We know the uphill struggle that introducing new software entails. In this presentation, Robert Gimbel, CRO at Camunda, shared best practice insights drawn from more than 200 customers who’ve adopted Camunda, from first project to broad-scale adoption, so you avoid commit pitfalls and hit the ground running.

1. Best Practices for successfully introducing Camunda
in your Organization
Camunda Projects 101

2. What to expect
2
Assumption: You’re basically familiar with the Camunda product stack
In this session:
● Camunda project characteristics
● Typical pitfalls and how to avoid them
● Added value of Camunda enterprise subscription

3. More than 230 Customers
3

4. 4
Topics
Typical Camunda Projects
Preparation and Kick-off
Design and Implementation
Go-Live and Operations
Continuous Improvement

5. 5
Typical Camunda Projects
Project Types:
• Automate manual / paper-based work
• Migrate existing workflows from
• ...legacy BPMS
• ...product with embedded
workflows
• ...homegrown workflows
• Add workflows to software product
• Provide centralized workflow
infrastructure
Project Goals:
• Increase customer satisfaction, e.g. with
faster processing
• Provide process transparency
• Increase flexibility to reduce time-to-
market
• Reduce costs
• Higher throughput and scalability
• Customization layer for workflows
(domain specific low-code platforms)

6. Typical Project Characteristics
6
Duration: Three - Nine Months
Typical Setups: In-house / In-house plus Contractors / Solution provider
Team Roles: Software Developers, Enterprise Architects, Project Managers, Business
Analysts
Critical Success Factors:
• Agile development approach (lean, incremental, ...)
• Close collaboration between business and IT
• BPMN and DMN proficiency for all participants
• Resilient and scalable technical architecture
• Sufficient software development skills and capacities
• Strong stakeholders buy-in and project marketing

7. Project Stages
7
Prepare Define project vision, evaluate platform options, setup project infrastructure
Design & Implement Understand requirements, specify, build and test the solution.
Operate & Fix Operate the solution in production, monitor availability and handle incidents.
Analyze & Improve Review business value of the solution, find room for improvement.
Prepare Design & Implement Operate & Fix / Analyze & Improve
Go liveKick-Off Ongoing

8. More than 100 Camunda System Integration Partners
8
https://camunda.com/partners/

9. Folie 9
Typical Camunda Project Timeline (Courtesy of WDW)
Realisation MVP
Sprint
4
Sprint
2
Sprint
1
print
0
Sprint
3
Sprint
6
Sprint
7
Sprint
5
Sprint
8
Sprint
9
Po
C
Go-liveMVP
4 – 6 Months
8 – 12 Sprints (each 2
weeks)
Production
Sprint 0:
Team fit for work
PoC-Application set up
Sprint 1:
backend-interfaces
analysed and useable
Target architeture defined
PoC-Application integrates
Sprint 2-5:
MVP Features Implementation
Setup Finalization
Sprint 6/7:
Bugfixes
(UI/IX) Improvments
Launch Prepartion

10. Folie 10
Typical Camunda Project Setup (Courtesy of WDW)
Product Owner
(Proxy)
Product Owner
Stakeholder
Scrum Master
Team
Implementation / Scrum Team
Customer / Business Unit
− Business Units
− IT
− Project Management
− Process Owner
− Process Manager
1 Product Owner
From the Business unit
1 Proxy Product Owner
with Scrum
Experience
1 (Part-Time) Scrum Master
3 – 6 Developers
Full-Stack
1-2 Camunda
Experts

11. Other Partner Examples
11
Partner Customer Automation Scope Project Duration Project Team
Panasonic European Workflow
Platform,
Highly configurable
approval processes for
National Sales Companies
(replacing Lotus Notes
solutions)
12 Months Product Owner
4 BPM Developers / Architects
2 Frontend Developer
Business Unit Representatives
Financial
Services
Provider
Several core business
processes
6 Months Project Lead, Requirements
Engineer, 2 Camunda Developers
(who also did process analysis)
Daimler AG Global standardization and
optimization of
discounting procedures for
Truck sales (Replacing a
Lotus Notes based
solution)
> 12 Months 1 Product Owner
5 Developers (1 Camunda Expert)
Different Business Units Reps
(markets / countries)

