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JAMS pros and cons

4.4 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

JAMS eliminates the need for Excel spreadsheets in job tracking, enabling centralized batch job management.
JAMS allows users to automate manual processes, freeing employees to focus on tasks requiring human intelligence and creativity.
JAMS provides robust disaster recovery features with built-in failover capabilities, ensuring seamless continuity during disasters.
JAMS excels in alerting and security, offering targeted alerts and granular security settings for specific job failures.
JAMS centralizes job management across platforms, coordinating tasks with triggers and start dates for streamlined execution.

CONS

JAMS has room for improvement in simulation processes, particularly in the area of banning terminations.
The need for comprehensive documentation, especially on creating custom execution methods, is apparent.
Improvements are necessary in the reporting and dashboard features, specifically related to data migration and source control.
Better search capabilities are needed, as the current version lacks a global search function.
A more refined system for managing security permissions and ACLs would enhance user experience.
 

JAMS Pros review quotes

reviewer939525 - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Jan 22, 2021
The planning capabilities are most valuable.
VK
Data Architect at San Francisco Public Works
Sep 7, 2021
The fact that we no longer need to use Excel spreadsheets is huge. Before JAMS, every group was keeping track of their own batch jobs. Nobody really knew what the other jobs were. So, if jobs failed, other groups wouldn't necessarily know. With JAMS, everything is done through a single scheduler. You can choose who to notify.
it_user1662165 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Aug 31, 2021
JAMS has improved my organization by taking a myriad of manual processes and allowing us to automate them. It enables our folks to focus more on tasks that require their human intelligence and their creativity and less on just mundane tasks. It increases efficiency, accuracy, and consistency.
Learn what your peers think about JAMS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.
SP
Director of IS at Bennington Marine, LLC
Sep 30, 2021
We also use the solution’s Interactive Agents. If we need to push something to our dealer portal, we can just drop a file in a folder and it goes. Running interactive tasks helps me users focus on business processes since I don’t have to take care of running the jobs manually.
reviewer1687347 - PeerSpot reviewer
DBA at a marketing services firm with 11-50 employees
Oct 4, 2021
The most valuable feature for us is that it's DR-ready. With respect to disaster recovery, it has the built-in capability for failover to our DR site. If all of the required ports are open, it can be done seamlessly.
YC
Technical Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 17, 2021
Our company is based on data. Everything we do is data-driven, so it has been very valuable having one place where we can process all of the data and do batch schedules with chunks of data.
IR
Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 26, 2021
The alerting in it is really targeted... you can set specific alerting so that if jobs in a given folder fail, certain people are alerted. You can also set security at the folder level, so that only people in those areas can go set them. That means that the alerting and security can be set at a very granular level.
Rob Grafrath - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Enterprise Systems at Capio
Nov 18, 2023
It has definitely drastically improved our capabilities to scale our automation. Before JAMS, there were a lot of manual processes. We had a couple of operators who spent all day doing that. A lot of the time with human intervention and human processes, it is as good as the person who may be following a procedure and human error is a big problem.
Prakash Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
JAMS Admin at Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated
May 17, 2022
The interface is good, and it's very easy to define and create jobs. If a job is not running or there is an error, the solution will send an email. That's all very good and very useful.
Chris Waring - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Vice President, Managed Services and Delivery at Powwr
May 23, 2022
It makes everything that we want to do so much easier. We have had a number of instances in the past where we have had developers who have been working on a project, and even though we have had JAMS for all these years, they will create some SQL Server Agent job, or something like that, to run a task. When it is in code review and development is complete, the question always comes around, "Can JAMS do this?" The answer has always been, "Yes." Pretty much anything we have ever developed could be run by JAMS.
 

JAMS Cons review quotes

reviewer939525 - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Jan 22, 2021
There could be a better simulation for banning the termination. You have to simulate every one of the processes in order to have an idea for better planning. This kind of simulation is broken and needs improvement.
VK
Data Architect at San Francisco Public Works
Sep 7, 2021
The client is horrible. Every time JAMS puts out a survey on what they can improve, I always say, "The client: When you are setting up jobs, it is quite horrible." The response has been, "Well, we are just using the Windows foundation," and I am like, "Why isn't it only your product?" We can get around it now that we know its quirks, but it is not the most user-friendly of tools out there. The UI is completely unintuitive. We had to go and open up a support ticket with JAMS just to get something back. It is not user-friendly at all.
it_user1662165 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Aug 31, 2021
One thing that I know that the JAMS people said that they were working on that would be huge for us is a search capability so that you could search for tasks. It may be available in version 7 or in a future release of 7. I think that's on their roadmap. But right now, for us to do a search, we have to search through database queries.
Learn what your peers think about JAMS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.
SP
Director of IS at Bennington Marine, LLC
Sep 30, 2021
If there were a softcover book on how to really take advantage of all of JAMS' tools, I would buy it. I do better with training books than online searching, so a book would be helpful.
reviewer1687347 - PeerSpot reviewer
DBA at a marketing services firm with 11-50 employees
Oct 4, 2021
The search capability needs to be improved because when we try to search for a job, it's hard to do.
YC
Technical Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 17, 2021
JAMS handles exceptions fairly well but there are some areas where it might improve a little bit. It has to do with being able to automatically handle exceptions, out-of-the-box, rather than having to code them.
IR
Database Administrator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 26, 2021
The only thing that they could improve on is the fact that they don't have a browser version of JAMS. They've got all the bits and pieces there if you want to build your own web version of it. It does come with a web client, but it's pretty clunky. They could improve on that.
Rob Grafrath - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Enterprise Systems at Capio
Nov 18, 2023
The biggest area with room for improvement is the area that my organization benefits the most from using JAMS, and that is in custom execution methods. I happen to have a very good C# developer. Ever since we got JAMS, he has spent a lot of time talking to JAMS developers, researching the JAMS libraries, and creating custom execution methods. He's gotten very good at it. He is now able to create them and maintain them very easily, but that knowledge was hard-won knowledge. It was difficult to come by, and if I should ever lose this developer, then I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could create JAMS custom execution methods quite as well as he can since there really isn't all that much help, such as documentation or information, available on how to create custom execution methods.
Prakash Srivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
JAMS Admin at Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated
May 17, 2022
I'm not sure if they have fixed it in a newer version, but there is no global search in the version I have. If I have multiple sub-folders that are named for business units, like HR or IT, and I have to search for a job, I cannot search from the top. I have to go to the HR folder to search for a particular job, or to the IT folder.
Chris Waring - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Vice President, Managed Services and Delivery at Powwr
May 23, 2022
All my machines at work are Macs. JAMS client is a Windows-based thing. It is all built on .NET, which makes perfect sense. However, that means in order for me to access it, I need to connect to a VPN, then log onto one of our Azure VMs in order to access the JAMS client. This is fine, but if for some reason I am unable to do so, it would be nice to be able to have a web-based JAMS client that has all the exact same functionality in it. There are probably a whole bunch of disadvantages that you would get with that as well, but that is definitely something that would make life easier in a few cases.