Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT Reviews

We acquired GoAnywhere MFT to help us with our connection to Oracle. We then had a request from our company to put data onto Azure. It was perfect timing. We started creating the connection and the configuration for Azure using GoAnywhere, and we are now exporting close to 2 million transactions per day into Azure. Any activity happening in our core application is being forwarded to the Azure platform, into a data lake.

We have another project in the pipe to connect Hyphen Solutions BuildPro, which is another cloud service, one that helps us in our field of business, which is construction. We are exploring transferring data to BuildPro using GoAnywhere, and that is going to be XML, mostly.

We deployed connectivity with our Oracle CRM to download data, but that was a temporary solution because now we're doing it in real time. After that, we went after another project, which was to put data into Salesforce, which is our new CRM. GoAnywhere helped us incredibly because it was pretty simple, using Cloud Connectors, to define the Salesforce server and to put the data into objects without any major development on our side.

The previous transmission we had with Salesforce was scheduled to run every two hours. That was the most we could get. Right now it is taking seconds to get there. Not only are we saving time, but the data is immediately useful to the business. Previously, in some cases, it was delaying a purchase of a house by our customers. For example, sometimes a customer wants to put in a particular flooring or a particular kitchen. If those options were not available, they couldn't complete the purchase. But now, with GoAnywhere, they have the information right there. They can complete it right away.

GoAnywhere helps us to distribute data. We are on the iSeries platform, using JDEdwards and  Db2. But because our business is now distributed into cloud applications, such as Salesforce and Azure and Google, we help ops to export the data into those platforms.

The Cloud Connectors are amazing and have saved us a lot of time because we don't have to do any programming. It just puts the data there. We haven't been able to 100 percent eliminate custom programs or scripts, but it has helped save a lot of lines of code. That is immensely important, not only because of the coding issue, but also because of security. If you need authentication or key information, it's better to have it encrypted in GoAnywhere, than having this information in the source program, because anybody can see the source and see the authentication information. GoAnywhere handles that more securely.

The other day we needed to export data into SharePoint. We had not done that before, so we needed some examples. We went to the internet but we couldn't find much information. So we contacted HelpSystems and they gave us a link. We then called our SharePoint administrator and he gave us the information we needed and we can now put data into SharePoint.

Previously, that SharePoint process was manual, one where the user had to run some services every two hours. Now that we have automated it, he doesn't have to do it anymore. It has saved a lot of time.

GoAnywhere has also helped us to allocate staff to other work. By using GoAnywhere, we don't need people or a programmer involved in managing security or server configuration anymore. We set them up in GoAnywhere. I'm the one doing the administration for the tool and I just defined the resource so the developer doesn't need to ask questions like, 
"How do I connect? What is the password and the user ID?" As soon as I give the guidelines, that this is the resource, we just create a Project and that's all.

Transactions transfer in close to real time. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time because of the volume that we have, but the transactions transfer in seconds to the external platform.

When it comes to workflows we use the Projects and the scheduler. We don't have Monitors or many Triggers at the moment. The Projects are the bread and butter of this application; they are the way you put data into the different platforms. Projects are very straightforward and we can create them pretty fast. We define the resource, which could be SharePoint or Azure or Google or any of those API servers. We then create Projects. We put those into production and after that we see the data flowing. The way we did it for Azure, for instance, which is our biggest one, was that every time a user press Enter on the screen, meaning the user is creating a community or home site, that information is captured through a Trigger. Once we get the information into our program, we call the Project workflow in GoAnywhere and it is the middleware that puts the data into the target server, in this case, Azure. It takes microseconds to complete.

I have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for about four years.

If you define the tool correctly and you give it the appropriate memory and priorities, it works perfectly.

We are a little concerned because the maximum number of open connections allowed is 200, and we are pretty much maxed out. I don't know if they will expand that in the future.

We are extensively using GoAnywhere and we're planning to keep it. To give you an idea, sometimes we have 2.7 million transactions per day, exported from our JDE core to other platforms. And I'm constantly looking for problems to which GoAnywhere can be a solution.

Because of the volume of transactions we have per day, I sometimes get a little concerned that we may run into a scenario where the tool will fall behind our needs. The server where GoAnywhere is installed is a powerful machine, it is the latest iSeries. But it's still 2.7 million transactions or packages to deliver, and that is a lot. Maybe if they expanded the number of open connections allowed, we would be better off.

I'm afraid that when we get the new integration with BuildPro, we may fall behind. We may not be delivering the data as fast as we are now. One of the files we produce, the purchase order, is very dynamic. It's close to 600,000 transactions per day. If the business requires us to send some other table that is as dynamic as that one, we may fall behind. As it is now, the purchase order is sometimes delivered hours after its completion. We don't mind because we don't have a separate application waiting for its data in real time, like we have for Salesforce and SharePoint. But in the future, if the business requires something as big as that, we may not be able to deliver it in GoAnywhere.

The support from them has been amazing. They're always on top of things. We call whenever we need something, and if it's urgent we go through the manager and they immediately reply to us. We have had conference calls with their developers, the most knowledgeable ones, and they are always top-notch. We have no complaints about that.

We do wish they had more centralized documentation, because sometimes it's difficult to obtain it, but eventually we get it. We contact our sales manager and that person helps us to obtain the information from the technical people. 

