Windward Core Reviews

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.

Ability to harness all the power of standard Office software (Word & Excel) to produce rich reports while at the same time easily connecting to my data sources. Very visual way of finding and linking data. Simple integration with .net & Java.

We are able to move report generation from the developer workload and give to less technical staff.

Initial learning curve seems steep as first - but it does 'click' into place after viewing a few of the free Webinars that Windward offer.

The ability for it to create static reports, which mostly replicate Word and Excel.

A part of our business is to produce static report which we give to our clients. This product serves this purpose very well.

The generation of PDF/Excel reports needs to replicate Word/Excel more closely with less required workarounds.

We have been using this product for 2 years.

When we first started using it we did - however, that was partly due to issues at our end.

Sometimes automated reports don't generate - seems to be completely random.

Yes, unfortunately as Word/Excel are used to generate the reports, it suffers from the same issues as 32-bit Word/Excel.

Very good, it has always been prompt and helpful.

Good, support has actually spent the time to try and figure out why a problem is happening. And sometimes if it requires a fix then they have pushed out the fix in the next version.

No.

In-house.

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.