Microsoft Project Server vs. Planview Portfolios

You will be able to do the project management (scheduling, tasks assignment, resources allocation, cost tracking) for all your projects in one place, where the team members can contribute and keep the plans up to date. The web version does the main job right but if you find it more difficult to use you just use the standalone Microsoft Project and upload the changes back to the server.

Incentivized

Planview Portfolios is well suited to provide a single, central, view of the truth. There is clear expansion capabilities to integrate it as a true Enterprise toolset with existing organisation wide (not just delivery) - you can pick and choose what you need to implement and that list gets longer. The ability to quickly gain an understanding of resources within the overall portfolio and some really clever tools regarding capacity and demand modelling. I think the only challenge we have encountered is modelling our Business as Usual activity to a level of detail - this is due to other tools being very embedded not just in the organisation but across a lot of industries.

Incentivized

• Ability to update project plans on the move in any location. Plans can even be updated offline and saved back to the server when the connection is reestablished.
• Visibility of resource assignments across the company allows us to plan project start dates easily and effectively.
• Being a Microsoft product, it is intuitive to administer and easy to configure to our individual requirements.

Incentivized

• Out of the box analytics. Canned, but modestly configurable reports that provide quick insights to project and resource performance.
• Flexible configuration enables resource management at a macro or micro level.
• Modeling (what-if). I can create projects, load with resources and quickly stack it against our existing portfolios to identify conflicts and optimize scheduling.

Incentivized

• Resource loading and leveling extremely complicated within the tool
• Software makes incorrect assumptions and changes without user knowledge
• Inconsistencies within the tool make it hard to predict & troubleshoot

Incentivized

• Capturing lower-level detailed expenditures within a project so that financial screens can show the details of the roll-up.
• Reporting flexibility so that end users can create their own quick ad hoc reports for analysis.
• Capturing matrixed skills on resources to ensure staffing is adequate and better align demand to supply.

Incentivized

Portfolios are useful enterprise solutions for new and old use cases. They have robust reporting capabilities and many opportunities to customize the functions without additional costs. Although some desired features are still in development, and the reporting infrastructure has some issues, Portfolios continue to offer more capabilities than we can take advantage of at any time.

Incentivized

We don't have to worry about maintenance, upgrades, or compatibility issues. All the capabilities we need are there, and are easily customizable.

Perfect tool for planning resource time management. Giving flexibility with ease in uptodate . Team collabration . Team aligment. Top management aligment. Close the project with feed back . Team aligment. Expert contribution in task . Task management easy for project manager . Nice tool to have for project manager. Cost contol & project management is very easy with Planview

Incentivized

We are long time Planview users and its availability is only limited to our internal SLAs for nightly backups. I have never experienced any unexpected or prolonged software downtime from Planview itself.

There are occasions when the system is a bit sluggish. However, it may not always be on the Planview side. We are investing in better tools to monitor our network performance, which will help us diagnose issues more effectively in the future.

Incentivized

Consultants are knowledgeable and friendly; it is easy to build relationships with the support people you work with and they learn how best to help you. The vendor is continuously looking for honest feedback about their tool and they use that information to design their product roadmaps

Generally good. Sometimes, users are a bit overwhelmed, and it takes multiple sessions for them to get the hang of it.

Incentivized

Per Microsoft, Project Online provides more value long-term by reducing infrastructure cost and increase feature release cycle time

Always have a pre-implementation meeting or conference call with Planview to ensure all are on the same page, disclosure of all and any customization (including reports) and plan for support after implementation of a specified amount of time with the assigned implementation resource. And document everything

I have used Basecamp which I recommend for all! This is one of my top tools for not only company projects however for projects, meetings, communication outside of work. We use Basecamp for our membership organization's dental meetings in other states to communicate events, chat with participants, send donation requests and organize events on the platform. There really is no learning curve, it's super user friendly, you don't need any experience prior and it's cost effective.

Incentivized

We are currently using Planview AgilePlace. Also we use Tasktop Hub for integrating with other applications within the organization. We would like to use ProjectPlace which is integrated with Planview Portfolios in the future.

Incentivized

We are constantly growing and expanding. It is challenging to accommodate different user needs, but the system does provide means of doing that as we desire.

Incentivized

• Better project management and schedule tracking which in turn improved employee's efficiency.
• Licensing aspect is complex. Issues with onboarding new users to system from licensing perspective.
• Positively, financial review process can be tailor-made which may not require further customization of the tool.

Incentivized

• The positive impact is the ability to manage our projects enterprise wide.
• Managing and reporting on projects and programs via portfolios makes it easy to identify troubled projects/programs that need immediate attention.
• The negative is that pushing too much change too quickly is hard for us. We need to get our users focused on the basics of PM before we can adopt everything else. We need to introduce change to different companies based on their maturity level. Too much change too quickly is not always beneficial. We need to focus on core competencies.

Incentivized