The same type of thing is happening now for Box. We run some processes that create PDF reports and those reports are going to specific users in Box. We are working on that now. We're waiting for information from GoAnywhere on that. 

We were using another solution, from our iSeries platform, to connect with external applications such as Oracle CRM. We started having problems with that because of the Java version and we didn't have any help whatsoever or any support because it was a freebie we downloaded from the internet.

I knew GoAnywhere from my previous company and I recommended it to my supervisor. I told him it would help us with the connection to Oracle. So we acquired the tool and explored it.

The initial setup was a little complex, not because the tool was complex, but because we didn't have experience doing it.

The user interface of GoAnywhere is pretty straightforward. We took the 12-hour training course but still, sometimes we need to obtain more information. We go to their website and try to get samples. Their communication is outstanding. Whenever we request some examples, "How do we do this?" they reply immediately to us.

There is some maintenance from time to time when there are upgrades, as well as whenever we have an encryption key that needs to be applied. Also, every other week we shut down the application to release memory and to start fresh.

The other day we had to upgrade GoAnywhere and the problem we had was that we had moved our location from Miami to Las Vegas. It was tough because when we started testing GoAnywhere we defined certain settings. We tuned the application. When we moved and we had to reinstall GoAnywhere, we forgot that we were using 12 gigabits of memory. We forgot to do the Java 64-bit. We forgot the priorities of the jobs that were defined. We needed to do the job queue tuning and the class. There were a lot of details that we had forgotten. So we had problem after problem. Hopefully, we will not be moving again anytime soon.

For the Las Vegas move, it took us a couple of hours to install the application. That part was easy. Because we had the resources and the workflows defined in the old server, we just downloaded those via XML and uploaded them to the new server. It was pretty straightforward, except for the things that we forgot. But the installation of the application took two hours, maximum.

We have definitely seen a good return on investment from going with GoAnywhere. We have even found it inexpensive, to be honest. 

To have a solution like this for the price we're paying makes it cheap. Considering the time that it has saved us, and considering the development that we don't need to do, such as connectors and handling servers, the price is really affordable.

I vouched for GoAnywhere because I had used it where I was working before. We did some research and we got some documentation, as well as information people had written about MFT solutions, and GoAnywhere was at the top. The business side of our company is satisfied that we're doing what needs to be done.

This is the best solution you can get. Do some research, and if you're totally unbiased, you're going to find that GoAnywhere is definitely what you need.

They've been creating Cloud Connectors, according to industry developments. Whenever there's a new cloud service, they create a Cloud Connector. We're using three of them: Box, SharePoint, and Salesforce. 

We are trying to replace Robo-FTP, but the information that we're transferring there is critical, it is treasury data for banking, and the business has not yet decided to use GoAnywhere for that. But that was the original plan. We did have some SSH servers to land the data using FTP and that is no longer required because we can put the data directly into Salesforce.

With the tool itself, so far so good. Everything that we needed to do has been done with GoAnywhere. We haven't found anything where we have had to say, "Oh, that's not possible with GoAnywhere." We're good with the product.

The primary use case is basically to push data, SFTP, and FTP to other vendors offsite. So, it is all secured. We like it because of the security features in it.

In terms of deployment, it is a local standalone system.

It centralized the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners. It is important to us because it is all secured and encrypted. It is a very well-known product for this type of thing, and we have confidence that the data is going to be securely transferred to the other site. Because we deal with finances and stuff like that, we have to make sure it is secure.

It eliminates the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers, but we do have some scripts. For the most part, it meets what we need to do, and we don't have to interfere with any scripting or anything like that. A lot of it is basically pointing, clicking, and putting in your information, and off you go.

Its workflow features helped us to eliminate manual processes. We do the same thing every day. We have things set up in the schedulers, and it automatically does them. If there are any issues, we get a report and look into it to see what was the issue. Usually, it is because the line is disconnected, the other system is down, or we have a problem with our network. 

The automation of file transfers has helped us to reduce workload in our organization. We've all been using it, so for us, the reduction has always been there, and it has always been the same. If we had to do it manually, it would take a lot longer.

If I have a job that I need to run on the system and I want the data transferred, I can use GoAnywhere and schedule it on a daily basis, a weekly basis, or whatever, and it does the job for me to transfer the files over to the other systems, or back and forth.

It stays up and running. If there is an error with a job, it provides us reports. It is easy to understand.

It is very comprehensive in terms of workflow features. It gives us a lot of options and is also easy to implement. It meets all our needs. We've always been using it, so all we know is GoAnywhere. For the AS/400 system, GoAnywhere is perfect.

The process of adding a vendor is very easy. You just point and click. You create your job, schedule, and project, and off you go. You just need to know what the processes do when you add in a new job that runs daily and so on. For us, it is not a problem, but maybe the documentation on that could be a little more straightforward. We, however, have no problems figuring that out. It is pretty straightforward for us.

In terms of features, it is perfect for the way we use it. They just need to keep up with the security stuff, and that's about it. They should make sure that GoAnywhere or HelpSystems stays on top of security, and they're dealing with all the necessary issues that come up on a daily basis on the internet with the security. Other than that, all our needs are being met. The way it is right now, it is perfect for us. We have no other needs for it. We're definitely not asking HelpSystems for any improvements. So, we're fine and satisfied with it.

