Jitterbit Vinyl Reviews

Our primary use case is for accessing data from a database.

It makes things more modular. We're able to get information from our data that we were not able to before. We can get the data faster and aggregate more easily ways and in more visible ways.

All the features are pretty valuable. One that stands out is the cross-platform integration, which helps us access the data we need to see.

It's pretty easy to learn. Sometimes the terminology can be a little tricky to get around, but it's just queries with no code so once you get the hang of it, it's pretty simple. It's extremely easy to use in getting into the IDE and then back down to your applications, and getting from your applications to your pages, and navigating through all your tables. That's very simple and pretty intuitive.

They have business objects which are essentially queries or tables. To learn the structure of their software is a little tricky at first. You have tables and sitting on top of them you have data objects which are required in order to use your application which sits on top of them. To understand how those flow between each other, and the terminology that's used between them, can be difficult.

It took about a month to get everything straight in my head. You could probably do it faster. What took so long was having not having an application to develop. If you don't have an application to develop and play with, you don't really know what you're playing with. If you had an app to make, that time could be cut to three weeks.

Also, when you are trying to delete certain columns or delete or drop tables, sometimes it will throw an error and it will force you to hunt down every location where those things are being referenced. You have to delete them from the very end and work your way backward. That can get frustrating. It would be easier, when you're deleting that table, if it would concatenate all the way down. I know that's almost an industry standard when you're dealing with tables, but it could be better.

At times, when you're in an application, and you use a "back" arrow, it's limited in what it can do. I know you can have certain pages sent back to other pages, but sometimes to set all that up is a little annoying. I'm not exactly sure how I would improve that, but you can get lost once you start clicking through tabs. You end up backing up through the same pages, back and forth, and it can be frustrating.

There are a lot of almost "hidden" features captured in these Edge Case settings. That's an example of the terminology being a little bit tricky. In those settings might be exactly what you need, but the terminology that they use is not very clear. If you want a scroll bar at the bottom, instead of having it select rows to show, you have to select Disable Panel Location Service, which doesn't sound at all like what it's supposed to do. It's little things like that. Naming conventions could be changed a little bit.

It's pretty stable. It just sits on top of your stuff and it does a good job of maintaining the connection between the two. I've never had an issue where it breaks or the connection is lost for some reason. When you're working between two different systems it's tricky but that's not really a VINYL issue, it's just hard to get two machines to talk to each other sometimes.

It's pretty scalable. We're using it across a lot of different departments and it's pretty easy to throw up a new app and start working. When we add data in it very easily handles that, and we have some very large tables. It does a good job of getting information from those tables and using the information. There have been a couple of times when it timed-out but that has mostly been due to the fact that there is so much data in there. I wouldn't expect any query to be able to handle it very quickly.

Zudy's technical support staff are great. I ask them questions all the time and they are very responsive and thorough. In most cases, they get back to us in a couple of hours, if that. It depends on how busy they are and on the question. Sometimes there are questions that require more research or maybe a phone call, rather than email. Those take longer to hash out, but they're very responsive.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup but to my understanding, it took a little bit to get started. Once they got the ball rolling, it was pretty quick. It was just a matter of trying to connect to our many databases and get them set up in a way that's usable, because there are a lot of edge cases on our end. But once you developed those it was super-easy to do the rest from there.

I haven't gone, but I know that Zudy offers free training in Boston for this solution, which I think is excellent. Maybe that's just part of their way of getting their name out there. I am planning to go in the future. I imagine it's a great resource as well, on top of the manuals or the tech support or the "how to's" that they provide.

There wasn't a third-party consultant involved. Someone from Zudy was directly involved in helping us set up.

There is definitely ROI. It allows us higher visibility into our data, which allows us to data-check faster, and validate data that we had not been able to validate, prior. It has definitely saved us money. On a day-to-day level, people are able to do their work more efficiently and that's going to save them time, which is going to save money.

We did not evaluate other options for the purposes we intend to use VINYL for. 

Initially, make sure you have a good structure for your database. It's not necessary, but it makes the integration a little easier. Once you have that, the best way to learn is just to play with it. Build a simple app. Work on building your tables. It's good to have a goal in mind. You focus on making that app, a very simple one, but one that is also working well. Once you get that working, within a couple of weeks you'll be a pro and you can be running through apps and developing on some level.

Beyond that, it's just fine-tuning those skills and learning what other features VINYL offers.

We have five people using it. Only I am really developing on it. Perhaps there's one other person developing on it. The goal is to have the majority of people using it in some capacity to replace all of their miscellaneous spreadsheets and to replace a lot of the interfaces that they're using. We want to make everything more consistent and centralized around one application that everyone can use.

In terms of maintenance, it takes two or three people: one on their end to make sure they're okay if something happens; one on our end to make sure our systems are okay, and one person to develop. There isn't much day-to-day maintenance.

