Overview
What is SolarWinds Task Factory?
According to the vendor, SolarWinds Task Factory saves time managing tedious ELT/ETL tasks with high-performing SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) components that can be used within the Visual Studio environment to connect to nearly any data source. Task Factory’s components…
Robust tool of working with data warehousing
Access High Performance SSIS with SolarWinds Task Factory
SolarWinds Task Factory Review
Speeds up ETL development but concerned about future direction
Task Factory makes me look great!
Task Factory and slowly changing dimensions
Task Factory Speeds Development
Upgrade to Upsert
A Package for your Packages!
Love Task Factory!
Task Factory: great for saving time !
Business …
Task Factory: a must if you are serious in ETL development!
Task Factory great for connecting to external sources
Task Factory Review
A tool every BI developer should have
Awards
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Popular Features
- Complex transformations (35)9.696%
- Connect to traditional data sources (40)9.494%
- Simple transformations (39)8.787%
Pricing
Task Factory
1,245 (annual subscription license)
Task Factory Azure Data Factory
1,495 (annual subscription license)
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Features
Data Source Connection
Ability to connect to multiple data sources
- 9.4Connect to traditional data sources(40) Ratings
Ability to connect to traditional data sources like relational databases, flat files, XML files and packaged applications
Data Transformations
Data transformations include calculations, search and replace, data normalization and data parsing
- 8.7Simple transformations(39) Ratings
Simple data transformations are calculations, data type conversions, aggregations and search and replace operations
- 9.6Complex transformations(35) Ratings
Complex data transformations are data normalization, advanced data parsing, etc.
Data Governance
Data governance is the practise of implementing policies defining effective use of an organization's data assets
- 9.2Integration with data quality tools(2) Ratings
Integration with tools for cleansing, parsing and normalizing data according to business rules
- 9.6Integration with MDM tools(3) Ratings
Integration with master data management tools to ensure data consistency across the organization
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
What is SolarWinds Task Factory?
SolarWinds Task Factory Features
Data Source Connection Features
- Supported: Connect to traditional data sources
Data Transformations Features
- Supported: Simple transformations
- Supported: Complex transformations
Data Governance Features
- Supported: Integration with data quality tools
- Supported: Integration with MDM tools
SolarWinds Task Factory Screenshots
SolarWinds Task Factory Integrations
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Azure Machine Learning
- REST
SolarWinds Task Factory Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise |
---|---|
Operating Systems | Windows |
Mobile Application | No |
SolarWinds Task Factory Downloadables
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(64)Community Insights
- Pros
- Cons
Upsert Component: Highly praised for its simplicity and ease of use, the Upsert component in Task Factory has been mentioned by several users as a valuable feature. Users appreciate that with just a few clicks, they can perform merge operations without the complexities of writing code.
Extended Functionality: Many users find Task Factory to be highly beneficial due to its ability to extend the functionality of native SSIS components. This aspect allows them to work with a wider range of data sources and perform tasks that would otherwise be challenging with only native components.
Seamless Integration: The seamless integration capabilities of Task Factory have been highlighted by users. They mention specific use cases such as integrating with partners' Secure FTP sites, working with Excel, and sending out emails using partners' SMTP servers. Users appreciate how Task Factory simplifies these tasks and saves them significant time.
Challenging execution against non-licensed servers: Some users have found it challenging to execute packages against servers that do not have proper licenses, which has required them to search for alternative solutions or workarounds.
Lack of detailed logging for errors: Users have expressed a strong desire for more comprehensive and detailed logging capabilities when components encounter errors. This would enable better troubleshooting and analysis of issues during package execution.
Lack of notifications for software updates: Several users have mentioned that they were not notified or alerted when new versions of the software became available. This lack of notification caused them to miss out on important updates and improvements to the product.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-18 of 18)Task Factory makes me look great!
- The SFTP task is particularly helpful with proxy capabilities and setup with environment variables.
- The RestAPI task is something new that we have found helpful now.
- The latest UpSert task has also been a great addition.
- I thought it needed to improve the UpSert task to include delete capabilities but was informed it is present. Just might be useful to be more apparent to an infrequent user.
Task Factory Speeds Development
- Email notifications.
- File management.
- User defined settings for external package calls.
- Better software update methodology.
A Package for your Packages!
- One-click Auditing Feature. Simply push a button, and all of your SSIS packages now have detailed auditing built-in, including the ability to watch it in real-time.
- Wide variety of connections. If you need to connect to a common data source, Task factory will have what you need. No need to roll your own anymore.
- The Upsert Component. Task Factory has a simple and FAST way to do an insert or update with new row data. It just works and works well.
- SCD component could be a little more intuitive.
- The help documents could be more detailed and current with what is actually released.
Love Task Factory!
- Our first use case was integrating with our Partners' Secure FTP Sites. Task Factory did this seamlessly.
- Our second use case involved Excel. We have multiple groups that use Excel to monitor their processes, and using the Excel refresh task made this very quick and simple.
