SAP PowerDesigner Reviews

In one company we used SAP PowerDesigner for documentation and building logical data models and a new platform in the company. Additionally, it was used for documents and resources for the data warehouse. It was a resource and module company and we had to describe every source, table, et cetera. 

SAP PowerDesigner is good because you can generate physical data models after you have a logical data model. It helped us a lot.

The most valuable features of the solution are it's built very well, easy to use, and simple to describe freely what is needed in logical and physical data models.

SAP PowerDesigner could improve by making the repository easier to understand. It is difficult to understand how the repository works because when I used logical models as part of the team, we wanted to use them together and update the older versions of the data model version but it was confusing. The repository needs to be explained.

It would be helpful to have a checking system on the objects that are generated from the physical data model on the specific database to help see if there is a difference on the database side and on the SAP PowerDesigner documentation side.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for approximately five years.

SAP PowerDesigner is a highly stable solution. I have been using this solution in many different companies for over five years with no stability concerns.

I rate the stability of SAP PowerDesigner a ten out of ten.

The scalability of SAP PowerDesigner is good. This solution is used in platforms that are more likely to expand over time.

There are 10 people in the company that is using this solution and it is used frequently.

I rate the scalability of SAP PowerDesigner a ten out of ten.

I have not used the support from SAP PowerDesigner.

I have used Erwin Data Modeler and it was not as intuitive as SAP PowerDesigner. I was attempting to use Erwin Data Modeler by myself and it was difficult to learn.

The main advantage of SAP PowerDesigner compared to other solutions is the various sources of database it can connect and deliver data models, and do reverse engineering. Not every modeler tool can do reverse engineering, forward engineering, versioning, version control, and additional properties on the objects, such as core physical options. I'm using Oracle connectors. You have everything you want to have and you can deliver every object code in SAP PowerDesigner.

It is easy to set up because after you download the installer you click next multiple times and you are finished. You can install every specification test and feature. It has many features, and you can install everything, instead of everything individually, it is easier.

If you want to build logical or physical data models for fun, experience, or studying, it's easy to install and set up.

I rate the initial setup of SAP PowerDesigner a nine out of ten.

We did the implementation of the solution in-house.

It would be beneficial if this tool became more popular for developers in the future.

I rate SAP PowerDesigner a ten out of ten.

We use this solution for business analysis and to generate use cases. Each model is developed based on all the requirements that are gathered. There's a small install for the setup on each machine and then we operate through a shared license server that is connected to it.

One of the things that I'm working on right now is improving the health of our models because a number of them are old. We're missing a lot of information that we need as we look towards an enterprise level data lake. This will allow us to better relate ownership of the data to a particular area within ODOT.

I've used the reverse engineering feature a lot. I can take a look at the structure of the database and what relationships it has. Some of the general modeling functions are also really valuable. It's pretty simple to show people how to add objects to model and develop relationships.

I'm trying to find some of the requirements for data cataloging within Power Designer. There are some minor things that could be easier. We're writing up procedures to bring all the modeling back into one group as this reduces delays in production.  

We have experienced one issue with stability which was connected to licensing. For two or three days, nobody could get in and use the tool. Assuming we do not experience a similar incident, I would rate them a seven or eight out of ten for stability. We are no longer signed up for support from Power Designer and so we have needed to determine our own workarounds in these situations which takes some time.

The technical support for this solution is good. When we developed the instructions, we had meetings with them and changed the order of some of the things and added things that they wanted to see. 

I would rate the support for this solution an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. We had a problem a few years ago when we moved our from a SQL server. Out of 16 installs, we had three failures and that was because people changed from the standard setup.

We have two Power Designer administrators and I am one of them. When anyone checks in, it creates a change list. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

We use SAP PowerDesigner for logical data modeling and physical data modeling.

The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction.

I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner.

One disadvantage of SAP PowerDesigner is that you cannot reverse engineer the ALTER statements, so that's an enhancement or area for improvement I'm looking forward to seeing from the SAP team in the future. That should directly reflect on the physical data models my company builds.

