Appian Reviews

The most valuable features of Appian are:

1. Rapid development with low-code makes it easier to quickly get apps implemented and the time to break-even and ROI is much faster.
2. Easy to build case management, with Records and Related Actions facilitates case or document-based applications instead of, or along with, process-based applications, opening up whole new types of applications for Appian development.
3. Built from the ground up with a cohesive architecture to be the leading social, collaborative, most usable BPM platform. This makes the product feel integrated and intuitive to use, rather than having to seemingly (or actually, in the case of some competitors) go to a separate product to do certain things. In the end, it shortens implementation time and opens up the product to less technical designers because it's easy to use.

Most notably, it allows us to quickly automate processes and case management work, often cutting the manual time required in half or more. End to end time is also noticeably improved, as is the user experience of the people using the new applications.

The biggest areas of improvement would be in facilitating team development, DevOps, and integration with typical tools used in enterprise development (Jenkins, Subversion, etc.)

More than four years.

Stability problems are usually only experienced when architecture and development are done by people who don't know the tool and its best practices very well.

Scalability problems are usually only experienced when architecture and development are done by people who don't know the tool and its best practices very well.

Technical support is usually pretty good for the easier problems.

Really complex issues tend to take too long to resolve, but many times that's only because there isn't the experienced person to take it from providing information to actually closing out the fix. If a problem results in a development fix, that is typically pretty quick, too.

I personally used Lombardi and IBM BPM prior to Appian.

The main reasons for switching were:

1. Too many off-shore consultants taking all the consulting work, developing shoddy apps while driving down the rates, and generally giving BPM and the product a bad name.
2. IBM steadily providing release after release that introduced more bugs and making the tool itself less usable.
3. Appian was clearly becoming the better product and their market share was on the hockey stick slope up, whereas IBM's was falling quickly.

I don't typically get involved in the server setup, but my understanding is that it's relatively easy, especially compared to IBM's.

I'd advise to not just look at the cost, but the overall value of BPM and of Appian specifically.

BPM done right is a huge value proposition for almost any company, and with Appian's low code rapid development model, the ROI can be huge, while the break-even point should be accelerated tremendously.

This assumes that you use qualified and knowledgeable resources to do the work, and they don't come cheap either, but in the end, they are less expensive and provide more value than cheaper resources who are not qualified.

See above regarding Lombardi/IBM BPM. They are the other market leader, but while Appian is trending upwards, IBM is on its way down.

See above under the pricing/licensing advice, but I can't emphasize enough to make sure you get quality resources who really know the product well. They will understand how to best use Appian to drive the huge ROI that should come from a successful implementation. I also recommend that all technical resources, from the Architect/Team Lead down to the most junior, have a business focus along with their technical knowledge. Only by understanding how the business wants to use the technology can they make good on the promise of BPM and Appian

For a majority of Appian use cases, it's more about business process workflow. Primarily, the ones that have high logic on the coding perspective and more on the backend processing. We deploy Appian in that particular setup.

We are using version 21 of Appian. For a majority of our customers, the solution is deployed on cloud.

It's heavy on business processing in terms of logic, process workflows, and primarily on the process design modeler. Appian is really great at that. In terms of the full stack set from a low-code platform perspective, it's definitely an eye opener since it can be deployed via mobile app and on the web as well.

What could be improved is more on the front end perspective, like the user interface and the mobile application aspect. It could be tweaked to make it more sexy or more appealing from business to consumer.

Appian has a good lineup of features already. Upfront, I believe there is also RPA intelligent document processing. We need to fully maximize those features with our customers, like how they can be focusing on the artificial intelligence or machine learning perspective, and the detailed or more advanced intelligent document processing. I believe right now they can only cater to PDF files, so maybe in the future other types of files can be processed.

I am currently using Appian. We are a reseller of the solution.

Appian is stable as long as the design is properly worked on or the architectural design is based on the best practice. I think the best practices are being cascaded to us as a partner and with our clients as well.

In terms of scalability and flexibility, it could be a mix of things. It's flexible in the sense that it can be upgraded or scaled initially or in a fast manner. But if it can be done abruptly, maybe due to processing or maybe even involvement internally, that would be some sort of cause for delay. So it's not fully scalable per se, but what is being offered by Appian is quite flexible enough to cater to the needs of our end users or customers.