I don't really have much to compare it to. This is the first time I've used a no-code solution like this. But in my experience, I'd say it's a nine out of ten. It doesn't get a ten because there are some features that seem to be "hidden" behind the terminology. The more you play with it you learn it but sometimes those features are not very up-front. It's not until you dig through the user manual that you get to understand what those features are about.

We use VINYL for more purposes than I can count. If I were to distill it down to our guiding principles, Vinyl is utilized to fill in our gaps, whether it be from processes, systems, integration, or governance.

It has allowed us to implement processes and governance where we previously had none. It also has allowed us to peel away from large, enterprise products that dictate specific ways of doing things; ways that might not match the business need/process in place.

VINYL's flexibility: We have been able to leverage the platform to rapidly build custom solutions, and tailor-make them to our needs. To date, the speed of app creation and extensibility of the product have allowed us to solve critical business problems in a timely manner.

From a front-end perspective, the apps which we have built are intuitive to use.

The ease of use for individuals to self-serve could be improved. The solution is no-code, but there is still a decent learning curve associated with the product and some app design principles necessary before people can self-serve.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

The cloud nature of the application and the licensing model have allowed us to role out new apps to an increasing number of users without any issues.

The support is quite good through the professional services.

While this tool was in-house before I started, but a typical application build takes a matter of weeks. 

Our company uses agile methodologies to quickly prototype, build, test, and deploy our solutions.

We have been leveraging Zudy Professional Services, which consistently delivers above expectations.

I was not involved in the pricing and licensing.

We use it quite extensively within the teams that I support. There are already initiatives underway to expand to additional business units/domains.

The product can do almost whatever you need it to do. However, the "how" to do this can be challenging. Leveraging Zudy Professional Services has allowed us to get more bang for our buck using this product.

The greatest benefit that this product has had for Cal-Maine has been to empower our developers to very quickly be able to produce applications. This is very important in today's time frame.

The product has reduced the time that it takes us to produce apps.

Being an agriculture company, we are pretty mean and lean when it comes to spend. It really helps to produce applications in a faster period of time.

One of the cool things about Vinyl is they are constantly improving it. They have a new version that they are showing, which we have not seen yet, at the meeting that I am attending. 

They are constantly adding new features. That is really important. We suggest things sometimes, then all of the sudden, they miraculously appear.

We have never really had any downtime with Vinyl at all. We actually host this in our own environment as opposed to a cloud environment, which is their typical model. We have been very pleased with the stability of the product.

This is an extremely scalable solution because it enables us to interface with all types of disparate information. So, the larger we grow, the more we can use a product like Vinyl.

We are located in Mississippi. There is not a lot of technology available in Mississippi when it comes to solutions like this. One of the things that we value about Vinyl is they have a tremendous support team.

We deployed Vinyl about nine months ago. Previously, we were using a small application that wrote code for our personnel in a manner very unlike the way that Vinyl does. It was something that we worked with because it was all we could find, but as soon as we found Vinyl, we put it into play.

To deploy Vinyl in our environment, we engaged the Zudy engineers to help us. This is not a product where someone could just get the code, install it, and do it themselves. A very important part of a business relationship with a software company is application support. This all worked together for our installation to go well.

Some people are really reluctant to rate anything a 10 out of 10. However, when you have a good product which does a good job, and it is affordable, why not give it a 10?

We use it for progressive apps, especially when workflows of the past, again, paper trail, can be replaced with electronic, which is what mine has done.

VINYL has improved the way our organization functions with our paper trail. What I mean by that is that one of our process workflows was all paper-based. VINYL was taken and replaced the paper trail with an electronic trail throughout, with audits, which we didn't have before. It's made things seamless and it's more efficient, and there's an audit trail where it wasn't there before.

Has it increased my productivity? Yes, when I'm allowed to actually code in VINYL. But when I'm not in VINYL then it doesn't, obviously, and not everything can be switched to VINYL. We have to have buy-in from upper and lower management, whoever the users are.

We definitely have used the solution to bring more than one data set together. We have an IT dashboard checking system that brings together DNS, DHCP, WINS, SUS, Alertus. There are about fifteen different data sets that come together on one visual to see whether people have something installed on their PCs or not. It gives our help desk visibility across a person's PC as to what they're missing or what they have.

As a programmer, I came from a programming world, so it was hard for me to use the tool because it was very foreign to a programmer, but it's very dynamic. So if I build one panel, it can go across to the different tools, phone, iPad, computer, and I don't have to worry about redesigning it for each platform.

Only because consultants can see places to use the tool where we're blind to that because we've just done it that way in the past. I don't know if I'm explaining myself right, but when they come in they can see a need for it, or a use case for it, that we would have never picked. So the consultants have provided places where the tool can benefit us that we would have never thought of.

