Fortra's Automate vs VisualCron comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortra's Automate and VisualCron based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Fortra's Automate vs. VisualCron Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The pricing is excellent. I would give them perfect marks in that regard.""The interface is simple, user-friendly, and very intuitive.""This tool has machine learning and voice recognition and computer vision, which are both quite useful aspects. These aren't available in other tools. It's a good addition to this tool and it gives the solution an edge on the market.""Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues.""The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature.""The solution is continuously adding more integrations to help with workflows and bot and task creation.""It's very easy to use. That's a big selling point for it. It has got a drag-and-drop interface, so you can quickly deploy bots.""We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."

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"The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.""What I found most beneficial from VisualCron is that you can directly connect it with different databases, user accounts, and credentials. You can run queries from one machine to another using the credentials, unlike PowerShell, that's run by the machine itself. With VisualCron, you can directly ask other machines and run requests through user credentials. Suppose you have an AWS or Azure environment. In that case, you can maintain the connection between on-premises and cloud-based machines, which is the type of setup in the organization I'm working for. You can directly call some of the services via VisualCron on your local on-premises machine, and I found that an excellent feature of the tool.""The ability to clone jobs to shorten the time it takes to implement a process has been invaluable, but its flexibility also gives us the ability to create a job that can handle a multifaceted process with a complex workflow.""The most valuable feature of VisualCron is its ability to schedule interactive jobs so that you can have interdependencies within the job and interdependencies of a job on another job, and so on.""VisualCron is a very powerful program to automate different steps in your business processes. We use it to automate replacing files and inform departments about the replacement.""We don't have to do any coding. We just plug and play and it works.""What I like about VisualCron is that like its name, it's a very visual tool. In my previous company, there were a lot of scripts for all kinds of services, and through VisualCron, you get to group all flows and get a nice visual overview. VisualCron also has an alerting feature, so you receive alerts from it. VisualCron makes everything clearer and easier to maintain. Every other solution that I was looking for almost always needed a programmer, but with VisualCron, you can do what you need to do without programming skills, so this is another valuable feature of the tool.""I love VisualCron because we previously spent a lot of time writing Power switches to connect to SQL Server. VisualCron makes it easier to execute services or connect to FileZilla by only adding the credentials to the master credentials stored in the solution."

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Cons
"The vendor is currently working on a solution that allows us to automatically create a process that is based on a document that we receive via email.""We really need a free development environment for customers. Building and testing automation on production isn't ideal.""There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own task, but it would be nice if this were more detailed.""Error messages should be better. For error status, there should be better documentation because a lot of times, error messages that you get are quite vague. For example, you get a message saying that the workflow has run into an unknown status, which is vague. It just tells you that it failed, but you don't know how or why it failed. It makes debugging difficult.""It would be an improvement if Automate had better stability tools, whether by recommending a certain amount of memory because it can be a memory hog at times.""The documentation for errors needs improvement as many of the error messages we receive are very vague.""I would like to see some better web automation, a wizard like the one in the product WinAutomation would be very nice.""Some companies have asked for voice integration. This is likely part of the roadmap."

