Automic Automation Reviews

We use it for batch automation and site switching. It has performed great for us, and we have had very few problems. We have done a full upgrade in the last 12 months where we went from an AIX to a Linux platform, and this was a massive change for us.

We are a big organization. We have 7000 employees. We are spread across Ireland and the UK, with operations elsewhere. Therefore, it is about where can we use Automic to create efficiencies. We know there are a lot of things that we are doing which are time and resource intensive. We would like to leverage Automic for these tasks.

We have been using Automic for more than 10 years.

We have about 40 million jobs and workflows go through our organization's Automic instance every year, from our Treasury functions to our SAP functions. We use it in approximately 30 to 40 applications. It is very important to us.

• Stability
• Versatility
• It is integrated across all our IT platforms in our infrastructure, which is a big plus.

• While the cost is competitive, there is always room for improvement.
• It has a very complicated interface, which could be made to be more user-friendly.
  

It works. It does not fail. If something fails, it is not Automic. It is a script or something else.

We are an electricity company, and we issue hundreds of thousands of bills to customers every month. Automic is key in getting the billing files ready, so they can be sent out to the customers. We are heavily regulated by an Irish regulator. Therefore, if there is any delay with bills going out and the process around it, we can be heavily fined. Thus, it is crucial that we have software that makes everything run smoothly.

One of the areas that we are looking at is using Automic in the cloud. Diversity is actually more important to us than the scalability at this point. For example, where can we leverage Automic to automate and improve efficiencies in our organization?

The technical support is excellent. We have gold support for Automic, and are happy with it. That is really key. If we invest with a company and its product, then we make it a critical condition that it can't fail, essentially. If it does fail, then we need to know that if we pick up the phone, someone is going to fix it for us.

The only time that we needed technical support in the last few years was when we were doing an Automic platform migration. We were on an AIX system and migrating it to a new operating system. For the migration, we relied on Automatic to assist with the transition. Apart from this, we generally do not have issues with Automic. 

Mostly, it is the jobs or scripts that we request Automic to run where we see issues, which is fine. These are fixed elsewhere.

This was before my time. I suppose we had an operations function that was shift-based. We would have a team that worked around the clock, and they would be performing the batch functions manually. Then, when Automic came in, we could operate 24/7 because Automic was doing the automation, but we only needed a team 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, in the office. This cut down on the need for a rolling shift. However, this is probably going back about 10 years ago.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

One of the key reasons for implementing Automic was to cut down on manual tasks: Workflows, jobs, the way it can work across multiple platforms and different operating systems, stop and start services, transfer jobs, and file transfers. This has all greatly increased our efficiencies and productivity, and reduced the amount of human interaction required. The key to this is the stability. 

We feel that we get a good deal with the price.

We recently renewed our Automic contract last year. At renewal time, it is not about looking for an alternative product, because we can't find one. Also, Automatic is heavily integrated in our organization. The cost to change would be a huge factor for us, and we have not found any other product that is better out there.

We have not found another product that can do what Automic can do. 

We are looking for use cases to utilize it within our organization. Basically, what we are looking to do now is to automate as much as we can within the organization.

We are probably not using it as much as we can, but that is on us. Any issues we have ever had with the product have been resolved. We are only using Automic more, rather than less, in the organization. It is as integrated in our company as it possibly can be. It is crucial to us. We would not put that this type of time and investment into a product if we were not sure of its capabilities and stability.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: 

The product has to fit. The vendor has to be willing to work with us and tailor their product to suit our needs, then offer that level of support to us. The company that we work in, we can't have downtime or outages. Automic and similar products are critical to our business and our internal business functions. Thus, support is key, if there is an issue, so we can get it fixed quickly.

Do your own proof of concept. Make sure you know what you want. Be clear about what you want the product to do for you. Go out and meet with the vendor, then test it.

It is basically for workload automation. Automic has also got other features, but we are not using them. We are just sticking to workload automation. We basically do batch processing through automation. We mostly have nightly batches and cyclical batches during the daytime.

