We performed a comparison between OpCon and Tidal Automation based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: OpCon offers flexibility, integration capabilities, and self-service features, reducing reliance on IT. It also excels in automation, graphical user interface, and database functionality. Tidal Automation has a strong job scheduler, real-time monitoring, and error handling. It also provides role-based access control and compliance controls for data security.
OpCon has areas that can be enhanced, such as its online platform, Solution Manager, and the process of upgrading to newer versions. It would be advantageous to have a mobile application and improved failover functionality. Tidal Automation requires improvements in its user interface, pricing structure, and integration capabilities. Additionally, it could benefit from advanced reporting, artificial intelligence, and machine learning features.
Service and Support: OpCon's customer service receives positive feedback for its promptness and successful resolutions, whereas Tidal Automation's support team is lauded for their expertise and willingness to assist. OpCon occasionally provides irrelevant solutions, while Tidal Automation sometimes overlooks less important matters.
Ease of Deployment: OpCon's initial setup necessitates collaboration with SMA consultants and training, making it complex. Tidal Automation offers a straightforward and easy setup with helpful documentation, resulting in a shorter deployment process.
Pricing: OpCon is recognized as having a high initial investment and being intricate to set up, however, it is regarded as a worthwhile product that offers good value for its cost. Tidal Automation is deemed to have a reasonable and predictable price, providing good value for the features and support it offers.
ROI: OpCon is a valuable investment that saves time, reduces errors, and eliminates the need for full-time operators. Tidal Automation provides cost savings, increased efficiency, and improved risk management.
Comparison Results: OpCon is the favored choice when compared to Tidal Automation. OpCon offers flexibility and integration capabilities, allowing users to automate tasks according to their specific requirements. The self-service feature improves productivity and reduces dependence on IT. Users particularly appreciate OpCon's graphical user interface and database functionality.
"The most valuable feature is the automation in general."
"Auto-scheduling is the most valuable feature. We have the ability to schedule [batch jobs on our Unisys mainframes] seven days in advance, so we know exactly how we're running every night."
"The ability to chain jobs together allows us to create complex interdependencies between our jobs, and the integration into our core system is important because it allows us, through an automated system, to do a huge number of things that used to be done manually."
"I find OpCon's ability to monitor files and folders, and its integration with other software to be the most valuable."
"The solution has streamlined operations. We have written custom jobs to do particular things, but OpCon is definitely the one that manages running them at particular times. Often times, those jobs have to run after hours. So while we still develop and spend time and man-hours writing code, once it's done, OpCon is running that in the afternoons or evenings. This is usually done during off hours when a person would normally be required to be here and do it. Instead, OpCon is available, consistent, reliable and easy to get things in and working quickly once we develop and get them working. OpCon takes care of the entire process, including notifications that we define if something were to happen so we know what to do next. Again, it's simplifies the entire process."
"The end code response allows us to evaluate how a process finished, set the termination/end code appropriately, and then trigger further processing based on how it ended."
"There are three features which are valuable: the automated calendar functions; the notification process for failed jobs or unscheduled events occurring, via email and text messaging; and the ability for the scheduling package to communicate across multiple platforms."
"File Watcher can run jobs when files are made available in a folder."
"Tidal Workload Automation Software provides the ability to quickly adapt to changing business requirements."
"The job dependency is something that you cannot have in a regular, simple cron job or simple scheduler dependency. The event-driven jobs are core for us, as we really need that. Therefore, we really need Tidal with its ability to run thousands of jobs per day."
"With the varied features in the varied adapters provided, we use Tidal Enterprise Scheduler because we want everything to be scheduled in one place. Tidal provides that for us with its tools and varying platforms in our organization. Tidal provides all the connectors to the platforms. This is very useful because we don't want to look for another scheduler for scheduling certain jobs. We don't want to look at those schedules manually between platforms."
"For us, the calendaring system is very robust. Some of the teams have very specific requests for when they need jobs to run. That's been really valuable, because a lot of times, when people run scripts, if they run on a holiday, they're going to fail... A couple of times a month it probably saves us work and the necessity of logging in from home and checking to make sure everything's okay."
"The thing that I like the most is the reliability of the engine. The actual scheduling part of the product is pretty much flawless, but the stability of the product is what I find to be reassuring."
"By leveraging machine learning algorithms, Tidal Automation can use this data to optimize turbine settings and improve overall efficiency and performance."
"It saves times due to automation. With some files, we do hundreds a day for a particular vendor. This would be hard to do manually. Also, the speed at which we can do this is excellent."
"It's the most efficient tool in doing repetitive tasks and saves a lot of time with minimum possibility of error."
"Usage is a little complex. It's not like you can bring somebody in and they can just use it. They have to be trained... As far as complexity goes, it's right up there."
"I have noticed lately that [tech support's] first answers tend to be, "Let's upgrade it to the latest and greatest first," without looking into anything. The last couple of times I've logged a ticket that's been the response, which is a little frustrating. We're not big on just upgrading on a whim. We do full testing."
"The initial setup was fairly complex."
"It would be great if you could create physically separate "clients," as I call them. I wish I could have a production client and a testing client and that they would be separate."
"More functionality within self-service would be greatly appreciated."
"The one area it needs some help in is the mainframe area because that is not its strength. They support the mainframe but it's not something that they are good at."
"It would be nice to go to a fully thin client."
"I would like OpCon to implement a reporting feature on the dashboard that displays historical data for specific jobs. Ideally, this feature would allow us to view the past seven days or the next seven days, but with a specific focus on highlighting instances where a particular job has historically failed, particularly on Saturdays over the past year."
"They can do better reporting in terms of production statistics reporting."
"The user interface is the place that needs the most work. If and when we find issues with the product, they are usually in that area. If I had to choose, that's where I'd want issues, as opposed to in the engine. But the UI is average. It's a little sluggish at times and there are some bugs in it."
"When we patch to the next version, there is often a little thing that breaks. It has rarely been a big deal, but I always seem to have to follow up on one tiny issue. It would help if they had some better QA testing of their patches."
"Tidal Automation could be further integrated with other systems used in the operation of tidal energy systems, such as weather forecasting tools, energy management systems, or asset management software."
"Understanding and using Tidal Automation could be overwhelming for someone with minimal programming language."
"The software's performance and scalability could be improved, particularly when dealing with large-scale workloads or complex business processes."
"The UI might have the potential to provide a more polished and user-centric encounter, promoting seamless engagements and simplifying the navigation process for individuals interacting with the software."
"The biggest improvement they need to work on is doing better QA checks before they release new patches and service packs. We do find that you can't trust getting the new product right away, as they have to get some bug fixes out. They do tend to have some bugs in the first iteration."
OpCon is ranked 9th in Workload Automation with 56 reviews while Tidal by Redwood is ranked 2nd in Workload Automation with 37 reviews. OpCon is rated 9.2, while Tidal by Redwood is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of OpCon writes "Gives us the ability to schedule dependent jobs across different mainframes". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Tidal by Redwood writes "Great visibility with a single pane of glass and a low learning curve". OpCon is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, Automic Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation and ActiveBatch by Redwood, whereas Tidal by Redwood is most compared with Control-M, AutoSys Workload Automation, IBM Workload Automation, Redwood RunMyJobs and Stonebranch. See our OpCon vs. Tidal by Redwood report.
See our list of best Workload Automation vendors.
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