What additional features would I like to see is easy: drag and drop UI interface. That what you see is what you get. Right now it's very dependent on having an imagination to understand. If I put a control on a page, what it's going to look like at the end result. I would much rather have, I drag it in place and then I do the backend stuff. I would like to see it before I have to build it.

Three years.

I like the stability of VINYL because I can see them always increasing, changing, making it better. I've worked with it for three years now and what it used to be in the first year to what it is now is a world of difference. They've taken our suggestions, as users, and moved the platform in the right direction, fixing those problems and making it better. As long as they keep doing that, I see a long life for the product.

VINYL definitely has the capability to be scalable in the fact that it can be a reporting tool or an ETL tool or just bringing of datasets together tool. So, scalable across different solutions.

Since we have two of the consultants on site, anytime I have a question, they're right there and if they don't know the answer, they go right onto the forums and reach back to the home company and get the answer for me. So, it's been outstanding.

The VINYL consultants are outstanding because they can bring a visual into our organization from the outside and see things like I said, we can't see. We're blind to it and then they're able to let us know, subtly, that we need to change, and change to a better app platform, which is VINYL, to get the work done more efficiently, more effectively.

The initial setup I came into my first week with the organization, so it was already ongoing. I'm not sure I'm a good perspective on that. It seemed scattered, but it may be our organization and not theirs, and it could just be the data.

We weren't sold on VINYL in the beginning. It was brought in, it was used for something, a proof of concept, but it wasn't really utilized to its full potential.

I went to the TechEd conference last year and I saw what it could do by seeing all the other customers and that's when we really started adapting it. I came back to the office and I said, "I see you use cases that I never would have seen if I hadn't seen the other solutions in place." So, I think the TechEd is our turning point where we started really utilizing it.

I guess I would say "be open to it." And, if you're a programmer, don't look at it with a programmer's mind. If you're a business person or business analyst, you're going to be able to understand how the tool works. Programmers, coders have a pre-set understanding of how to code, and this is not how to code. This is how to build an APP. So you have to go into it with an open mind.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd probably rate it at an eight. It is a young product and still growing. I see it growing the right way. As long as they, the VINYL staff and developers, keep up with changes of the technology and the times, I see it growing to be better than eight, but right now, eight because of some of the limitations it has.

Often times, the expression "spreadsheet hell" is thrown around our walls, and people get too entrenched in sharing, emailing, creating, and saving spreadsheets just to share information. The Zudy product, Vinyl, has really allowed us to get out of spreadsheets and start to build dashboards for information which needs to be shared. In that sense, we have grown as a business in directions which are scalable for us in the future. 

• You do not need to be a programmer to use it or build something in it. This is pretty important in our business.
• You can unite data which lives in different sources without moving that data. This have been a real game changer for us.
• Our partnership with Zudy has really worked out for us.

The most meaningful improvement might be done in some of the aesthetics of the reporting and dashboarding. We unify and unite data in ways which are flexible and usable, but do not always have the aesthetics of some of the other reporting platforms out there. If it could be prettier, it might be a bit more attractive on the business side.

For us, it is very stable. We can host it internally and in the cloud. It is secure and accessible. We have been using this product for about a year and a half, and we have only seen improved sustained stability and usable.

The product's evolution to this point has proven that it is becoming more scalable.

We are still a small enough business that it meets our needs today, but the improvements that I have seen in Vinyl mean that we will be using this product for years.

The support from Zudy has been tremendous. The people that we have worked with (not just Tommy, Trish, and Charles), but the people in our business probably think Martin works for our company. It would not surprise me based on the number of times that we see him walking the halls and solving problems for people with this platform. Whenever we reach out, we receive someone who is friendly and competent. 

I was very new in my role at Collette when I started talking with Zudy. What I walked into was the scenario where there were a lot of people depending on spreadsheets, a nightmare of version control and sharing of data, and I was looking to solve beyond what we had internally. Therefore, about a year and a half ago, we engaged with Zudy and it was the solution for us.

It is a platform which can grow with us and get us out of spreadsheets.

I was not involved in the day-to-day of the initial setup, therefore it is hard for me to comment. However, I know that we were successful with it. Probably any limitations that we had at setup were due to some of the friction that we have internally in our network.

I would rate the product a nine out of 10, because I always leave room for improvement. I do not have any gripes. When you discuss the triumvirate of people, process, and technology, it has worked out for us in those regards. I have optimism for the future, but I am excited for what they will improve.

We're a tour company and we have a schedule of several hundred tour managers who are managing all the tours that we operate. All of their schedules for the year are put in here. We also manage all of their quality surveys. We ask for quality surveys and we get those back. They're not stored here, but they're reported out here. We also manage any guest comments in here. And the big one is reconciling all the tour funds. That's not active yet, but it's being tested right now, and that will go active and live in November. So, there's a lot that's happening with this.