12. 12
Topics
Typical Camunda Projects
Preparation and Kick-off
Design and Implementation
Go-Live and Operations
Continuous Improvement

13. 13
Process Automation Cycle
Automating your core business requires you
to continuously iterate your processes in
order to learn and improve.
Analyze
Design
Implement
Operate

14. Mapping the Cycle to Project Stages
14
Prepare Design & Implement Operate & Fix / Analyze & Improve
Go liveKick off Ongoing
Analyze
Design
Implement
Operate
● Design and Implement should not happen sequentially
(waterfall), but incrementally (agile).
● Operating the automation solution includes technical fixes (e.g.
in the process model), which is connected to specific challenges
(e.g., process instance migration).
● Operate (Technical) and Analyze (Business Performance) do not
happen sequentially, since both are ongoing.
● Improve can happen on a small scale (e.g., adjusting DMN
decision tables) and on big, more disruptive scale (next iteration
through the whole cycle).

15. Community or Enterprise?

16. Camunda Community: Foundation Stack
16
Cockpit in Community contains
only rudimentary feature set.

17. Camunda Enterprise: Full Stack
17

18. Camunda Enterprise: Full Stack and Services
18
Full Stack
Professional Services
Support Consulting Training

19. Community or Enterprise?
19
Choose Community, if... Choose Enterprise, if...
Solution Complexity Low High
Criticality to Business Low High
Project Urgency Low High
Developer Resources Abundant Scarce
Camunda Community Platform is sufficient, if:
● Automation solution is not complex and/or not business critical
● Time to market is not an issue (low urgency for solution delivery)
● Developer resources are available in abundance

20. Q: What is the right time to sign up for Enterprise?
20
Answer: As soon as you kick off your project.
The success of your project is determined by the decisions you make in the
beginning. This includes technical architecture, but also the actual
understanding of business requirements and the buy-in from the business
stakeholders. The later you recognize your errors, the more difficult it will be
to correct them.
Working with Camunda Enterprise makes sure you put things on the right
track from day one.
“Switching from Camunda Community to
Enterprise accelerated the progress in
our Camunda related IT project. Having
a Camunda consultant on-site for only 3
days helped us to answer so many
questions that we were struggling with
on our own for months.”
- David Wery, Technical Team lead,
TOTAL (Lampiris)
Prepare Design & Implement Operate & Fix / Analyze & Improve
Go liveKick off Ongoing

21. Things to have in place before Kick-off
21
General
❏ Clearly defined and documented project vision
❏ SMART objectives (e.g. based on OKR methodology)
❏ Necessary Budget allocated and secured
❏ Completed evaluation of potential solution platforms, including PoC / a working prototype
❏ Clearly committed project team with sufficient skills and secured availabilities
❏ A specific, realistic and resilient project roadmap with defined milestones
❏ Managed expectations (aligned with vision and objectives) from project stakeholders
Camunda
❏ Camunda Enterprise Platform available and ready to use
❏ All license contracts completed (mutually signed)
❏ Camunda consulting involvement clarified and availability secured

22. 22
Topics
Typical Camunda Projects
Preparation and Kick-off
Design and Implementation
Go-Live and Operations
Continuous Improvement

23. Business Units request process automation solutions => Projects
23
ITBusiness Units
Software Developers
Software Architects
IT Project Managers
Business Analysts
Technical Operations
Manager Employee Project Lead
Process
Owners
X (X)
Process
Workers
X
Process
Stake-
holders
X X X
CIO /
VP Engineering
Request
Solution

