Certinia PS Cloud software is a cloud-based services solution that is built on the Force.com platform. It allows companies to manage professional resources, customers, projects and financials in one integrated services management application. Because the solution works natively with Force.com, it utilizes the same data for sales, services and finance on one system.
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Workday Professional Services Automation
Score 9.0 out of 10
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Workday Professional Services Automation automates the Opportunity to Cash process, connecting HCM and ERP data to match the right talent to projects, reducing manual errors and revenue leakage.
Simplification of multiple operations within the business and easy scheduling and task management through FinancialForce PSA is effective and easy tracking multiple previous project activities is easy. Automation tools stability is good, and flexibility on services production and even the connection of customers with services providers is amazing and the development life cycle management is incredible.
Workday Professional Services Automation is a great product for large companies that have standardized, repetitive processes. The ability to automate tactical HR tasks is essential for business productivity, and Workday Professional Services Automation delivers well in this area. However, when a non-standardized process occurs, it is difficult to modify the system in a way that doesn't create confusion for the end-user, resulting in a less than desirable HR experience. For example, when my small company was acquired, our parent business utilized the software for transferring employees from the acquired business to the parent business to ensure they could sign up for health benefits, payroll, etc on Day 1; but, because every form is interrelated, the in-house Workday team was either unable or unwilling to change their workday "standard" fields for offer letters. As VP of HR for the acquired team, I had to meet one-off with each acquired employee to reassure them that certain clauses in the standard offer letter would not apply, explain why their personal email addresses were being used instead of their business ones, and assure them that they were being fully vested/transferred employees and were not considered "new employees" like the offer letter stated, etc.
Simplicity. I never felt like the system was too complicated to figure out, even as I was just starting out using it.
Efficient. I like how easy is it to get through the entire process and see all of the data in an easy to read manner. It's good for the company to be able to organize its expense data using the product.
Fast. I was able to complete my expense reports fast and pain-free.
The only part of FinancialForce that is very frustrating, is that we are unable to edit an invoice after it has been posted. The invoice is permanent and any small error can't be fixed, which means I have to create another invoice. Because of this, we have multiple "discarded" invoices in the system--forever!
There is another PSA software program that we have been looking into (DreamFactory) that could potentially replace FinancialForce PSA in our organization. Like FinancialForce PSA, it is cloud based on the force.com platform. Licensing is slightly less than FinancialForce PSA, and the Resource Management tool is far superior to FinancialForce PSA. With that said, our renewal falls in Q4 2014 and I don't foresee us implementing a new system this fiscal year.
From my standpoint, FinancialForce PSA is relatively easy to use. As a System Administrator, I am able to maneuver around the software with ease. As a user of FinancialForce PSA, I am able to input my timecards and expense reports without any issues. I have received very positive and very negative feedback about using FinancialForce PSA, however, from users in other functional roles in my organization.
Most of the time it is fine. There are peak periods of usage where performance noticably slows down (i.e., Monday mornings when time is due and many reports are being run)
Every time I submit a new help request, whether it's an actual help request or just a question about FinancialForce PSA, I always feel that I'm receiving world class support. The support we receive from FinancialForce PSA is always very detailed and professional. There are some requests that take longer than other for the initial response, which is why I did not give a full 10.
With workday support options, I would like to see a more immediately responsive response option. Possibly a chat or a responsive email response team would be helpful.
Appirio did a good job, however, the user team didn’t know enough to make all the right configuration/customization choices. The team focused too much on replicating existing processes vs. reengineering them. In hindsight we should have had deep dive reviews at key milestones and enforced more focus on how the software would operate. We didn’t have access to true best practices expertise. In hindsight, a consultant from the outside would have been helpful to drive this.
PSA comes with a lot more data and reporting capabilities than were available at the time we switched from BigTime IQ. You get more features and functions with PSA, but the user interface is much much more difficult than BigTime. It was a fairly big trade-off to get more data and increase user accountability vs. a clean and simple tool that was easy to understand and use.
Workday Professional Services Automation is a happy medium between the other competitors. It is just enough to help you run your business, but simple to use that even smaller businesses can take advantage without a huge and taxing price tag. Its expandable and has been very well received at the companies I've worked at that use it.
We are a boutique consulting company and having FF PSA has allowed us to concentrate on the pre-sales side of business instead of being mired in the admin of projects and people.
There is some redundancy for our consultants in managing Project Tasks and timecards, however, this is more based on our business process than the product.
As a Managing Partner I love the 360 view of our business we get with SF and FF PSA.
