iServer Reviews

I love how there are no milestone swimlanes. The only swimlanes are business role swimlanes which makes process mapping easier and easy to read.

It has helped having data lineage in the business cluster, which is used as control artifacts.

The ability to add information behind each activity shapes to show which attributes it contains. E.g., frequency, automation, systems, etc.

When presenting the process map to businesses:

• Cannot see which activities are control activities.
• There is no way of displaying a procedure manual for the process map, which would contain the detailed steps of what happens in each activity.
• Naming the business role swimlanes with the actual roles people perform tends to be difficult, because they may have multiple roles or multiple people perform a variety of activities in one swimlane.
• The intermediate event is confusing or difficult to explain to businesses when to use it.
• The use of an organisation pool brings about a different interpretation of what levels do in the organisation.

Since July 2016.

No, I have not.

I have not encountered any issues with scalability.

My client support has been great. Always ready to assist.

Yes. We were using Blueworks. We had to switch due to disinvestment.

Dealing with a new concept, it was a little bit complex. However, you get used to it.

I would not be able to advise with regards to licensing and pricing, because I have no knowledge of it.

No, I did not.

Understand what is the objective of using this system. If you just want to draw a process map, I would advise using Visio.

We use iServer as an enterprise architecture tool.

The most valuable feature is the language used for architecture modeling.

This tool is simple to use.

This is a flexible tool compared to some other solutions.

The performance is slow, which is something that should be improved.

Implementing business processes could be improved.

I would like to see a map of all of the processes drawn automatically. You can do it now but you need to do it manually.

I have been using iServer for about one year.

The stability is pretty good. iServer is used on an occasional basis.

This solution is easy to scale. However, scalability is dependent on multiple things.

Our organization is a large enterprise-level company.

I have been in touch with technical support and the service is fine.

Prior to this solution, we used IBM System Architect. iServer provides greater flexibility.

The vendor assisted with our implementation and deployment.

We have an in-house team that takes care of maintenance.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Integrating the Microsoft documents to the product and visualization matrix where we can see the end-to-end relationship of the network is of great importance to our company.

We have uploaded all the internal documents to the tool. We are able to see the impact analysis in real-time if any component goes down.

More visualization techniques and ways to report the data might be helpful.

Two years.

Yes, we have had issues with stability.

No issues.

A seven out of 10 for technical support.

No, we did not previously use a different solution.

Setting up the Portal was very complex. We required a lot of support from the vendor.

We did not evaluate other options.

iServer is a solution that helps catalog enterprise architect solutions and catalog information.

You have to spend about 14 to 15 days learning it, but once you learn it, it is easy to use.

The best features are the reporting and graphs, which result from the reporting. 

It definitely needs help to improve the visual aspect of the solution. 

If they could help assist the user towards an architecture roadmap, that would be ideal.

The product is very stable. 

It is scalable.

From September 2014 through January 2015, I received help from the tech support staff of iServer. They were very prompt and almost instantaneously responded. If it was something difficult, they brought three to four people to talk with me, then solved the problem. Within minutes, they were able to solve the issue.

It was an easy setup. The installation was smooth for us.

There are other solutions out there that have a better user interface.

Process modelling through object creation and management. It is beneficial as a very effective change management of processes at the object level if you need to modify a process, and it will impact other processes as well, the object changed automatically changes in other processes as well.

Good and effective reporting features, which help in decision making.

• Reduced time to roll out and define processes.
• Easy access for end users through web interface.

Customizing features can be enhanced. By giving the user the option to add and modify customized fields for the properties of the objects by enhancing the import capability from other tools, such as Visio, Word, PDF, etc.

Enhancing integration options with ERP or ITSM-related solutions for triggering automated requests for process definitions, changes, and tracking them in the iServer.

For two years.

No.

No.

Can be improved as the vendor is based in UK. Having regional support could improve time and communications.

No, we were managing process definition and management manually.

Initial setup was a little complex, perhaps because we were doing it for the first time.

The configuration of the server, reporting server and clients took a little time.

Aim for the exact number of people who shall define/review approve and view the processes, as it will impact the cost.

Yes, we evaluated AG software, some online process definition tools, and several document management solutions.

Have your manual process definitions ready and up-to-date. The relationships between objects to be defined should also be clear and ready. It will help reduce the time to implement the processes.

Surprisingly little.

It hasn't really improved the way our organisation functions. iServer provides a repository for the reuse of objects, but that is about all that is of use. It means we may save some time from not having to retype things, but the overhead of maintaining these objects is quite large. There is supposed to be features around impact assessments (i.e., what systems are being used by what), but that reporting is a bit clunky, and hence not used very often, if at all. Because the system relies on using Visio, and there is no live-link between them, the repository and what is displayed in Visio must be checked out and refreshed to reflect changes.

The display of relationships between objects is not automatic if they exist in the repository.

I've used it for 12 months.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

7/10 as the customer service is quite good, however, unfortunately the product itself isn't.

7/10.

We used Visio/PowerPoint. I'm not sure of the value of the switch, and if I had my way, I'd switch back.

It was straightforward.

We used a vendor team.

It's supposed to make us more efficient, but that hasn't been borne out during use.

I don't know the setup costs, but it's day to day ones are negligible.

Overall, I would say that it's a poor man's EA repository. It seems like a good idea, but doesn't really work in practice. It's really two components, Visio and the iServer repository, and there is no live-link between them, so the Visio diagrams can be out-of-date. Don't implement it, you should stick with Visio, as this is a solution that ends up having the worst of both worlds.

The solution is mainly used for technology architecture. Clients need to model infrastructure network solutions that they have. There is no focus on business modeling.

The solution has wide use within Microsoft products. The integration with Microsoft products, and, in particular, Microsoft Office, is great. 

It's a very simple tool, which makes me concerned with the performance. Performance is an issue for us because it takes a long time to load the document. It's a big issue.

The migration tool needs to be included in the main package, and not as a separate license.

I've been using the solution for one year.

The stability of the solution is okay. The performance is a question, however, largely, it's stable.

The solution can scale well. However, I worry about scaling due to the fact that the performance of the solution is generally poor. Once they solve the performance issues, I have no doubt scaling will be much better.

We've been in touch with technical support in the past. We found them to be highly responsive. They're very good. We've been satisfied with their level of service.

I have tried different solutions other than iServer. I've tried Avolution ABACUS. I've tried Sparx. I've tried Visual ParadigmiServer was well. This is based on these tools, especially how it converts things to components, and how the components are related to each other. This type of tool here in my country is particularly useful because there are not many projects taking advantage of its usage here. There is very big potential when using this tool.

The main difference between all of these solutions and iServer is the integration with Microsoft Office. Many users are using Microsoft Office Visio in terms of modeling. It's very easy to integrate or migrate what they have to the solution. 

It's also very simple. It's simpler than Avolution and Sparx, with a lot of reference architecture being within the solution, and a lot of templates ready to go. 

The initial setup is quite complex. 

The complexity is mainly in terms of installation and installing the web portal in particular. It requires a lot of consideration at the beginning. After that, it's easier. At the beginning of the configuration, however, its challenging. 

I'm a consultant. I work with the product, however, I am not a customer.

We typically deal with the on-premises deployment model as our clients aren't well-versed in the cloud just yet.

I'd advise that those who wish to implement the solution ensure they are well trained on it beforehand.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. If the performance was better, I would rate it much higher.