I also want SAP PowerDesigner to be able to generate ALTER statements in the future.

I've been using SAP PowerDesigner for over two and a half years.

Stability-wise, SAP PowerDesigner is a seven out of ten.

SAP PowerDesigner is a highly scalable solution.

I haven't contacted the technical support for SAP PowerDesigner. Support only reaches out to me to see if there's any upgrade or patch installation issue.

My company hasn't used a different solution apart from SAP PowerDesigner. It's been the company's solution for the last twenty years. Though my company recently thought of bringing erwin Data Modeler on board, the initiation process was put on hold.

Setting up SAP PowerDesigner was straightforward, though the technical management team handled that. That team makes the software available for people to use.

My company hasn't disclosed ROI details to me, so I have no information on whether there was ROI from SAP PowerDesigner.

Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board.

My company has implemented SAP PowerDesigner and no longer requires any other data modeling tool.

I'm using the desktop version of SAP PowerDesigner, version 16.5.7.

In the company, more than one hundred people use SAP PowerDesigner. My company only has twenty-two licenses, so most users rely on mobile licenses.

One person can handle the deployment and maintenance of SAP PowerDesigner.

I advise anyone looking into using SAP PowerDesigner to consider the only constraint that erwin Data Modeler could overcome and SAP PowerDesigner couldn't. erwin Data Modeler can generate the ALTER statements apart from the CREATE statements. In contrast, SAP PowerDesigner only generates the CREATE statements, which is why people prefer to use erwin Data Modeler. You also need to consider your budget. Cost-wise, SAP PowerDesigner is better than erwin Data Modeler.

My rating for SAP PowerDesigner is eight out of ten.

My company is a customer of SAP PowerDesigner.

I have been creating physical, logical models for data warehousing for a major bank in the Czech Republic. We have been converting these physical models into external files, generating the DDLs for objects and then deploying objects into those environments. We have 20 users in our business who use this solution but there are additional users across various branches of the bank. 

The most useful feature has been the detailed possibility to model almost anything regarding physical databases. The main goal was to create a data model for financial services in Teradata including a column description, primary case indexes and object relations. 

You have the possibility to complete a connection for abbreviations if you are creating columns or names of the tables. In the Citrix environment, this has been lagging to the point where the PowerDesigner was not usable. Various patches to fix this have not worked. Ultimately, we have abandoned PowerDesigner on Citrix. 

After working with SAP to resolve this, we found that this could be an issue with VPNs or with a firewall inside a bank institution. We haven't concluded on this for certain but definitely need an improvement when using PowerDesigner on the Citrix Server. 

In a future release, we would like to have the ability to improve the visibility of changes when doing check-ins. I have been working on a model for a few days and in those few days the repository got updated by up to 20 people. We would like to have a list of changes, the name of the user which created a change, or the login of the user who created this change in the change book. This would save us a lot of time. 

I have been using this solution for three years. 

This solution is stable but only on local devices. I have had some issues with the Citrix Server. For example, the solution has worked well when we have had users on holiday and when not running at full capacity. However, when our full operation is running, PowerDesigner does not perform well. 

This is a scalable solution. There is a lot of possibility to create many models and scale its use. 

At some point, we had an issue with the abbreviation file and we couldn't solve it on our side. We had to connect to the SAP user support and they resolved the issue for us in half a day. Overall, the support we received was really good. 

The initial setup is straightforward now but initially took some time to get used to. I've been using it as a user, not as an administrator. We connected to a repository and the name and user login was automatically remembered so it took about one minute.

At one point, we observed an error when two users have been doing check-ins of this model at the same time.

This solution offers good documentation and some cool usage types. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten because learning how to use this solution is easy. However, there have been some difficulties, especially with visibility of changes. I haven't been using other modeling tools so it makes it challenging to compare this solution to others.

I use it for business analysis to understand my clients' business flows. I use the various tools available in SAP and the conceptual data models to analyze and understand the business flow.

The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems.

Even with Microsoft database systems, it describes the data perfectly. I can just include a picture of the database model into my design specifications, and developers would be able to understand it perfectly.