It has been here well before my time. It has been more than 10 years.

Its stability is perfect and excellent. It doesn't go down. I don't think we've made any calls for support on this product all year. So, it is perfect for us.

It doesn't matter. For our purposes, it is just fine the way it is. We've got nowhere to scale it to or scale it down. 

In terms of the number of users, I'm the administrator, and all we do is run jobs. There are basically maybe 40 vendors that we SFTP or FTP to and that's it, but individuals don't use it. We added another vendor just the other day, and the process of adding a vendor is very easy for us. So, as new vendors come on board, its usage increases, but there is a very slow addition to this. It is just not a super-growing area for us. 

Their support is great. They've always been there whenever we had any issues. They always provided a prompt courier service. They were very professional and patient, and there were no issues. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

All of us here have always worked with GoAnywhere, and it has worked well. We haven't had the need to go out and source another solution. So, we just leave it.

Usually, on other systems I have worked with, I do things myself with just FTP scripts and stuff like that, but on this system, we have to have something like this. It has got to be controlled because of the sensitivity of the data. So, I haven't had any other product knowledge. It has been working fine, so we just leave it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I joined this company after the implementation of this solution. 

For the money we make using this, it is well priced. Without it, we would be in trouble. If something broke and we couldn't get that data through, we're going to be losing a lot of money. So, I guess the return on investment is always great because the data is getting out. It is not that we make money per data that we send out. It is just that the data that goes out is very critical to the revenue stream.

I get the invoices, and its price is fine and appropriate. It is well priced. Even if it was double the price, we'd use it. For us, it is indispensable. We're not going to go anywhere else.

There are no additional costs. Its licensing is good. There is just one charge that we get. That's it.

I would advise others to go for it. It is a great product. If there are any issues, the support is there, and they're very helpful and right on the case.

I would rate HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT a 10 out of 10.

Our business is, as far as corporate computing goes, is IBM i-centric. Because of that, some of the main use cases for the GoAnywhere product are for uploading data into the IBM i, from our finance department and other departments, and downloading data from the IBM i to a user or to our FTP server to be sent to a business partner. And when it comes to downloading data for users, it's typically in the form of Excel reports.

At this point, we are only accessing resources within our organization. We don't reach outside of our organization, even though the solution enables interaction with many things, such as Amazon and Google. The exceptions to that are one or two processes that do reach out to a business partner by way of SFTP.

One of the things GoAnywhere can do for us that our previous product could not is error handling. If something doesn't work properly, we can be alerted to that fact and act on it more quickly, versus the old product.

The workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers. They simplify activities surrounding the movement of data. There is a concept within IBM i of normal tables and an aspect referred to as the integrated file system or IFS. Our older processes would typically create data in a table and run special commands that might make it troublesome to copy that data from the table to the IFS. From there, the old product would grab it from the IFS and send it to some other server. Now, we can eliminate that step of having to bother with the IFS, since GoAnywhere can reach directly into our tables. It's one more aspect of this product that helps simplify these sorts of tasks. When users say, "I'm building spreadsheets that I would like to be uploaded on a regular basis into the IBM i," we are able to accommodate that request within a matter of hours rather than the days it would take to create programs to do that. That is very useful. It has eliminated several dozens of scripts for us.

And when it comes to file uploads into the IBM i, this is only a guess, but it has saved us on the order of five hours per week.

We're able to craft solutions to little challenges faster, and that makes us more productive. One of the GoAnywhere projects that I was just helping a person with yesterday was updating an old program that produces a report for a user. I helped her create an SQL view and then make use of that view with GoAnywhere, which now emails a simple spreadsheet to the user. She was able to accomplish that in a fraction of the time it would have taken to modify the original program.

Additionally, the workflow features have helped to eliminate manual processes. One example is an upload process that is being done regularly by the payroll department. It typically involved a little more manual activity on the part of our payroll user to get us the data. Whereas now, with GoAnywhere, we are able to create something using what GoAnywhere calls a Secure Form. It enables us to present a very quick, very rudimentary webpage to the user where they do a few clicks and the file is provided to us. That is in contrast to their having to take the file from their desktop, find the network share that they're supposed to copy it to, followed by calling us to say they've copied it over there. It makes it easier for users to do things on their own, once we've created that ability for them.

One of the most valuable features is the ability to reach into our database tables on the IBM i, and other platforms, and extract data. That is most useful for us.

It's also easy to use. I was training somebody yesterday on some of the finer points of GoAnywhere, and she found it very easy to interact with and understand. We like the interface.

The workflow features are very comprehensive, from our point of view. GoAnywhere uses the term "project" for a job that we create within it. The projects can be run from our IBM i CL [command language] programs. They can be scheduled within the GoAnywhere Scheduler to run once an hour or whenever we need them to run. A process can also be triggered by a file showing up. It is robust in terms of how the GoAnywhere projects can be invoked.

It doesn't need much improvement, other than tiny idiosyncrasies. I've run into one or two things for which I've put in change requests to the software developers at GoAnywhere, but they are very minor things, the types of things that don't come up much. We've created in the neighborhood of 80 to 90 projects in GoAnywhere and, out of all of those, there have only been a couple where we've run into something and that made us say, "I wish they could improve this little thing here."

