Item: Progress Kendo UI
Rating: 10
Author: Robert Burgh

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Progress Kendo UI for web and mobile apps. We develop products that are licensed to thousands of clients. Some clients request custom add-on apps, this is where the widgets get the most use for us. Also all of our in-house projects take advantage of the widgets.

Pros and Cons

Grids - The options are very useful. Drag and Drop. Integration with other controls such as comboboxes, buttons and images.
Charts - We create many different dashboards for our clients. This is a strong point of Kendo UI.
Spreadsheet - It is becoming more and more value added to our solutions for data import, export and review.
Treeview - An excellent visual tool for data relationship display and manipulation. We usually use it with Drag and Drop to add / remove / move data points.

The web site does not have versions in the forum or most of the documentation. So as features are improved, old method and events, etc. are deprecated, there is no simple to know which product version is being referenced. This is my biggest pain point.
Database binding examples - more examples please
PDF Export - better documentation and more examples. More feature control (unless it already exists and it isn't clearly documented).
Initial project use - the documentation to add to an existing project or to a blank project can be confusing because of the lack of version specific documentation. I would like to have a single place to go to for documentation that I can select via drop down the Telerik product, the version (2017.2.504), the target development environment (VS 2015 SP3, VS 2017), etc. to have the specific instructions. That would cut down the learning curve and issues on version updates. We consider Kendo UI a valuable tool, however this simple issue can be painful and there is no reason for it.

Return on Investment

UI and UX are what the majority of the End Users think of when using applications. Kendo UI has simplified our providing both to our clients.
Occasionally, we will go down a rabbit hole over some seemingly unexplained issue. Typically it is addressed in an update. An example is "Missing Data" in charts.
Overall we know that as we've gained experience, we can quickly accomplish the tasks we undertake.

Alternatives Considered

Infragistics. We currently have an active license, but are using Kendo UI much more. The documentation and examples ultimately made the difference in deciding where to expend our efforts. There is only so much time in the day to spend trying to learn new products. We will put the time to the choice that makes it easier to learn.

Key Insights

Do you think Progress Kendo UI delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Progress Kendo UI's feature set?

Yes

Did Progress Kendo UI live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Progress Kendo UI go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Progress Kendo UI again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Ignite UI, Microsoft Azure, Visual Studio IDE

Usability

The documentation is generally very good. The examples and demos are useful to get started. The default properties will get the app running and are easily updated. The few times that I needed support, I received a response quickly and to the point. There really isn't much more to ask for usability.

Support Rating

I am customer of progress for a number of years and Telerik before that. I have always chosen to opt in for the best support plan. I hardly have ever need to use it, when I have put in a support request via email or phone, the response was always quick, professional and on point. In this industry that is refreshing. The support usually include sample code. The ten rating is deserved.

Likelihood to Recommend

First the suite is feature rich, second it is well documented, third is it well support, fourth it is has a clear roadmap and fifth it is reasonably priced. Anything web based or mobile based is a good candidate for reviewing the feature set of progress Kendo UI for use. That is our business case.

Users and Roles

3 - As a niche vertical market, the team members familiar with Progress Kendo UI are more than the coders. While only three coders "use" Kendo UI, the seven or eight other members of the team visit Progress' web site to review the capabilities and new features of the widgets. They use what they see during internal discussions, stand up meetings, etc.

This is important when we are reviewing business cases, creating storyboards and setting priorities. Since our team members follow the Kendo UI roadmap and learned that we can trust it, we have become confident in the new features that we are able to offer to our clients. Being able to focus on domain knowledge while Progress focuses on UI is very valuable for us.

Support Headcount Required

3 - We have a client base of approximately 1000 sites using our Food Safety application.

As we add more functionality to our apps, we've added more support staff. Our in-house support for Kendo UI is focused on client feature requests rather than "break / fix" issues. We consider a positive use for support staff.

Business Processes Supported

New apps for our family of products. These apps are available to all clients.
Quick development of client requests. Currently this involves many of the chart functions.
Rich feature set
Lipstick on the pig. Our legacy application is 20 years old. While the completely new version is being designed and built, we are able to add modern UI and UX to key functions.

Innovative Uses

As a front UI to legacy apps for data entry. That wasn't on the radar when we purchased the product.
Using the grid control with other controls in the row templates.
Charts, charts, charts - way better than anything else we've seen.

Future Planned Uses

We are intending to use Kendo UI as the UI when designing the UX for new version of our primary offering.
In house line of business applications

Likelihood to Renew

It gives us reliable controls to incorporate in our products and reduces development time. The support is first class in an industry known for horrible support. The documentation is always improving. The examples and demos are meaning and helpful. The addition of angular, react, vue and blazor give me more choices in design.

Products Replaced

Yes - Infragistics has a similar set of offerings. For several years, we maintained licenses for both products. During the time we developed using both products to learn and determine which would be the best for us. We even considered that it would be possible to use both. Progress won out for us in documentation and support. We didn't even need to compare feature set.

Key Differentiators

Product Usability
Prior Experience with the Product
Vendor Reputation

Documentation and Support are number one to us. Usable examples are a must. The road map is a nice to have item.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

With twenty twenty hindsight, we would create a number of small proof of concept apps that test only the widgets and their feature set how we would like use them. This would have "stress tested" the documentation, examples and feature sets of each widget that we were interested in at the time without distraction.

Progress Kendo UI Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

Yes - Yes, I do. I consider it insurance. I rarely use it, but when I do, it is when I am in a time sensitive situation. I generally use the email because I can trust a quick response. I have used phone when I was in a crunch situation. Every time, Progress' support team came through.

Kendo UI gets the UX

Overall Satisfaction with Progress Kendo UI