Will ARIS Express be a Microsoft Visio Killer?

At ProcessDays 2009 I found out about a new (Free) ARIS product called ARIS Express. ARIS Express is essentially a very cut-down version of the full ARIS version designed to compete with Microsoft Visio. As a regular user of Visio I was keen to have a look at ARIS Express to see how it compares.

I should point out that ARIS Express is currently in Beta mode, so I'm not going to be too harsh on them with this review - I'm sure there is more development to come. I certainly hope so...I should also point out that I have never used ARIS so I'm an ideal guinea pig to test how easy or hard it is to switch from Visio to ARIS Express!

So, how does it stack up? Well, the interface is certainly lovely - nice colours, a small but useful array of process models. It is basic but has enough to satisfy most basic users. There is no doubt that you can create some nice looking process models with it and pick up how to use it fairly quickly. It's a little bit clunky in terms of use - for example, not being able to drag and drop shapes. The Fragments feature is nice (where you can save groups of shapes together for future use) and there are a few useful export options (although PDF export did not work for me).

Where I can see great value for ARIS Express is for small and medium businesses who do not have the capital to purchase BPM software. However, these small businesses are unlikely to ever upgrade to one of ARIS's paid solutions (surely IDS Scheer's underlying marketing strategy?) so while this is good for them I don't see IDS benefitting from it.

My main concern with ARIS Express is that if it is designed to compete with Visio then there is a certain amount of functionality that it needs to have. I can fully understand why IDS Scheer don't want to give too much away, but at this stage I don't feel that ARIS Express has quite enough functionality to compete with Visio.

The main reason for this is ARIS Express's inability to display processes in swim lanes.

Like them or lump them swim lanes are more common than a cup of tea and are a fundamental part of most organisations' process mapping. If only ARIS Express had this functionality then I really believe it would be in a position to compete.

As it stands it's a case of "close, but no cigar"...

- TPN

Comments

[Sebastian]

Swimlanes are indeed important. They will be available as soon as ARIS Express supports BPMN2. BPMN2 won't be part of the first ARIS Express version, but later this year.

[The Process Ninja]

Good news indeed - maybe Visio's days are numbered after all?

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=539857588]

In my opinion it lacks some very important features to be considered a visio killer. I believe this is due to the fact that visio was not designed to create structured data, but to draw diagrams. This makes visio more flexible and graphically richer. However it is good to see these kind of tools being offered free of charge (it lowers entry barriers for those willing to manage their processes a little bit better).

Other similar free tools are bizagi and one by tibco (sorry, I don't find its exact name)

I came accross ARIS express while trying to find free diagramming tools to be used in conjunction with metoCube, a free operations modeling software that we have developed. We haven't found any good one yet (the only requirement is it must export diagrams as images or html) Anybody using one?

[The Process Ninja]

It's early days yet and ARIS are listening to us!

[Colin Earl]

My company has taken a step beyond Visio, we allow you to create fully functional workflows using just your browser.

http://www.enterprisewizard.com/flash/WorkflowDemo.html

Creating a workflow takes about 25 minutes and unlike Visio, they are not just diagrams, but fully functional business processes with support for email generation, field modifications, web services, etc.

[Colin Earl]

ARIS and Visio are OK if you just want to create diagrams, but why create a diagram when you can build a fully functional system in a similar amount of time?

My company has developed a product that goes a step beyond Visio by allowing you to create live workflows using just your browser:

http://www.enterprisewizard.com/flash/WorkflowDemo.html

It takes about 25 minutes to map out an entire business process and the result is a live system that can send automated emails, update fields in the database. It includes full web service support, web forms, etc.

[The Process Ninja]

That's all very well, but is it free?

[Zbigniew Misiak]

Hi Lucas,

Maybe you would like to try ADONIS:Community Edition (http://www.adonis-community.com)?

It allows modelling, analysis, simulation, and has nice HTML publishing of models. It is free - also for commercial use.

Best regards,

Zbigniew

[Sebastian]

Well, ARIS Express is able to export models as pictures. You can also copy model content directly to powerpoint if needed.

[Colin Earl]

Hi Process Ninga,

Yes, EnterpriseWizard (see http://www.enterprisewizard.com/flash/WorkflowDemo.html) is absolutely free for the first 10 users (5 staff-users and 5 end-users). This even applies to our hosted service.