Jitterbit Vinyl Reviews

This solution has touched many parts of the organization, everything from a dashboard for some of the store analytics, to custom applications for alterations, made-to-measure, clienteling, inventory management. It really covers the whole gamut.

It has removed many manual processes and allowed us to automate. It has reduced paper connected with things we do in our stores, such as alterations and made-to-measure customers. Not only does it help with efficiency for the employees, but it's also a better experience for the customer.

It has really been an evolution for the organization. We didn't see it as just a project where you do the project and stop. We're always looking at how do we continuously improve parts of our processes and operations. That's really the way we continue to approach it: How can the tool keep helping us to innovate and drive new solutions in other areas?

The fact that it's no-code is one of the most important features because it allows us to deliver very quickly. We can get the value to the business delivered much more quickly than with other solutions.

This is just a pie in the sky wish list, but if they could add a machine-learning type of platform to go with it, or some artificial intelligence capabilities, so that as it’s collecting data it would also be turning some of that into insights, that would be something. That's a pretty ambitious request because I realize you will need different tools, but that would be a nice to have.

There have been no stability issues. It's all in the cloud. We've never had any outage. It's very stable. 

For us, it has scaled for over 6,000 users globally, and there have been no issues.

The tech support is very good. We haven't had to use tech support very much, but when we do, things are resolved on the first call. That is the result you always want to have. You don't want to keep having to call over and over and deal with the same issue. We're very satisfied.

We used to have five to seven different custom applications that we got rid of because they were becoming very difficult to support. We wanted to get rid of the multiple siloed applications because they were not meeting the business needs. We moved to get everything under one umbrella and have a single experience and user interface for the employees, and to get all of the data in one place.

The setup was very quick. We actually delivered our first pilot within two weeks. In that time, we had the first application use case running in a few stores.

Regarding the setup itself, it took only a couple of hours to install it.

It's very easy to learn the platform. We have business users who have taken on roles now where they maintain and make changes to the platform. You really don't need to be a programmer.

Our return on investment is orders of magnitude more than what we paid for the software. I don't know an exact number, but what I will tell you is that if you look at the cost of the platform, before we had it we would probably spend that much in just one month in inefficiencies in our processes. Being able to clean that up, if you take that over the four years we've been using it, that's a huge return. Even if you extrapolate it out on an annual basis, return on investment is more than 10x.

I would say that we have probably easily had a return of 12 to 15 times more than what we have spent. It's a very solid ROI.

I feel the product’s pricing is a good value.

The licensing model is very straightforward. You license the platform and you can build however many solutions you want with it. I like that model.

We looked at numerous other applications from some of the larger software providers. Because we have 6,000 users, all of the other applications and tools got very expensive from a licensing standpoint. An additional issue was that the other applications, from a data standpoint, needed to create another data store and co-locate all of the data. That was another drawback. We did do several other proofs of concept with larger players, but our needs were not going to be met by them in a cost-effective way.

I have not seen a tool that is really on this level. There may be a lot of other tools that do parts of what this tool does, or there might be tools that do all of it, but the time to value and the time to implement is much longer, and it's a more complex implementation. To me, speed and simplicity are really the two biggest things that VINYL has in terms of a leg up on the competition.

The product itself is very solid. The places where we've had issues are internal, with regards to a cultural mindset shift, because the business was not used to getting solutions this quickly. They have to think differently about how they engage with these projects. They have to move into more of an agile mindset and move away from the old waterfall mindset of saying, “Hey, if we're going to do this design for three months, build for three months, test three months, then in nine months we'll get a tool.” Instead, these are rapid sprints where, every few weeks, we're delivering new capability. That, to me, has been the biggest adjustment for us.

The technology piece is relatively straightforward. It's really the change management and people management that you have to work on.

Make sure your business is ready for it. People have to be willing to move quickly and change their way of thinking so that you can deliver value incrementally, as opposed to trying to boil the ocean and do everything in one go over nine to 12 months.