The focus is more on mainstream development environments, and I see a lack of focus on the open source world. I think SAP PowerDesigner probably interfaces better with SQL Server and Db2 but not with open source databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL.

I'm an Apple user and not a Microsoft user, so I would love to have SAP PowerDesigner be available on macOS and not just on Microsoft. Right now, I am forced to install parallels and run a virtual machine on my Apple.

Yes, it's stable, and I haven't found any bugs. Provided that my work files are stored in the cloud, I can access all the models from both my laptop and desktop computers without a problem. The way that they've designed access to the models is quite good.

The interface is way better with SAP PowerDesigner. Other solutions are limited in their designs. They simply focus on the database, for example, and not on the different types of models.

I would advise you to just start using SAP PowerDesigner because it's intuitive. You have to be a software engineer if you want to use it; you have to know what you're doing. You can't use it as a casual user. However, the models use standards, so they're not difficult to use once you know what you're doing. If you want to design a database, there are other tools that have similar conventions, but SAP's implementation is intuitive and easy to understand. So, my advice is to just directly use it.

Apart from some improvements needed to integrate better with open source systems, SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool. It's very easy to use and is very stable. I would give it a rating of nine on a scale from one to ten.

I used SAP PowerDesigner as a tool for document folder flow charts and other features.

SAP PowerDesigner is helpful because you can create any type of document.

The most valuable features of SAP PowerDesigner are the creation the flow charts and folders. It is a powerful tool.

SAP PowerDesigner can improve the ease of use. It is not the best tool on the market because it is tough to navigate and use. A beginner would not be able to use it well, it requires some experience. If the solution was more user-friendly it would be able to be used by more audiences. I do not think many people are aware of this solution and they should use it.

In a future release, more features should be added. Other solutions have more features.

I have been using SAP PowerDesigner for approximately two years.

I rate the stability of SAP PowerDesigner a seven out of ten.

I rate the scalability of SAP PowerDesigner a six out of ten.

We have approximately 200 to 300 in the company but not everyone uses it. We will increase usage depending on the company's requirements.

The support from SAP PowerDesigner is great.

I rate the support from SAP PowerDesigner an eight out of ten.

Positive

I did not use other solutions similar to SAP PowerDesigner.

The initial setup of SAP PowerDesigner requires some training before they can work on it. It would be beneficial for those who want to work with the took to take a one month or 20-day training course.

The price of the solution is low. 

I rate the price of SAP PowerDesigner an eight out of ten.

I have not evaluated other solutions before using them. I use whatever the client specifies.

We use 10 to 20 experienced people for the maintenance of the solution. However, the amount of people needed depends on what needs to be worked on. We have other teams that work on the tool, such as developers.

My advice to others is they should try out the solution, it's a good tool. This solution is priced low and if it works for their use case then it is better than paying for a more expensive solution. If your requirements are too high, you can't expect this tool to meet all of your needs, it does not have all the features. You have to go for other options if your requirement needs more features.

I rate SAP PowerDesigner a seven out of ten.

The solution is useful for data warehousing. I'm a contractor and I work with various companies. Each of them have different versions of the product installed, some on-prem and some in the cloud.

I mostly work on the conceptual and logical side of things, and I enjoy how easy it is to use.

I've tried to use Power Designer to bring in images, which didn't work very well at all.

I think it's probably one of the best solutions, but it is not at all easy to deploy in a big organization. I think it's a problem because of internal processes, and you have to find the right person to help you. SAP as a whole is a very big, complex animal.

I have used this solution on-and-off for 23 years. 

It is a very stable solution, but we have big issues if we try to bring in FSLDM. I'm sure Power Designer can handle it, but I think it drops the links because FSLDM is such a huge model. You can't always trust it because FSLDM was not developed in Power Designer.

I think it's a scalable solution. In one company we have a 38-user license, but that's a very large bank. In another company, there's only one person doing data modeling.

The complexity depends on the client, the firewall, and the company's rules of who can use and view different things. 

