We performed a comparison between Fortra's Automate and Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about UiPath, Microsoft, Automation Anywhere and others in Robotic Process Automation (RPA)."A great feature that you seldom see in these kind of systems is the ability to use a database as trigger to launch a task. This is something I asked for a few years ago and that was added."
"The most valuable features for my client are timing and scheduling."
"The ability to connect to websites and pull data is the solution's most valuable feature."
"We have found the pricing to be very reasonable."
"Fortra's Automate performs the job effectively and has the capability to alert us of any issues."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the drag-and-drop interface, which is very Windows-like."
"I like the interface; it makes managing automation easy. We can set different schedules and templates for each task."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides 100% reliability for file transmission. It ensures that files get delivered in a secure manner. When you use Connect:Direct, your file 100% gets delivered to the next delivery location. If the log shows that a file got delivered, it will have all the transmitted data without truncation or other data issues."
"The product has been very stable."
"Security is the most valuable feature of this product."
"Automation is the most valuable feature."
"The Security Plus feature of this solution is excellent, and allows you to send encrypted files very securely to remote destinations."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is a solution that is on the market for a very long time. There is an integrator that has been developed and evolves every year. On the roadmap, there is always a new integration. For example, it's one of the solutions in the market that out of the box can handle EBICS protocol. The file processing is done very well. By default, there are a lot of configurations that can be customized."
"Offers secure file transfers with a fast and efficient protocol for very large files."
"It's possible that they could use a stronger community for seeking guidance and help."
"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."
"The OCR for Hebrew text needs to be improved."
"The documentation is not that great."
"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."
"The workflow for variables could be better. The input and output of task-level variables could be made a little clearer in terms of passing those around from one task to another upon success, etc. Things like that could be a little easier potentially."
"The intelligent automation feature could be improved. It's interesting because it's simple, but the automation quality isn't always good. It's easy to use, but sometimes you need to make a slight improvement to the automation, and that's not so easy."
"The interface could be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"They have File Agent, which is an additional utility and a component of Connect:Direct, for automated file transmission. In that utility, there is some issue with the file name. There is a limitation on the file name, and that is being fixed by IBM."
"User interface is not user friendly."
"This solution cannot be deployed on a root_squash NFS, which limits superuser privileges."
"The user interface could be more user-friendly."
"Sometimes we face issues and can't figure out the cause of failures."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct could improve by adding some of the functionality that some other vendors have. For example, GoAnywhere has call agents, which are small clients that can be installed on the endpoints and can be handled by the central point on the server. If I want to do this with the IBM solution, I have to sell a lot of account addresses. The price could be unprofitable for the customer. There is some small functionality that could be implemented and could be easily done to improve this solution."
"Technical support is the number one concern."
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Fortra's Automate is ranked 5th in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) with 21 reviews while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is ranked 8th in Managed File Transfer (MFT) with 7 reviews. Fortra's Automate is rated 8.2, while Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is rated 8.2. 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 Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct writes "Good automation features but needs improvement in the monitoring dashboard ". Fortra's Automate is most compared with Microsoft Power Automate, UiPath, Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform, MOVEit and Automation Anywhere (AA), whereas Sterling Commerce Connect:Direct is most compared with IBM Sterling File Gateway, Kiteworks, Aspera Managed File Transfer, MOVEit and Fortra's GoAnywhere MFT.
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