We performed a comparison between ActiveBatch Workload Automation and OpCon based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: ActiveBatch Workload Automation is highly regarded for its ability to adapt to different needs, offering prebuilt jobs and a user-friendly configuration. Its real-time monitoring and scalability are also notable features, as is its compatibility with various platforms. OpCon is commended for its flexibility and self-service capabilities, particularly in automating manual tasks. It also boasts a visually appealing graphical interface and the ability to seamlessly integrate with other systems.
ActiveBatch could enhance its managed file transfer, user interface, reliability of triggers, monitoring dashboard, documentation, support service, software setup process, email alerts, lag and stability issues, customization options, pricing, and customer support. OpCon could improve its web-based interface, upgrading process, documentation, logs, self-service functionality, cost, self-service capabilities, custom job subtypes, integration with FICS, and mainframe support.
Service and Support: ActiveBatch Workload Automation receives praise for its customer service, particularly for its helpful and reliable technical support. However, some users have expressed concerns about the service model and availability of the hotline. OpCon also receives positive feedback for its customer service, with a great support team that prioritizes urgent issues and offers timely and effective solutions.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for ActiveBatch Workload Automation is straightforward and uncomplicated, although there is a small requirement for additional instructions when importing files and configuring it on various systems. OpCon's initial setup can be intricate, but with support from SMA consultants, it becomes more seamless and manageable.
Pricing: The setup process for ActiveBatch Workload Automation is straightforward and quick, with users finding the pricing to be fair and competitive. OpCon is recognized as a costly and intricate solution that demands time for understanding, however, it offers good value for the investment.
ROI: ActiveBatch Workload Automation has been commended for its positive financial impact, leading to a notable rise in net revenue. Users find it valuable, even though they have limited understanding of ROI monitoring. OpCon is praised for its time-saving capabilities, error reduction, and elimination of the requirement for full-time operators.
Comparison Results: ActiveBatch Workload Automation is the favored choice compared to OpCon. Users appreciate ActiveBatch's simplicity and user-friendly setup. ActiveBatch is also commended for its versatility and easy configuration, providing prebuilt jobs and an intuitive interface.
"The product offers a centralized platform for managing activities across many environments, applications, etc."
"There are hundreds of pre-built steps."
"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."
"One of the valuable features is the ability to trigger workflows, one after another, based on success, without having to worry about overlapping workflows. The ability to integrate our BI, analytics, and our data quality jobs is also valuable"
"The software offers real-time monitoring and reporting features that let IT teams keep tabs on the progress of their batch operations and workflows."
"It has helped with scheduling complex jobs with simple scripts."
"Approximately ~20 hours of manual effort have been reduced to ~5 hours with the help of ActiveBatch."
"ActiveBatch can automate predictable, repeatable processes very well. There is no real trick to what ActiveBatch does. ActiveBatch does exactly what you would expect a scheduling piece of software to do. It does it in a timely manner and does it with very little outside interference and fanfare. It runs when it is supposed to, and I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops to double check it."
"The most valuable feature is the automation in general."
"There are a lot of valuable features. The version that we're currently casting, Self Service, is going to be the most valuable to us. It is going to allow us to open up the doors, broaden our automation capability and help other business units to be able to automate a lot of the little things that they do from day to day. I'm really looking forward to being able to help other areas with their automation needs. Self Service is really key."
"I have been pleased with the support that we can get from the European partners. I think they are very good. All the time, when we have a question, they have an answer. It is very reassuring to have that support every day. Then, you can concentrate on your job and OpCon is just there to work. For us, it's perfect."
"I find OpCon's ability to monitor files and folders, and its integration with other software to be the most valuable."
"The solution has streamlined operations. We have written custom jobs to do particular things, but OpCon is definitely the one that manages running them at particular times. Often times, those jobs have to run after hours. So while we still develop and spend time and man-hours writing code, once it's done, OpCon is running that in the afternoons or evenings. This is usually done during off hours when a person would normally be required to be here and do it. Instead, OpCon is available, consistent, reliable and easy to get things in and working quickly once we develop and get them working. OpCon takes care of the entire process, including notifications that we define if something were to happen so we know what to do next. Again, it's simplifies the entire process."
"The core system is the most valuable part: being able to view the processes that we've never really been able to view as a whole before. That is super-helpful, as is being alerted when issues arise."
"It seems like it would scale well."
"It allows us to have more information and more control than we previously had over the processes that are running in host systems."
"They have some crucial design flaws within the console that still need to be worked out because it is not working exactly how we hoped to see it, e.g., just some minor things where when you hit the save button, then all of a sudden all your job's library items collapse. Then, in order to continue on with your testing, you have to open those back up. I have taken that to them, and they are like, "Yep. We know about it. We know we have some enhancements that need to be taken care of. We have more developers now." They are working towards taking the minor things that annoy us, resolving them, and getting them fixed."
"The interface is not that user-friendly and is a little tough to navigate."
"There are very few documents that provide us with detailed information on the troubleshooting of errors that occur during integration with the existing environment."
"The documentation is very limited, and it can be improved."
"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."
"There are some issues with this version and finding the jobs that it ran. If you're looking at 1,000 different jobs, it shows based on the execution time, not necessarily the run time. So, if there was a constraint waiting, you may be looking for it in the wrong time frame. Plus, with thousands of jobs showing up and the way it pages output jobs, sometimes you end up with multiple pages on the screen, then you have to go through to find the specific job you're looking for. On the opposite side, you can limit the daily activity screen to show only jobs that failed or jobs currently running, which will shrink that back down. However, we have operators who are looking at the whole nightly cycle to make sure everything is there and make sure nothing got blocked or was waiting. Sometimes, they have a hard time finding every item within the list."
"Providing some detailed training materials could be very helpful for new users who have very limited technical information about the tool."
"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."
"It's not something you can just quickly grab, try, run, and play with. You have to get the knowledge and train yourself. It was easy for me, but I also took the time to throw myself into it. There is a learning curve to a certain extent. You have to learn the rules."
"Stability is an area for improvement. There are FTP agents that run on the MCP and they are there so that we can transfer a file from the MCP to the Windows environment or vice versa. Sometimes, and nobody has been able to figure out why, it just goes down, and all of my jobs that need it are hanging or failing... It would be very helpful if they could figure out what in the world is happening with that FTP client that's on the MCP."
"We have not explored the possibility, but one of the areas for improvement would be more integration into Active Directory, to where it could do the creation of user accounts and the additional work to integrate third-party systems into payroll systems."
"The solution has quite a learning curve for beginners. It's challenging. I wouldn't rate it as super-easy to automate processes. It's medium-weight. I've used more complex software, but I've used simpler software."
"I believe there's room for improvement, and while I think it's something they are considering, I would welcome seeing OpCon integrate with a broader range of systems and third-party products."
"We are still in the early stages of our implementation, so at this point, I cannot see any needed improvements or features."
"The UI refresh rate is really bad and needs improvement."
"I don't really think anything needs to be improved within the functionality. The only struggle I had, when I first started using it, is that it depends a lot on the command line and I didn't have that experience. So more built-in, basic commands or more education on commands would be good."
ActiveBatch by Redwood is ranked 4th in Workload Automation with 35 reviews while OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews. ActiveBatch by Redwood is rated 9.2, while OpCon is rated 9.2. The top reviewer of ActiveBatch by Redwood writes "Flexible, easy to use, and offers good automation". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". ActiveBatch by Redwood is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Tidal by Redwood, Redwood RunMyJobs and Rocket Zena, whereas OpCon is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation and Fortra's Automate. See our ActiveBatch by Redwood vs. OpCon report.
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