24. Challenges and Potential Solutions
24
Risk / Problem Impact Camunda Enterprise Value
Many stakeholders are involved,
and it is difficult to collect their
requirements and communicate
the proposed solution.
Misunderstandings that require clarification
and lead to project delay.
Limited buy-in from stakeholders can
sabotage the project at later stages.
Cawemo: Collaboration hub for
workflow automation projects. Allows
you to involve all stakeholders in
process model discussions.
Training/Coaching: How to use BPMN
and DMN to gather requirements and
get business and IT together.
https://camunda.com/products/cawemo/

25. Screenshot: To-be Process Design with Cawemo
25

26. Challenges and Potential Solutions
26
Risk / Problem Impact Camunda Enterprise Value
Project team has limited
experience with Camunda
Uncertainty about how to design the
architecture and implement specific
requirements => project delay
Bad decisions can impact scalability /
reliability in production (e.g., due to
performance issues)
● Dedicated Customer Success
● Training and Coaching
● Product Support
● Advice on how-to
● Model Reviews (BPMN, DMN)
● Architecture Reviews
● Code Reviews
● Best Practice Patterns
https://camunda.com/services/

27. 1. Start your process automation project as a Spring
Boot application, using the Camunda Spring Boot
starters for the REST API and the Web applications.
2. Build your project with Maven.
3. Use Eclipse as IDE,
4. Use the Enterprise Edition of the camunda-engine
and the camunda-webapp.
5. Use OpenJDK 11 as Java runtime.
6. Model the processes with the Camunda Modeler
7. Add your process models and the java code to the
project
8. Use the H2 file based java database for
development. We strongly discourage that multiple
developers share the same database during
development as this can lead to a multitude of
problems.
Running the process application in production:
1. Use PostgreSQL - or the database you already
operate.
2. Secure the Rest-API. See this example
3. Run the process application by copying the jar-file to
the server and start it with java -jar
YourProcessApplication.jar
Potential Greenfield Stack (for Java Shops)
27
Source: Camunda Consulting - Best Practices

28. Best Practices for Implementation
28
• Think about data backup strategies and make sure your data is always securely backed up.
• Do not speculate about performance, but define sufficient load tests and run them.
• Decide about data retention requirements (for how long the data should be kept in the
Camunda History DB), and configure the history cleanup feature (TTL) accordingly.
• Decide which Camunda log level you need, and how and where you want to store the logs in
a way that they are as accessible as necessary, and as secured as possible.
• Invest in proper test cases (test automation), especially regression tests. This will pay off
once you operate your automation solution (e.g., when you upgrade Camunda BPM)
• Avoid using Camunda internal API since there won’t be guarantees for backwards
compatibility when upgrading to new versions of Camunda BPM

29. Do's and Don'ts
29
● Invest in local development environments that allows for easy development and testing. Do
not force your developers to use one shared deployment platform for simple testing.
● Think and work in increments
○ Do not overthink how to encapsulate your services or the Camunda API...
○ Do not work out the perfect process engine abstraction layer...
○ … before you are actually and successfully in production with your first project.
● Make sure everyone knows how to reach and interact with Camunda Support, where to get
the Camunda Enterprise platform for download, and where to get the Enterprise Features
License Key.

30. Challenges and Potential Solutions
30
Risk / Problem Impact Camunda Enterprise Value
Bugs in Camunda Can delay or stop the solution development.
Fixing bug yourselves is time consuming and
expensive.
Product Support:
Report problem, validate that it is
actually a bug, learn about alternative
solutions, prioritization of bug fixes,
patch release provisioning
Missing Features in Camunda Can delay or stop the solution development,
sometimes unexpectedly due to late
discovery.
Product Support:
Request Feature, will be considered by
product management, if approved will
be put on product roadmap (short or
mid term)
https://camunda.com/services/

