Bonita is an open-source business process and workflow management platform created by the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science. It is available as a free community edition or as a commercial subscription product.
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TeamDesk
Score 9.0 out of 10
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TeamDesk is a low-code development platform for online database creation. Business owners or managers can build a unique web database solution without any programming to facilitate working with data, organize routine work and create an accessible data source for teams.
Well suited for low code/no code applications centered around approval flows. It has built-in task management for users to see their pending actions, comments, statuses, etc. It has a very nice design for process flows. Less appropriate may be for generic type applications with complex screens and logic within those screens that need a lot of data to process.
TeamDesk is a phenomenal service for our practice. Each legal practice area has unique characteristics that are important to successful practice. Generalized practice management services do address those unique elements because they are created for a mass audience. What makes TeamDesk so helpful is that it can be customized to account for any unique issue that we confront. We use TeamDesk for matter management. It can handle general issues like billing, matter notes, etc.; but it also allows us to track specific details unique to our practice area across each matter and make comparisons that are useful to our practice. Additionally, we have been able to customize it to facilitate our client development efforts.
Efficient and fast prototyping: a process can be modeled and tried out quickly and with low investment.
Full stack prototyping for development and implementation allows the process to be developed and implemented as an application from the prototype. It's not just drawings and wire frames that are tossed over the wall to developers.
Data modeling is integral from the beginning of the prototype which is appropriate for the stakeholders in the beginning.
The ease of customization has been very helpful. As we use the system longer and decide what works for us and what needs changed, it's a matter of moments to be able to make any desired changes. Much more flexible than anything else we've used in the past.
The customer service has been excellent. Any issues that have arisen have been quickly and fully addressed.
There is only one business data model. Even if deploying new processes does not require stopping the platform, the BDM update requires it.
During the platform evolution often new bugs were introduced so it was risky to deploy the platform in the low minor version. For example, there were memory leaks from 7.2.0 to 7.2.3.
The administrator portal could be improved. It is hard to look at subprocess data, for example and it is sometimes better to investigate with SQL queries. I don't like new (7.3) task list either.
The only down side that I see, is that you have to be willing to spend some time creating your database. You start with a blank canvas and all the tools you need to design a custom database. But, you have to take the time to do it. If you take that time, it is well worth it.
Bonita Platform has allowed us to develop GUI relatively fast using its UI Designer while being able to seamlessly integrate our business logic in Java in a BPMN2 process diagram. It gives a nice productivity boost but still requires programming know-how to be able to deliver the final solution to your business problems.
Engine itself is efficient enough for most cases I dealt with. It can also be extended by clustering. I have done performance tests with JMeter and only managed to induce the crash of... JMeter. If there are efficiency issues they usually concern bad design/implementation of created apps or bottlenecks in integrated systems. Although I have met two cases with efficiency loss.
1. Java 7 related PermGen saturation caused by big number of installed apps (there is no jar dependency reusal between apps option).
2. Big number of waiting event handlers in processes stresses the database.
Prior to Teamdesk we used Excel, an Access database, an online time and expense tracking system, and Dabble DB. Excel and Access had limitations with simultaneous access on the LAN, the online T&E system did only that and was not flexible, and Dabble was flexible, but how can you rely on a company whose goal is to exit, when you want to run your business on their platform. Teamdesk has everything we need.
Respect of BPMN standard over the long term. Good enhancements by Bonitasoft for new use cases, for example the introduction of a real form editor even if it has been technically difficult to manage. Once done though, we have far greater possibility of human interaction.
We've had serious problems with 'automated' processes in earlier versions of Bonita (via Talend), especially with connectors. In Bonita 7 we replaced these with REST calls, hoping for better performance.
Overall, using Bonita has not had a positive impact on our development efficiency. Moving from Talend (using Bonita 5) to Bonita 7 has improved this somewhat. Still, it remains a pain to integrate Bonita in the development and delivery process.
Migrating from Bonita 7.0 to 7.1 has proven to be a difficult undertaking, mainly on the database level. This has cost us a lot of time and better support would be welcomed.