We've been very happy with it. I would give it a nine out of 10. I never give anyone a 10. I think for every product there are things they can continue to build that will help the customer. I'm sure there are other things Zudy could do which would give us even more things we could do with it.

We use it to build applications that help us facilitate moving data between different systems, and also for pulling together disparate data sources into one place where so that it is easy to look at.

We have a lot of events. With our Jingle Ball events we have 12 concerts all over the country over the Christmas season. There is a lot of advertising across those and sponsorships as well. It's really complicated, operationally, to manage. It was historically managed in spreadsheets and Google Docs. We were able to move everything into a VINYL application and it's helped us understand more.

It has helped us standardize some processes that were very haphazard. It has helped us put some more rigor and clarity around certain things that were done very manually on Excel spreadsheets regarding processes. Now we know what local markets versus national might be selling in terms of assets against the events. And it just gives us better business intelligence.

The key thing is not that it did anything that you couldn't do another way. It was more the fact that it was very easy to get this built up and running quickly, and it's not a headache to maintain like a lot of other traditional IT platforms are.

In some cases, it's not a question of whether VINYL does something that other software doesn't do, it's a question of how it does it and the ease with which it does. With Zudy's consultancy, we were able to go from an idea to having a proof of concept in a couple of weeks, to let everybody see what we were going to do. That would have taken a lot longer using traditional coding technology.

The Lite Integration is really the key thing. You're able to attach the VINYL software to a variety of different systems very easily and pull data together in a way that is really difficult to do using traditional technology. That's really the key, core functionality that really makes the software very useful.

Also, the fact that it's a no-code platform also makes it easier for people to understand and deal with internally, to continue to build applications and modify existing applications.

When we started with them the platform was brand new. There were - I don't want to say deficiencies - just things they didn't have yet. We worked a lot with them on security and some other things. And they've continually updated the platform to include new features and functionality.

One of the things that was lacking for a while, although it continues to get better, is the user interface. It was built more "functionally." It was better for functionality than it was for being pretty, from the standpoint of the user. They've done a lot of work there, but I think there's probably a little more work to do, continually.

Also, while some of the reporting functionality is adequate, reporting needs to continue to be worked on, given the fact that there are a lot of really good reporting tools out there.

But, for a product of its age and life cycle position, they are super-responsive to what the clients need. And as they add more clients, certain clients will say, "Hey, I really need this feature functionality," and they'll build it into the suite. Then everybody has access to it, which is great.

Stability is not an issue. We run it in AWS and we've never had any stability issues with it at all. We haven't had instances of it going down. It's possible that has happened, but nothing has been brought to my attention. Typically, if there was a problem, I would hear about it.

We have not pressure-tested it enough. The applications that we have in it are not super heavy in terms of bandwidth and we haven't had any issues. I don't think we're pushing enough volume through the app to test the scalability.

Tech support has been super-responsive. We've generally had a retainer agreement for consulting hours, so we get what we need really quickly.

In full disclosure, I have a strong relationship with senior management. One of the reasons we were an early adopter is that I know the owners of the company. I know the CEO. He brought us in. I have direct access to the owners and the senior management team whenever I need to. If we have a problem, I get whatever I need.

But the team and the consultants underneath have been really responsive. At this stage, I'm really outside the process now because the IT team runs it and they deal with it. I'm hearing no complaints, so I assume support is what it needs to be. People would come to me if there was something that was an issue. But it's been running really smoothly for quite a bit of time.

For this particular type of requirement, we mostly built apps in .NET with our application development team. This is a departure from that, as a way to build apps. But we haven't used any of Zudy's competitors. We were just using traditional methods and this is our first foray into the no-code sort of platform.

It was one of those things where we had some needs and this was a very low-cost option. We were one of their earliest customers so they did invest in some consulting time for free to help us build a couple of things, to prove out conceptually that the system could do what we wanted. That helped us.

