Microsoft Project Server Reviews

My organization handles IT consulting and services. That's primarily how the organization is managed. The use case for this solution was to set up the resource development unit and manage the investment cost, scheduling, budgeting, and some of those new initiatives that were supposed to happen in the R&D division. That was why we were looking for a portfolio management product. We found that Project Server could be a way to visualize and govern the entire program for the client.

The solution has improved the organization primarily due to the transparency between each individual team. There is a productivity benefit. I've likely seen a 20% to 28% increase in productivity benefit over a year's time. From a cost perspective, I'm less sure of how to comment. That said, productivity and transparency are definitely the two benefits I've witnessed so far.

The most relevant feature is its collaboration capabilities. Users can easily collaborate, for example, on Sharepoint or Microsoft Teams. If there is a lot of heavy usage of Microsoft tools, it's easy to share and collaborate across apps.

The Excel interface is very good. 

The stability of the 2019 version is quite good.

The deployment aspect of the product is a bit tedious. That's something I personally see of my organization. Deploying Project Server from an infrastructure perspective is not an easy thing. It takes a week sometimes to set it up. 

From a features perspective, the insights around the cost and budget could be improved. Competitor products are more robust. Project Server has a very limited feature in terms of reporting. Specifically, the features around the cost control are weak. The built-in reports and the built-in analytics for Project Server are very minimal. The competitors are way ahead than what Project Server is offering us.

The initial setup was complex.

The integration to an employee engagement platform probably would make more sense and integrations with other products like SAP would be useful.

Users of Project Server need to write some amount of custom integrations to the DLP product innovation site. If you wanted to have resource analysis, you want to create invoices based on resources working on a project, that integration is still not there. Integrating with some of those invoice management systems would make more sense now based on the way enterprises are working in terms of automation.

The solution needs multi-language support. The tool primarily supports English as a primary language. If someone wanted to make it Arabic, the Project Server does not work well. The characters sets, the dates, and other things create a lot of mess.

We've been using the solution for around six years or so. We started using it in 2016.

When I was using the Project Server 2016, that was creating a lot of problems in terms of performance, in terms of export, input, the content. However, when we moved to Project Server 2019 three years ago, I would say it was an improved version. It's quite stable now. There have been a lot of technical advancements, and feature announcements. 2019 is a much more stable version.

Primarily the solution has been handled by the PMO team which is comprised of 20 users. They are mostly portfolio managers, program managers, and solution architects as well as an executive who usually uses it from a governance perspective.

Since this has been used by the portfolio managers, so it's basically bread and butter for the PMO team. It's used day in, day out and it's tracking a single source of truth from a program management perspective. In terms of expanding the portfolio, likely, the business will grow, and that's when we may add more users. By 2022, we might add five more users. That is what I foresee.

We go through a CSP partner for Microsoft due to the online nature of the deployment. Our CSP partner is quite helpful. We are pleased with the support quality they provide. I would rate them four out of five stars. 

The initial setup was complex. Any type of guidance or user training or helpful documentation and materials were not available.

The deployment took around seven to ten days. Deployment took really a long time. 

I will not be able to properly quantify what went wrong. I'm not sure if it was the infrastructure or the capacity planning or if the partner just wasn't quite capable. There could have been multiple issues. The general perception was that was supposed to happen within a day, maximum. It took around seven to nine all working days to just set up the environment.

We used partners. They were a Microsoft partner.

Since I was not managing the process, I can't give feedback in terms of how the partner was to work with, or their capabilities. 

The solution offers a subscription-based pay-as-you-go model.

Now that everyone has moved to the online version, it is my understanding that the approximate cost comes to around $350 to $400 USD per month. I see or close to $4,000 to $5,000 USD per annum.

We are simply a customer and an end-user.

Although we began with the on-premises version, we've recently started using the online version of the solution. That is primarily how we access it now.

From an advice perspective, for any enterprise that has an existing investment around Microsoft, it makes more sense in terms of moving to a Project Server to manage in a more structured way. However, if you do not use SharePoint, if you do not use Microsoft Teams or any sort of solution that is the real value of Project Server it's not necessary to use Project Server. This solution is best for those companies planning to have a commitment to Microsoft technology. It brings more value. 

