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reviewer1678212 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Enterprise Program and Portfolio Management at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Positively affected project management, transparency
Pros and Cons
  • "We can view a project both at the top level and dig into the particularities. It's given us greater visibility into the work itself."
  • "I think the capabilities are there, but it seems difficult for me to even create a report as I am not a Planview technical expert. It is not particularly intuitive. It slows us down in reporting the big picture to management."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Enterprise One to track our epics and the hours worked on them and related work items. In that effort, we have implemented the task top to bring in both import and export data into our Jira instance.

We are also just now getting into the investment capacity planning features. In the past 18 months, we got Enterprise One set up and now we're getting into investment and capacity planning. Eventually, we want to move more into portfolio management and then road mapping and some of the other features that the software has.

How has it helped my organization?

It has certainly helped us in upgrading or modernizing how we report our financials in the sense of our CapEx and OPEX hours. It is a great system of record for that. It also gives us insight into the work that's being done and allows us to follow up with our application development teams on how they're spending their time and whether adjustments to prioritization and such need to happen. It has helped us in both of those areas.

What is most valuable?

Just having one place to put everything is the big deal. Before Enterprise One, we had multitudes of different Excel spreadsheets across different departments, and everyone kind of doing their own thing. The biggest thing that we've been able to do is get a view of all the work that's happening and then see where the hours are going. That is where we are at right now in terms of the features we are leveraging. 

Enterprise one is good for forecasting remaining effort from what I can tell. We are able to see everything from where the resources are requested, to where they are then being allocated and the hours being logged and make decisions off of that.

If I were to assess Enterprise One's ability to enable me to see which stage projects are in, on a scale of one to 10, I would give it a seven. That's partly because I'm seeing plenty of projects that don't have the right status because they haven't been updated properly. We are having a hard time getting people to use the system to keep that information up to date. The system has the right fields there, but we are still learning how to better use the system. We're trying to figure out how to get our processes better so we can keep the system current.

From a PMO perspective, Enterprise One provides end-to-end work management for a full spectrum of types of work. It is too early to say how it has affected our project management. We are doing better, but we are certainly not where we want to be eventually.

Enterprise One has helped us with the prioritization of projects through alignment with strategic objectives. It has affected our business in that we now have a lot more transparency. We can see where the work is being done and make adjustments to align where the work is being done to priorities that change over time.

It provides a variety of types of resource assignments for assigning work to people. I've never had any issues there. It is customizable wherever we need it to be and it is doing great.

Enterprise One allows program managers to group work together and see the resource demands and costs at a consolidated level. It has positively affected my project management. We are happy with the selection that we have made, excluding the cumbersomeness of the user interface at times. Enterprise One has been exactly what we need.

We are enabled to drill underlying consolidated information down into details. This certainly helps me see their impact on specific projects. We can view a project both at the top level and dig into the particularities. It's given us greater visibility into the work itself. It is too early to tell if the solution has increased our on-time completion rate.

What needs improvement?

I would say that Enterprise One's ability to create summary reports across multiple projects is cumbersome. I know that they are making changes to the user interface. It was talked about in the conference they're having right now.

I think the capabilities are there, but it seems difficult for me to even create a report as I am not a Planview technical expert. It is not particularly intuitive. It slows us down in reporting the big picture to management. 

I would say that they should continue to dig into usability and user experience because it can be hard to find things. The system could be made more user-friendly and robust with perhaps a more interactive help section. It is difficult for someone like me who does not use Enterprise One every day to find what I'm looking for. It's just not intuitive.

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November 2024
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for 18 months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Enterprise One is very stable. It is slow and less performant at times, but stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not had any issues with scalability. 

How are customer service and support?

My experience with their tech support was great. We had no issues. They were responsive and knowledgeable. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex. It took 12 weeks. The size of our company made it complex. We have 800 people in IT only. The help that we got from Planview was good, however. We had them on sight for weeks at different engagements. 

What about the implementation team?