For example, when it comes to interacting with files, there is a function referred to as write CSV, to write a general text file. In this scenario of creating a simple text file, I ran into a situation where, if the product saw a quote or a double-quote in the data, it started wrapping all the text fields in double-quotes. The request I put in asks them to provide a feature that leaves my data alone and does not interpret anything. If I don't want double quotes, please don't put them in. It should have the option, on certain write CSV operations, of not inferring anything.

We have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for about a year.

It seems pretty stable. Like other Windows platform solutions, every once in a while the Windows platform needs to be rebooted, but otherwise it has been very stable.

Scalability has been a non-issue for us. It seems like we could double or triple the number of projects we've got, which might happen over the next five or 10 years. We do not expect any issues with the scalability.

We don't have any plans, per se, to increase our usage of GoAnywhere, but something that we haven't talked about is another product we have that is going to have some competition from GoAnywhere. This other product, which I believe is owned by HelpSystems as well, is a reporting tool called Sequel Viewpoint. I've used it in a similar fashion to the way we use GoAnywhere: A user needs a report and I create an SQL view, go into Sequel Viewpoint, make use of that view and output a PDF or Excel document, and email it to the user. Doing the same thing in GoAnywhere is easier.

It's not so much that there are any specific plans for increased usage, but those types of tasks just come up from time to time. When a user in our finance, buyers, or our supply chain and planning department needs some data from our system, we have a solution for them very quickly using GoAnywhere to produce a simple Excel report.

The technical support has been fine. It has been useful each time we've reached out to them, unless we find a little bug, like the one I mentioned where the product had decided on its own to put double quotes around all of the text fields. Short of little idiosyncrasies like that, they've been able to solve problems for us.

We migrated off of a very rudimentary product that was little more than a file moving product. It was "garage software," meaning it was made by a very small organization. It was called Second Copy. It could move or copy a file from one server to another within the same file system, but it was very basic. There was no error handling, no ability to deal with FTP and IBM i, HTTP,  databases, Amazon, and Azure. All those capabilities were nonexistent in Second Copy. GoAnywhere is like a Ferrari versus a Volkswagen Beetle. Our old product was a single-function tool, and GoAnywhere helped us to eliminate it.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward except for one feature, which was an integration to the IBM i. As luck would have it, we've never actually ended up using that feature. It's what is called setting up an agent on the IBM i, and that took a bit of work with one of their tech support people. That allows for a little tighter integration with the IBM i when the product has been installed off of the IBM i. In our case, we installed the product on a Windows Server, as opposed to the IBM i itself. We figured that if we make use of the agent, it might give us a little better integration. Now, eight or nine months later, we've never made use of that IBM i agent. What made adding that agent complex was due to the nuance. The instructions were not clear enough and I was not able to do it by following instructions in the manual.

Not counting that agent, we had GoAnywhere up and running on the same day that we started installing it. The agent was just an add-on, and that dragged on for a few more days with interaction back and forth with their tech support.

We were replacing an existing product. Our implementation strategy was a matter of setting up GoAnywhere and doing a couple of pilot projects to see how easy it was and how it worked. We then started the process of converting 70 or 80 tasks out of the old product, slowly but surely, into the new product. That was doled out to half a dozen developers who looked at the existing tasks and implemented something similar, and/or better, in GoAnywhere.

Our user community for GoAnywhere is relatively small at the moment. We are a medium-size retail business. Our corporate headcount would be somewhere between 400 and 500 people, and the total headcount within the company is 1,100 to 1,200 people, including stores and warehouses. Out of all of them, there are just a handful of departments that we interact with a lot. Our finance and our planning/supply chain departments are two of our major users among our user community of about a dozen users.

As for maintenance of GoAnywhere, our IT department has three groups: web development, back office development, and technical support. This product can be used by, and of value to, all three IT groups. It is almost exclusively used by just the back office department, which I'm part of. Our focus is the IBM i, versus our customer-facing web pages which are handled by our web development folks. In our back office group, we've got about 20 developers and any one of them can do a project in GoAnywhere. We don't have anybody dedicated to maintaining the product. As a task comes up, somebody gets assigned to do it and takes care of it.

We didn't use a third-party. It was a straightforward install for the most part.

The cost of GoAnywhere versus the value it brings to our data transfer operations is reasonable. When I compare it to what we were using, that product called Second Copy, and how robust it is and how productive we can be with it, the cost is commensurate. The cost is relatively expensive but, back to the car analogy, that's to be expected with a Ferrari.

They provided a variety of options for pricing. "If you want just this basic feature, here's the price. Or you can have this add-on and that add-on." That variety of add-ons is useful because we are not using it to its fullest capabilities. Some of those other capabilities are licensed extra options.

One of the extra add-ons that came to our attention that we ended up purchasing, and that has provided value and will continue to provide value, is the Secure Forms. We use them to very quickly provide a web page interface for a user to make file transfers easier for them. It's also very useful when there's a report that they need but we need some input from them to produce it, like the date range of the data they want to see, or the particular stores they want a report for. Secure Forms are an extra cost and we went for that extra cost months after buying the initial product. We started with not much in the way of extras, and then added onto the product.