The implementation can be done in-house. The time it takes depends on the client. In some instances, it takes quite a while if there are a lot of firewall issues to deal with and the client wants it deployed in the cloud.

I would not recommend this solution to others who are considering it. 

I would rate this solution as an eight out of ten. 

We are using the enterprise architect version of the solution, using the repository to create our enterprise models; different business models that include process to data models and application architecture models. From a dimension perspective it's like a business application with data and infrastructure. We have categories of different models and we use this tool. I model a lot of these into centralized repositories, so they can be used by internal staff to view all the models or to see the lineage and navigate through them, viewing the relationship between the models and staff. 

In terms of modeling, we have large teams of around 50 to 60 people who have the license to show the different kinds of models in terms of system projects. For the web portal which allows viewing of the models, all users in our organization have access rights, meaning there are around 100 people that have access. The solution is used daily. We will likely carry out a review at the end of the year to see whether the current configuration is enough for us or whether we need to expand. We are customers of SAP and I'm a manager, data architecture. 

One of the key reasons for choosing this solution above others is because of the repository features which we're able to consolidate and work on a single repository where we store all our models in one location. In addition, the web portal feature allows us to present, or actually view these models from a browser's perspective. We have two groups of people: The first develops the models and the second views them. They can log in to a web portal and view the models. The product presented a strong case for us in deciding to establish this kind of creation and consumption model to make it really cost effective and increase the value of our organization. 

Although the presentation for viewing the models is good, I think it could be better. From my experience with other products, the SAP UI could be improved by enabling simpler navigation, especially for non-technical users. It would be ideal if there was a more seamless viewing experience of the models. Another improvement would be to adopt more industry models, especially from the enterprise architecture dimension. You could be adopting the industry standard as with made models, UML and other forms of industry enterprise architecture models. That would enhance the whole usability and enterprise nature of the modeling t

Additional features could support other model types which would improve the connectors to the increasing number of software to service packages now that a lot of the applications are moving into the cloud. We need to connect on all fronts. There is still a lot of room for improvement on the web portals in terms of the usability and the visual. 

I've been using this solution for about eight months. 

From the performance perspective, I think the tool is pretty stable. The only issue might be on the loading of the model which depends on how complex your model is. You need to be careful of those with a lot of relationships and you need to add other models when you load it in the web portal, and that can slow things down. In general, the solution is stable but it depends on your configuration. I don't have many crashes. 

The scalability seems to be okay although I haven't fully tested it yet. 

The technical support is good and they reply promptly. They also have information online. I'm happy with the support. 

I used to use ER/Studio and Techwin for modeling. In my previous job, the focus was more on the modeling and data modeling as a stand-alone kit. We selected PowerDesigner here because of the repository setup it caters to. SAP has the function to be able to establish the repositories, work in teams and then consolidate and present to a larger audience through a web browser. That was the main consideration for switching. The usability of how to model is pretty similar and there's no big difference in terms of the functionalities. But from a whole enterprise setup; the repositories, the check in, check out of those things into a central repository, are the key reasons we switched. 

One key difference is the connectivity. Besides the modeling we also do reverse engineering. We will try to connect to different data sources to extract information rather than building a model from scratch. That is one advantage because this is actually the SAP program so it has a good connection with the SAP product. We use quite a lot of SAP modules in our organization, so it's a good fit in a way that we can actually link it to some of our SAP servers and database and just reverse engineer the models. This is a main benefit over the other solutions which  are more neutral and more stand-alone products.

I carried out the initial setup myself and would say that it is moderately difficult. There's a lot of reading necessary on the documentation and if you're setting it up for the first time you might require technical support. Implementation took several days but the timing really depends because some of it requires the trust structures, opening up parts, etc.  

The key thing is really about the use case or the requirements. We are into enterprise modeling and we are looking at sharing the models and those are the requirements that shift the evaluation criteria. For those looking at stand-alone models, they may not be looking at sharing these, mainly they just want to produce their models and things, so those criteria will differentiate selecting the different products. And whether you have a large team of people or you are focusing on only a few players in a small team, that will also determine your criteria for selecting the product. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.