JAMS vs. Lightning Tools Actions

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
JAMS
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
JAMS is a centralized workload automation and job scheduling solution that runs, monitors, and manages jobs and workflows. Reliably orchestrate the critical IT processes that run your business from a single pane of glass.N/A
Lightning Tools Actions
Score 10.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Lightning Tools Actions is a complement to Lightning Forms, but can also be used independently of Lightning Forms. Rather than opening individual items to update fields such as Approval Status, Resetting field values such as holiday entitlement, or sending emails to notify creators of items that a request has been approved, Lightning Tools Actions provides the ability to create new command bar buttons with actions that can be performed against multiple selected items.
$1,200
per year per installation
Pricing
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
List Actions
From $1200
per year per installation
List Actions Enterprise Edition
POA
per year per installation
List Actions Plus (with Document Generator)
From $1800
per year per installation
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $1.20 per user on top of annual fee. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online version)Prices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. Not available for SharePoint OnPremises (2007 - 2019)
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Considered Both Products
JAMS
Chose JAMS
Our developers found it easier to get going with JAMS and there seemed to be better calendar and scheduling options available in JAMS. JAMS also supported legacy OS versions that were unsupported and did not work in Automic. This was a vital requirement in selecting a solution …
Chose JAMS
I have not researched other workload automation products.
Chose JAMS
Tidal is a very good scheduler but very expensive and customers can't budget for this. REvScheduler is a lot cheaper but the interface isn't very aesthetics and functionality is lacking compared to JAMS. Out of all of them I'd recommend JAMS.
Chose JAMS
In my opinion, while JAMS is useful for point and click like developers, Astro is more useful for software developers, whole like to see "scheduling as code". in the long run, I think Astro might overtake JAMS in terms of usage and use cases that it satisfies across the tech …
Chose JAMS
JAMS was much more cost-effective and easier to use. JAMS allowed us to centralize our job scheduling more fully. Converting from our previous, very limited scheduler to JAMS would be far more accessible than Automox.
Chose JAMS
N/A. I don't have any experience with different Job Management Software. Since JAMS is capable of doing most of our daily operations, we didn't look for other software. I can say that JAMS perfectly fits with us and with our clients. I've only heard about Direct M, which, based …
Chose JAMS
We switched from Automic Automation. JAMS is so much easier to implement, patch, upgrade, and push agents. It takes more steps to conduct activities in JAMS than in UC4.
Chose JAMS
I had evaluated 2 others in 2010/2011, but I do not remember their names. This was the easier one to work with and had a better looking, sometimes more professional looking UI than what I was evaluating. JAMS was more scaleable and had the ability to make custom interfaces to …
Chose JAMS
Mainly i've been using SQL Agent jobs in my career. JAMS takes scheduling a bit further. For instance, i would rather not have SQL Server run a job that is performing an SFTP step. Waste of resources and a job like that is well suited for JAMS
Chose JAMS
I might've used other scheduling mechanisms (such as in SQL Server), but JAMS, although with more 'moving pieces', is way more flexible.
Chose JAMS
JAMS is easier to use, provides more features and was easier to manage form a central location. simple features in JAMS were missing from VisualCron such as a projected daily schedule. The install setup with a client and agents was better suited for us too
Chose JAMS
It's just different. The views are different, how you set it up is different. It's not good or bad, just different. I think JAMS offers more options when it comes to how jobs run. Like you can use sequence, or setup a job to run based on a number of different dependencies.
Chose JAMS
While Redwood offers a modern UI, JAMS is much easier to use. For basic operations, it's simple to create a job and schedule it. For those with more experience, JAMS offers much more robust features to take advantage of.
Chose JAMS
We use Kace also because it has an agent on every machine, so tasks that push out installations tend to go there. I'm not sure if Jams can do that, but if it does it's not clear that it does.
Chose JAMS
While visualcron provided more guardrails and user centric GUI, JAMS had a better resiliency functions with their clustering and service polling and failovers. We tested this and were able to maintain a large library of jobs and data the seamlessly switches between data …
Lightning Tools Actions
Features
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Workload Automation
Comparison of Workload Automation features of Product A and Product B
JAMS
8.0
Ratings
3% below category average
Lightning Tools Actions
10.0
Ratings
19% above category average
Multi-platform scheduling8.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Central monitoring8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Logging8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Alerts and notifications8.10 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Analysis and visualization6.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Application integration7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Apache Airflow
Apache Airflow
Score 8.6 out of 10
Apache Airflow
Apache Airflow
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Redwood RunMyJobs
Redwood RunMyJobs
Score 9.6 out of 10
Redwood RunMyJobs
Redwood RunMyJobs
Score 9.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
JAMSLightning Tools Actions
Likelihood to Recommend
It's currently one of the best of the lower entry cost options out there, as it currently is a set license cost, not based on the number of jobs executed. In the hands of a good script writer and users with workflow experience, it's a powerful tool to accomplish just about any process that you have a need to complete.
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We use SharePoint to manage over 100 legal litigation cases. We also use SharePoint for all of our internal billing and time keeping. There is great need for different SharePoint sites to be able to have access to other lists and data sources. List Actions provides an easy-to-use interface that we use to implement file copies between sites, workflow tracking of medical records through our medical collections department, send out medical record requests using the enhanced SendMail options. We have automated many tasks that used to take up considerable time and were error-prone. Having the logic of a workflow with all the steps carried out with a click of a button is great. Plus it is very fast.
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Pros
  • The Activity Monitor clearly shows the Running Jobs, and Jobs that are to run soon. Successful Jobs can be viewed as well. The Refresh of this monitor is completely customizable to your liking.
  • Job Definitions are very well organized by use of Folders. This simplifies the structure of how to best Implement JAMS Jobs, including the ability to provide specific properties on each folder - whereby Jobs will inherit these properties.
  • Connectivity to servers is well thought out by having Shortcuts to include Credentials and Connection Store for server information.
  • JAMS Jobs can be controlled via System Resources. This is very powerful and is a very useful configuration found in JAMS.
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  • Allow for workflow actions to be executed at the view level.
  • Has a full range of available tools. It's not just email for an approval.
  • Super easy to use and configure.
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Cons
  • It would be very helpful if the application had the ability to display help text based on where the cursor is hovering on the screen. There are many times when a brief explanation of an on-screen prompt would be very handy. For example, when you attempt to Cancel a job from the Monitor, you are presented with the checkbox that says "Reprocess completion?" It would be very nice if you could hover over the prompt and see a pop-up help screen that explains what happens if you check this checkbox. The same applies to all the checkbox options presented when you attempt to "Release" a job from the Monitor.
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No answers on this topic
Likelihood to Renew
We have built JAMS into our scheduling process. Its a great scheduling tool. I'm not 100% on the execution side as we have had issues with what i'll refer to as compatibility issues with ssis variables, but it executes sql agent jobs perfectly, so when i have an issue i create a sql agent job and have JAMS execute the sql agent job on the schedule from JAMS
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No answers on this topic
Usability
9/10 as there are so many features I have not tried as of yet. It is easy to get started but as jobs become more complex you tend to employ more and more features - Some of which can be complicated at first. This all comes down to experience using the system. Out first setup and current setup are vastly different as we learn how to use the full power.
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No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
We didnt really encounter any downtime, no issues encountered during 2 years of use of JAMs also our client barely raise an issue with JAMS, mostly the issues is on the batch jobs that jams executes. So I would gave it a perfect 10, very reliable hardly encounters any error and bug
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No answers on this topic
Performance
JAMS performance is very great, there are no issues raised with the performance, it just like nothing happens on the job after integration it gives you this monitoring capability, no reports and bugs raised on the performance, we didnt do integration with other software only database and with use of JAMS agent to different servers
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
I am giving support an 11, the turn around time is insane. At times I get a reply in minutes. The directions to fix are precise and easy to follow. They are personable and friendly and never treat me less than they would a fortune 500 company (which I am not one of).
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No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
People that were involved in the POC found the training a lot easier to follow. I think most people would have preferred to just get the training material and run through themselves.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
I Was not part of the original Implementation, and the persons did that are no longer with the Organization. But I was part of the recent Upgrade process a year ago and I am the JAMS admin and was very pleased
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
We chose JAMS because it was the best solution for our business needs, a major factor being the licensing model and the simplicity of the app. We needed to migrate things fast too and this was simply plug and play without too much headache
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Scalability
By installing Agents on servers throughout the organizations, you can run a DB Script on a DB Server, move files around the network and kick off jobs on servers in different parts of the organization: JAMS Runs on its own server, isolated from others. Through an agent on a Processing Server (work Server) files can be picked up, processed and moved to a destination server to be processed into another application on another server. You don't need an agent if you are just moving files around, you need an agent if you want to run a process or API Call on the destination server.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • SOX auditing has been part automated saving days of work for the people involved.
  • The ability for jobs to react to different failure values has enabled us to do away with overnight human monitoring ultimately contributing to saving us in the 6 figures.
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  • I have looked at every competitor out there and this tool plus the Forms designer is very affordable. It has become an integral part of our business.
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ScreenShots

