Windward Core Reviews

• Word and Excel template generation
• Ability to integrate with our application

Our reporting tool is now fully integrated with our application, appearing and behaving as part of the application.

Report layouts can be done by less technical staff.

Some graphing capability could be improved and differences in layout for different formats (Word, PDF, etc.).

3 years

No. Drop in the WAR and call the API.

None

We generate a fairly low volume of concurrent reports, so not an issue.

Excellent. Always got a response within hours and fixes or guidance quickly.

Excellent

Yes, we used Oracle BI Publisher. Windward integrates easier, has a better Word template builder (Publisher didn't have Excel or PowerPoint template builders), and better licensing options to suit us.

Simply drop in the WAR file. We had to do work on our end to secure the data we pass in to Windward.

In-house

We bought on a x number of reports generated per month basis, which suited us as we have a lot of infrequent users and monthly reports (a lot of reports are run within 1 or 2 days).

Pentaho and Oracle BI were the main contenders.

Out and IF tags

It was used to automatically generate documents/emails for printing and distribution. It would use an XML source passed by the system and then rendered into a static document.

Two that I found:

1. Was limited by XML path restrictions. There were a couple of times I wanted to do something in the formulas which was prohibited by XML path but okay to do in Excel and the product is sold as being able to do whatever Excel can do in terms of formulas.
2. The wiki is useful but it could be expanded so much more! I had to do so much translating from Excel -> Autotag where the wiki could have gone into more depth. Imagine something with more scope like the Microsoft Excel how to guides. Much more in depth and gives you various examples of how power Autotag can be.
   

I've used it for two and a half years.

Sometimes with the activation key.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Very good - I think they needed to be more up front of needing XYZ before you even submit as there was sometimes a bit and back and forth with questions around versions/correct XML etc.

Very good.

No previous solution used.

In-house.

Cannot comment accurately but it would be very good.

Be sure that you trial it and it meets your needs.

Ability to incorporate it into our solution so clients have a seamless experience using it.

a. It is a product solution that we incorporate into our solution for our clients.

b. For our clients – it dramatically improves several areas.

i. They now have standard documents they can use throughout the system.

ii. It’s incorporation into our solution means they have a lot of the data points pre-populated.

Error handling – give more details on just what the issue is to help quickly troubleshoot what is wrong.

I have been using the solution for 3 – 4 years.

Yes – there have been numerous licensing issues over the past few years. Hopefully that has been addressed with Phone Home licensing solution.

Only around licensing.

We encountered no issues with scalability.

Their ability to help us troubleshoot is too low – they really need to help us troubleshoot in our environment – not their testing environment.

Their ability to help us troubleshoot is too low – they really need to help us troubleshoot in our environment – not their testing environment.

Initially it was tough, but we’ve documented the proper steps for our environment and have a solid deployment process now.

In-house team.

Get the phone home licensing solution.

Report server.

It just replaced a previous product we were using.

Ease of use.

I've used Windward Autotag for four years.

Confusing licensing agreement.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Their customer service is quite good.

Their technical support is quite good.

We did use a different solution and we switched because Windward offered better maintenance and upgrade path.

The workstation deployment and license allocation was a pain, but the server component was easy. A salesman told us we could have concurrent usage license, that is also how the protection seems to work. Then they decided we could only buy named user licenses. Most of our user community used the product quite infrequently so we were far from impressed.

We implemented it in-house.

Not easy to calculate, it replaced something that was written in house and was proving to be a pain to keep current.

40 licenses for Autotag, plus a server and annual maintenance.

No other options were evaluated.

I like Windward as it's directly attached to MS Word and we actually develop the report on MS Word. It gives us the benefit of using most of the MS Word features. Lot of clients of ours prefer reports in MS Word format and therefore Windward suits us quite well. Also, it's much better compared to a couple of years ago.

Previously we were using SSRS reporting engine to render reports to MS Word. It couldn't deliver what our clients wanted. So we had to go for an alternative. Now clients are quite happy as they get pretty much what they wanted. It may not be 100% but quite close.

I think it needs few other reporting features like grouping data on the report itself.

About three years.

Yes there were some unexpected bugs but we were able to find workarounds.

Yes there were some unexpected bugs but we were able to find workarounds.

No, not really.

It's quite good actually. Usually I get a response within 24 hours.

It's quite good actually. Usually I get a response within 24 hours.

Previously we were using SSRS reporting engine to render reports to MS Word. It couldn't deliver what our clients wanted. So we had to go for an alternative. Now clients are quite happy as they get pretty much what they wanted. It may not be 100% but quite close.

I'd say average. Not easy nor really complex.

In house implementation was done.

When I started a couple of years ago Windward wasn't a very stable product. So the maintenance cost was bit high. But now it's much better.

I was not involved in the process. But I was told that Windward was the only one they could find as a better product in terms of delivering what our clients wanted at that time.

It's a really good product if you really want the reports in MS Word form and if you want to use MS Word features in your reports.

The ability to design reports, using all the formatting bells and whistles, in Microsoft Word and Excel. Plus the ability to combine XML data and SQL data.

The most important is how we have been able to produce much more persuasive and professional reports than our peers.

Pricing is based off server cores. This has caused us to have to engineer our production server environment around the product.

6 or 7 years.

None. It is really easy to implement.

The product is very stable, and we have yet to find a scenario where the design environment (AutoTag) was different than our production environment (.NET Engine).

No issues with scalability.

As good as the product is, the customer service is even better. Out of all of the products we use in our company, Windward is hands down the best support without even a close second.

Awesome.

We originally used Crystal Reports, and then tried WSDL. We switched because of the versatility in report design available using Word/Excel.

Very straightforward. AutoTag takes some getting used to, but if you have used a report writer or a macro structure before it comes pretty easily. The production use is even easier. Literally just a few lines of code to delploy.

In-house.

We never evaluated, but it has never been a question.

Try it and you’ll buy it. We have introduced several of our friends to this product and they have all been impressed.