Here at the police department, we do a lot of file moving between systems. We have a citation system and we need that data moved over to an RMS (Reports Management System). Those systems don't communicate with each other. So we use it to pick up those files, move them over to that system, and then consume those files and data. We do a lot of that stuff. We also do exports to SFTP sites and automatic emails with warnings of server maintenance.

We do mostly automatic reports but also some manual reports. These can be daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.  We use GoAnywhere to complete manual processes- like things that we don't need to do very often. We'll go in and just click a button and it runs a bunch of things that we normally would have to do manually. It speeds up the process quite a bit. The great thing about it is that we have a central station to manage basically all of our tasks. Instead of running task schedulers on every server, we can just go here and know exactly what's running where. It's much easier to manage.

It enabled us to allocate staff toward other work. All the time that we would have wasted working on this stuff and correcting problems is put into other parts of our job. That's one of the best things about it, is that we don't waste time on these projects. We just don't have to worry about them because we set up the project to let us know if there's a problem.

It actually helps with customer service because we don't have to wait and find out from a customer when something goes wrong. We know right away and we can fix it before they even know what happened.

GoAnywhere also enabled us to acquire or disseminate more data and documents. It saves at least ten hours per month because we can more easily figure out any issues happening by reviewing the logs. 

The fact that we can easily move files and email the pertinent people about it to tell details about those files is valuable to us. They can see what happened during that process and also catch errors. If there's an error, it'll let us know and we can go in and fix it instead of waiting two days and finding out that something didn't happen.

The intuitiveness of the GoAnywhere user interface is really good. It takes a little time to learn just like anything, but once you learn how to use it, it's very simple.

I've never seen anything like the comprehensiveness of GoAnywhere's workflow features.

The workflow features eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfer. That's the main thing I use it for. 

It's very important because the custom programs get too complicated and they're kept in random areas, so this is like a central area that you can manage complex programs. But they're easier to create also, so I think just managing those systems and being able to do something that you might not be able to do outside of the system is great.

I have been able to eliminate at least 20 to 30 custom programs and scripts by centralizing everything in GoAnywhere.

GoAnywhere's workflow features have helped us to eliminate manual processes. It's made operations more efficient and more managed.

The automation of file transfers helped to reduce the workload in my current company. All of our transfers are automatic and we're notified about them. It eliminates a lot of wasted time because I'll know if something went wrong. Sometimes the SFTP sites are down and I'll know right away and then we can try it again or have an automatic process to know that something went wrong and it'll try it again later, so I'd have to sit around and waste time trying to re-transfer or not knowing that something, maybe something didn't work. It saves us around three hours a week.

There's not a lot of improvement I can think of. Maybe in the tools section, there is a SQL Wizard which works really well. I think that the SQL Wizard could use some improvement- it's little slow when moving from page to page. 

I've been using GoAnywhere between two different areas of CMSO for about five years.

The stability is really good. The service stopped few years ago but we were able to get it up and running quickly- we upgraded the version and haven't had it shutdown since. 

The scalability is really good. It can go across almost any platform that I know of. It can be installed in different systems, which many programs will not work on IBMs and on Windows systems. So it can be moved and work between systems.

In terms of users, there are hundreds that are influenced by the solution including records, clerks, record supervisors, police officers, all of our IT people- as well as different organizations, such as the DOJ and court systems.

Two of us on the IT team are 100% responsible for the maintenance. 

We've used things built into the systems like in Windows Task Scheduler and things like that. The workflow is similar, but you just can't do as much. Or if you try to do as much, it gets really complicated. At that point, when it gets that complicated, things break, not everybody can follow it. If you make a complex Task Scheduler with PowerShell Scripts, someone coming in off the street is not going to be able to figure it out very easily.

Our ROI is definitely positive. 

I think the pricing is fair. 

It's not too expensive. You pay for extras and you pay separately for separate products. We're not any other GoAnywhere products, so we don't have to pay for it. It's not too expensive for us.

The cost of GoAnywhere compared with the value it brings to our data transfer operations is more than fair. 

I believe GoAnywhere connects to almost any type of server.  I move many things through SFTP and I think it pretty much connects to any kind of system you're looking for. It'll connect to cloud systems as well.

My advice would be to look and see what it can do and then look at how it could improve your processes. I think you'll notice that you'll end up saving money by purchasing the product and saving a headache here and there.

I would rate GoAnywhere a ten out of ten. 

We use it to release medical records to other healthcare facilities, attorneys, and insurance companies.

We can share information faster and easier and in a less restrictive manner in terms of sizing.

It has helped to eliminate manual processes. We don't have to mail and fax records, and we don't have to burn them on a CD anymore. We can just drop a record in a folder.

It helps in centralizing the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners, which is extremely important. The easier it is to do, the better it is for us. Previously, we were having issues with faxing, and now, we don't have fax issues. It is a lot faster for the people to whom we're sending records. It is almost instantaneous, whereas with faxing, it has to go out through the fax, and then their fax machine has to pick it up, and then, on somebody's end, it may not work.

All of it is valuable, but the most valuable would be the ability to release medical records without having a limitation for size and not having to deal with the fax machine.

Its user interface is extremely easy. If you can drag and drop, then you're good.

