We performed a comparison between ARIS BPA and erwin Data Modeler by Quest 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."In addition to our applications, we have also stored, in ARIS, the footprint of where those applications have been implemented. That means we know in which country a given application has been implemented. With embedded geolocation, we have a very visual world map, where we can see the footprint of each application."
"Features like SAP SolMan sync, Alfabet EA integration (another Software AG product)."
"ARIS has a good collaboration function. You create a portal where any authorized users can work on the models. There are simple flows for making and approving changes."
"The initial setup and installation are very straightforward."
"you want to do modeling with the old notation form, ours was EPC, you can use the same object in the BPMN because the database is built in a way that you can use both things. So you only have to define it once, and if the notation form is BPMN and those kind of activities, you can use the same EPCs, so there is a connection between them."
"It helps to maintain a single source of truth regarding the processes followed within an organization."
"ARIS is probably the most mature product in terms of modeling an enterprise architecture so that it has context."
"The most valuable features of ARIS BPA are the centralized repository and the automatic rendering of diagrams."
"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."
"Any tool will do diagramming but I think the ability to put the stuff up in a graphical fashion, then think about it, and keep things consistent is what's valuable about it. It's too easy when you're using other methods to not have naming consistent standards and column consistent definitions, et cetera."
"The ability to collaborate between different members across the organization is the most valuable feature. It gives us the ability to work on the same model, regardless of where we are physically."
"The product lets us import different types of models from various databases."
"The generation of DDL saved us having to write the steps by hand. You still had to go in and make some minor modifications to make it deployable to the database system. However, for the data lineage, it is very valuable for tracing our use of data, especially personal confidential data through different systems."
"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."
"We find that its ability to generate database code from a model for a wide array of data sources cuts development time. The ability to create one model in your design phase and then have it generate DDL code for Oracle or Teradata, or whichever environment you need is really nice. It's not only nice but it also saves man-hours of time. You would have to take your design and just type in manually. It has to take days off out of the work."
"They have a lot of features and the most up-to-date technology integration, which I haven't seen in other products."
"The pricing of the solution can be improved and the initial setup should be made easy."
"ARIS BPA’s usability could be improved."
"Displaying role allocation matrix models in ARIS Connect needs improvement."
"It would be helpful if ARIS BPA could have a simple database to get the extract of various attributes."
"I would like the possibility to use real data. In other words, it can use this system to integrate with others that are operating directing with users like clients, employs, and others."
"I would like to see the reporting aspects improved."
"One of the issues is, when you are defining databases, the way they use entities and relationship diagrams, the way we can define data, like data models, there is still a part they could improve."
"ARIS BPA is not really a platform that offers you the opportunity to execute processes that you model."
"I'd really like to see the PDF function become available. It would make my life much easier than what it is at the moment because whenever I need to collaborate with people that do not have erwin, I have to go through the wonkiness of going to Word and then save it from Word into PDF. There's a lot of differences between erwin 4.4 and 2020."
"The report generation has room for improvement. I think it was version 8 where you had to use Crystal Reports, and it was so painful that the company I was with just stayed on version 7 until version 9 came out and they restored the data browser. That's better than it was, but it's still a little cumbersome. For example, you run it in erwin, then export it out to Excel, and then you have to do a lot of cosmetic modification. If you discover that you missed a column, then you would have to rerun the whole thing. Sometimes what you would do is just go ahead and fix it in the report, then you have to remember to go back and fix it in the model. Therefore, I think the report generation still could use some work."
"Some Source official systems give us DDLs to work with and they have contents not required to be part of the DDL before we reverse engineer in the erwin DM. Therefore, we manually make changes to those scripts and edit them, then reverse-engineer within the tool. So, it does take some time to edit these DDL scripts generated by the source operational systems. What I would suggest: It would be helpful if there were a place within the erwin tool to import the file and automatically eliminate all the unnecessary lines of code, and just have the clean code built-in to generate the table/data model."
"I would like to have more data sources from other, different vendors. In recent years, the vendor has reduced the number of data sources, and I would like to have more data sources for every brand. For example, with Oracle, I would like to have compatibility for many versions, including old ones, not just the most recent."
"The Bulk Editor needs improvement. If you had something that was a local model to your local machine, you could connect to the API, then it would write directly into the repository. However, when you have something that is on the centralized server, that functionality did not work. Then, you had to export out to a CSV and upload up to the repository. It would have been nice to be able to do the direct API without having that whole download and upload thing. Maybe I didn't figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that didn't work when it was a model that sat on a centralized repository."
"This is a very complex product."
"I would like the solution to be less rigid in terms of its theory."
"In terms of new features, it would be great to have a cloud base. We should be able to put it on the cloud for better collaboration and data models sharing."
ARIS BPA is ranked 4th in Business Process Design with 64 reviews while erwin Data Modeler by Quest is ranked 9th in Business Process Design with 37 reviews. ARIS BPA is rated 8.4, while erwin Data Modeler by Quest is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of ARIS BPA writes "I can usually find an answer to my issue on ARIS Community". On the other hand, 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". ARIS BPA is most compared with SAP Signavio Process Manager, ADONIS, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, Camunda and Bizagi, whereas erwin Data Modeler by Quest is most compared with SAP PowerDesigner, IDERA ER/Studio, Visio, Lucidchart and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect. See our ARIS BPA vs. erwin Data Modeler by Quest report.
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