Nintex Automation On-Prem, formerly K2 Software, is a business process application designed to enable people to build and run business applications including forms, workflow, data ,and reports. It can be utilized via a cloud environment or as an on-premise implementation.
$2,000
per month
Winshuttle
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Winshuttle is an SAP-focused data management and robotic process automation platform. It is designed to enable the building and adaptation of Excel and SharePoint-based interactive forms and workflows for SAP without programming.
Not well suited for: - automation of knowledge work (Adaptive/Dynamic Case Management); - use cases requiring application of very advanced business rules. There is a third party business rules engine that works well with K2 though; - Java engineers- wanna-be-BPM consultants - K2 is best suited for Business Technologists aka Citizen Developers; - outsourcing based delivery model - you need to train your onshore people; - teams and companies that don't want to learn on their own. if you want to outsource your DPA program to a foreign based IT services provider, pick a different vendor;
Well suited for: - 60-70% of all digital process automation uses cases you will find in your organization; - department and enterprise-grade process automation applications; - Citizen Developer adoption; - integration intensive use cases; - software teams not afraid to extend K2 with their own code through well-documented APIs;
Winshuttle is well suited to help any company who has data that needs to move from SAP to 'somewhere'. The output file can be Excel, Text, or Access. Query has been greatly expanded in its ability to use SQL statements directly in the product at the 'pre-download' point. For example, you want to have one column do calculations on the data that is being pulled out of SAP via the Query and placed in a specific cell - this can be done - right in the Query script and the result will be produced in your receiving Excel file. I have another small scenario I call 'On the fly" uses. When our asset team had to change their depreciation on a very large number of assets mid-year, Winshuttle Transaction was very helpful. The update would have taken DAYS and lots of shredded nerves to update.
K2 BlackPearl provides better versioning of processes than other BPM products I have used. Because of the feature-rich capabilities available being built on the MS Workflow framework, you can ultimately reach the level of code customization you need - but also leverage the tooling and code automating features of K2.
Its level of extensibility is fantastic. To say it is extensible and interoperable means a lot, because a lot of products SAY you can extend a feature, but it requires ripping out the kitchen of the house. K2 Blackpearl doesn't require kitchen replacement... you can upgrade the sink, replace the cabinetry, and extend pretty much everything. I have not run into a situation in the 6 years of using the product that I could NOT customize/extend a capability.
K2 Blackpearl's physical architecture options are plentiful. If you understand the product components and the granularity of the specific business need, you can provide an accurate blueprint installation of the product initially, and adapt or scale the product capabilities with relative ease via configuration and distributed options. They even offer training on physical infrastructure deployments if you are concerned about future use or growth.
"Training" I feel Winshuttle was extremely easy to learn' my team and I went to a week long training class on the uses of the software upon finishing the course we all became internal (company) support as well as expert functional users.
"Ease of use" once a user learns the basics processes of the software it is functionally very easy to use and if there are problems with in the processing that cannot be supported internally Winshuttle community and support quickly helped clear up those issues, "if they occurred"
"Processes data FAST" once the transaction is mapped and recorded the user can move through (process) large amounts of data very quickly, saving lots of time by eliminating manual steps.
"Data Error Correction" through the transactional processing of large amounts of data, nothing is ever perfect, usually during data migration process if a single line fails the process stops, the correction is made to the data and the process starts all over again. Winshuttle data migration process doesn't stop it will provide a list of exceptions upon completion of the data load. It does this by only processing the "good" data and when bad data is encountered it is skipped and an error message is created and added to the data sheet. With this process the user now only has to worry about exceptions that didn't load and also knows why the line failed so making correction are easier and faster.
Better integration with TFS automated build tools is one feature that is missing out of box. My organization has controls on code migration and deployment and use TFS for other code and builds. We cannot use the automated build for K2 workflow projects.
Ability to define business rules in external rules engine/repository which can be used by workflow processes
The use of Winshuttle is particularly helpful with systems where data volumes are always very high. If data volumes are not an issue, the use of Winshuttle for cut-over activities might not result in a significant perceivable difference in time savings.
For businesses and sectors that rely on business processes that are complex and tedious with a lot of manual interventions, Winshuttle comes in real handy. However, in situations of fairly straightforward business cases, it would be hard to see perceivable gains from the use of Winshuttle.
At times, the use of complex business process with multiple fields from one transaction needs to be fed into the next for further processing, if the screen sequence changes based on each set of information, the processing could fail. However, these could be overcome by grouping similar screened transactions into one chunk and others into another.
While K2 blackpearl is powerful, it shouldn't be an automatic selection for all situations. A careful analysis of business requirements, cost, and projected long-term use is required before choosing a K2 offering over a competitor, as is true with almost any other business product. The more hands-on development you can get with K2 blackpearl the better you will be at determining if it's the correct product for your needs. Don't let a sales pitch sway you into purchasing or using the product; experience what it can do for yourself!
Fantastic tool and honestly the best out there for the particular need. I cannot think of any reason we wouldn't renew as it truly offers the perfect solution to what is often a supremely difficult process. Also, I believe that from a cost perspective it is quite agreeable given the amount of benefit/ROI received
K2 platform has multiple designers (Web based designer ,k2 studio, visual studio) each targeted at business analysts,power users, and developers. The platform provides consistent web experience in workspace navigation for users and admins and provides excellent reports out of box.
- I have used Winshuttle Transaction and Direct and the interface is simple, intuitive and easy to understand. - Not much technical knowledge of SAP is required before loading the data. - Data can be loaded for any sheet of an Excel spreadsheet - Output messages from Winshuttle are very clear and can be used to as an input to other data loads that use these output data
They were always super helpful when I was learning how to use the program, and assisted me frequently when I came across unknown errors in the workspace
The winshuttle staff are some of the best in the business. I have been working with them for several years and always have had a positive interaction. There support staff are very knowledgeable. There product managers are very supportive as well and always open to hear feedback on how you like the product and any gaps that you would like to find a solution to better improve the products.
It was a complete online training with virual machine provided by K2. All the infrastructure was set up before hand. The training material was pretty thorough. The instructor was knowledgeable. Overall the training program was well designed and planned.
What previously stood K2 apart from Nintex was purely the ability to have workflows executed outside of SharePoint. Nintex are due to release a product that resides in Azure that provides this feature as well. K2 should really look into redesigning the development GUIs they are not good at all, and perhaps look at providing a cloud solution to mitigate the risk of clients having to maintain hardware as well as their workflow solutions.
Winshuttle works better with SAP than UiPath does in terms of performance and stability. The time to deploy a Process in Winshuttle is faster and less complex. It doesn't require coding skills as much as for UiPath. Winshuttle excels in batch input operations and also has a useful query reporting tool.
Excellent tools for measure process cycle time, identifying process delays, and making significant improvements to processes.
Increased efficiency through delivery of process information to stakeholders that minimizes delays, especially when processes are running across multiple time zones, and involve people who are traveling or away from their desktop.