- Our third use case was for SMTP. The basic SMTP did not give us enough control out of the box that we needed. We send out E-mails on behalf of our partners using their SMTP servers, so being able to change those connections effortlessly using this task was a huge time saver.
- Not sure. I have not run into an instance where their transform didn't provide what I needed more easily than other solutions.
Task Factory: great for saving time !
Business problem: Your team can keep using SSIS and tackle data problems they could not resolve before (read from different sources without any code and do data upsert in one component).
- Read from APIs without code.
- Upset mechanism.
- Can be longer to debug.
- Need one license for dev servers.
- When the capabilities of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) are not enough for you.
- When you want to extract data from web sources without writing some code.
- If you have separate servers for all your environments (that will cost you more money).
- If your team does not know SSIS enough (the tool can be difficult to debug).
- The Slowly Changing Dimension Component saves us a huge amount if time compared to the native SSIS component.
- JSON Transform is really useful to convert record and send it to rest API.
- The advanced derived columns allow us to use really cool functions that are not available in the regular transforms.
- We were disappointed that the Marketto Connector has been retired from the components.
- We had a problem integrating Task Factory with LegiTest (license problem). It took a lot of time for Sentry to find and fix this problem
Task Factory great for connecting to external sources
- Easy to install.
- Easy to use.
- Great support if stuck.
- New connectors are not released very often.
- Updating the connectors is not an easy task.
- Troubleshooting a problem can be difficult.
Rather than programme your own connectors, the Task Factory connectors will make it simple and easy to download and parse data from JSON/XML into a database or table.
Task Factory is less suited for custom/very secure API connections especially if they require hashing the connection string each time.
I would use Task Factory even if it cost more!
- Tasks are more automated than having to create them by hand.
- Support is great either in forum settings or direct contact with support.
- Maybe ensuring that all assemblies are deleted when having to install Task Factory on the server.
Salesforce just got easier due to Task Factory
- Upsert Salesforce data.
- It is simple to use.
- Very straightforward upgrade process.
- Continually getting new features that are useful.
- More drag and drop interfacing.
- Modernize the UI.
Streamlined data processes
- Good SSIS integration with other packages and processes.
- Easy to configure 3rd party account logins, credentials, etc.
- Intuitive interfaces.
- The user-experience could be a little more intuitive. Struggled a bit to put all the pieces together the right way in order to get the data processed the way I needed.
Task Factory made things possible
- The task to call another package in a different solution
- Advanced lookup and other tasks
- Improvement can be achieved when new releases are tested better. We had a few times that our ETL stopped when implementing a new release.
Task Factory Delivers!
- Data validation
- Data cleaning
- Quickly building interfaces between databases, non-database sources, and packages.
- Would like to see more detailed documentation and examples.
Task Factory simplifies your workflow
- File related tasks.
- PGP tasks.
- Web related tasks.
- Create a snowflake transform - source & destination.
- simplify SCD transform - too many options.
Not so good to keep things updated.
Better quality outcomes with less code cutting
It speeds up development time by adding very useful transforms that are easier to use than the standard Microsoft transforms as well. It makes debugging and development faster.
- Expression editor is by far better than that in standard SSRS.
- The SharePoint destination and source is much easier to use than standard SSRS.
- The slowly changing dimension transform is very easy to use and adds a level of capability that gives a better outcome.
- More worked examples in the help.
Solve the problem without coding
- Retrieve data from various REST sources
- Data cleansing
- Data importing
- Offer more options in UI for different configurations of REST sources
- More details in documents
- It appears that REST connectors do not work well with Okta in place.
- Task Factory is intuitive and very easy to roll out.
- Versus the cost of paying for other tools or expensive custom development work, Task Factory is a deal.
- No complaints whatsoever about Task Factory. It does everything we expect it to do and performs well.
Thumbs Up for Task Factory!
- Better data cleansing and validation functions than are available in basic SSIS.
- Better database insert and update functions than in SSIS.
- Ease of use of functions provided.
- Re-introduce the prior feature to allow a user to copy or move SSIS variables from one package or scope to another.
- Provide a better upgrade path from one version of the product to another higher version. Our upgrade from 2008 to 2016 was quite complex and it seemed as though we might have been the first such upgrade Pragmatic Works had encountered.
Task Factory Review
- The single most beneficial component to Task Factory is the Upsert component. If you're familiar with writing MERGE statements in T-SQL, you'll appreciate the Upsert component. Drag the component into your Data Flow and a few clicks later you have a MERGE without the code complexities.
- Where some native SSIS components leave you wanting more, Task Factory extends on many of these components as well as support for data sources not native to SSIS components.
- The number of extra components that come in the Task Factory tool kit will expand your tool belt to do just about anything you need or want to accomplish in SSIS.
- Limited to only running on a licensed server or in BIDS. We have development servers that require licensing as well, but I've had to get creative to be able to execute packages against non-licensed servers.
- Wish the logging was more detailed when components error.
- Not alerted when a new version is available.
We have had our challenges with the Salesforce connection. It does not seem to process as efficiently as we'd like.