The reason we went with Automic is very simple. We were using ESP, which was a Broadcom product. So, Automic happened to be a natural fit. It was a much easier transition from ESP to Automic. We had familiarity with the vendor and the product.

There are pain points, like anything else. Sometimes, things they say work, and sometimes, they don't work. You need to find out why they don't work and then go back and have them fixed. 

We have been using it for close to a year.

Like any product, there are glitches. We had used ESP for almost 30 years. So, we were very familiar with the tool, and it was pretty stable. This is an agent-based solution. So, sometimes, the agents don't respond and triggers don't work. Those kinds of issues are still there.

Workload automation is not heavy stuff. When things have to happen, they just wake up and do the work. It is not like an E-commerce solution where your workload is going to increase by X factor and then you add X servers. It is not that way. So, from a scalability point of view, it is scalable.

They're pretty okay. We worked with CA before Broadcom bought them. So, we've got a long working relationship with them for over 20 years, and their support is pretty okay.

They work with a partner to help you with implementation and migration. The partner had tools for migration from ESP to Automic, which was helpful.

Its price is way up there with BMC. It is a little bit on the expensive side.

We only use it for workload automation. We haven't explored the tool as such. It claims to have a lot of features, but we have just touched the surface of it.

From a workload automation point of view, there are multiple tools. You've got BMC. You've got Automic, and you've got Stonebranch. Stonebranch is the smaller of the lot, and from a solution perspective, their agent can work with any other automation tool. Cost-wise also, it is much cheaper than the others. If you are a small enterprise and don't have an existing tool, Stonebranch wouldn't be a bad option.

I would rate Automic Workload Automation a seven out of ten.

Automic Workload Automation is a workload automation tool.

Automic Workload Automation's use cases are primarily focused on large enterprise users. With over 3,500 customers, the tool is well-suited for core automation tasks in various sectors, especially in the banking industry where Automic has a strong presence. The platform offers largest number of out-of-the-box integrations which sets it apart from other workload automation solutions. This integration capability is a key area where Automic Workload Automation excels.

Unlike other Orchestration or Workload Automation tools, Automic Workload Automation stands out as a versatile single solution capable of handling various use cases such as business process automation, workload automation, service orchestration, and DR automation. There's no need for additional tools to make it compatible with your specific use case. Automic Workload Automation can handle it all without requiring any sideline tools to be installed.

The concept is that with a single skill set, you can automate all your daily automation requirements.

Automic Workload Automation offers a useful scripting language that is built on top of JCL. Unlike other workload automation tools in the market that have to rely on third-party integrators, such as Python to develop their own scripts, Automic Workload Automation provides a scripting language that can be easily implemented with support from the vendor. This makes the implementation process smooth and hassle-free, and the scripting language can be used to run any impetus within the process. With the help of this scripting language, there are no limitations to what can be automated. Automic Workload Automation provides a flexible and powerful solution for automating various tasks.

The solution can be deployed quickly with Kubernetes which is useful.

There are frequent updates fixing vulnerabilities and other problems.

Automic Workload Automation could improve the SaaS deployment.

The vendor should provide updated features for customers to try on a trial basis.

I have used Automic Workload Automation for approximately within the last 12 months.

The solution is stable. My customers have not raised tickets in years.

Automic Workload Automation is highly scalable, such as adding endpoints. There is little maintenance required. With a Kubernetes installation, there are auto-scaling and other helpful features.

We have over 3,000 users using the solution worldwide. Additionally, we have SMBs and other customers. We have customers in all industries, such as retail, banks, insurance companies, aviation industries, and airlines.

Automic Workload Automation has been in the market for 10 to 15 years, which has made it a strong and reliable solution. The platform has a large and active community, as well as partner networks available worldwide that contribute to the community. If you encounter any issues, the Broadcom community is always available to provide support, and the technical support team is also excellent. In the past, there were some issues related to connection issues, which affected all sectors, especially the fourth part. However, Automic has been actively working on improving the support side since 2009 and has been highly accurate in providing support.