But part of it was the fact that it was a low-cost option. With the Lite Integration, I wasn't going to have to disrupt my entire organization to do something. We haven't had to disrupt IT and the business organizations to keep them up and running. It's a nice product from that perspective because it allows you to gain some efficiencies without having to rip apart your IT organization to actually install something; sometimes, moving to new platforms can be really complicated.

The setup was pretty easy. Initially, they did the setup for us. They hosted it in their own AWS instance. And somewhere around 12 to 18 months ago we moved it over to our own AWS instance, and that was fairly seamless from what I was told. We really haven't had any issues with it at all.

The technical setup was pretty clean. We were up and running pretty quickly. We got in and they merged everything into our single sign-on process really well. There were no issues that I know of.

From what my people have told us, it's easy to learn. We've had some Finance people learn it, as well as some people on the IT side.

It's hard to say what our ROI is, but VINYL has certainly helped us. Our investment has been limited and we've gotten good process benefits out of it. I can't really say in dollars and cents, but it's certainly helped us improve rigor and process in a number of areas.

We haven't done the calculations because this wasn't one of those things where I said, "I'm going to go spend this money and then I'm going to save some money somewhere else." This was more about fixing a broken process than it was about trying to save money.

Pricing was actually one of the things that drew us to the product initially. At the time there was another platform called OutSystems that we looked at. At the time, because OutSystems was a little more mature, there was a thought from our IT team that they would have preferred to use OutSystems vs VINYL. But the way it was licensed at the time, I got a flat monthly fee from Zudy for the VINYL product, which allowed me to basically have unlimited use of it. That was really helpful.

I know that some of the competition or competitor sites or products were priced on the number of seats, the number of people accessing it at any given time. Given that I have a company that is north of 10,000 people, those sorts of licensing issues can get prohibitively expensive, especially if you have a product that's going to hit fairly widely across the enterprise. So the pricing mechanism from a licensing perspective was very attractive.

We have an annual license, we pay monthly. It's very competitive and very worthwhile given the return we get out of it. I don't know if my pricing is different or better or worse than other customers', considering we were an early adopter.

The key thing here is that the pricing is just one price. We can do as much or as little with the product as we want to which is very attractive. I don't have to worry about if I build a new app, I have to pay more. Or, if I put 20 more people logging into the app, I don't have to pay any extra for that either. That makes it really easy for us to use internally, without having to worry about that sort of thing.

We looked at OutSystems. There were a couple of other tools out there that we looked at.

As a Finance person, all I can say is anecdotally what I've heard from the IT people. Overall, we're happy with the tool. I have not had people come to me and say we should drop this and do something else. But I couldn't really comment deeply on how it compares to the competition. All I know is that we're happy with what we have.

You need to have buy-in from both the business team and the IT team. Anytime you implement a new platform like this, if you don't have people internally who are going to embrace the product, it's going to fail.

I'd call VINYL an eight out of 10. It does what it's supposed to do. It continues to improve. We're getting good usage out of it, and I think it's a great value for the price.

I use it for business process automation across a variety of areas. I am in charge of commercial IT and we have used this technology to enhance some of the commercial business processes.

In my current organization, we are using it in account planning, incentive compensation, field communications via SMS alerts, and onboarding of employees.

The ability to build apps quickly by connecting to almost any data source, while having workflow and routing, really give you the ability to enhance more static systems and drive value to the business.

• Ability to connect to disparate data sources
• The workflow engine
• Speed and agility in building apps

Perhaps the UI could be improved.

There have been no stability issues. It is a very stable platform.

No issues with scalability.

The support team always makes itself available and drives resolutions quicker than we can typically keep up. It is really excellent.

Their services are excellent. They typically provide a team of resources to get the environment set up and help build your first app.

Pricing is less than the cost of a consultant and the value you receive is much greater.

We looked at other middleware products but liked the unique capabilities of this one.