We worked directly with Planview. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Portfolio Manager at State Of Delaware
Real User
Gives us a better view of what's out there, what needs to be done, and what the requirements are
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are scheduling, resource management, and, from a project perspective, the functions like issues that change orders. They are valuable because, from a project management perspective, we use the workflows that we build for project management and do active risk management and issue management for the projects that we want for our agencies."
  • "The biggest room for improvement are the scripted dialogues. The scripted dialogues are a logic that you set up to force a certain workflow or process to happen. It's very old in respect that there are no clauses that you can apply to that logic. That definitely can use a lot of room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for all of our agency's IT work that will be recorded as projects and/or contracts that we have with our agencies from an IT department perspective.

How has it helped my organization?

We are using Enterprise One to record all the new business-case intakes. Any new project that comes in from my agencies is being recorded in Enterprise One. That gives us a better view of what's out there, what needs to be done, and what the requirements are for my agencies. It also shows us how we can focus on the demand for those agencies.

We are not using strategic objectives yet, but we have a custom prioritization calculation that has been done for each project that comes in. Work is prioritized based on a specific scoring with some markers on each project. It's affected us to a point that we can react to demands.

Enterprise One provides a variety of types of resource assignments for assigning work to people but it's only as good as you've set it up yourself. You can set up Planview in any way you want to use it. The type of resource that you assign is based on your own company's requirements for that. It can be anything that you want. It's flexible in configuring these assignments. This flexibility enables us to look at demand from agencies and with our own productization system, allow us to assign the resources that are needed. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are scheduling, resource management, and, from a project perspective, the functions like issues that change orders. They are valuable because, from a project management perspective, we use the workflows that we build for project management and do active risk management and issue management for the projects that we want for our agencies.

We use a phased approach for our projects: plan, initiation, planning, execution, implementation, and closure, and all those processes have their own lifecycles. Then we have some customized cycles in support of that to ensure that if a contract is needed, that the contracts are being signed off by a security organization as well. Any network and infrastructure changes will be reviewed as part of that process. We use this end-to-end process for our project managers.

The forecast for remaining effort is something that we are starting to use. The challenge with that is it is only as good as the resource managers are editing and entering the allocations for the resources. An effort was started to refocus the whole resource management. With that automatically comes the forecasting. We also have some custom reports that allow us to look at our workload.

From the perspective of what's in the pipeline, what is currently being worked on, and what's needing help, we are able to know instantly where we are.

We use custom reports and we use portfolio management to look at it from a forecast perspective like who's been assigned to a process and what the workload is. Then we use it for resource portfolios for each team. They use it to assess the ability to reassign or assign resources to upcoming work. But most of the reporting is done through custom reports and some Power BI reports that I've created.

Its view into resource capacity and availability definitely helps us to manage work. It allows us to react to a new demand. It also helps to provide end-to-end work management for the full spectrum of types of work in one tool. We use it for resources like hardware licenses, software, and such.

Program managers are enabled to group work together and see the resource demands and costs at a consolidated level. Because we use portfolio management or resource portfolio management, with that setup, we can look at it from a program perspective. If you identify portfolios within a program or projects within a portfolio program and the same with resources, you can classify them by type, by departments, and desk to see where your availabilities are.

We can drill down into the details underlying the consolidated information through the individual resources and we also do that through a custom Power BI report. Then based on time entered on projects, we can see where resources have spent time in the past, up until the current day. We have a statistical overview of where our resources have gone.

Our on-time completion rate has been reduced but it all has to do with the size of the project. When we do our planning for projects we tend to deliver it within a timeline, but there's also external influence that you can't control. From a project management perspective, we always deliver what we tend to deliver.

What needs improvement?