Initially, deploying Automic Workload Automation was challenging, but it has become much simpler. However, if you want to set it up in a distributed environment, it may take a day or two due to critical sites and firewall requirements. For a single box installation, it hardly takes thirty minutes to set up.

We do the implementation of the solution. We have all specialized documentation that we follow making the process simple for us. We can deploy the agents from the console ourselves.

The cost of the solution depends on the number of systems that are being orchestrated.

My recommendation to existing users is to consider onboarding more use cases on Automic Workload Automation. The platform has a lot of potential, and it is not necessary to limit its use to just one team. You can expand and expose the tool to other departments, such as IT or business vendors, to unlock its full potential. Since you have already invested in the product, you can brainstorm within your organization to identify areas for automation improvements and onboard more use cases accordingly.

I rate Automic Workload Automation a ten out of ten.

We use the solution across every business area for site switches, backups, batch scheduling, and other tasks.

We implemented the solution about 20 years ago when we switched from our legacy mainframe systems. We were looking for a scheduler to replace the one in our new SAP systems, as the SAP system scheduler wasn't considered robust enough. The solution was chosen to replace SAP scheduling at that time.

What I like most about Automic Automation is its flexibility to work across multiple platforms, such as Windows, Linux, and SAP environments. The ease of switching from one environment to another is particularly useful. I like its calendars and workflows. 

The support has declined somewhat over the years due to various takeovers. It's not as personal as it used to be.

I've been using Automic Automation since 2005 for about 19 years.

I rate the solution's stability a nine out of ten. 

I wouldn't rate the solution's scalability highly, but that's more due to our company's structure than its capabilities. We often don't know what's coming for our company in advance, so we might not always consider using it for new projects even though we probably could.

We initially bought it for SAP scheduling but soon found it could do many other things. For example, we use it for site switches between our two data centers, testing our critical systems once or twice a year. In the first two years of using it, our usage grew by about 400%.

Currently, we have about 400 agents and three environments: development, test, and production. We have approximately 150 users.

As for scalability, we currently only use about 20% of the CPU capacity, so there's plenty of room for growth. If we need to add more jobs or increase the workload, it's scalable. Increasing memory, disk space, or servers is also easy.

Before Automic Automation, we used a solution called ControlM, though I wasn't with the company then.

The deployment of Automic Automation was fairly straightforward, though we initially had a few minor issues. It took about a year before it went live, and only three or four people were involved in the process.

The solution does require daily maintenance, which mostly involves looking at the database and archiving older data to keep it efficient.

We've seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of resources. For example, when we have an outage for an upgrade, the manual implications would be vast without Automic Automation. If we were to ask everyone to do the tasks it does manually, we would need a lot more people.

The solution seems expensive to me, but it does the job well.

We did face some challenges during the early implementation about 17 years ago. There were occasions when jobs replicated themselves and filled up the database, causing system downtime. However, we've since fixed these issues.

I would recommend Automic Automation to other users mainly because of its ability to work in multiple platform environments. For example, it's effortless to move files from a Windows system to a Linux system.

Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I think it's a very good product.

The primary use case for the solution is to automate various manual tasks for clients in SAP or other solutions or make backups. The purpose is either to automate tasks or migrate from another tool to Automic Automation.

In the beginning, it is used to schedule some basic tasks, and as soon as the clients understand how the product works, they increase the scope by having more critical jobs. In the end, it is the core of the business making sure that all jobs are running properly.

Automic Automation enhances visibility for customers who previously had no clear insight into their scheduling tasks, allowing them to quickly see and address issues. With other schedulers, such as AutoSys, most customers do not have the visibility to know and see exactly what is going on. The advantage of having a front end is that the customer has more visibility to see exactly where is the problem and how to solve it. They have more visibility today than in the past.

