I am a huge fan of Activate. Many of nights were spent downing coffee whilst traveling down the massive rabbit-hole that is Activate. It does a few things very well. It does simple jobs horribly. So, who uses it? I do. In addition, I would love to hear about it if you used it as well. Most of the time that I get to one on one with other vaulters it is a topic quickly ignored. I even had one person say “What’s that?” yea- it is that product that no one really knows what to do with it. Kind of like Threatwise… What happened to that by the way?

But .. you need it? Yep. I mean there are items such as Stealthbits or Varonis that do it , kind of. So why not keep one pane of glass and just use activate? Well… it’s kind of not easy . Or intuitive. In addition, no one can help you. “Well, just use the Documentation” -- You use it. It is never what is needed. Typically the steps before or after what you need are there. Never the actual steps. 

So I have built some seriously amazing reports within Activate. It took weeks and would not work sometimes. But when I got them.. i got them. I haved used it to save some $$$ in the company. I have pinpointed some employees that were “habitual line steppers”( Kudos if you get the reference) that needed to be brought to the attention of security and or their direct report. Overall -- I use it monthly. But its amazing how not streamlined it is. 

So, if this is what you love about it.. what do you hate about it? Again… No one can help you. Commvault support simply pushes to towards inadequate documentation, which - honestly, I submit MA.commvault requests and I’m responded with some steps on how to get to where i need to be- but – nothing, Or I’m asked to request and pay for professional services. 

You can’t even put Activate into a conversation Category on the Community site… I rest my case.