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. It's lacking some features around budget cost and portfolio management. There are a few areas that could use improvement still. 

We primarily use the solution based on its mobility. I can use it online or via mobile phones or anywhere I can get internet access.

I'm able to curate the SPI (Schedule Performance Index) and the CPI (Cost Performance Index) that helps us measure the performance in regards to costs and even taxes that projects have.

I can create metrics about costs either project by project or phase by phase.

The permissions are the most valuable aspect of the solution. I can configure groups to access different information. The solution allows us to manage the project baseline very well. I can control the baselines in specific user groups, which is very useful for me.

The solution offers very good availability in that we can access it from anywhere, whenever we need to.

The usability is excellent.

We've found the user experience to be quite simple. The views and filters in particular are very good.

The reports need to be improved. It's complicated. The default views are good. However, we need more. We need to be able to compare milestones, calls, and other variables regarding the projects we are working on. I have to contract developers to make reports, which is where things get complicated. They need to develop personal and custom fields for us. We also need to use Power BI, which needs to connect with Project Server, in order to generate reports.

The scalability capabilities could be improved upon.

There should be an interaction between Microsoft's Planner app and this solution. Their Planner is a good solution. I would like them both to connect directly, with the Planner tasks in the Project plans. It would also be helpful if the solution integrated with Microsoft Teams. My company uses Office 365, and therefore it would be great if everything was integrated.

I've been using the solution for a long time. It's been longer than a decade. I'd say it's around 15 years at this point.

The solution's stability is good. Of course, it depends on the cloud provider. This is important. When you have a good cloud provider or infrastructure provider, stability is good. You have to play with the servers and processors and memory about the solution. When you have a good provider, it's no problem. When you have a bad provider, you have problems.

The scalability could be improved upon. Sometimes I want to create some instance or other Project Servers to create, for example, test environments. We need to create a test to do a pilot to sell the idea. However, it's complicated to establish what is the best instance to manage the project. 

We have about 2,000 users online, however, it depends on the cloud environment. How many users we have depends on the infrastructure provider. They ensure the scalability and stability of the environment.

We do plan to increase usage. We still have to configure new project types in the project server to gain more users. We want to achieve 1,000 users this year. Right now, I have 300 active users. The plan for this year is to include more project types in the project server throughout the environment and at the end to achieve 1,000 users, at a minimum.

I haven't really dealt with technical support. The relationship with Microsoft is in the IT area. I am not personally part of that group. I am the portfolio manager, therefore I don't have a direct relationship with Microsoft. That said, I'd say it's good, as I don't have any problems. When we have made a request to IT they answer it quickly. Therefore, I'd say we're pretty satisfied with the level of support on offer.

I used to use Clarity for our Agile projects, however, this solution is less expensive.

Clarity is good, however, it is complicated to use as it makes it more challenging for the final users to understand the project plans. Also, the templates to manage the project plans are complicated. I like Microsoft Project better than Clarity. 

At the moment, the initial setup is not overly complex. It's pretty straightforward. that's due to the fact that I know the solution very well. I've worked with the 2010 version as well and have ten years of experience and have used it in my everyday work for so long, the setup is not hard for me.

The deployment depends on the company and its culture. I have implemented Project Server in two months, which is pretty fast. However, it depends on the organization's needs. 

The reports, for example, are a viable gain for executive teams. When the executive teams watch good reports to manage the portfolio projects, it's easier to deploy the solution. 

My strategy is to do a pilot. Over two months, I may do ten projects. I'll generate reports and deliver good information and the executive team of the steering committee can easily see the value for the company. Once the pilot shows the value to the steering committee, I usually have the go-ahead to continue the deployment in our organization. 

We had five people for deployment and maintenance. It's a good number. You need one person, that knows the information in regards to users and other people training the other people. There should be another person working on the cost measures such as the reports. 

I handle the implementation myself. I have a good amount of experience and therefore don't need further experience. I don't need the help of integrators, resellers, or consultants.

While the solution is less expensive than Broadcomm's Clarity, it more expensive than Planview.

That said, I'm unsure of the exact pricing or how often we pay licensing.

