ProcessMaker vs. SharePoint Designer (discontinued)

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.

Incentivized

SharePoint does not provide, out of the box, a tool to create / update workflows from web. You have to use SharePoint Designer in order to create them. If you need to implement custom workflows for specific business processes, then SharePoint Designer is well suited. SharePoint Designer allows you to create workflows with task approval, email notifications, assign variables and update SharePoint Lists / Documents properties. In our company, we have created specific workflows for : - Purchase order - RH forms validation like annual employee review - Dematerialized existing forms and validation

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• 2013 Workflows - Loops: You can build loops to work while a value (not) equals something, or N number of times. You can insert Parallel Blocks to do multiple things at once, or to watch for multiple things, and when 1 thing finishes, cancels the others and moves to the next step or stage.
• 2013 Workflows - Stages: Previously all we had were steps, which worked sequentially. With the Concept of Stages, we can create blocks of steps and based on the data collected during those functions, we can tell the workflow to go to a different Stage in the workflow based on a set of 1, or multiple, Conditionals in a transition area after each Stage. Giving you the power to develop multiple entire processes and skipping to the correct part of the workflow, rather than going through 20 conditionals to find out you needed to do action 31.
• 2013 Workflows - REST API: the "Call HTTP Web Service" is a very powerful tool, but hard to understand if you have never seen it done, or have a guideline. It works very similar to the requirements in PowerShell to connect and get and post data to SharePoint using the Rest API. You can also use this to manage permissions on List Items, Lists, Sites, and Site Collections. Best part is when developed correctly, it is SUPER FAST!
• Intentionally Building Infinite Loops: I have built multiple review process from Managing Certifications to Updating Published Documentation, that monitors when an Item, based on provided approved metadata, when the "Author" needs to review the document within the given amount of time. They will get e-mails with links asking if changes are needed. If not, it is routed to the Approving Executive, and the Workflow Automatically updates the Metadata to push out the review dates to the next date, based on metadata provided on how how often the document should be reviews. By using conditionals in the transition of stages, it basically starts over, and goes into a parallel block to allow the monitoring of multiple values of metadata to move to the next stage. Very Powerful when you want to automate these types of process. It truly is a "Set It and Forget It" process.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• In the newest version of SharePoint Designer, they have gotten rid of the Design view which makes what used to be quick and easy changes much more code-intensive. This makes it harder for non-IT users and is more risker for all SharePoint Designer users.
• SharePoint Designer workflows have a lot of functionality, but there are also some crucial limitations, such as not being able to put lookup fields in email subjects or using parenthesis to separate/group logical conditions.
• Although this goes along with the Design view, there really isn't a good user interface anymore for adding conditional formatting and styles in views/pages.

Incentivized

It is a helpful tool that we use every day.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Support is good from Microsoft. They are quite responsive when we raise a ticket but SP Designer support will be ended by Microsoft in the near future as they have got new techs like PowerApps and Flow to achieve the same functionality SP Designer does and even more than that.

Incentivized

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.

I haven't used anything else like this. I use different products for workflows and forms, but they aren't listed in the listings for this page. Instead of using it for workflows or forms (deprecated 2 years ago), I use Nintex. For everything else, I have what I need in the Modern version of SharePoint online

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• For my needs, I have not found SharePoint Designer useful for my day to day maintenance of SharePoint. It is useful for viewing all the objects that make up the SharePoint site.
• It is not as intuitive in regard to setting up Workflows. I have yet to use it to set up workflows in SharePoint. Maybe if I needed more complex workflows, it would be beneficial.
• I like to use SharePoint Designer for moving around files within SharePoint sites.

Incentivized