Fortra's JAMS vs Tidal by Redwood comparison

Fortra and Tidal Software by Redwood are both solutions in the Workload Automation category. Fortra is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9, while Tidal Software by Redwood is ranked #4 with an average rating of 9.5. Fortra holds a 1.5% mindshare in WA, compared to Tidal Software by Redwood’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Fortra users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Tidal Software by Redwood users who would recommend it.

Fortra's JAMS

Read 34 Fortra's JAMS reviews

1,940 Views
548 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Tidal by Redwood

Read 37 Tidal by Redwood reviews

3,457 Views
1,349 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Fortra's JAMS

Tidal by Redwood

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

Tidal by Redwood and Fortra's JAMS both compete in the workload automation category. Tidal seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive cross-platform integrations and superior customization and scripting flexibility, making it ideal for complex enterprise-level operations.

Features: Tidal stands out with cross-platform integrations, a flexible calendaring system that supports complex dependencies, and advanced scripting capabilities. It also allows for the segmentation of user permissions to ensure tailored access. JAMS, on the other hand, is appreciated for its ease of updating parameters, natural language selection for scheduling, and strong PowerShell integration. It also offers effective workload management and alert handling.

Room for Improvement: Tidal's areas for improvement include navigation, reporting capabilities, and the need for better integration with cloud platforms. Users note its steep learning curve and require better monitoring integration. JAMS seeks better search functionality, enhanced batch processing efficiency, more intuitive UI, and improved error resolution features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tidal supports deployment across on-premises, hybrid, and private cloud environments, with praised responsive customer service and helpful resources. JAMS provides strong on-premises solutions with public cloud support but faces criticism for support clarity and documentation complexity. Both products receive positive reviews for their responsive customer service teams.

Pricing and ROI: Tidal offers a flexible enterprise licensing model, allowing easy scaling without significant cost increases. Users appreciate its cost-effectiveness and transparent pricing. JAMS is competitively priced against higher-cost solutions like Control-M, offering favorable licensing terms for large-scale environments, though recent changes have added complexity. Both deliver strong ROI, with Tidal excelling in reducing manual workloads and JAMS providing value with its cost-effective pricing model.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortra's JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood

December 2024

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Categories and Ranking

Fortra's JAMS

Ranking in Workload Automation

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Tidal by Redwood

Ranking in Workload Automation

4th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Workload Automation category, the mindshare of Fortra's JAMS is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tidal by Redwood is 3.1%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Workload Automation

Featured Reviews

Rob Grafrath

VP, Enterprise Systems at Capio

We can scale up our organization's scheduling and automation without having to add staff to the department

The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that was hard-won knowledge. If I ever lose this developer, I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods. I really think that they could benefit greatly by being much more transparent about C# development, maybe by making a JAMS cookbook or a developer portal where they could throw ideas at each other. One of my complaints with the marketing around JAMS is that it says things like, "It integrates with Teams". They talk about integrating with a lot of things, but marketing doesn't tell you that they are talking about JAMS running PowerShell jobs. Since PowerShell can automate things like SharePoint and Teams, that is how marketing gets away with saying it has so many integrations. JAMS doesn't have as many built-in integrations as they advertise. I think they should build more of them, and improve on the ones they have built.

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Steve Mikula

IT Scheduling Manager at Paychex, Inc.

Very reliable processing engine, and scheduling is flawless—crucial elements in our financial transaction processing

Because we've been on it for 20 years, it's pretty easy for us to automate jobs with Tidal at this point. It has become second nature. It's pretty simplistic to set up and get going, although there are different levels of complexity you can have within the product. It depends on how simple you want to keep it. If you just keep it: Job A, Job B, Job C, Job D, that becomes pretty simple. But when you start integrating some complex calendars that use sub-calendars—and you can go three, four, or five deep to set up schedules—it becomes more complicated. The beauty of it is you can go as deep as you need to. We can get really complex or we can keep it simple. We have some use cases for both scenarios. The thing that I like the most is the reliability of the engine. The actual scheduling part of the product is pretty much flawless, but the stability of the product is what I find to be reassuring. We are a financial company, we move billions of dollars a day, and if we don't have our transactions processed in a timely manner we can be penalized and our clients can be penalized. It can have a serious financial impact.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"JAMS is easier to use and cheaper than our previous solution. The installation is more straightforward, and JAMS has a graphical user interface, so it's more accessible."