The biggest room for improvement are the scripted dialogues. The scripted dialogues are a logic that you set up to force a certain workflow or process to happen. It's very old in respect that there are no clauses that you can apply to that logic. That definitely can use a lot of room for improvement. The amount of text that you can manage within a scripted dialogue is limited as well. That can use some room for improvement as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Planview Enterprise since 2013 and we moved to Enterprise One in 2018 with the latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I'm very impressed with the stability. We are a client that uses the monthly updates. So far, we have not had any issues when it comes to the new versions that have been released. I'm very pleased with the stability of the cloud platform that we use.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is not an issue because we can always add more licenses when we need to. We have almost 400 licenses that do not impede the workflow or the process. It's able to cope with the amount of users that we have.

There are about 400 users. The majority of those are people that enter the time or are the actual resources working on projects. They may have a section of project managers, then have a section of managers and resource managers. We also have a section for a specific business case.

The deployment and maintenance are all done by me. We heavily use the sandbox environment to prototype changes, then test those changes and then implement those to production. We continuously make enhancements to the system and we use a sandbox and production approach.

For the specific tasks that we do with respect to business case intake and project management, it has a 100% adoption rate. We have plans to expand the number of users in respect to time entry. That'll happen over the next year or so.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their support is great. When I open a case I can always cut the responses within a couple of minutes, depending on the severity of the case.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

My company used a different solution before my time. I think they used a custom solution that was built in-house that was replaced with Planview.

How was the initial setup?

I have been involved in the restructuring of the solution. The initial solution was not implemented by me but I have redone that whole implementation and we were able to downsize the support team from seven individuals to one individual.

The service that was implemented was very archaic. It was complex. The way that we've now implemented it is streamlined, easy to understand and identify how it's been implemented. The process took us six months. 

We went through a process improvement process where we identified the process as we would like it to be not as how it was in the system and using that, we identified a workflow in the official diagram for the various processes that we support and use.

What about the implementation team?

We didn't use a consultant, we just did the deployment ourselves. There is an in-house team who worked on it. 

What was our ROI?

I can't quantify the ROI because we've been using it for so long that we really can't go back to an older system and compare it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Pricing all depends on how many users you have planned to use. It's kind of expensive but at the same token, it's worth the investment for the functionality that it delivers.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated ServiceNow but based on the Gartner review of the marketplace of Planview, there really aren't any other competitors that can provide the same service that Enterprise One provides us.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to have one or more individuals become experts in the use of Planview, in terms of how to set it up, how to maintain it, and how to create a lifecycle. There are scripted dialogues because the more knowledge you have within your own organization, the easier it is to accommodate change requests from within your organization.

If you have to call a consultant for services it's rather expensive and they might not be able to react to the changes that you want to implement sooner rather than later. So my advice is to create experts within your organization.

Make sure to test a lot. It can be very complex. Have a second set of eyes that can see the pitfalls that you, otherwise, might run into.

I would rate Enterprise One a ten out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Planview Portfolios
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Planview Portfolios. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
IT Project Analyst at Tractor Supply Company
Real User
Great data source; helpful with prioritization of projects
Pros and Cons
  • "I would say it works really well for forecasting remaining effort, especially in terms of forecasting the dollar amounts. We've gotten pretty good at adjusting rates because we have a lot of contract workers."
  • "One big issue we have been having during our annual planning is that only the creator of a portfolio can edit it. This means that only the creator of a portfolio can edit which projects are included or excluded in it."

What is our primary use case?

I am part of the admin team that uses this. So we kind of help run it behind the scenes, but company-wide, we mainly currently are just using the project management system for our IT projects. We have a few business projects that have started using it, but it's still mainly only with our IT organization. And in planning for next year will be the first time that we have used it for our annual planning purposes. That seems to be working really well.

How has it helped my organization?

We really like how it ties into Projectplace for the annual planning. The integration has been really helpful in terms of keeping the business case files together. Once a project is created in Enterprise One, it shows up in both places and that's been really helpful. It's also a really good place to pull data from. In addition, it helps us better manage our people and get better insight into their hours.

We just started using the planning tool and it has been an improvement from each team running projects individually in different Excel spreadsheets.

