What is our primary use case?
We wanted to have synthetic monitoring transactions in place, and we have used it for a while with previous tools. It’s basically Topaz or HP, then Micro Focus, and now it’s OpenText. We used it for almost 10 to 15 years on various applications, both public-facing and internal.
We needed synthetic monitoring transactions in place, and that’s why we deployed this and looked at the BPM SaaS. It was the right one to choose at that point in time, mainly being a strategic tool. That’s why we implemented this functionality using Micro Focus.
How has it helped my organization?
The dashboard side of things was quite good. OpenText has provided it. There are certain tools that can have better dashboards, but this serves the purpose. The dashboard was quite good in terms of understanding and in terms of how we can do a lot of customization into that, and we can create various levels of reports that can be displayed on the dashboards. And that was quite easy.
There are some positives, but there are a few cons as well, and that is something we are still discussing with OpenText. But, otherwise, report-wise, it’s good. I would rate it maybe seven out of ten in terms of the interfaces and ease of customization and preparing different custom reports and all sorts of things are quite easy.
What is most valuable?
The key thing is implementation is quite easy. Because we can use a Windrunner kind of script, actually, recorded script. So development is quite easy.
On the other hand, the license plays a key part. So, on a three-year license package, it was a good deal.
There were resources familiar with Micro Focus scripting side of things as well, such as PPM scripting. Micro Focus has provided a level of support as well in terms of the license package, which has been provided to us. So that’s where we are able to get a good deal.
The tool team was sort of aware of those tools to deal with. And, that helped us to deliver the project on time.
What needs improvement?
The current challenges surprised me. It doesn't support the latest versions of SNMP(at the time of writing), the standard communication protocol for sending alerts. It's still using SNMP version one, which surprised everyone and required extra processes from the security team.
Fortunately, we're not sending sensitive data, so we were able to get sign-off. Otherwise, it could have been more challenging. We expected them to use the standard SNMP version three protocol.
Real-time analytics comes up during certain calls, but again, Micro Focus has only mentioned that. They have their own tool as well for implementing. So we had a few calls on that side. It’s all more customer-driven. That is still under discussion, and we haven’t gone much into that yet.
But, real-time is something the team is interested in, but at the moment, there are various challenges in terms of funding and things like that.
Reports can be enhanced further. There are tools like Grafana, and since I've been part of this process, I appreciate this product. But there are debates about why we can't implement Grafana in the future. There are also discussions about real user monitoring versus synthetic monitoring, and which is better.
The interface could be improved; I'd rate it a seven out of ten. This is where it can be also improved.
We also faced challenges installing the BPM packages. We eventually got support, but there are situations now where many companies don’t want third parties to come and install the software. They want their own IT team to install these BPMs because they don’t want to give root-level privileges due to security constraints. So, the installation package manuals can be improved a little bit so that any team, whether from Intel or any support team, can understand and install those BPMs. The installation package manuals could be improved so any team can understand and install the VPNs.
Monitoring, especially during configuration, can also be enhanced. There are various levels of configurations, and the documentation could be improved.
I think AI is everywhere. So, it is something bad at the moment. There are initiatives, but still not visible. There is background work happening, and a few teams are working on those things. But, it is still not visible yet like what level of automation possibilities there are. Various software like UiPath and RPA, robotic process automation, but it’s not really materialized to the full extent. It’s still early stage.
For how long have I used the solution?
I was a project manager, so I managed that project for almost 15 months. It started back in October 2022 and finished by around March. It included a lot of migration activities, moving to the cloud, and server upgrades.
Apart from that, upgrading and moving to BPM SaaS solutions. So, that was pretty much the scope of our work.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I don’t see much of an issue with the stability of this solution—I haven’t heard of any either. It looks fine because it’s in the cloud, and they have a failover mechanism in place. We haven’t had any outages, so I don’t think there is any issue on that side.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a highly scalable product. We used it for a public-facing application. So, there are public-facing URLs. It’s been accessed all over the field, mainly in the UK. There are some private internal applications as well.
Internally, it starts from various applications, ranging from 50 to 150 users.
How are customer service and support?
We struggled a lot. We had around eight weeks of delay, which was critical at that point. But our business owner trusted us, and he supported us as well.
So we were able to avoid any escalations. But, there was not much progress during that period.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
We did have a complexity where we were in a situation where we didn’t know whether we could go further. It came to that stage. So, we had to discuss this with various support teams across the globe.
We had to go for a code red escalation, which went to the top level in the US. From there, it went to the team in Bangalore and somewhere in Africa as well. Various continent support levels were involved.
Finally, we had to go into a top-level escalation, and that’s where we got the right team on board to help. That really helped us close it.
But we did spend around eight to nine support calls, and some calls lasted more than four to five hours. That was not a great experience. But finally, the outcome was good. We managed to sort that out. The team was able to help us.
The reason being, we couldn’t let OpenText install the BPMs by themselves because of security constraints. So we had to rely on our internal Infra team, who were responsible and only had admin access to do this installation. It was more of a screen sharing with the Micro Focus support team to do this installation, and probably something went wrong. I’m not sure about that. Better documentation could have been helpful, or that support line could have been improved.
But overall, we managed to keep that, and we were able to move on to other items. It was not really on the critical path at the moment, so it didn’t affect much of my plan, and we were able to deliver it on time.
Once everything is set and done, we pass maintenance over to the operations team, and there are regular updates coming. It’s all about changes happening from the application side. That’s where the script needs to be modified. Otherwise, it’s okay. There are some issues internally. Because of the internal systems, we are not able to run the script as expected, like every five or ten minutes. So that’s been delayed to around twenty minutes, which is not really good because it takes time for users to get the notification. So that’s more of an internal problem that needs to be sorted.
The operations team is looking into it. A level of industrialization or modification program probably needs to be there. There’s a lack of funding on that side. Once that’s there, someone needs to do that optimization. They need to look into user feedback and possibly implement RUM [real user monitoring] in line with synthetic transactions. There are quite a few proposals, but at the moment, it’s not really moving because there isn’t much customer initiative on that side and that service.
What was our ROI?
ROI is something we had planned, but it didn’t move because my point of view was to implement this and then pass it over to the operations and move on to different projects. So that’s pretty much my role as a project manager.
But I do expect the team should look into the incidents raised in the past and correlate them with the performance and trends. They should be able to do that. They are expected to prepare some level of reports and look at a cost-benefit analysis as well.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it to other users because I know the pros and cons. The cons are something we can take care of. We’ll be able to cover off the risk because I know the things now. But the pros are much more significant, and that’s the reason I would recommend it.
There were challenges, but that’s something we can manage. Even though there are issues with support and other things, if you look at the overall tool, I am pretty much happy with it. So I would rate it around nine out of ten. That’s based on my experience. I would recommend it, and I would go for it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
