With a high emphasis on security and with shrinking processing windows, organizations depend on a fast, secure and reliable file transfer solution. They need the right file at the right time and do not want to have to depend on unreliable transfer methods such as, File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Files need to move fast enough to keep up with today's real-time business processes. Not getting critical files at the right time is a risk that organizations cannot afford to take.

In addition to the predictable, security-rich file transfers that IBM Sterling Connect:Direct ensures, integration with Workload Automation on Cloud automates the entire file transfer process guaranteeing the success of any subsequent processing like decryption, renaming, parsing, and retransmission of those files. It doesn't stop at automation, you have access to real-time monitoring, reporting, event management, and auditing. All the tools you need to react to delays or errors and automate recovery actions. When necessary, you can pair up your scheduled file movements with an on-demand file transfer.

Business scenario

A European children's clothing company has store locations across Europe. The headquarters are located in London. At the end of each day, the head office starts a number of processing tasks on all of the sales orders coming from all the stores. These processing tasks can only take place when all of the orders have been transferred from all locations.

Workload Automation triggers the processing tasks only after all of the orders have arrived successfully to the head office. This prevents processing from occurring when information is missing or incomplete. Automatic alerts notify Operations when orders that are expected to arrive at a certain time are running late. This gives them time to react to delays and automate a recovery action and retransmit the file.