We've also looked at Planview and Jira. We found that the solution has better technical support on offer than other options. That said, I like Planview as it's even less expensive than Project Server.

We are Microsoft Partners.

Currently, I am using Project Online and Project Server. The 2015 versions.

At the moment, I am in the process of deploying, the solution in more areas. I start with IT projects and telecom projects. Currently, I am working to introduce regular projects, marketing projects, product projects, etc. I am working to introduce more areas in the Project Server environment.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at an eight.

Most of the servers from Microsoft are used because of internal stakeholders' demands. With Dynamics 365, my company used an ERP tool. My company uses Microsoft Project Server as a tool to run various projects.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the tool's reporting is very good. The tool helps with better project management, allowing you to plan projects.

The product's UI is not very user-friendly. From an improvement perspective, I want the tool to offer a user-friendly UI. Microsoft should attempt to match the capabilities offered by the other players in the market.

Microsoft Project Server has issues with SharePoint, providing a not-so-user-friendly experience to users. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the product.

The high cost of the product is an area of concern. The product's price could be made lower.

I have been using Microsoft Project Server for five to six years. My company provides the solution to our customers.

It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It is a very scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Most of the company's customers prefer JIRA.

The solution's technical support is very good. The response from the product's support team takes less than twenty-four hours.

The product's initial setup phase is easy. It is not easy to work around the product.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The solution's deployment takes less than five minutes.

The product is expensive.

For scheduling and resource management of our company's projects, we use JIRA and Microsoft Project Server.

The reporting and analytics part of the product is very good.

The integration capability of Microsoft Project Server is phenomenal, and it serves as one of the reasons why the product has been holding up in a good way till now in the market.

For certain use cases, Microsoft Project Server is a good product. I would recommend the product to others who plan to use it since it is good when it comes to analytics and reporting.

The value or positive impact of the use of the product stems from the fact that it degrees with other products like Office 365 and other Microsoft solutions. Microsoft Project Server has been in the market for a long time. Over a period of time, I have seen a lot of features introduced in Microsoft Project Server. I believe that the product still has room for improvement.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

We use the tool in our IT-related projects. All IT efforts are managed using the Microsoft Project Server. Every week, we have a project status meeting where we demonstrate the project's status using the tool. We track tasks and progress, assign owners, and monitor milestones and all project-related work using it. 

We sometimes need support from the IT department for installing and deploying the Microsoft Project Server. It is not user-friendly, and users cannot install it themselves.

I have been using the product for four to five years. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

My company has 30-35 users. 

We contact local partners for support, and their support is okay. 

The tool's deployment is not difficult. We centrally deploy the Microsoft Project Server for the project owners, and we manage projects in our data center using it. 

Our ROI is good. 

We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, and our licensing is based on the agreement. 

I would recommend the tool to others and rate it a ten out of ten. We use Microsoft Teams for collaboration. 

We often require customization of our checklist, which is not web-based. We have also integrated it into mobile devices. This serves both clinical and Social Security functions, as well as management information systems.

It is well-established, reliable, and compatible. 

We want to expand to the local level where we lack strong IT expertise, we are considering making it more user-friendly. We are looking to have a point-and-click interface so that individuals without technical knowledge can easily navigate the system. We want them to use it without the need for programming or making complex changes, simplifying the process for them. Also, the pricing for support needs to be improved.

It is scalable.

It is not only highly beneficial but also accessible remotely and readily available.

It is easy to deploy and takes three months, on average. The key focus lies in enhancing the local workforce's skills and capabilities because the effectiveness of this concept doesn't rely on complex IT processes. Therefore, we aim to ensure that there's ample availability of remote support, making it possible for me to install and deploy quickly and with ease, which is something I desire.

We had an in-house team implement the solution.

I'm not approaching this from a commercial standpoint because we operate within the government. Our return on investment cannot be entirely measured and monitored in financial terms, but rather, we assess it based on the advantages it brings and how efficiently it helps us achieve our objectives within our offices. So, I can't simply assign a price; it's more about the value it delivers.

The technical assistance is expensive but the solution is an open source software. 

