that Confluence has better KM than SharePoint does. even with the use of SQL Server. We were told that we could not use Google Drive even though it had features we liked.
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Scalability
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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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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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Microsoft
  • I've installed SharePoint in many different industries and each industry has seen greater collaboration among their teams both locally and nationally. The ability to collaborate more efficiently has reduced the need to have employees centrally located.
  • Companies which have used SharePoint in a end user training portal have had great ROI, since they can create the content once and share with all their users who subscribe to their training service. The web content management aspect of SharePoint is a very helpful feature.
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