Enterprise One has been helpful with prioritization of projects through alignment with strategic objectives. This is because sometimes we have upper management expecting more work than our team has the resources to carry out. Being able to use the tool to give them insight into our capacities has helped make decisions. It gives us the proof we need to show higher management how something will or will not work in terms of our team's capabilities.

The solution allows program managers to group work together and see the resource demands and costs at a consolidated level. Setting up portfolios has worked really well for us. We are able to drill down into details the underlying consolidated information.

What needs improvement?

I would give the solution’s ability to create summary reports across multiple projects a three out of five. I think Enterprise One is great at being a source for data, but our company is still running reports externally. Currently, I'm working on setting up more specific reports and pulling into different environments, but overall I would say it's a great data source, but not the best reporting source. The best way to improve this would be to have an integrated tie-in with Power BI or Tableau.

One big issue we have been having during our annual planning is that only the creator of a portfolio can edit it. This means that only the creator of a portfolio can edit which projects are included or excluded in it. If the person who created a particular profile that we need to make changes to is out for a week, we can not put it into a big overview until they come back. Admin rights for portfolios would be super helpful.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Planview Enterprise One since May of this year. The company set it up in 2017/2018 but has been using it full-time only since 2019. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

My impression of the stability of the solution is that it is stable. The upgrades run overnight and it seems to work well during the day. We have had a few minor glitches, but nothing that hinders the broad use of it. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Right now, Enterprise One is pretty much only being utilized by the IT program, but I know there are several other parts of the company that are looking into using it. I think the program itself would allow it, especially in terms of licensing. I think we have an unlimited license, but I think the biggest issue with adding more parts of the business into it is having enough admin staff to run it right now. There are five of us and so adding more parts of the company would just make it harder in terms of the administration side of it.

How are customer service and support?

I think they've been helpful and we have never had any big major crashes. But, with any minor glitches we had, they tried to figure everything out within a couple of weeks and get it fixed on the next update. I think we get monthly or bi-monthly updates.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Microsoft Project. 

How was the initial setup?

I would say that we have had some issues. This might just be more of a tractor supply issue, but we've kind of had to almost backtrack a lot of how it was originally set up. This is because the people from Tractor Supply who were there when it set up left four months in, so it was set up a little off, to begin with.

What about the implementation team?

We got help from Planview's people on the implementation. 

What other advice do I have?

When we have teams using it correctly, I would say the solution works really well. It is really helpful in terms of scheduling and being able to look at which teams are needed on projects. We just have some issues with buy-in from some people.

I would say it works really well for forecasting remaining effort, especially in terms of forecasting the dollar amounts. We've gotten pretty good at adjusting rates because we have a lot of contract workers.

The solution's view into resource capacity and availability helps us manage workers. This is particularly true if you have a resource manager rather than just a project manager looking at just one factor. A resource manager can look at the time they have spent on every single project and adjust and talk to the parts' managers. Enterprise One makes it really easy to just pull the resource management tab and quickly look at who is overloaded. You can color code the resource management assignments page screen to make it better to look at.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Sr Program Manager at Fresenius Medical Care
Real User
The collaboration piece gives us visibility and the ability to view what is happening in our organization
Pros and Cons
  • "The biggest impact has been getting all these global groups into one space so we can even have intelligent conversations about what are we trying to accomplish. Before, it was just different regions doing whatever. Now, we're all talking the same language, and that's good."
  • "We have almost like a third-party group who has to do a lot of our configurations. It's a bit painful for us anytime we want to make a change. The other issue is that we have different groups all in the same instance. So, if one group wants to make a change, it impacts everyone. Then, we all have to come together, to say, "Yes, we approve this change, or no, we do not." Thus, it has not been as flexible for us."

What is our primary use case?

We're a global company. The biggest thing for us was to find a digital solution that enabled our global company to see everything across the globe. We have a lot of different groups at this point going up on it. We have manufacturing facilities, quality, human resources, IT, etc. The whole gamut is using Enterprise One, then beneath that we have certain groups who are using Projectplace and we will be implementing LeanKit as well.