31. Case Study: Allianz Life, Indonesia
31
“We have never once questioned our decision to adopt Camunda BPM as a platform
and make Camunda our BPM partner. Our developers could implement all necessary
specifications very quickly. Our transition to the BPM world was successful and without
any problems. And this is due to the excellent project support provided by Camunda
from 10000 km away and across six time zones. These are the points that make
Camunda one of our most valued suppliers:
• definite commitments, that are kept at all times
• clear communication, especially when problems arise
• quick responses to all questions and inquiries
• flexible project support, for example process review, coaching by remote
sessions and on-site consulting
Our IT-management team as well as our developers agree that adopting this
lightweight process engine with its excellent performance was the right decision.”
- Jörg Sauer, Head of Application Development
Download: https://camunda.com/case-studies/allianz-indonesia/

32. 32
Topics
Typical Camunda Projects
Preparation and Kick-off
Design and Implementation
Go-Live and Operations
Continuous Improvement

33. Challenges and Potential Solutions
33
Risk / Problem Impact Camunda Enterprise Value
No visibility in History Data Confusion around specific workflow behavior,
lack of understanding why certain things
happened / did not happen; This often results
in self-developed auditing solutions which
delays the project and drives the costs.
Enterprise Cockpit: Total visibility into
history data, including process audit
trails, variable change log and much
more.
No tool support for handling
production incidents
Incidents cannot be efficiently handled and
fixed, leading to production downtimes
Enterprise Cockpit: Powerful incident
handling for both single process
instances and large batches of process
instances.
https://camunda.com/products/cockpit/

34. Screenshot: Process Instance History View
34

35. Challenges and Potential Solutions
35
Risk / Problem Impact Camunda Enterprise Value
Migrating running instances to
new process definition version
is difficult
Running instances might need to stay on old
version and cannot be migrated to a version
that contains critical bug fixes
Enterprise Cockpit: Extensive support
for process instance migration
(single/batch), including migration plans
Manual manipulations in
running process instances are
sometimes necessary but not
automatically tracked
Potential issues in compliance, if
manipulations of production instances and
data need to be logged for auditing purposes.
Enterprise Cockpit: User Operations Log
as an out-of-the-box solution for
auditing manual manipulations and
changes
Bugs in Camunda Unexpected bugs in Camunda can lead to
critical issues, including production
downtimes and data losses
Product support with 24/7 availability
and short-term bug fixes / patch
releases
https://camunda.com/products/cockpit/

36. Screenshot: Process Instance Migration
36

37. Performance Is a Difficult Topic
• It always depends
• On hardware
• On software environment (OS, Java, App Server, Database, …)
• On Service Tasks in the process
• On network topology (e.g. remote database, web services, …)
• On concurrent requests, database load, …
• There is no simple answer to performance
• We always succeed – in each and every real-life situation
• Handling millions of process instances / day
• Handling more than 1.000 process instances / second
• Handling thousands of parallel users
• Handling thousands of parallel process instances while guaranteeing a maximum
processing time of a few seconds
37
Camunda DevOps Training: https://camunda.com/services/training/camunda-devops/

38. Size of Example Database
• History Level: FULL
• Starting 40,000 Process Instances
• 33,000 Process instances ended
• Oracle 12c Enterprise Edition (12.1.0.1.0, 64bit Production) database
# Instances Disk Space
Calculcated
Space / Process
Instance
Remarks
Runtime 6,989 28 MB 4 KB
Around half of the space is used
for indices
History 39,953 766 MB 19 KB
Space requirements are
influenced massively by History
Level
Sum 794 MB
38
Camunda DevOps Training: https://camunda.com/services/training/camunda-devops/

39. (History) Queries
• The challenge:
• Indexes cost space and performance in writing data
• We provide a generic database schema without knowing what you exactly do with it
• We constantly work on the right balance of too many and too few indexes
• What you can do:
• Check indexes and slow query log
• Add index where appropriate for your situation (perfectly OK with us, you do not lose
support!)
• As Enterprise Customer you can always discuss/validate changes with support
• Example: create index PROC_DEF_ID_END_TIME ON ACT_HI_PROCINST
(PROC_DEF_ID_,END_TIME_)
39
Camunda DevOps Training: https://camunda.com/services/training/camunda-devops/

