We performed a comparison between erwin Data Modeler by Quest and IBM Blueworks Live based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Business Process Design solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The product allows us to reuse entities and attributes."
"It supports a wide variety of databases, including the latest ones. We have chosen to go for a cloud-based database, and it supports that, which is very useful."
"Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful."
"It has centralized storage so that a data model can be shared by different teams."
"The modeling portion of the tool is the most valuable. There are some notes, naming standards, and other functions that we use as well. There's a whole boatload of functionality in this thing and we use maybe 10% of it. It seems to be pretty common that not all the functionality is fully utilized. But it's just got gobs and gobs of stuff that you can implement if you so choose to."
"The logical model gives developers, as well as the data modelers, an understanding of exactly how each object interacts with the others, whether a one-to-many, many-to-many, many-to-one, etc."
"The data lineage feature is very valuable."
"erwin has versioning so you can keep versions, over time, of those models and you can compare any version to any version. If you're looking at a specific database and you want to see what changed over time, that's really useful. You can go back to a different version or connect that to your change-control processes so you can see what was released when."
"It's very easy, very quick to create a process map. It has templates. The look and feel is very nice. What we want to achieve out of the process map, we can achieve it using Blueworks."
"For me the most valuable feature is that it's one depository for our bank. So it's not like everybody has their critical processes on SharePoint or on their desktops. Everything is centrally located. It's very intuitive, easy to use. The support that I get from IBM is always great."
"The solution is easy to operate. Also, there is an automatic mode to make the business flow. You don't have to put any lines or arrows in a decision point in IBM Blueworks Live; it's very automatic."
"It has the ability to document in different formats. It is not tied to a specific model. You can look at it from different angles and see the intuitive nature of it. It always generates a valid diagram. You cannot create something that is not BPMN compliant."
"Collaboration is most valuable. You can collaborate online with many people. People can comment, and you can comment back. It is just like a social network, and that, for me, is very good."
"The reporting that we can generate from IBM Blueworks Live has been interesting. We found the KPIs, risks, process modeling, format, and colors, to be very good. We use the EY template and it is interesting to generate reporting in this format."
"Business users understand it really well, which means we can then help them automate their business processes."
"You can use if from your mobile device or you can be on the desktop. It doesn't matter. You are always connected. It is cloud-based, so you don't have to install anything."
"I find the UI very clunky and very difficult to use. If I add columns to a table the whole workflow could be so much easier. I get frustrated using it. I've tried other tools. I've tried to get off of erwin a few times. I always come back to it because every tool has its own set of problems, and it seems like if I have to pick my poison, I stay with erwin. But so many things that are clunky with it."
"In terms of improvements, support could have been better in terms of installation, especially of workgroups. We struggled quite a bit to get it up and running. Collaboration could have been better from an installation perspective, but it is trivial as compared to what we use it for. Other than that, I don't have much feedback. It works pretty well, and the fact that we've been using it for more than a decade shows that it is quite solid."
"The modeling product itself is far and above anything else that I've seen on the market. There are certain inconsistencies when it comes to keeping up with other platforms' databases in the reverse-engineering process. It should also support more database platforms."
"I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. I'm comparing it with something like Visio where you can change colors on a box, change the text color and that sort of stuff, and change the lines. Such things are a whole lot easier in Visio, but once you get a theme organized in erwin, you can apply that theme to all of the objects. So, it becomes easier, but you do have to set up that theme."
"It is not a very stable solution. I rate the stability five out of ten."
"I would like to see the reporting capabilities be more dynamic and more inclusive of information. The API is very sparsely understood by people across the user community."
"I would like to see improved reporting and, potentially, dashboards built on top of that. Right now, it's a little manual. More automated reporting and dashboard views would help because currently you have to push things out to a spreadsheet, or to HTML, and there aren't many other options that I know of. I would like to be able to produce graphs and additional things right in the tool, instead of having to export the data somewhere else."
"It would be nice to have it on the Linux platform, not just Windows. If they can support Linux, there would be a huge market for it."
"The solution is a very basic discovery product so it doesn't have that much modeling capability. This can be improved."
"The font size is really, really small and it's really not useful to print out process models because you cannot read what's written in different boxes. This makes it necessary for people to have access to the tool. We view licenses to see how the printing or output is. It's not very good."
"IBM Blueworks is BPMN 2.0 compliant, but it does not adapt to the overarching BPMN 2.0 concepts."
"The initial setup is neither straightforward nor complex however you do need to know what you are doing."
"The APIs are great, except the normal business user doesn't know how to create APIs. So it's hard because IBM comes to us as the business users and tell us to create reporting with APIs, except we don't know that, so we have to turn around and flip it to our IT people."
"In the solution Signavio, they have a customer journey mapping feature that should be added to IBM Blueworks Live. It's valuable to map or document the customer journey to identify the pains and opportunities in this process."
"Sometimes, the tool is automatic, which can complicate it, but once you're accustomed to manipulating it, you can use it very effectively."
"There should be an option to import from and export to Microsoft Visio. Being able to move files back and forth between Blueworks Live and Visio would be good."
erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 9th in Business Process Design with 37 reviews while IBM Blueworks Live is ranked 12th in Business Process Design with 20 reviews. erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6, while IBM Blueworks Live is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of erwin Data Modeler by Quest writes "The product lets users import different types of models, but it is expensive, and the interface must be improved". On the other hand, the top reviewer of IBM Blueworks Live writes "An easily scalable and affordable solution that enables users to document and digitize processes with ease". erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, IDERA ER/Studio, Lucidchart, Visio and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, whereas IBM Blueworks Live is most compared with Visio, SAP Signavio Process Manager, Lucidchart, ARIS Cloud and Camunda. See our IBM Blueworks Live vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.
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