The advantage of using Automic Automation is that we can adapt to different business requirements. We have some customers who use Atomic Automation only for mainframe, and we have some only for Windows. Most of the time, we can modify or adapt the way of working based on business requirements. Some of them start by doing some basic jobs, and after that, they increase the scope by including SAP or some other application.

With Automic Automation, we can do a lot of things. One very interesting feature is being able to work with scripting, which is not possible with some other schedulers. We can cover all business needs with this product. For sure, as soon as they come out with a new feature, we investigate to see if we can apply this feature to the customer and help them use it. Automic Automation is very powerful and can satisfy all needs.

As a consultant company, we only help clients get started and train them in best practices. Afterward, they build the workflows themselves. Based on the feedback I have received, our customers would like to have some additional features, but they are mostly satisfied. For example, they would like to be able to print a workflow to have visibility. Sometimes, a workflow is quite complex, and they do not have the full picture of the workflow themselves. This is one feature, for example, that could be interesting for the customer. Other than that, Automic Automation is quite powerful, and we are able to satisfy many customers with this solution.

Their pricing model, which has changed now, seems costly to some clients. Pricing is a major issue for some clients due to changes in Broadcom's pricing model, causing some to seek alternative solutions. Most of the time, customers are not satisfied with its price. They sometimes decide to check if another solution is less expensive. It depends on the size of the company, but small or medium companies prefer to use a tool that costs less. We know that some customers are trying to see an alternative for Broadcom. This is not because the product is not good enough. This is mainly because of the price.

I have been working with Automic Automation for five years.

We are a partner of Broadcom. We install the Automic Automation software for many different companies in Europe. I have been working in this company as a contractor for more than five years.

The solution is stable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

Automic Automation is quite scalable, and we are able to increase or decrease the scale based on the job or automation needs of a company. This scalability meets most customer requirements.

Most of the time, we try to evaluate how many jobs or how many automation parts should be there in the company. We also have a contact in Broadcom to tell us about the best size for a company. We know what we can provide to the customer without any issues.

Our clients are usually small and medium companies. In our organization, we have seven or fewer people working with Automic Automation. Some of them are dedicated to one customer, and some of them are dedicated to three or four customers.

After the company was bought, the support was not satisfactory because most of the people left the company, but it has since improved and is now somewhat better.

Neutral

In the past, everything used to be on-prem, but now the trend is to go to the cloud. Some of the clients put applications like SAP in Google Cloud, whereas some of them are in Azure. We just use the normal image of Automic Automation and put them in the cloud. We have the same way of installing and working with it irrespective of whether it is on the cloud or not.

The initial setup is quite easy. There are certain requirements such as the database has to be up and running, which is done by the DBA who is internal to the company. The entire installation takes around two to three days.

In terms of maintenance, we try to follow the lifecycle of the product. It is mostly stable. If there is any issue, we have enough experience to cover the need.

We are a consulting company that assists with the start-up and training of clients. We do not maintain control after the initial setup as clients manage their systems.

Automic Automation has saved about 30% time of clients.

Pricing is a big issue for some of them because Broadcom changed the way of calculating the price. People have been their customers for the last five or ten years, but Broadcom decided to change the way of licensing by moving to the number of jobs runs and then they say that clients have to pay three million because they run one million jobs per day. The clients are quite surprised to see that the contract is not the same as before, and then they are afraid of paying more.

I would recommend Automic Automation to others. We know it quite well and know that we can satisfy our client's requirements. Because we have a lot of experience, we can cover exactly what they need.

It is user-friendly. If the clients want to start building jobs with the tool, it is not a big deal. It is quite easy to start with and they can go a little bit deeper with scripting and other things.

It is crucial to ensure clients receive the right support to implement best practices in automation. In the beginning, we help customers to make the workload as simple as possible. If they have some specific needs, we help them build some more complex workloads or schedules to satisfy their business needs.

I would rate Automic Automation a seven out of ten.