I'm on the admin side of it, and one of the complaints is that it times out too quickly for the people who are using the internet-based part of it. It could be that there is a way to do it, but I just don't know how. 

One of the things that I wish is to not necessarily have to set up a username and password for people with whom we don't frequently share files. For instance, if I want to share files with a patient who is not somebody with whom we share files all the time, I would like them to somehow verify who they are and be able to push the file to them. I shouldn’t have to set them up as a user with a password. It should be almost like Dropbox.

I have been using this solution for about two years.

It is great. I haven't had any issues with it. I've had issues with my IT department, but nothing on the GoAnywhere's side.

I use it for a very specific thing. So, it definitely meets my needs.

They're fantastic. Anytime I've called to ask anything, they've always been extremely helpful. They spent time with me, walked me through things, and explained things to me. They've always been great. I've not had any issues. So, I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

We didn't have any other solution previously. It was just fax and paper or burn a CD.

I was involved in its setup, and my part of it was simple. IT was also involved. There are portions of GoAnywhere that we're not using but IT can use. 

We were having issues with faxing to external people where our faxes wouldn't go through. So, in terms of the implementation strategy, they were the first ones with whom I checked whether they would be interested in doing this. It has just kind of grown from there. People request things from us all the time. If I'm on the phone, I ask them, "Hey, we have this. Is this something that you're interested in?" Sometimes, they say no, but most of the time, it is a yes. So, it has worked out really well.

I started using it in my department, and now, I've got a few other departments that are also using GoAnywhere for the same thing. For example, the business office will use it when people or attorneys request itemized statements or itemized billing if that requester has GoAnywhere.

I did have training courses. They did help me set up exactly what I needed it to be set up for, and that part was really simple.

In terms of maintenance, I'm the one who sets everybody up, and I'm the one who goes through it. Our IT has one person, but he is hardly in it. He usually accesses it when I have an issue. I do have four other staff members who drop things in, but they don't build users. They don't resend passwords or do anything like that.

I would like to say that we have seen an ROI because I don't have to burn CDs and mail them all the time, but I can't give a dollar figure for that.

The cost is fine. It is probably the best software that I've had for the money that we spend for it. I am not aware of any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees. I don't pay for it. IT pays for it.

Our IT did look at other options. I know they looked at Dropbox, but I don't know what else they looked at.

GoAnywhere hasn't helped to eliminate single-function tools or unsecured file transfer methods because we work in medical records, and we don't send things in a non-secure fashion. I personally don't think that the mail is very secure. If we take the fact that we don't burn CDs anymore and we don't have to put them in the mail, then it has helped because now, it is from us to them, and there is no wait time. 

It hasn't enabled us to allocate staff toward other work, and it also hasn't enabled us to acquire or disseminate more data or more documents. It has only helped us to work more efficiently.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. I tell people all the time that they need to get this. I was looking for something like this, and finally, I got it. I'm super happy about it. I don't want to have to go back to the way I was doing it before.

We are in the healthcare industry and we use GoAnywhere for file transfers in our finance, HR, clinical and logistical processes

GoAnywhere has helped improve our organization through the centralization of file transfer management, as well as standards enforcement. The error reporting and file auditing capabilities make troubleshooting problems and issues a fairly straightforward process.

GoAnywhere is the perfect tool to help centralize the exchange of data between systems, employees, customers, and trading partners. This is of critical importance to us because in previous implementations, where we've had trouble connecting with our partners and vendors and such, from a troubleshooting perspective it could take a day to solve an issue, but using the GoAnywhere tools & capabilities, we can address  most issues in minutes, instead of hours.

The user interface is intuitive, although someone who's not familiar with coding may have a little bit more of a challenge with it. I have a background in programming and infrastructure, and I found that it was logical & well designed. 

The comprehensiveness of GoAnywhere's workflow features is fantastic. 

The workflow features almost completely eliminate the need for custom programs and scripts for file transfers. I would estimate that we have cut out custom scripts by about 95%. For the remaining 5%, we use the OS integration feature to allow us to interface with a given system and run OS native commands/scripts/operations from within GoAnywhere.

The elimination of custom scripts for every transfer was an important and valuable step for the organization from an operations, maintenance & support perspective.  We can build out a Managed File Transfer process in GoAnywhere with none of the hassles and headaches associated with scripts in an hour vs. custom scripting processes that would take significantly longer to develop and deploy.  we are doing the same work that existed prior to implementing GoAnywhere, but now the processes are faster, simpler, more supportable and secure.  With GoAnywhere, we are able to service our customers much faster and in a much more dependable, consistent and reliable manner.

The automation of file transfers has helped to reduce our workload for file transfers, freeing us up to focus more on the business requirements. For example, in the past, my customers would come to me with, "Hey. I can't find my files, they haven't been downloaded today."  With GoAnywhere we are able to give them a notification via email processes we build into our GoAnywhere jobs, allowing them to see the status of their respective file transfers.

Within the specific context of an organization-wide project, we managed to accomplish MFT request turnaround in a few days where previously, it may day weeks with our previous toolset.

I find the entire solution to be useful for what I do.

Specifically, the encryption & certificate functions, the ability to reuse a defined resource (SFTP server/Network share, e.g.) across multiple transfers and the granularity of the audit logs functionality is a solid tool for troubleshooting.