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"The documentation is a bit weak.""VisualCron's command console is a little bit difficult to understand and needs to improve.""The error timeout and info could be better. When making web request calls, it will time out sometimes and we won't get any useful info out of the error response.""I would like for VisualCron to expand audit log to show who changed job variables that are initialized per job run.""VisualCron is software, and you will experience performance degradation when you scale up. VisualCron takes too much memory or CPU power. We have to increase the hardware resources of a specific server or system.""An area for improvement in VisualCron is its cluttered interface. It isn't always easy to find all functionalities, so what VisualCron needs is a user interface expert who can improve the interface. There's a learning curve in terms of finding what you need from the interface of VisualCron. The technical support for VisualCron also needs improvement in terms of response time. Currently, there's no live support or hotline you can call to get quick answers, so this is what I'd like to see in the next version of VisualCron. A less cluttered and more streamlined interface, where you don't need to hunt for some of the features, is also what I'd like to see in the next VisualCron update.""Our suggestion to make it better and more manageable in terms of GDPR: Implement it in a very partnership way.""There are some conditions in the mail trigger, but you can only use them as an "AND" condition, not as an "OR" condition. This is an improvement that could be useful. For example, some people put "invoice" in the subject and others put "invoice" in the body. If I want to make a trigger for everybody whose sending invoices, I have to make two jobs for this now."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Compared to other products, the pricing model for this solution is much more convenient, flexible, and adaptable to the Portuguese reality."
  • "I like the way this solution is priced because you can buy a license, or you can buy the software outright."
  • "It comes with a package that costs approximately $20,000 USD per year."
  • "While solutions like UiPath and Blue Prism cost around $11,000-$12,000 for each license, this product costs around $7,000 and you can keep it forever."
  • "I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost."
  • "From a distributor's perspective, one of the biggest selling points of Automate is its price point."
  • "The cost is a bit high for a small business like ours, but we manage with Fortra's Automate."
  • "From a distributor's side, one of the biggest selling points is its price point. Without going into any numbers, compared to UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism, we're significantly cheaper. The main difference is that other competitors usually charge you per process. However, in Automate's case, it's priced per bot. So, a bot can run multiple processes at the same time, but you are only priced for a single bot."
  • More Fortra's Automate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "ROI is 95 percent."
  • "We are fine with a rather cheap setup. Licensing with VisualCron is fair. You have a simple one-year licence in different sizes. There isn't a licensing jungle with hundreds of options and opt-ins."
  • "The pricing is extremely fair, and because of that I recommend purchasing multiple instances to split out the processing load across multiple application servers."
  • "ROI is one month."
  • "VisualCron is correctly priced because it wasn't very cheap, and it wasn't overly expensive, so the price for it was set correctly. When my previous company bought VisualCron, it was €800 per server per year. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the pricing for VisualCron a five because it was just right. The tool was affordable, and it has one of the most competitive pricing in the market."
  • "The price is a bit high."
  • More VisualCron Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:We use it for specific cases, mainly secure file transfers, which are vital for us. And it works for us.
    Top Answer:I'm only involved in running the product and maintaining the systems, so I can't speak to the cost.
    Top Answer:There is room for improvement regarding cloud functionality; there are a few missing features, and the logging could be better, especially air logging. We can go into logging events and create our own… more »
    Top Answer:The tool has reduced our operational costs by 40%.
    Top Answer:The documentation is a bit weak. The tool must provide a better set of documentation.
    Ranking
    Views
    1,953
    Comparisons
    997
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    1,399
    Rating
    8.5
    Views
    938
    Comparisons
    515
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    660
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    HelpSystems Automate, Automate
    Learn More
    Fortra
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    Overview

    Automate is an easy-to-use RPA software solution that boosts your productivity by transforming virtually any business or IT process. Get scalable automation capabilities whether you need a solution for one department, a small business, or an enterprise-wide Center of Excellence (CoE) initiative—Automate is built and priced right for employee-driven automation for any organization.

    Automate allows you to get up and running fast with no-code automation for both GUI and back-end functionalities. Form-based development lets you quickly build bots and leverage over 600 pre-built automation actions. Powerful out-of-the-box API and native integrations bring together the applications that keep your business running. And with the Automate Recorder, easily build, update, and deploy robust, UI-driven automation. Plus, bots can be deployed as attended or unattended with concurrent execution of tasks—no restrictions.

    A Key Part of Fortra (the new face of HelpSystems) Automate is proud to be part of Fortra’s comprehensive portfolio. Fortra simplifies today’s complex business landscape by bringing complementary products together to solve problems in innovative ways. These integrated, scalable solutions address the many challenges you face in streamlining your operations. With the help of Automate robotic process automation and other solutions, Fortra is your relentless ally, here for you every step of the way on your automation journey.

    VisualCron combines many features into one product. Through scheduling you can set your Jobs to run on a specific time or event. The Tasks in each Job automate scripts and eliminate human errors. Through various Tasks you can integrate different systems through file transfer and conversion.

    Sample Customers
    Aldergrove Financial Group, Preferred Health Professionals, Mindbeam Technologies, First Credit Union in British Columbia, Vestcom International, Prime Liberty Benefits, University of Tampa, CNLBancshares, World Precision Instruments, BJ's Restaurants, Globe Pequot Press, Accudata Technologies, Norton Healthcare, Pacific Toxicology Laboratories
    7 Eleven, ABB Sécheron SA, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Amazon Europe Core, Apple, Assa Abloy, Aston Martin, Banco Santander, BMW (Australia)
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company14%
    Security Firm14%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Insurance Company14%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Healthcare Company9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm25%
    Logistics Company13%
    Pharma/Biotech Company13%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Healthcare Company7%
    Insurance Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business55%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise20%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise55%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise56%
    Buyer's Guide
    Fortra's Automate vs. VisualCron
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra's Automate vs. VisualCron and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortra's Automate is ranked 5th in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with 21 reviews while VisualCron is ranked 13th in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with 11 reviews. Fortra's Automate is rated 8.2, while VisualCron is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Fortra's Automate writes "Can automate several processes with only one bot and is easy to implement, administer, and use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VisualCron writes "It's user-friendly, and I didn't need long to understand the process". Fortra's Automate is most compared with Microsoft Power Automate, UiPath, MOVEit, Automation Anywhere (AA) and Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, whereas VisualCron is most compared with Microsoft Power Automate, Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Stonebranch and OpCon. See our Fortra's Automate vs. VisualCron report.

    See our list of best Robotic Process Automation (RPA) vendors.

    We monitor all Robotic Process Automation (RPA) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.