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ActiveBatch by Redwood vs CA Process Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

ActiveBatch by Redwood
Ranking in Process Automation
6th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Managed File Transfer (MFT) (6th), Workload Automation (6th)
CA Process Automation
Ranking in Process Automation
35th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Process Automation category, the mindshare of ActiveBatch by Redwood is 0.7%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CA Process Automation is 0.3%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Process Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Shubham Bharti - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation
Occasionally, I find myself contemplating if there is room for improvement in the user interface (UI), and envisioning that with certain enhancements. The UI could potentially offer a more refined and user-friendly experience, fostering smoother interactions and facilitating easier navigation for users engaging with the application. New users might encounter a minor setback due to the absence of readily accessible training videos, which could have otherwise proven to be an invaluable resource in aiding their initial familiarization with the platform, potentially hindering their seamless onboarding process and delaying their ability to harness the software's full range of capabilities to its utmost potential.
it_user464568 - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides the ability to import objects as new versions of existing objects and to make the prior version the current version.
CA offers minimal public information pertaining to the performance drain the usage of some objects and operators introduce to processing. As an example, swim lanes within a process provide an excellent means of organizing operators within a process, but they can introduce substantial performance issues. As another example, it’s better to perform verbose JavaScript execution within a Run JavaScript operator instead of within another operator’s pre- or post-execution script. As yet another example, it’s better to hard-code variables within the process dataset as opposed to creating the variables at run-time. The biggest issue for me is its lack of support for current JavaScript methods and functions, which makes scripts unnecessarily longer than they need to be. It seemed I could only rely on the methods and functions available in ECMA 1 (which was released in 1997), but that wasn’t a deal-breaker and the product is capable of extending its capabilities through the inclusion of other code libraries.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is very useful in sending confidential files through FPP servers."
"ActiveBatch helped us automate and schedule routine tasks such as data backups, file transfers, database updates, and report generation, which frees IT staff to focus on other studies."
"Easy to configure and simple to develop new features."
"ActiveBatch has reduced work by providing automated workflows across several different applications."
"The software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"What ActiveBatch allows you to do is develop a more efficient process. It gave me visibility into all my jobs so I could choose which jobs to run in parallel. This is much easier than when I have to try to do it through cron for Windows XP, where you really can't do things in parallel and know what is going on."
"Since we are no longer waiting for an operator to see that a job is finished, we have changed our daily cycle from running in eight hours down to about five. We had a third shift-operator retire and that position was never refilled."
"The automation feature is a very valuable feature as the associates do not have to worry about performing repetitive tasks (i.e. endpoint security scans on a daily basis) that would take several hours to complete on a daily basis."
"This tool is used in my organization for automating IT infrastructure related incidents or service requests."
"It is easy to debug and troubleshoot."
 

Cons

"One thing I've noticed is that navigation can be difficult unless you are familiar with the structure that we have in place. If someone else had to look at our ActiveBatch console and find a job, they might not know where to find it."
"Between version 10 and version 12 there was a change. In version 10, they had each object in its own folder. But on the back end, they saw it at the root level. So when we moved over to version 12, everything was in the same area mixed together. It was incredibly difficult and we actually had to create our own folders and move those objects—like schedules, jobs, user accounts—and manually put those into folders, whereas the previous version already had it."
"The thing I've noticed the most is the Help function. It's very difficult, at times, to find examples of how to do something. The Help function will explain what the tool does, but we're not a Windows shop at the data warehouse. Our data warehouse jobs actually run on Linux servers. Finding things for Linux-based solutions is not as easy as it is for Windows-based solutions. I would like to see more examples, and more non-Windows examples as well, in the Help."
"ActiveBatch is a little complex."
"The help center and documentation are not that helpful."
"An area for improvement in ActiveBatch Workload Automation is its interface or GUI. It could be a little better. There isn't any additional feature I'd like to see in the tool, except for the GUI, everything looks good."
"I have faced struggles to understand, set up the tool, and implement it in my early days as a new user."
"I can't get the cleaning up of logs to work consistently. Right now, we are not setup correctly, and maybe it is something that I have not effectively communicated to them."
"It needs auto-triggering of workflows based on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI)."
"Make some of the features more open source that way developers can have more flexibility."
"Somehow the product group within CA left the product dry from some regular expression functionality."
"OCR capability should be added as a feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing was fair. There are additional costs for the plugins. We have the standard licensing fees for different pieces, then we have the plugins which were add-ons. However, we expected that."
"ActiveBatch is currently redesigning themselves. In the past, they were a low cost solution for automation. They had a nice tool that was very inexpensive. With their five-year plan, they will be more enhancement-driven, so they're trying to improve their software, customer service, and the way that their customers get information from them. In doing that, they're raising the price of their base system. They changed from one pricing model to another, which has caused some friction between ActiveBatch and us. We're working through that right now with them. That's one of the reasons why we're why we were evaluating other software packages."
"The price was fairly in line with other automation tools. I don't think it's exorbitantly expensive, relatively speaking."
"I like ActiveBatch Workload Automation's licensing model because they're not holding you down on an agentless model or agent model, where every server needs to have an agent. That's the main selling point of the solution and I hope they stay that way."
"If you compare ActiveBatch licensing to Control-M, you're looking at $50,000 as opposed to millions."
"It allows for lower operational overhead."
"Currently, we are paying approximately $7,000 yearly, which includes support."
"I don't think we've ever had a problem with the pricing or licensing. Even the maintenance fees are very much in line. They are not excessive. I think for the support that you get, you get a good value for your money. It's the best value on the market."
"It has provided ROI by auto resolving incidents or requests in the ITSM queue, improved MTTR and SLA adherence, and added value to the delivery of services and the customer experience."
"There are a lot of automation savings from any process which is repeatable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Retailer
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
Managing the workload and monitoring the tasks were very difficult with manual interventions. Now, by using ActiveBatch, the process is automated and it runs tasks on a scheduled basis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
I'd advise users to start by knowing what the actual requirement is and thoroughly assess the automation needs. New users should take advantage of the demos and trial versions so they get an idea o...
What needs improvement with ActiveBatch Workload Automation?
After upgrades we are facing a few issues and errors triggered, so focusing on this would be appreciated. Some of the advanced features in the user interface are a bit confusing even after referrin...
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Also Known As

ActiveBatch
CA IT Process Automation Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Informatica, D&H, ACES, PrimeSource, Sub-Zero Group, SThree, Lamar Advertising, Subway, Xcel Energy, Ignite Technologies, Whataburger, Jyske Bank, Omaha Children's Hospital
Unum, HCL Technologies, Logicalis
Find out what your peers are saying about ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. CA Process Automation and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.