The support desk has room for improvement. I keep opening tickets and they keep telling me that they're closed, but they're not resolved.

Customer service is an area in need of improvement.

We have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT since the spring of 2018.

Since we implemented GoAnywhere in the spring of 2018, there has been one bug that has caused us any issues. It was readily addressed by contacting the help desk.

Overall, stability has been rock solid.

I transfer tens of thousands of files per week and scalability is not a problem. I honestly think I would have difficulty scaling GoAnywhere to a point where a point where I would be concerned.

The users we have are GoAnywhere admins and they build managed file transfers. There aren't any functionalities that our customer community has access to.

At this point, more than 70% of our Managed File Transfer processes are utilizing GoAnywhere. The goal, although it may never be fully attained, is to get the rest of those outliers doing file transfers through the secure and dependable enterprise-grade system that is GoAnywhere.

In 2018, 2019, I would have rated the support a ten out of ten. As previously expressed, I would now give them a four.

Prior to GoAnywhere, we used native operating system shell scripts and, worse, daily human processes.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. Their installation methodologies and their architectural configuration are pretty much laid out for you in their marketing documentation. From an implementation perspective, everything is there for you.

The installation took a couple of hours but from that point, it took probably two weeks before it was in functional production.   The strength of GoAnywhere is in the vary rich toolset.  Unfortunately, that also means that there can be a learning curve as one starts to implement it into Production.

I was the implementer of this product and I didn't require the help of a third party. Any issues or concerns I had during the implementation phase were readily addressed by the vendors (then) support staff.  At the time, they were very good at answering quickly and responding to the implementation issues that I encountered.  At the present time, I would suspect that the support is not to the level it was when we implemented GoAnywhere in 2018.

For the first three years, our GoANywhere implementation was really a one-man band in terms of managing the system, including implementing functionality.  As we have grown i to the systm a second administrator has beendrafted into the MFT Team.  

For what we pay to GoAnywhere every year, we are getting a fantastic deal. From a dollar perspective, it provides very good value.

We reviewed three other products prior to implementing GoAnywhere. One that I recall is MOVEit, which was an Ipswitch product at the time.

The user interface that MOVEit had was abysmal. In contrast, the user interface that GoAnywhere has is intuitive and although it obviously depends on each individual user, overall, it's great. The ability to employ the functions and build out what needs to be built out is not a difficult process. It can be complex in some instances, but it's not difficult.

We are not running the latest version; however, it is only because we are too busy with other things at the moment.

For me, this solution is fantastic. I'm able to solve a lot of problems for my organization by using the whole collection of features in GoAnywhere.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for SFTP and HTTPS.

We went from a single client to a clustered environment and that's nice for maintenance work. The thing that has improved is the high-availability.

We basically use the SFTP and HTTPS for transferring files. If it's dealing with SFTP or any kind of secure transfer, we don't hear about it. It's good. Everything works.

Also, for importing information and exporting it, it's not too bad.

We have it implemented on-prem only. That's one of the issues we have. When we restart the agent on each server, it tries to go out to the internet and it takes about a 13-minute timeout before it can move forward. Why is there a 13-minute timeout value when trying to go to the internet? Shouldn't it be a minute or so? We weren't sure why it was taking that long, and then we noticed that it took almost exactly 13 minutes, every single time. We looked into it and we found out that it could be a timeout value. They checked with their developers and they said, "Yeah, it looks like it is a timeout value." We have worked with a support engineer and they definitely know about it, but so far there is no fix.

If they could limit that timeout or give us a way to modify it so we could have a faster timeout, that would help us at least knock out a half-hour's worth of outage.

In addition, when you log in through the GUI, it always fails the first time and says that your time expired, and it makes you log in twice. Supposedly it's a bug. If they could fix that, that would be awesome.

Also, in some areas it could be more user-friendly, when it comes to adding certificates and or keys for access.

The organization I'm working for has been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for at least a couple of years,  but we just implemented our new cluster environment in February or March, about seven or eight months ago.

So far, the stability has been good. 

The only thing I have noticed is that if you take it down hard, sometimes the startup can get corrupted. So you have to make sure you shut down that application. We had an issue where it lost the NFS mounts for a couple hours. When we tried to bring it back up, it wouldn't recognize where it was at and we had to call support. But most of the time, you don't want to take anything down hard.

Other than that, it seems to be pretty stable.

The support is really good, but the ticket system is not that good.

When you open the ticket, that's the only time you can see what is in the ticket. Support engineers can see it, but if you're a customer and you want to update your ticket or look at the ticket that you created, you can't access it. I think they know about that, but I don't know if they've done anything about it lately. It's one thing I can't stand. If you go to other vendors and you open a ticket, you can actually go into the ticket and update it. You can't do that with GoAnywhere's ticketing system.

I would recommend GoAnywhere, depending on how much it costs. I'm not involved with the cost side of things. For the most part, you can access it from the internet into the web servers, or you can have it only localized. So I would recommend it.

We have three or four admin people who can help maintain it, but that's only in case one of the people isn't available.

We use it for SFTP and for hosted software that connects to it through the cloud. We also use the AS2 piece, although that is still in test mode. We move about 10,000 files a day.

