We were previously using a combination of things. We were using SSRS, which is Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services, and reports out of Microsoft Access. So, we were able to consolidate both of these applications and leverage Windward to do all of our reporting. We switched to Windward because it is easier to use, easier to maintain, and more cost-effective.

I came across Windward by a Google search. I was actually looking for a document-generation or a document-automation system for an existing client of ours. There were a few options that we were considering. We could have done custom development, but because of the requirements that were dictated by the client, it had to be something that was relatively easy for a nontechnical person not only to create but to maintain. That put us in a separate bucket. Custom development was really out of the picture, as it would require some sort of IT resource to make those changes and therefore wouldn't meet the requirements of the client. 

That led to my investigating existing tools that were out there. There was a handful of tools that we looked at, three or four, and I downloaded trial versions of each of those products back then. Windward happened to be the easiest to use, the easiest to get up to speed on as far as required knowledge, and I was able, believe it or not, to get something presentable to the client — a type of proof of concept — within a couple of days. And that was me not knowing anything about Windward at the time.

We are using the BeInformed platform which is a low-code platform, a process-modeling platform to build applications. This suite had document generation tool integrated. It's not a very well-known tool but it was an FOP and XSLT-based technology they used to generate PDF documents.

We switched because our document generation process was tedious generating a lot of errors. Our business consultants would draw up specifications and send them to the technical guys who would then use the FOP and XSLT technology to design those documents. Of course, the technical guys don't always understand the business so the documents would come out differently than expected. There were a lot of issues, and by eliminating that whole step, the whole document generation process is a lot more efficient. It's a lot easier to design the right documents with a customer looking over our shoulders while we're designing the documents in Microsoft Word.

We did not really have a previous solution. Most of the time, before Windward, it was just Microsoft Office products.

Before Windward, we were doing it all manually. 

We used to use Oracle Reports before this. We had gotten word that Oracle was phasing it out, plus it was something that you really had to be technical to use, and you had to have their tool to make any changes. It was a challenge at times, so we looked for a new solution.

Before that, we were on a tool called Speedware. I've been here for a long, long time through several generations of software. Technology changes. You have to move to new tools that keep up with the software that you're using.

We were not using anything prior to Windward. There's nothing on the market really quite like Windward. We looked. We looked high and low. We had been trying to find a solution like this for almost eight years. We saw some that were somewhat similar to it, but none that did what Windward does.

We were actually attempting to use several solutions including some that were bespoke. They simply did not do the job so we switched

We previously used a solution that merely transformed HTML into PDF. We still had to transform the JSON data into HTML format. This process was slow, and design- and resource-intensive. Getting fidelity feedback on changes and updates was extremely slow.

Our company is built on producing data fast and with fluidity, but providing a means to display the data in a human readable format was a huge bottleneck for us. We needed something that could keep pace with our data development.

We used another solution prior to this one, and it had almost no tech support. Font styles, sizes, and paragraph spacing would change, for no apparent reason. Sometimes, the field codes would appear, instead of the data that they were supposed to bring in.

The previous solution was home-grown, an internally-coded solution that could not be leveraged. It was for template-building, it was a hard-coded document-generating engine. We didn't even have templates for it and it was very difficult to make any changes to the documents that were generated. The documents were not very pretty. They were very not marketing- or design-friendly.

In another part of the business, we used SSRS, which is a Microsoft report builder, for some documents. But that was not really good either. As soon as you had multiple pages it didn't work very well either. We went from a home-grown, 20-year-old legacy solution to using this product.

We used Crystal Reports previously. We switched because, at that time, as far as I know, Crystal Reports didn't properly manage the TinyMCE field component.

The only report generation I had done prior to this, was creating our own HTML reports. It was very time consuming and tedious. I wanted to find a software set that would allow me to generate Excel and Word reports that would look the way I wanted them to look. I am a non-programmer, so I needed a software set that would allow me, as a non-technical programmer, to be able to accomplish that.

I did evaluate building a custom solution, but the cost of producing reports of this complexity, and building it myself from scratch, would have taken me three to possibly even 10 times the amount of time it took me to create these templates. And instead of creating them myself, I would have had to employ developer resources to create them. The cost would have been quantum-fold more than what we've invested in the Windward solution.

We used a custom solution. A custom solution needs a lot of work.

Our previous report-generator product, it performed just as well. As I mentioned before, they're large reports but small in volume. It's not like we're processing one or two-page documents and doing hundreds of thousands of them. These are 200-page documents and they're ad-hoc; so a user would select it, run a report, and then a report would be generated. I think we're getting performance around around 45 seconds for a 200 page document, and most of that was the actual running of the query. 

I don't think we can actually build a report generator from scratch, so that's why we went with Windward. We were using Microsoft SSRS before, which was no longer supported by the vendor, and we also looked at another Australian-based product that does something similar, but we ended up going with Windward really for the level of support we got from them during our proof of concept, and also the printing as well.

Yes, we used Oracle BI Publisher. Windward integrates easier, has a better Word template builder (Publisher didn't have Excel or PowerPoint template builders), and better licensing options to suit us.

No previous solution used.

We did use a different solution and we switched because Windward offered better maintenance and upgrade path.

I don't believe we had another solution at the beginning. We started, and have stayed, with Windward.

We previously used our own solution based on iText but wanted something easier for non-developers to use.

Custom solution, as noted elsewhere in this review.

We used an in-house solution which was tailored very much to what we required. However it wasn't flexible enough to provide us with what we needed without lots of code changes. Therefore we looked for alternatives.

We previously used C# codes for generating reports. Due to upgrading technology, we decided to use a better tool.

We originally used Crystal Reports, and then tried WSDL. We switched because of the versatility in report design available using Word/Excel.

Yes. We switched as it was no longer supported. It didn't meet our needs or our clients'.

No solution was used previously.

I haven't previously used a different solution myself, but the company used pure Excel for reporting and it was time consuming.

For now I have only had experience with Crystal Reports.

We were searching for something that is suitable and pleasant for our customers, user-friendly and so on. This was the most important requirement for us. We did not consider building a custom solution. We went with a package solution because our external vendor recommended it to us. They said that this is the only option, that they are working only with Windward and it is the only option for the IT system we are using.

Previously we were using SSRS reporting engine to render reports to MS Word. It couldn't deliver what our clients wanted. So we had to go for an alternative. Now clients are quite happy as they get pretty much what they wanted. It may not be 100% but quite close.

No.