"I like how you can add new execution methods on the fly. It isn't overly complex to add Python script support to an execution method in the JAMS system. The scheduling is excellent. You can schedule a maintenance window and take that resource unit out of everything. It halts all of the jobs."

"The most valuable feature for us is that it's DR-ready. With respect to disaster recovery, it has the built-in capability for failover to our DR site. If all of the required ports are open, it can be done seamlessly."

"The most valuable feature is the easily accessible data in the database because we run a lot of SQL scripting against the database."

"The built-in triggers are great."

"The fact that we no longer need to use Excel spreadsheets is huge. Before JAMS, every group was keeping track of their own batch jobs. Nobody really knew what the other jobs were. So, if jobs failed, other groups wouldn't necessarily know. With JAMS, everything is done through a single scheduler. You can choose who to notify."

"Being able to create a series of chained jobs, which are basically linked jobs is valuable."

"The ability to sequence jobs is excellent; it means we don't have to schedule them individually, and if one fails, it doesn't unwind the entire workflow."

More Fortra's JAMS pros

"The Graphical Views feature is also very good for helping us to understand a job stream. It's great for providing a visual overview of the status of a workflow, especially the Critical Path view. That is one of our favorites."

"It saves times due to automation. With some files, we do hundreds a day for a particular vendor. This would be hard to do manually. Also, the speed at which we can do this is excellent."

"We had a number of different schedulers in this organization and we've been porting everything that was running out of these other, unrelated schedulers into this scheduler. That has afforded us the ability to set up direct dependencies between processes that couldn't talk to one another before. Over the 15 years, we've definitely gained a lot from that. What had been manual controls have become automated controls..."

"One of the most useful features is being able to set up a schedule and create dependencies. The calendar can kick off processes at certain times, based on dependencies that you specify, like time, or whether another process has finished. Dependencies are the most useful thing."

"I like the fact that I have control, and I am able to monitor. If there is an issue, I would be able to respond to any jobs that may fail. With any other scheduler that I know of, a lot of times, when I have a very complex script, if there is an issue in the middle of it, I have to let the whole process fail and then figure out a way to recover from it, whereas Tidal will stop the process, and I can resolve that issue. Once I resolve the issue, I can continue the process. This is very important for invoicing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, or any kind of financial reporting. It allows you to recover from an issue much more effectively than anything else that I have seen."

"The feature that I find to be valuable, as I'm working with other folks, is the ability to cross-schedule across platforms, and the flexibility that comes with that."

"It has been super stable. There are no complaints on stability. We would not be using it if Tidal wasn't stable."

"The best feature is that it allows task scheduling based on particular occurrences, like the receipt of files, database updates, or system notifications."

More Tidal by Redwood pros

Cons

"The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all."

"JAMS doesn't allow us to implement SOC controls. We are a company that trades stocks on the New York Stock Exchange, so all our transactions are audited. It has a feature that saves the file for only a month but doesn't segregate the data between finance and SOC-related compliance."

"We have had a lot of people working from home who can't always connect to the JAMS server. We use VPN, as most companies do, and we have it set up so that everybody can access the JAMS server. But many times, our people cannot access it... JAMS could do a better job of telling you what the problem is when you try to log in to the server."

"As an admin, I would like to have a web-based GUI instead of a client application that we have to install on our PCs."