Try it. Sometimes, the use cases are not evident. Start slow and pilot it and the value becomes evident.

We use it for different applications. We're doing some dashboarding, some demo tracking, some commission. So far, those are the three applications that have been working for us, or are in the works.

It gives us an accurate idea of where we stand as a business, on many different levels. It also gives our sales department more of an idea of how they are doing for the month, every month. And it gives us more capabilities within our systems to pull information out. It's just a better, more accurate, and faster system.

This is like having an application within your business and it's a totally different premise, rather than having to go in and have all this coding done, which just takes so long. And everything else is done by spreadsheets. You don't want to stare at a spreadsheet all day long, because there are a million of them and there could be errors. The idea of there being errors is less likely than it used to be.

• Ease of use
• Easily accessible

We've been on a hold with one of the products that we started with, which was one of our processes. It just wasn't capable of doing it. It could extract it but it couldn't get the information back in internally, correctly. And that's just because our system is old.

No issues with stability. It is very much a stable product.

The first project we gave them, our biggest, was the problem. It wasn't able to do it but, as I said, the system we were using was too old, and they're too advanced.

We have a guy that comes to our office every Wednesday and he's easily accessible at any hour, any day of the week. If there is a tech problem, he deals with our IT department directly. Honestly, everything is quick. I think because of the way our world is nowadays, where everything is so easily accessible, and being accessible even on a weekend makes it that much better.

We were using a manual system that we created ourselves, and that's why we switched.

The initial setup was straightforward, not complex at all. We're not delving into the learning of how to use it yet. We have somebody in-house who is trying to learn it, but we have other projects going on, so it's taken a back-burner. But, as I said, its accessibility is very easy.

You always look for the underlying cost, there's always underlying costs but the value is fine. I don't think it should cost any more. You pay for the software but you're also paying for their employees, when they work onsite for you.

Licensing is fine. We have to finalize the agreement once a year and that's pretty much it. Otherwise, it's ours and we can do whatever we want with it.

We did look at other options but they don't have the flexibility that this does. This has a lot of flexibility.

They give you a free trial of what it can do. Go in with something that's easier, not harder, because that is going to give you an idea of what it can do, and you can basically work from that point on.

I rate it an eight out of 10. There is always room for improvement. If they could just make it a little bit easier for the customer to learn how to use it themselves, that would make it better.

Our primary use case is scheduling. We do a lot of scheduling and collecting of survey data.

The tour managers are able to view their results - versus having to wait two times a year to get their results - they can review them in real time. They're also able to instantly receive their schedules versus having to manually send them via an Excel grid. It's also able to distinguish what type of guide we are using.

The fact it connects to all of our systems outside of Zudy. It connects with our internal systems and it makes things more productive and not manual.

The calendar has room for improvement, but that's what they're going to be working on next: making a Gantt chart.

It is a stable product for the most part, but if there are any issues their developers are instantly available to address them.

There have been no scalability issues. It handles a lot of stuff. It replaced two of our programs.

Their technical support is awesome. I work exclusively with their technical department and they're able to turn things around super quick and make changes and adjustments. Nothing takes very long, usually, and they're always available.

We used Microsoft Project and Microsoft Access, but the system just kept on crashing and it wasn't sustained by our IT department, so it was a lot of having to do it ourselves. It was manual and there was a lot of room for error. We moved to Zudy because it was a system everybody could understand and it wasn't outdated.

The setup was a little complex, but not that bad. I had Zudy specifically here. I was working with two of the developers and they were with me every step of the way.

The sky is the limit. It is able to pretty much do anything and everything that you thought a computer couldn't do. You should just really embrace it. It took me a while to embrace it but they're a really great company to work with.

I would rate it at eight out of 10. I think a Gantt chart would probably put it to a nine. I don't think anything's ever perfect. I'm feeling concerned about when we end our relationship directly with Zudy and just work with our own IT department, how quick the changes will be. 