40. Container
Camunda
Shared Process Engine
Database
Camunda REST-API
System-Monitoring
(Nagios, Icinga,
PRTG, …)
Number of
• incidents,
• running process
instances,
• …
/incident/count/
Typical
JVM/Container
checks
Notifications
(might include deep-
links to Cockpit)
Monitoring & Alarming
40
Database queries for monitoring:
https://github.com/camunda-consulting/code/tree/master/snippets/db-queries-for-monitoring
Camunda DevOps Training: https://camunda.com/services/training/camunda-devops/

41. Rolling Update in a Cluster Possible
41
1.
2.
3. 4.
Camunda DevOps Training: https://camunda.com/services/training/camunda-devops/

42. Case Study: T-Mobile Austria, 4x faster product to market
42
T-Mobile Austria is one of Austria's largest telecommunications providers. It
serves around 7.5 million customers, with 97% of users accessing fast LTE
reception. Workflow automation offers a key opportunity for differentiation
when innovating for customers.
T-Mobile Austria’s more than 40 core back-end systems are critical to the
company’s operations. Camunda BPM connects to these systems via the
Java API and REST API, providing an agile and adaptable layer in the
architecture. There are nearly 100,000 process instances running on
Camunda any given day.
Camunda makes it possible to connect and orchestrate different
combinations of back-end systems for the delivery of a new product or
service. Workflows are defined in BPMN to document and manage these
integrations, leading to stronger business and IT alignment and increased
transparency.
Download: https://camunda.com/case-studies/t-mobile-austria/

43. 43
Topics
Typical Camunda Projects
Preparation and Kick-off
Design and Implementation
Go-Live and Operations
Continuous Improvement

44. Challenges and Potential Solutions
44
Risk / Problem Impact Camunda Enterprise Value
No Business Reporting Business stakeholders have no insights into
how their business processes actually
perform. Lack of transparency leads to
emotional disconnect and limited value
recognition of the solution
Optimize: Business stakeholders can create
reports in self-service, including BPMN heat
maps that illustrate process behavior, but
also general bar, line, and pie charts.
No Business Activity
Monitoring
Mission-critical business processes may be
correctly automated, but business results are
breaking down (example: sudden drop in
incoming orders). Businesses need a way to
monitor critical KPI.
Optimize: Real-time monitoring capabilities
provide updates within seconds. Business
stakeholders can put together their own
dashboards (e.g., for operation rooms) and
define alerts that send emails if critical
thresholds are exceeded.
https://camunda.com/products/optimize/

45. 45
Case Study: Visana Health Insurance
Situation
● 820,000 Customers
● 32,000 Documents per Day
Project Objectives
● Insurance Policies within 20 minutes
● Claim Settlement within 8 business days
Camunda Enterprise
● Introduced 2016
● Core process automation engine
● Sales, Settlement, Master Data Management
● Migrating from Batch to Single Instance
● Progress transparency for customers
● Continuous Process Improvement w/ Optimize
Download: https://camunda.com/case-studies/visana/

46. 46
Talanx: Third-largest Insurer in Germany
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_PfV7usW4A

47. The Path to a successful Digital Transformation
47
Digital Transformation (value)
Investment (time, money)
Pilot-Project
Lighthouse-Projects
Broad-Scale Transformation

48. … and do not forget to celebrate Success!
48
Projects from Goldman Sachs, Generali Insurances and Deutsche Bahn being
presented at CamundaCon in Berlin

49. 49
Contact
US +1.415.513.0111
Germany +49 30 664 04 09 00
info@camunda.com
https://camunda.com/contact