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Summary
As is becoming more of a trend in the world of EDI, the CovalentWorks EDI product is a strictly web-based software as a service offering that aims to provide ease of use, ease of deployment while still maintaining the key benefits of EDI and EDI integration in the form of reduced paperwork, lower per transaction costs and increased efficiency. Ultimately, however, while the product does a good job at presenting an easy to use product and a good delivery method, the integration aspects of the product are lacking and the requirement that customers send all their data through a third party web site is simply not strong enough of a value proposition for this product. There are equally good alternatives out there that will give you far lower long-term cost of ownership.
Strengths
Like many web-based products, the strengths of the CovalentWorks product lies in its web based nature. Getting started with the CovalentWorks EDI product is straight forward, relatively easy and requires little if any up front work from the customer. These strengths have always been paramount in the rapid adoption of web-based EDI by small companies and first time users of EDI. As an integration platform, however, the limitations that such a platform bring into the picture far outweigh the benefits.
Limitations
The single biggest limitation of the CovalentWorks product is the inability for users to bring their data in house and to manage their own integrations. Like many other web based products CovalentWorks EDI service is only as useful as your willingness to allow a third party to manage your EDI and your integration projects. From a growth perspective this is going to be limiting and costly. Other weaknesses of the product include a challenging interface for building new maps and for adding new trading partners.
Wish List
An easier to use product, and above all else more control of our own data with the product.
Product Ratings
The product ratings below reflect our evaluation of CovalentWorks with a rating score that ranges from 1 to 5, with 1 equaling “fail” and 5 being an “Excellent”. Our overall score for CovalentWorks is of 3 out of a total possible of 5.
| Product Area |
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| Setup & Installation |
Installation of CovalentWorks was easy and required almost no work - primarily because of the web based nature of the product. |
4 |
| Interface |
The interface is simplistic but relatively easy to use. |
3 |
| Features |
The CovalentWorks product has features and capabilities but does not allow users to easily add new integrations without relying on CovalentWorks - a big limitation. |
2 |
| Ease of use |
Easy to use and relatively intuitive interface. The lack of customer control brings it down a couple of points. |
3 |
| Automation Capabilities |
Limited automation capabilities make this product challenging for growing companies,for more advanced operations this quickly becomes a problematic solution. |
2 |
| Integration capabilities |
While integration is part of the CovalentWorks picture, the implementation is not very flexible and provides limitations for all but the smallest companies.. |
2 |
| Performance |
While the product performs reasonably well it's far behind in overall performance to leaders in the category like EMANIO, INOVIS and others. |
3 |
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Overall Score |
3 |
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Our Team
About Team 
The strength of EDI Software Review is the individuals that make up the team. In fact, we believe that our team consists of a group of uniquely talented individuals. Each of the team members is an experienced consultant that is operationally savvy, demonstrating a deep levelof experience. Each member of the team has an intense commitment to board service and to working closely with the management teams of software companies to provide an unbias independant review. |