We're a hospital and we use it for payroll, the pharmacy, and the cafeteria. And on the admin side, it extracts reports from a third-party location. We also have trading partners and we pass on public and private keys.

GoAnywhere connects to our Azure server. We also have some in-house servers that it connects to. We move files to the Isilon, which is a repository where we store a lot of files.

When we started out, we were a tier-three location. Now we are a tier-one. We started out with no more than about 150 or 200 jobs, and now we have over 1,000 jobs.

GoAnywhere's workflow features have helped us to eliminate manual processes. We had people manually running a job, but now that we have automated it, they don't have to do it anymore. They also don't have to waste time trying to write a program and testing it to see if it's going to work. They send us their requirements and we can code them and provide them with what they need. That gives them more flexibility. They can go on to do other tasks. And if they have to add something or change a filename, they don't have to go through the whole process. They just send in a request to us and that makes it easier for them.

For example, they can send us a request saying, "We need you to create a Secure Folder so that we can communicate and move files with a third party." We set that up and they just drop the files in there and they don't have to worry about whether the file they're trying to send is too large. It allows us to send PDFs. GoAnywhere has helped us to be more diverse than we were before.

It has also helped to eliminate unsecured file transfer methods. We used to use a lot of FTP stuff, and that was not too secure, but we brought in the SFTP and the PTP abilities. Some companies still insist that we use FTP, but we try not to use it. By using secured methods, we know the files are going out in a secure way. We know they're going to go through the firewall.

What we find valuable is that we are able to connect with vendors through SFTP. They are able to send us resource pieces and, when we connect to their side, we are able to transmit files. We can also manipulate the files and rename them.

Another valuable feature is the ability to use calls to run multiple jobs at one time, including recursive calls that go folder by folder and check each one before sending a file. 

We use the FTPS abilities a little and we also use the PTP features. 

In addition, as a company that works in the healthcare field, the main hospital-related software we use is Epic Systems. We deal with ambulatory care through GoAnywhere as well. The Epic side of it is on the cloud and, with GoAnywhere, we're like a "middleman" and we move files between it and other places where they need to be.

We also use the Secure Folders module and the Web Client a lot. For example, we set up external vendors to come in and review files or folders in a Secure Folder. That way they can go in and review whatever information or data they need to do. It helps us to keep in contact with vendors. It's helpful because we don't have to let them into our entire system. We can just give them access to that one folder. They can't add anything and they can't delete anything. We just set up the permissions the way the owner on our side wants them.

The intuitiveness is good. And anytime you need to reference something, you can punch it in on the web and it breaks it down for you, step-by-step. And if that doesn't help, they have a chat line so that you can communicate with them and they point you back in the right direction. And beyond that, they will bring support online and support helps you to resolve the issue.

Some of the description boxes can't be expanded. They're too narrow. You have to slide stuff over to see them.

I have been using HelpSystems GoAnywhere MFT for about four years.

The support could be enhanced a little bit. I know they are pushing numbers, but when they ask you to tell them what your issue is about, and you tell them, they say, "Hold. Let's get you to support." If they knew even a little bit about it, what it is trying to do, that would take some of the pressure off the support side. If the first echelon of support could say, "Okay, you are trying to create a variable," and could tell you what you have to do, that would be good. Then, if you needed more help, you could go to the tutorial piece.

But if we need any help, they work on the issue and try to get things resolved. They reach out to you to make sure you have all the tools that you need to work with.

Before, everybody was doing their own programming, using SFTP server scripts for multiple servers. Everything was totally different. You may have had your way of doing it. I may have had my way of doing it, but there were no standards. Somebody wrote things in C#, somebody else in C+, and others in Python. They might end up with the same results, but when you had to troubleshoot somebody's work, you just couldn't understand the way it flows.

At one point our company had IBM Sterling Managed File Transfer but we got rid of that. We had bought a full package from IBM, but we weren't using all the components. We were just using one or two pieces of it. But we are using as much as we can of GoAnywhere and when they add more new components that just makes it that much more valuable.

The initial setup was relatively straightforward, but no solution is entirely straightforward. You always have to reach out to support for assistance, if you have never used the product or something similar to it. While it's pretty straightforward, there are times when you have to ask questions.

The whole process took about a day, although I wasn't here when they implemented it. As for me, I hadn't done any programming in 30-plus years, but it brought me back into it. They don't use that same language anymore; there's no more COBOL. It's a different world.

Over the time we have had it, and given the things we have been able to do with it, it has paid for itself. Using all the features it has saves the company money. We went from a small number of jobs to over 1,000 jobs. If it weren't a good product, we would never have been able to add to it like that. We would have tried to find another solution.

Our IT department and its director like it because we are able to manipulate things and produce what the third party or the vendor or the customer needs. We have gotten our money's worth.

They have an open-door policy. You can call them and they are willing to set up an appointment, come in, and show you what they have to offer and how it would be of benefit. It would be well worth your time to listen to what they have to say.

It's a good system, one of the best I've seen so far, and I've been out there on the internet, looking at different systems. They don't mind working with you and they don't mind giving you the software to test for 30 days. Once you get an understanding of it and you get the outcome, what you're looking for, it's good.

We can use almost any type of program with GoAnywhere, and it allows you to manipulate many things. We can use the C# side of it, and we use SQL and MySQL as well.