We can automate nearly all business processes except for real-time processes using Automic Automation.

Ten years ago, I was first introduced to Automic Automation during a migration project for a major bank. Their legacy system lacked SAP integration, which Automic Automation provided, necessitating the switch.

Our customers utilize Automic Automation in a hybrid environment that encompasses both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures.

Overall, Automic Automation offers excellent functionality and is an outstanding product in the market. Despite its limitations, it remains one of the best options available. While scripting languages can be used to implement special functionality, this approach is outdated. For more modern and efficient implementation, Python or custom scripting languages tailored to specific workflows are preferable.

Reducing job and workload failure rates across multiple cloud environments is of utmost importance. Workflows and workload engines are vital components for a wide range of processes, not only in business and IT but also in healthcare. Managing resource-intensive workflow engineering businesses also necessitates effective workflow automation. In technical settings, such as clinics, workflows, and processes can be automated using virtual engines. We are at the early stages of these developments, and a unified approach between business, IT, and technical teams is crucial for success. Two key considerations are the flow and dependencies between activities, and the bulk load management, which involves controlling resource consumption.

Automic  Automation has been instrumental in enhancing our compliance processes. The software effectively automates multi-step processes, making them more efficient and streamlined. Compliance processes are particularly well-suited for redesign and segmentation into smaller components. While compliance processes share similarities with other processes, such as login procedures, they hold a unique importance akin to security. Virtual engines have the potential to automate and control a wide range of processes, including security, compliance, and even genetic analysis. However, their implementation in these areas is still in its early stages. Additionally, virtual engines can facilitate complex workflows, such as channel analysis.

With Automic Automation for traditional IT, achieving SLAs is assured. This is because we maintain complete control over our workflow. When an issue arises, we can quickly pinpoint the cause, whether it's a failed job or another factor. Event processing provides similar visibility, offering an alternative perspective on the situation. While some advocate for workflows as the primary means of SLA fulfillment, this approach is not entirely comprehensive. The most effective strategy for achieving SLAs involves a combination of event management and ITSM infrastructure.

Automic Automation is a highly complex yet versatile tool.

Due to Automic Automation's proprietary scripting language, upgrading it can be extremely challenging, unlike other workflow automation products that offer seamless migration. This inflexibility makes Automic Automation the most complex and restrictive solution in the market. Choosing Automic Automation essentially locks us into their ecosystem, making it nearly impossible to switch to a different product. Therefore, I strongly advise against using Automic Automation.

Automic Automation's AI capabilities are limited. Most traditional workflow products lack robust support for AI workflows. Airflow might be a suitable option for AI workflows. However, if real-time AI processing is required, a different product altogether is necessary. For example, in the field of genetics, if a workflow involves thousands of jobs, traditional workflow products such as Automic Automation may struggle to handle such a large workload. The maximum capacity of these products might be around 1,000 or 2,000 jobs. In contrast, a genetic workflow could involve up to 100,000 jobs, requiring a completely different workflow product specifically designed for such large-scale processing.

Mainstream workflow products like Automic Automation offer similar functionalities and are widely used around the globe. These products typically check for process completion every second. However, in high-performance computing and emerging fields like medicine or ophthalmology, we need to control thousands of jobs simultaneously, requiring millisecond-level process completion checks. To achieve this, we can store event data in databases or perform on-the-fly checks. Additionally, we need to integrate workflow control with workload management to prevent machine overload. These requirements make it unsuitable for tasks like controlling genomic workflows.

I have been using Automic Automation for over ten years.

Automic Automation's technical support, like that of many other companies, is inadequate due to their outsourcing practices. In an effort to cut costs, they relocated their support staff to India. The best technical support I've ever received came from Israel. Many Israeli products, such as those from Mellanox, exude a similar level of quality. Mellanox, now owned by NVIDIA, resolved complex issues for me within a couple of days. When I encountered problems with Cisco switches, it took weeks to find a solution. I had to communicate with someone in India, then return to development, and so on. It's preferable to avoid discussing this issue altogether. It's a common problem among IT companies. They want to transfer their first and second-level support to India, with third-level support potentially remaining in the United States or near the product's development location. In general, I would advise disregarding support that lacks engineering expertise. They are incapable of resolving any issues.

