We had a contract with SMA for support and to help us do the first migration of the pilot application, which was contract management. After we finished configuring the product's parameters, testing the product, and doing the migration on this pilot application, we managed the migrations alone, with SMA's support if we had difficulties doing something or needed help to optimize the product.

We consulted with OpCon's staff onsite. 

Our experience with them during the deployment process was great. They were very helpful, very friendly. There wasn't a stupid question that we could ask. They were quick to answer and provide us reference material. 

And over the years, they've been that way. We occasionally contract hours with them if we want to do something that's a little bit more complex than our staff can handle. They're very patient over the phone. They always offer onsite consultants as well, for a fee, but their remote consultants are great. We always buy contract hours, dedicated support, when we want to add something new. That's not to fix something that's busted.

Deploying OpCon is relatively straightforward, but upgrades can pose some complexity. During upgrades, we opt for redeploying a new instance and migrating everything over instead of directly upgrading the existing product. This approach is taken to avoid any downtime during the upgrade process. While the deployment itself wasn't challenging, the more intricate task was establishing the initial automation, particularly constructing critical jobs to run against our core. OpCon provided on-site assistance for the initial wave of jobs related to our core, and from that point forward, we continued managing it independently. Initially, we had a team of four or five people working on it from our side, and from OpCon side, we had one person involved in the process. Regarding the maintenance part, aside from upgrades, there's not much else to attend to. OpCon is largely self-sufficient, operating reliably without frequent issues.

Their consultant came onsite and performed the install. We did an initial training on it as well.

SMA worked with us directly. They came out to our site on cut-over week. Most of the deployment was done in the midst of COVID, so everything was remote. But they came out for the planned cut-over and were with us for the whole thing.

On our side, four employees were involved in the deployment, along with the two OpCon people.

The deployment of OpCon has been straightforward, and we initially handled it internally for several years. Their server setup and configuration instructions are clear, contributing to a smooth implementation. Over the past four or five years, we've opted for their paid support for implementations and software updates. At the time of deployment, there were likely two individuals involved in the process.

We use Jack Henry. They are our Symitar, which is our core processor, our integrator.

They told us about SMA because SMA has a relationship with Jack Henry as a core processor. They did a lot of their automation. Jack Henry told us about SMA, which is how I came to bring them on board. Because they had already built a lot of automation for our core processing. They already had a business relationship. 

As part of our migration to OpCon we contracted SMA Technologies, the OpCon vendor, to perform the migration in concert with our scheduling team.

The SMA team was excellent. Their knowledge of SQL Server, z/OS and Windows was extraordinary. I cannot say enough good things about them.

The implementation was completed in-house.

The deployment was all internal; it was the staff here. We educated ourselves. We didn't even go through any formal training. We had a few remedial schedules that had been built before I started with the help of SMA just to define a few processes. From there, we used those as an example for QA, testing, etc. to find out what worked best for us. We developed those through actual use and best practices internally.

The way it was initially set up, support crew got in and validated the installation that the database was correctly set up and the interaction between the software and database was good. It was pretty straightforward and smooth. We did an upgrade. We paid for SMA to do a review of our system, as well, to ensure the upgrade was good, and there were no issues with that. It was a pretty clean install, and it worked out really well.

Our implementation strategy was mostly to define the processes that required no interaction from a person to begin with and create those jobs and schedules in OpCon, then test them out. From there, we would move onto more complex processes that may have required file drops or something like that. So, there was a trigger. Initially though, it was just to find the jobs that could be done right now that required no interaction and have those all implemented, tested, and working, then move into a more complex mode. Over the course of three to four months, we moved from having basic jobs to adding in a bit more complexity, then flushing out the defined larger shifts, like morning and evening.

We had an internal team that worked with our implementation team from SMA to set up the product. SMA was incredibly knowledgeable of the OpCon ins and outs. Particularly the IBM contact with SMA was extremely impressive in their ability to provide robust solutions and bug fixes to problems in a very quick manner (often within a few hours of reporting the issue). 

