Axway Automator Reviews

What is most valuable?

A reliable scheduler Ability to run scripts on servers of most platforms: Windows, Linux, Solaris A console that allows the administrator to easily view and pause/restart all schedules during maintenance operations

How has it helped my organization?

The finance departments are able to run complex processes using scheduled scripts. For example, receiving extract data from service providers via Axway ST, processing the data, reformatting it, sending it out to another system, processing it further, and automating the resulting general ledger reports. These are then viewed by application users. The IT department is also able to automate complex functions. For example, receiving Bloomberg data from Axway ST, automating the decryption, running a program to filter the data, sending it out to various recipients, and sending email alerts on job failures (scripted). With routine maintenance procedures, it is a simple thing to pause and restart schedules. It is simple to view the status of schedules and the error outputs from within the console.

What needs improvement?

It would be handy if we could export information about the configuration in a meaningful format. There have been some functions that we needed that were missing. One of these is the ability to send emails within the job flow. Eventually, we had to engineer email sending within our own scripts.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used these products for three years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Sometimes “ghost jobs” can occur. When scheduling and re-scheduling jobs on a server, the console may not show that an older job exists. This is because you deleted it last week, but the target server still has the job in its local database. You might end up running two versions of the job, one of which is invisible. This does not happen very often, maybe three to four times a year. On one or two occasions, certain jobs did not run at all. Support was involved, although in general, this is a reliable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We had no scalability issues.

How are customer service and support?

I would give technical support a rating of 4/10. It was difficult to communicate in English with this team. Only a few people seem to know the product. They have mostly solved any problems we had, but probably not in a timely manner. They can be elusive. It’s a good thing the product is the most reliable one!

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The business had already purchased these products.

How was the initial setup?

Once we had learned how the product works, it has been OK to set up. As we had no training and the product is not very intuitive, it was difficult to get it working in the way we needed. There is no useful documentation to teach you how it should be set up. Now that we know how to do this, it’s fine and it works.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Unfortunately, this was not up to me as I wasn’t involved at the time of purchase.

What other advice do I have?

Get official training before using this product.