To me, the most important piece is going to be the funding, the reconciliation, because right now it's a very manual process, and this will automate it. It's going to make it a lot more streamlined. It's going to be a lot quicker for people to process it and, therefore, get money back. It's efficient and I like that. They'll be able to just take a snapshot of the receipt and upload it into the system, and then it just all gets submitted. It's cleaner and it will be a lot smoother process.

Zudy has created a platform that will make us much more efficient, with everything in one place. It's a much better way of reporting out. It leaves less room for any human error. I think it will be great. The piece that I'm talking about, specifically, is the funding reconciliation, but in general, all of the other things that they've done so far have been super helpful.

The way that they've done some of the reports, they've created really great data dumps. If I want to see a snapshot of something for a given timeframe, I can download it. From that download, I can create further analysis or do my own thing with it, which is really helpful. I'm even able to go back several years and get data. So when I'm doing a comparison of year over year, I am able to do it just from what they have done, what they have created for us.

In terms of it being easy to learn, it's logical so it makes sense of things. The steps are pretty logical and the display is very user-friendly. A "pencil" means "write," i.e. that you are able to write. So it's clear. It's not ambiguous, what you can and what you can't do on it. 

In the beginning, we were working with it while it was still being tweaked. So sometimes things weren't working 100 percent, or they were working but, because they were being tested behind the scenes, some things were kind of funky. But, just a quick email to them saying, "Is this correct?" would usually have a really logical answer, and then it would be fixed.

It's pretty much a stable product. I haven't seen many issues with it. I do know that there have been some smaller issues with some new people that are also starting to work on it, and their name being in the system, but I haven't been involved in that part of it.

So far, so good. I haven't seen anything that it hasn't been able to handle, but the real test will happen in November when we have several hundred people on it, adding their funds and trying to process or submit their funds.

I can tell you that I really appreciate Martin and Grant, the two guys who have been helping us in developing this. They have been really outstanding. You ask for something, you ask for a specific design, that you want to see something, and they get it. They just give you what you need. It's been really great. It's been a great pleasure working with them.

Whenever I have a request such as, "It would be great to have this," I've been able to send an email to Martin. He has come back and said, "Yeah, we could do that." And, he just does it. There's really not much room for improvement for me, because I feel that is great: To be able to ask for something, and then he immediately just gets it to us. That's been quite helpful.

Their overall support is a ten out of ten. They have been very supportive. If you ask them for something, and they're able to deliver, they do. And if they can't deliver, they just are straightforward and tell you that they can't do that.

I came into the project after it had already started, so I only got, if not end result, the "first draft." It was pretty clear. There were some things that we suggested be changed and they were super helpful about that.

Have meetings with the developers, and make sure that you're clear on exactly what you need before you start to have them develop it. Be really clear.

I would give VINYL an eight out of ten, and I would say that it's great. The eight is because it's pretty user-friendly, it's clean, and it's reliable. I don't know if there are other things out there that are better than this, but for what we have needed so far, based on what I've seen so far, this is pretty helpful.

Our primary use case is scheduling. We do a lot of scheduling and collecting of survey data.

The tour managers are able to view their results - versus having to wait two times a year to get their results - they can review them in real time. They're also able to instantly receive their schedules versus having to manually send them via an Excel grid. It's also able to distinguish what type of guide we are using.

The fact it connects to all of our systems outside of Zudy. It connects with our internal systems and it makes things more productive and not manual.

The calendar has room for improvement, but that's what they're going to be working on next: making a Gantt chart.

It is a stable product for the most part, but if there are any issues their developers are instantly available to address them.

There have been no scalability issues. It handles a lot of stuff. It replaced two of our programs.

Their technical support is awesome. I work exclusively with their technical department and they're able to turn things around super quick and make changes and adjustments. Nothing takes very long, usually, and they're always available.

We used Microsoft Project and Microsoft Access, but the system just kept on crashing and it wasn't sustained by our IT department, so it was a lot of having to do it ourselves. It was manual and there was a lot of room for error. We moved to Zudy because it was a system everybody could understand and it wasn't outdated.

The setup was a little complex, but not that bad. I had Zudy specifically here. I was working with two of the developers and they were with me every step of the way.

The sky is the limit. It is able to pretty much do anything and everything that you thought a computer couldn't do. You should just really embrace it. It took me a while to embrace it but they're a really great company to work with.

I would rate it at eight out of 10. I think a Gantt chart would probably put it to a nine. I don't think anything's ever perfect. I'm feeling concerned about when we end our relationship directly with Zudy and just work with our own IT department, how quick the changes will be. 

Overall, it's a really great product. It's able to tie into different departments. From my understanding, it's what they were intending for this. We're able to use it across the board, all the departments.