"I'm not sure if they have fixed it in a newer version, but there is no global search in the version I have. If I have multiple sub-folders that are named for business units, like HR or IT, and I have to search for a job, I cannot search from the top. I have to go to the HR folder to search for a particular job, or to the IT folder."

"The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods."

"The error messages from JAMS often need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly."

"JAMS lacks source control features. Our previous solution had job control language, but JAMS doesn't. When migrating between versions, JAMS doesn't migrate all the data, like job change history, etc. Also, the scheduler doesn't have a way to make jobs invisible, so you can temporarily turn a job off if you decide not to run it today."

More Fortra's JAMS cons

"Setting up the initial product was a little hard."

"Some users have complained that the initial setup process is complicated and time-consuming, while others have suggested that the software could offer more freedom in customizing processes."

"Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation."

"The drill-down into details using the Graphical Views feature is a bit difficult and not that helpful. If you want to go into the details, you have to go to the Job Activity. Graphical Views is not that easy for getting that kind of information."

"When we patch to the next version, there is often a little thing that breaks. It has rarely been a big deal, but I always seem to have to follow up on one tiny issue. It would help if they had some better QA testing of their patches."

"The UI might have the potential to provide a more polished and user-centric encounter, promoting seamless engagements and simplifying the navigation process for individuals interacting with the software."

"I would like more involvement with the cloud."

"To better fit their unique needs, the solution should give more customization options."

More Tidal by Redwood cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I haven't been involved in the financial side for several years, but we buy one host and unlimited agents, and we get a reasonable price for that. We're happy with the amount we pay and the scalability it provides."

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"JAMS is close to the lower end of the pricing models for enterprise scheduling solutions. They are much cheaper than Control-M, as well as some other products that I've used. I also don't know of another solution where you can actually get true, unlimited licensing, where you can have as many instances and as many agents as you want."

"JAMS is relatively inexpensive, with additional costs only incurred for tags, other services, and optional support renewals."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"The product is reasonably priced, and we don't have any add-ons."

"In the end, you'll find that it's really worth the price. There is some sticker shock, but it's worth every dime."

"For what it does, the product is priced very well."

More Fortra's JAMS pricing and cost advice

"If you are willing to shop around to other vendors, you can possibly get a good price on your support license."

"The pricing is pretty reasonable. That seems to help a lot versus other companies. There are no other fees aside from the standard licensing fees. There are other products out there where you pay based on how many jobs you run and so on, and I know that's very frustrating for users."

"We think the pricing is very fair. We have been happy with the pricing compared to some of the other solutions in the space."

"...it is a pretty affordable scheduler tool that lets us do a lot. You get a lot of bang for the buck... The licensing model is hugely flexible."

"The solution enables admins and users to see the information relevant to them, but this is bundled as an add-on that we would have to pay for."

"We've been able to purchase more adapters because the cost of the product has been very reasonable."

"The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality."

"This solution is a bit expensive in the current world where everybody is trying to cut down on certain things."

More Tidal by Redwood pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Healthcare Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

20%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JAMS?

I find the historical tracking feature of JAMS invaluable for reviewing past events.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JAMS?

Fortra's JAMS pricing structure has deteriorated significantly since its acquisition by Fortra. Previously, both Help Systems and MVP offered more favorable pricing and licensing terms. However, Fo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with JAMS?

The error messages from JAMS need clarification, hindering our ability to resolve issues swiftly. The JAMS client requires attention. Its behavior can be erratic, and certain features lack intuitiv...

See all answers

What do you like most about Tidal Automation?

Tidal Automation by Redwood is a user-friendly solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tidal Automation?

The price is reasonable in terms of the product’s functionality.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tidal Automation?

Initially, it is complicated to understand the functionalities as there is limited product documentation. The setup and configuration of the software is a bit complicated. Providing the training vi...