I would recommend it to other users and would rate it an eight out of 10. The primary and crucial step is for them to identify their requirements, including the specific software needs and how it aligns with their goals as an organization. They should consider what benefits they aim to achieve with this solution. Another key aspect is to offer training and capacity-building to enable technical support for addressing any minimal support requirements effectively.

Currently, we are helping a government entity with their PMO portfolio. They have many departments and streams. The main Microsoft Project Server use case for them is managing the planning for all the projects within the workflows, monitoring the projects inside the dashboards of the PMO and processing all the workflows for the project initiation, charter, and deliverables.

There are many valuable features of this solution. It is very advanced and once you understand and learn how to use it, it can be quite powerful. The whole package can be quite powerful. Inside of Microsoft Project Server, you not only have in-house development solutions, but also the workflow engine. You can create templates, pages, and users. The web part is very straightforward and even without any development knowledge, you can create any page you want aside from the workflows. This is fantastic.

The solution should be made more collaborative. Currently, we are using Microsoft Project Server alone, without the involvement of a team. In other words, we are not collaborating with the whole team within the solution and that is a minus. 

I would also like to see an integration with Amazon's project management solution. As of right now, there is no integration. We have a link only between the Amazon project management solution and the planner activities. This is very basic and we need some advanced cooperation options.

I have been using Microsoft Project Server for four years.

I would rate the stability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best. My opinion is that the cloud version of this solution is quite stable.

I would rate the scalability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

The main problem with this solution is collaboration between teams. If you want to involve the other teams you'll have to buy Project Light servers or enable the project team members to collaborate inside the plan itself. This is an extra cost to the standard license. We also have a license for the planner and the teams, but we need some integration between all of them.

The professional and premium licenses are quite expensive.

The solution can be very slow. Sometimes, it takes minutes to open a page that shares the dashboards. 

In addition, there is no training material and there needs to be more awareness training. There's no online help to aid users through the process.

The first thing I would say to anyone trying to use this solution is that you need to understand its capabilities and functionalities before trying to use it. If you are not aware of the capabilities and features, you are using a Bugatti like a normal car. You need to get the right training and educate all of the project managers on how they can utilize the main functionality and services of the solution.

Overall, I would rate this solution a seven, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

New resources working on the development site as project managers need to deploy some services and install the project on Microsoft Project Server. And I go to the yeah. They can use the online portal or the desktop version of the solution through an email login.

Microsoft Project Server is a scalable solution.

The solution's desktop version is not compatible with the MacBook.

I have been using Microsoft Project Server for ten years.

I rate Microsoft Project Server an eight out of ten for stability.

Around 20 users are using the solution in our organization. Since our client's environment is going to increase for development purposes, we plan to increase the number of users to 35.

Microsoft Project Server's initial setup is easy.

We pay an annual licensing fee for the solution.

We use the latest version of Microsoft Project Server.

Mostly, every resource in my company has a project on Microsoft Project Server. Most of our resources use the online version of the solution, while some use the desktop version.

I would recommend Microsoft Project Server to other users.

Overall, I rate Microsoft Project Server a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for project consolidation and project portfolio management.

I found the portfolio management valuable.

Resource management has room for improvement because it uses a lot of resources. We used to use Star BI, and everything else was an additional cost to our business. We also had to pay extra money for reports.

I've worked with Microsoft Project Server for ten years.

I rate the solution's stability a five out of ten because we had major issues with the Sharepoint part. The problem was not with the Project Server.

I rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten. The solution is meant for medium-sized enterprises.

The online support is useless. It goes into a loop. For example, if you go into "options," it sends you back. You go into this constant loop of trying options. The online support is terrible.

The initial setup for Microsoft Project Server is complex.

We implemented the solution in-house.

I rate the pricing a one out of ten because the price is way too high. You need five enterprise server licenses, then an SQL Server in addition to that.

We used some of the functions, but part of the reason we stopped using it was because of the cost. We chose an on-prem deployment because of problems with bandwidth. I wanted to perform software backups, but the connectivity was down, so my whole operation would stop if I went on the cloud.

I rate Microsoft Project Server a seven out of ten. I love the solution and enjoy working with it, but the cost is an issue, and the documentation is terrible.