Item: Tidal by Redwood
Rating: 9
Author: Ken Crawford

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Tidal Automation to run batch jobs for our payroll system, which is typically a few hundred jobs a night. We also use it to run IT-related jobs such as backups, system checks, maintenance, FTP transfers, etc.

Tidal Automation enables our business to have a graphical view into the schedule as well as control. If a job aborts, the schedule can pause or continue by using the events available. Our business is notified through these events so they can take action immediately for time sensitive jobs.

Job flow versatility is important to our business. Tidal Automation has many different options handling job dependencies that fulfill our needs.

Pros and Cons

Graphical view of what's going on in the schedule. Color coded jobs statuses, etc.
Lots of options for event handling.
Dependency flexibility.
Job Grouping and grouping options.

Still a bit slow when navigating. If you close a job you have to wait a few seconds to open another one. Even when you made no changes.
When viewing a job and make no changes, the "ok" button changes the last modified date as if you made a change. No big deal, but wastes time when troubleshooting a problem and looking into what jobs were changed last.
You can see the parameters column in the "job activity", but not in "Job definitions".
Can't search the parameters field in the filter.
Changing a variable name does not change it on the job. It still works because Tidal Automation uses the ID number. It just causes confusion when you see a variable on a job and can't find the variable under "Variables". On top of that, Tidal Automation does not show the ID column under "Variables" making it even more difficult to find the variable.

Return on Investment

Although I don't have hard numbers, with the amount of jobs that we have and the amount of "Special" circumstances the business requires, Tidal Automation fills the need. Running all these jobs manually would take a tremendous amount of employee time.

Key Insights

Do you think Tidal by Redwood delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Tidal by Redwood's feature set?

Yes

Did Tidal by Redwood live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Tidal by Redwood go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Tidal by Redwood again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Tidal Automation works great for running our payroll system. The jobs can be grouped up into "folders" for organization. It's easy for non-technical personnel to follow. The dependency functions are versatile. You can have dependencies on jobs outside or inside the group that's running. That's very helpful when you have special year-end "on-demand" jobs running in parallel with the current payroll group. You can label a dependency as "ignore if not in schedule" so when it does show up in the schedule it will be waited on at that time. This makes it so nice to just add a job in when needed without having to worry if it will run at the correct point.

Tidal Automation review, after 10 years of use.

Overall Satisfaction with Tidal Automation