Overall, it's a really great product. It's able to tie into different departments. From my understanding, it's what they were intending for this. We're able to use it across the board, all the departments.

Often times, the expression "spreadsheet hell" is thrown around our walls, and people get too entrenched in sharing, emailing, creating, and saving spreadsheets just to share information. The Zudy product, Vinyl, has really allowed us to get out of spreadsheets and start to build dashboards for information which needs to be shared. In that sense, we have grown as a business in directions which are scalable for us in the future. 

• You do not need to be a programmer to use it or build something in it. This is pretty important in our business.
• You can unite data which lives in different sources without moving that data. This have been a real game changer for us.
• Our partnership with Zudy has really worked out for us.

The most meaningful improvement might be done in some of the aesthetics of the reporting and dashboarding. We unify and unite data in ways which are flexible and usable, but do not always have the aesthetics of some of the other reporting platforms out there. If it could be prettier, it might be a bit more attractive on the business side.

For us, it is very stable. We can host it internally and in the cloud. It is secure and accessible. We have been using this product for about a year and a half, and we have only seen improved sustained stability and usable.

The product's evolution to this point has proven that it is becoming more scalable.

We are still a small enough business that it meets our needs today, but the improvements that I have seen in Vinyl mean that we will be using this product for years.

The support from Zudy has been tremendous. The people that we have worked with (not just Tommy, Trish, and Charles), but the people in our business probably think Martin works for our company. It would not surprise me based on the number of times that we see him walking the halls and solving problems for people with this platform. Whenever we reach out, we receive someone who is friendly and competent. 

I was very new in my role at Collette when I started talking with Zudy. What I walked into was the scenario where there were a lot of people depending on spreadsheets, a nightmare of version control and sharing of data, and I was looking to solve beyond what we had internally. Therefore, about a year and a half ago, we engaged with Zudy and it was the solution for us.

It is a platform which can grow with us and get us out of spreadsheets.

I was not involved in the day-to-day of the initial setup, therefore it is hard for me to comment. However, I know that we were successful with it. Probably any limitations that we had at setup were due to some of the friction that we have internally in our network.

I would rate the product a nine out of 10, because I always leave room for improvement. I do not have any gripes. When you discuss the triumvirate of people, process, and technology, it has worked out for us in those regards. I have optimism for the future, but I am excited for what they will improve.

The greatest benefit that this product has had for Cal-Maine has been to empower our developers to very quickly be able to produce applications. This is very important in today's time frame.

The product has reduced the time that it takes us to produce apps.

Being an agriculture company, we are pretty mean and lean when it comes to spend. It really helps to produce applications in a faster period of time.

One of the cool things about Vinyl is they are constantly improving it. They have a new version that they are showing, which we have not seen yet, at the meeting that I am attending. 

They are constantly adding new features. That is really important. We suggest things sometimes, then all of the sudden, they miraculously appear.

We have never really had any downtime with Vinyl at all. We actually host this in our own environment as opposed to a cloud environment, which is their typical model. We have been very pleased with the stability of the product.

This is an extremely scalable solution because it enables us to interface with all types of disparate information. So, the larger we grow, the more we can use a product like Vinyl.

We are located in Mississippi. There is not a lot of technology available in Mississippi when it comes to solutions like this. One of the things that we value about Vinyl is they have a tremendous support team.

We deployed Vinyl about nine months ago. Previously, we were using a small application that wrote code for our personnel in a manner very unlike the way that Vinyl does. It was something that we worked with because it was all we could find, but as soon as we found Vinyl, we put it into play.

To deploy Vinyl in our environment, we engaged the Zudy engineers to help us. This is not a product where someone could just get the code, install it, and do it themselves. A very important part of a business relationship with a software company is application support. This all worked together for our installation to go well.

Some people are really reluctant to rate anything a 10 out of 10. However, when you have a good product which does a good job, and it is affordable, why not give it a 10?