The installation of Automic Automation is complex due to the lack of full automation in both the installation and distribution processes.

The pricing of Automic Automation varies depending on the specific contract terms. While one of our customers in the banking industry has secured a favorable contract with Automic Automation compared to other scheduling solutions, new contracts for Automic Automation tend to be on the higher end of the pricing spectrum.

I would rate Automic Automation nine out of ten. The product is very good, but I would not buy it because I would be too limited by the scripting language. I would be locked into using this vendor indefinitely, potentially for the next two hundred years.

Two of our customers are still using Automic Automation because it is too complex and expensive to migrate over to another solution. The main problem is the script language. In order to migrate, the entire workflow would need to be redesigned.

Automic Automation provides exceptional visibility and control across internal operating platforms. Its scripting language offers remarkable flexibility. However, due to vendor lock-in, I would not recommend its adoption. Automic's inability to support migration to other vendors presents a significant drawback. Although the product boasts a wide range of features and is currently undergoing improvement, its inflexibility in terms of migration remains a major concern. For new projects, I would recommend considering alternative solutions such as Control-M or Tivoli, which offer greater flexibility and easier migration capabilities.

While supporting multiple platforms is a common feature among mainstream schedulers, Automic Automation's ability to do so is not a significant differentiator. Even the most widely used schedulers can encounter challenges with Windows, but we can devise a solution to address these issues.

Encompassing all environments, the customer aims to automate their IT infrastructure, virtual systems, and all processing operations. This automation spans from mainframe legacy systems to current Unix and Linux environments. A workflow system will be employed to automate critical processes.

The necessity of utilizing Automic Automation on both cloud and on-premises environments is contingent upon specific customer requirements. While some organizations, particularly those in the government and financial sectors, may prefer an on-premises approach, others may embrace cloud-based solutions or a hybrid model that integrates both cloud and on-premises infrastructure.

As we strive for a comprehensive automation solution, the ability to monitor automation across multiple environments becomes increasingly intricate. This poses a significant challenge, prompting traditional automation products like Ansible and Terraform to incorporate workflow capabilities. For instance, IBM has integrated workflows into Ansible, necessitating the use of a database to store these web flows. To illustrate, IBM enhanced Ansible by incorporating a workflow engine and a database. Similarly, other automation products such as Terraform and others are adopting similar strategies, integrating virtual engines within their products.

Every workflow product requires maintenance.

Automic Automation aims to expand into AI and other emerging fields in the future. However, current limitations hinder their progress. Instead of pursuing these advancements, they should focus on developing new products for AI, genomics, and HPC. These new solutions could potentially replace mainstream schedulers for traditional applications like SAP, Informatica, Automic, and Control-M. While Automic Automation remains a viable solution for existing applications, alternative products are better suited for emerging technologies.

We use the solution to automate business processes, including those in SAP systems, mainframes, host systems, and so on. Most of our environments are automated, from Windows to Unix. 

It's a powerful product.

I'm very familiar with the interface. It's easy to use. It's very intuitive and useful.

Nearly all of our business processes are automated using this product. It's not really complex. It has drag-and-drop capabilities. You can take an SAP job and move it into the workflow.

The scalability is great.

There's good visibility across operating platforms. You can see system states and logs, et cetera. It's powerful. You can analyze log files and get a good view of them. I'm not as familiar with the data analysis part, however, as I don't really use it. 

The solution offers connectivity in any direction. We have an old mainframe and have connectivity with special systems, SAP, and data connectors. 

It's helped us reduce workload failure across multiple cloud environments by 90%.

With this solution, we've been able to free up staff for other projects or tasks. The automation makes it possible to save time on various tasks.