JAMS Screenshots

Screenshot of the Visual Job Editor - a drag and drop editor for tasks is used to build multistep workflows that include dependencies, user input, parallel processes, and triggers.Screenshot of the Centralized Job Repository - here users store job definitions, schedules, and parameters in one central database.Screenshot of the Job Monitor - this displays the status of jobs and workloads from one central monitoring console. Viewers can drill down on individual jobs to diagnose failures, dependencies, and expected completion times.Screenshot of a Dashboard - Here, users can create data-rich visuals to monitor critical batch jobs and workflows running on various agents and on different business applications.Screenshot of the Centralized Job Repository - Stores job definitions, schedules, and parameters in a central database.

Lightning Tools Actions Screenshots

Screenshot of SHAREPOINT LIST ACTION BUTTONS
Action buttons can be added to SharePoint lists, like this Expense Approval button. The button performs multiple actions on the SharePoint list items such as modifying the Approved field to Yes, Sending an email notification to the Expense Claimant, and Reloading the page. The Line Manager can select multiple items and approve them all in one click, rather than visit each item individually.Screenshot of ADDING SHAREPOINT LIST ACTION BUTTONS
SharePoint List Action buttons can be created quickly, with no coding experience required, and List Owners or Designers can create the buttons and actions within the context of the list itself.  Action buttons can also be configured to display only to the user with the rights to perform the action.Screenshot of BUILDING A SERIES OF LIST ACTIONS
Actions that can be configured include Updating field values with simple or complex expressions, sending emails, adding list items, creating list items or folders, running custom script, and calling other workflows.