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
Compare with
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
(1-25 of 40)Robust tool of working with data warehousing
- Managing data warehousing.
- Integrating our servers to accelerate components.
- I have not experienced any challenge from the operation of this great tool.
- All the data tools function excellently.
Access High Performance SSIS with SolarWinds Task Factory
- With Task Factory, it is easy to connect data from multiple sources such as SharePoint, Microsoft Excel, Facebook, etc.
- Extension of SSISS with zero coding has enabled us to save time while managing the data warehouse.
- Also, SolarWinds Task Factory makes it easy to automate metadata tasks in real-time.
- Pricing is way too expensive compared to other alternatives.
- Unavailability of existing mobile application.
SolarWinds Task Factory Review
- Improve performance.
- Increase productivity.
Speeds up ETL development but concerned about future direction
- Merge (Insert/update) loads.
- SharePoint connectors.
- Row filters.
- It was built by Pragmatic Works who sold it to SentryOne and now Solar Winds, concerned about future support. SolarWinds is discontinuing support for related products such as BiXpress.
- Had issues with connecting to certain versions of SQL Server - would fail when deploying one package - had to deploy the entire solutions.
- Occasional random failures observed with the Filter tranform.
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 and slowly changing dimensions
- Slowly changing dimensions.
- Error logging during the process.
- Ease of setup.
- The ability to move records to different tables based on the data.
- None
Task Factory Speeds Development
- Email notifications.
- File management.
- User defined settings for external package calls.
- Better software update methodology.
Upgrade to Upsert
- Fast, large updates and deletes.
- Simple Upsert logic.
- Very nice integrated help, including video.
- Easy to install, well documented, and easy to use.
- Support was excellent under Pragmatic Works. I cannot attest to Sentry One.
- We had one case of an upgrade that would not work with existing code. They did release a next version very quickly.
I bought Task Factory for the Upsert, Bulk update, and Bulk delete tools. It was WELL worth it to not have to develop bulk loading techniques ourselves.
I never got the chance to use the nuggets tool for generic code patterning.
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.
Task Factory Review
- Task Factory does a pretty good job in terms of connecting to any 3rd-party website/Web API/CRM and downloading/uploading files into them without using any program code.
- Task Factory makes it easier to encrypt/decrypt incoming/outgoing files.
- I believe they should improve the "address parser" feature where it simply parses the incoming address but didn't check/verify whether the incoming address is valid (or) checks whether the address has USPS address standard format.
Task Factory is less effective in a SharePoint connection feature task where they don't have a variable option to overwrite the existing file in SharePoint site.
A tool every BI developer should have
Specifically, we can use it to download a zip file and decompress it and later use TF Upsert to update or insert zip code data into tables.
- Upsert data on dimensions
- Read XML and JSON information from website
- Allow Upsert to just load bulk data
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.
Task Factory's Integration with Salesforce
- Easy to install, use and learn with basic SQL and SSIS knowledge.
- Wider component selection available for different use cases.
- I don't have any issues with the program.
Good tool but needs to catch up to the competition
- Rest API
- FIle properties
- Secure FTP task
- Upsert
- Amazon Connectors
- S3 Connectors
- Red Shift Connectors
- Tableau Connectors
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.
Task Factory Review
- Connect and access data in Salesforce
- Slowly changing dimensions task
- Error codes and descriptions
- I haven't used enough in recent months to suggest improvements.
Helpful supplement to our SQL Server's base offerings
It is used in support of our organization-wide data warehouse.
- Upsert - simplifies coding.
- Facilitates an odbc connection to the Sales Force world without the complication of using APIs.
- Various other utilities to simplify ETL development.
- We have run into compatibility issues or low level problems between SQL server and Task Factory. Working with both SentryOne and Microsoft, they both ended up blaming each other and not offering a fix.
Because of bugs/complications with data type conversions (eg. Decimal to Numeric), care must be taken when converting numeric types.
Task Factory saves vast amounts of time
Although this was the main reason for the purchase, there are so many other components we use in SSIS like the termination task, the Sharepoint task, and the email task. Some of these tasks seem like "no brainers" that should be in SSIS by default!
- Upserts to Oracle and SQL Server
- Email
- Secure FTP
- Cleaning up DB objects when Upserts fail
Task Factory Makes ETL Development Easier
- Advanced Email task makes it easier for an end-user to configure.
- Fact Load task makes the data flow much easier to manage than the OOTB lookup function in SSIS.
- Dimension Load task makes it easier to track multiple dimension types when loading into the DB.
- Would really like to see an SSRS generate PDF output with parameter input.
- Load improvement for larger datasets in the Upsert function.
- Consistency with expressions for every task.
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.