We've been able to reduce operational costs thanks to its virtual presence.  

The solution could be improved by offering better management. They need to make it more intuitive. It would be helpful if they could visually flag items. You do need to log into the system and have some technical knowledge.

It would be better if it was easier to view the automated processes.

I've been using the solution for nearly 15 years.

The stability is good. I'd rate it seven out of ten. 

The solution scales well. You can scale from the system nodes, and there is no limit to the workload. I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

Technical support could be better. However, for the most part, it's okay. The speed of response is pretty fast.

Neutral

We did previously use a different solution. We switched to the brand leader in our region. The look and feel of the interface are very good in comparison.

We do help our customers implement the product. The implementation's level of difficulty depends on what has to be automated. The tool itself isn't rocket science; however, complex automation may exist. If there's a big ETL or data warehouse with thousands of jobs, it can get complex. 

There is a bit of maintenance needed, for example, around security updates. 

There are different licensing models, so the solution is very flexible and can align with customer needs. The pricing itself is cheaper than BMC and other options. 

We're a consulting company and run a lot of POCs with customers looking for other solutions. 

We're a Broadcom partner. 

The solution has helped us with our ability to meet our SLAs.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The primary use case is workload automation in our SAP area. The performance is fine.

We have seen improvements in time efficiency and cost resources, because we are mainly focused on the SAP area, and its automation in that part. We also have some other complex areas where we help the applications with their processes. Unfortunately, we do not use it in the automation of those parts in the infrastructure, like other companies have talked to here. Therefore, our company is still meant to be for SAP Scheduler, and not given the necessary management attention. 

It helps in the usual business, though it does not help us get in front of our competitors.

• Flexibility
• Easy to use
• Stable automation engine
• We do not have to use a broad variety of agents to connect to different types of systems.

• We would like to have some features with the AWI with the founding technique, which cannot currently be delivered. 
• We would like some advantages, which we had with the Java UI, with the automation engine.
• One topic, which we would like, is to be able to have more differentiate in the reorganization of SAP to more precisely view which types of objects and clients would be reorganized and archived. The archive file is not helpful for us. If we write the archive file, we do not use them because in the past the tools were not that satisfying. 
• Improvements also would be good in the area of performance measurement.The system overview and performance are not being measured because we can't derive any concrete information.

The stability is fine. There are always a few little parts or points with issues, but overall, it is very stable.

It is quite stable in terms of size and requirements. The stable environment does not matter that much. However, the product, with it types of agents, and the sizeable automation engine, seems to be highly scalable.

We have been satisfied with the technical consultants. We ordered them for special situations. 

Technical support is different. Sometimes it is fast and very helpful, sometimes it seems to be bureaucratic and slow. It depends on the questions. Over the last few years, we have noticed it worsening. Ten years ago, there was more personal contact. We had the feeling that the support was much more involved in the system and better informed in the topics. Because of the very high speed of growth, there are only a few dozen of people with ten years of experience, which is another problem of size.

Initial reason was the projects which from SAP R2 to R3. That was the reason why they looked for a different scheduling system. 

Meanwhile, we are controlling nearly all SAP systems that we have, so it has a three digit number. In this area, no one has any idea of using a different tool for it. The another direction where we hope that we can move into other directions, but without the necessary management, it can't.

The people involved in the initial setup were convinced that they had the right product and absolutely satisfied with the setup in 2001.

I know that it was evaluated against other tools in 2000, but I do not know which ones.

Have a look at following:

• Technical functionality
• Attitude of the vendor
• The way that they are in contact with their customers. 
• Flexibility of the solution.
  

Most important criteria when selecting vendors: Our company wants to have strong partners. Therefore, they change the direction from selecting specific small companies for a specific question or task to have more global partners for big areas, where they can rely on the necessary knowledge in the company in terms of enough people with this knowledge, not only one specialist, and no one else can take over in the case of any problem, holiday, or leaving the company.