See all answers

Comparisons

Control-M vs Fortra's JAMS

Compared 35% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Fortra's JAMS

Compared 24% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Fortra's JAMS

Compared 15% of the time

VisualCron vs Fortra's JAMS

Compared 11% of the time

Stonebranch vs Fortra's JAMS

Compared 8% of the time

More Fortra's JAMS Competitors

Control-M vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 44% of the time

AutoSys Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 11% of the time

IBM Workload Automation vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 11% of the time

Redwood RunMyJobs vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 11% of the time

ActiveBatch by Redwood vs Tidal by Redwood

Compared 7% of the time

More Tidal by Redwood Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's JAMS

December 2024

Download Fortra's JAMS product report

Buyer's Guide

Tidal by Redwood

December 2024

Download Tidal by Redwood product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tidal Workload Automation, Cisco Workload Automation, Tidal Enterprise Scheduler

Learn More

Fortra

Video not available

Tidal Software by Redwood

Overview

Fortra's JAMS is a powerful tool for workflow automation, batch job scheduling, file transfer, and centralizing tasks, enabling streamlined job management and monitoring from a single console across multiple servers and systems.

Widely used for scheduling SSIS jobs, SQL Server stored procedures, Python scripts, and FTP jobs, Fortra's JAMS offers comprehensive solutions for data manipulation, reporting, backup tasks, and job coordination. Organizations automate file movements, database maintenance, and nightly processes, providing a centralized platform for job management and monitoring across servers and environments.

What are the most important features of Fortra's JAMS?

Planning Capabilities: Efficiently plan and coordinate job schedules.
Job Dependency Management: Manage dependencies between jobs to ensure proper execution order.
Batch Scheduling: Automate and schedule batch jobs seamlessly.
Single Pane of Glass: Centralized console for tracking all automation tasks.
Interactive Agents: Deploy agents for interactive job management.
Natural Language Scheduling: Create schedules using natural language commands.
Custom Execution Methods: Implement custom methods for job execution.
PowerShell Integration: Integrate with PowerShell for enhanced scripting capabilities.
Exception Handling: Robust handling of job exceptions to minimize disruptions.
Monitoring and Historical Views: Comprehensive monitoring and historical job views for better oversight.
Extensibility: Extend the platform to meet specific needs.
File Watching: Monitor files and trigger jobs based on changes.
Complex Scheduling: Handle intricate scheduling requirements for diverse scenarios.

What are the main benefits of using Fortra's JAMS?

Centralized Control: Manage all jobs from a single console.
Efficiency: Increase efficiency by automating repetitive tasks.
Scalability: Easily scale job management across multiple servers.
Reduced Errors: Minimize human errors through automation.
Improved Monitoring: Benefit from robust monitoring and alerting options.
Customizability: Tailor workflows and schedules to specific needs.
Integration: Seamlessly integrate with a wide range of applications and systems.
Time Savings: Save time with efficient job scheduling and execution.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing, Fortra's JAMS enables seamless automation of critical tasks, ensuring data integrity, compliance, and operational efficiency. Whether it's automating nightly batch processing for financial transactions, managing data flows in healthcare, or coordinating manufacturing processes, Fortra's JAMS provides a robust solution to enhance productivity and reliability.

Tidal Software is a leading provider of enterprise workload automation solutions that orchestrate the execution of complex workflows across systems, applications and IT environments. With a comprehensive portfolio of products and services, Tidal optimizes mission-critical business processes, increases IT cost efficiencies and satisfies legal and regulatory compliance requirements. Hundreds of customers around the world count on Tidal for modernizing their workload automation and driving their digital transformation. Tidal Software is headquartered in Chicago with offices in Houston, London, Minsk, Belarus and Chennai, India. For more information, visit tidalsoftware.com.

Sample Customers

Teradata, Arconic, General Dynamics, Yum!, CVS Health, Comcast, Ghiradelli, & Boston’s Children’s Hospital

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Fortra's JAMS vs. Tidal by Redwood

December 2024

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