It was internal on our part, but staff from SMA came out to help us set it up. They were actually onsite. We sent a person back to their facility for training. Then, after that training was complete, they then came back and helped us complete the onsite part of the installation and configuration.

When the SMA technicians came onsite during the initial deployment, our experience with them was good. They were very knowledgeable. They had a good understanding of the system and they gave us very good pointers. They were very efficient and on-schedule. The whole implementation process was seamless and very smooth.

We deployed it ourselves.

To deploy OpCon, you just need someone who is fluent on SQL DBA. SMA tells you there are two different approaches: If you want a whole group of people to help or if you want a train the trainer approach. 

We only worked with SMA who does most of the deployment. They train you. After that, you do what you need to do. If you ever get stuck, you can just call them up. They will walk you through it and help you out.

It takes one or (at most) two staff members to deploy it. 

We had the help of SMA and used our internal resources.

I'm very pleased with the people who came onsite to install the product the first and second times. We waited almost five years to move to the version that we have now. The people who came to help us with the installation were very helpful and precise. They added a huge value.

SMA provided a free evaluation period where the software was installed by SMA and we were trained by an SMA expert.  We saw, through the evaluation period, how the software would benefit us.  

We worked directly with SMA Technologies. 

When we first had it installed, there was a really great guy who came in, who doesn't work with them anymore. We had some training onsite while he was here. We weren't really involved at that point in time in installing it ourselves. It was always an OpCon representative showing up. Now, it's more the case that we install and get a hold of them if we have any issues.

We used OpCon consulting a little bit. We paid OpCon to come in to help us with our ACH. When you're moving millions of dollars, you want it to work right the first time. So we had someone come in from OpCon and he was with us for a week. We got ACH to process about 95 percent through it. We still have a little tweaking to do here and there, but it's doing files every day now.

SMA normally does the initial deployment. They come onsite for your first implementation and spend a week. Then, they often will come back and spend a second week as part of the deployment plan. By the time they are done, there are usually a great number of identified processes which have already been automated. From the initial deployment to getting things up and running on a server to having things automated in production, you can easily have these results inside a month.

When I started here, the OpCon was in production already. I am not sure how the application got installed. 

It was through our core provider that we got the product. Since we went through them, that was the primary thing to get automated and they provided it in collaboration with SMA.

The people at SMA have been great as far as working with them. They're responsive. When I've interacted with them, they've always been great. The company has been very good.

We did use some of the OpCon consultants for the deployment. The main consultant who helped us was George Loose.

It took three to four months to get everything fully converted over. That is partially on the people who were in charge of doing the switch over. They were also in charge of running the daily operations on the Unisys machine and their time was not fully vested in the switch over.

In reference to the deployment being loaded, I wrote a process the week after I came back from the class. It didn't take too long.

We had an OpCon person on site, and the experience was very helpful.

Our experience with the SMA techs was great. They were onsite and that was helpful. They're very knowledgeable. They explained everything and they gave us best practices.

SMA is pretty helpful, if we do ever have any questions. They are pretty quick to respond.

For upgrades, three or four are required. There are three of us on our side involved in upgrading it. Then, there is one person from SMA to help, if need be.

We have an in-house team for the in-house version.

We needed the Symitar OpCon team to work with us when we switched to Symitar Ease and to document all the schedules/jobs. 

We used a vendor team. Our engineers developed a close relationship with them. 

The implementation was internal.

OpCon assisted us in our initial setup. They were here for three for four days. That's how long it took us to deploy the solution.

We had an onsite person come for a week from SMA. Our overall experience was great. He was a nice guy who handheld us through some of the processes, making sure that we were good and explaining everything to us. That was probably the best thing of having him here onsite, and not remotely, because he could see where our questions were stemming from and why we were asking certain things. He then helped us set up the different templates for our processes.

We had someone from the SMA team come onsite to help us set up the server. We installed and connected it to the appropriate additional environments. Once we did that, it was completely straightforward. It did help that we had someone come onsite to help us set up some of our more complicated jobs while we were still very new with the system.

Our experience with the SMA team was excellent.

We implemented through a vendor team that I score ten out of ten.