I believe technical support offers a premier support perspective. It's on a global setting, but maybe we can have a different setting for the Philippines. That's the angle we are looking into to work with our partner.

Overall, it's good. They are providing 24/7 support.

Appian is the first low-code platform that I've handled. I came from a hardware background.

It's quite easy and fast specifically for a new client to onboard an Appian solution or Appian platform. It would be more like quick provisioning, primarily for all the environments involved. Appian is actually providing services also with the cloud set up.

Deployment depends on the complexity of the application. One or two people could deploy Appian given the circumstances of the full visibility or full awareness.

There's definitely an ROI on the usage of Appian. In terms of digital transformation, it could be people, processes, and technology. If it goes hand in hand, the client or the customer will be achieving their vision, goals, and objectives. We have clients that have that particular vision in mind, and they're actually in their ROI setting as well.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10. 

For someone who is looking to implement Appian, my advice is definitely don't think twice. I mean, if you need automation, definitely there's a solution that would cater to their needs. As long as they know what they want or what they need to digitize, Appian would be there to support the transformation that their corporation or their company would be needing in the future. My advice is don't be scared of the changes and be open to the digital shift.

We use this solution for the integration of systems and data in our organization.

Development time is much faster than traditional coding solutions, and it is more robust.

The Cloud offering is a nice feature.

The process models provide self-documenting systems.

They are continuously improving the platform. Three months ago I would have suggested they make smart service creation easier (using their API to create components), but they have done that.

My only request is that they decrease the license costs.

This is a great product.

Robust forms builder that allows a developer to build once and the deploy to all browser & native iOS and Android apps automatically.

The UI of the application has been completely overhauled within the past couple years, but the tools for developing the new interface have not yet been updated.

4 years

Excellent. Smaller companies like Appian tend to value customer service as a competitive advantage.

Excellent.

Appian main focus is on the financial sector, especially banking use cases.

The solution has a lot of strong features for the financial industry, it is very easy to use.

The solution could improve robotic process automation.

I have been using Appian for approximately one month.

The stability of this solution is good.

The scalability of Appian is good.

The installation did not give us any problems.

We have approximately three people that do the implementation and maintenance of the solution.

The price of this solution is a little high here in Mongolia.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Appian a nine out of ten.

I mainly use Appian for business process automation and robotic process automation initiatives.

The most valuable feature is business automation.

Appian could improve their customer-facing initiatives.

I've been using this solution for about three years.

This is a stable solution.

Appian is scalable.

Appian has good support.

Appian is easy to set up.

I would give Appian a rating of eight out of ten.

SAIL (Self-Assembling Interface Layer), a scripting language provided by Appian. It is the equivalent of JS and CSS. It allows creation of complex UIs which are also responsive. With SAIL, we have a single language for both the UI logic and its appearance. UI components can be built as reusable components and used in multiple UI interfaces.

Process Modeling enables creation of business process workflows. You can create complex business workflows in a visual manner, and it is also easy to debug/monitor.

Offline capabilities and responsive capabilities could be better. The mobility features of Appian platform are still evolving.

Native mobile capabilities or hybrid mobile app capabilities are very limited. Things like offline sync, offline storage, access to smartphone device features, etc. are not supported by the Appian platform yet.

Excellent.

It is Java based, can be deployed in JBoss or WebSphere container.

I would rate it eight out of 10. It certainly is the best for enterprise application development.

Our primary use for this solution is Business Process Automation.  Appian is good for enterprise process automation as well as general purpose low code development.

Since implementing, we have had a faster time to solution, with fewer resources needed per project compared to other tools.

The most valuable features of Appian are the Low Code, robust Process Design, Run-time Management, Deployment, Interfaces, and Mobility.  The business rules capability are advanced and the integration capabilities are second to none.  We also find security to be more robust than pretty much all other application platforms we've worked with in the past.

We've used a good number of Business Process Automation tools in the past and none of them have given the value for money we are seeing with Appian.  Appian enables us spend the least time designing beautiful and robust interfaces that automatically render in Web browsers and native mobile apps securely without any additional effort.  With very little learning curve, an Appian designer will start designing very complex and dynamic interfaces that consume data from everywhere.

We would however like to have more granular control for interface styling in future releases.  Appian releases updates to the platform every quarter.