How has it helped my organization?

We can see all the different initiatives that folks are working on and have been able to hook groups up, to say, "Let's not redo that. We're already working on that." Instead of having all this duplicity, we have one streamlined group working on it together.

The solution’s collaborative work management has affected our operations. We were in a place of using a billion emails, Excel templates, etc., so project documentation would get lost and no one knew what was going on. From a time savings perspective, the fact that we have Projectplace specifically, with everything in one place and we are part of a workspace where we can go and see what's going on, that has had a major impact in the way that we work.

It helps make sure stuff is aligned to strategy.

The biggest impact has been getting all these global groups into one space so we can even have intelligent conversations about what are we trying to accomplish. Before, it was just different regions doing whatever. Now, we're all talking the same language, and that's good.

What is most valuable?

It gives us the visibility and ability to see exactly what is happening for our organization. Even though we're a global company, we had our Asia Pacific and EMEA groups doing whatever they did. Then, in North America, there was no visibility across the board. So, there was a lot of duplicity and duplication in different projects, initiatives, etc. So, this solution is really giving us the ability to say, "Wait a minute. You're about to initiate this. We've got another group who is already doing that. Why don't we link you guys up together to figure that out?"

This has been a huge win because of the collaboration piece. Unfortunately, our organization has two different tenants of Microsoft Office, which means we can't communicate on teams, as an example. So, we have groups utilize Projectplace in place of that. Therefore, we can all talk, understand what's happening, and communicate that way, which has been amazing.

The colloboration between Enterprise One and Projectplace has been good because we didn't have a standard place to do this type of collaboration. There are a billion emails with Excel sheets, etc., and the way that we've utilized it is from the PM up. They are in Enterprise One, and they build their plans, doing whatever provides good reporting for our executive level leadership. Then, at the team level, there is Projectplace. The fact that we can integrate our Enterprise One down into Projectplace or sync the spaces has been really helpful.

What needs improvement?

I don't find the solution flexible. We have almost like a third-party group who has to do a lot of our configurations. It's a bit painful for us anytime we want to make a change. The other issue is that we have different groups all in the same instance. So, if one group wants to make a change, it impacts everyone. Then, we all have to come together, to say, "Yes, we approve this change, or no, we do not." Thus, it has not been as flexible for us. However, I don't know how much of this is a result of the way that we set up the configuration versus the true flexibility within the tool.

For how long have I used the solution?

As an organization, we implemented it four years ago. Recently, they created another group, which I just joined. Hence, why I've only been using it for about two months. We're in the process right now of taking out what was put in because they didn't put it in well. We're redesigning our whole Enterprise One configuration.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I've only been in it for a couple months, so I haven't really noticed any stability type issues. 

Some of it's a bit slow. We are starting to get some Power BI dashboards built into it. Sometimes, we have to stay updated or refresh them, which I have noticed that in comparison to other BI solutions I've used, there seems to be a bit of a lag. However, I don't know how much of this is because the way it's hosted or if it's a true issue.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Because we're in this process, I know that our organization right now doesn't have a very positive view of Planview's scalability because of the way it was implemented initially. So, we're in this whole process of ripping the whole thing out, reconfiguring it, and putting it back. 

How are customer service and technical support?

So far, the support has been really good. We have a third-party through whom we submit most of our ticket issues. 

We got to sit down with the technical support face to face to sort of crafting what our solution would look like. I thought that part went really well. They seemed to have a really good understanding of what we are trying to accomplish and what our prior challenges were. So, I feel really confident that the solution they're proposing is going to meet the basic needs of where we need to go. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial part of the problem was when they implemented the original Enterprise One, they implemented the most complex version of it. Our maturity level is that we can't get people to follow basic Projectplace. So, we definitely see the roadmap for it to do transform our company's strategy, but we're just not there.

What about the implementation team?

We're going to be doing a fast track deployment with Planview. We have our first meeting to talk timeline on Monday following the Horizons conference.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We went to a roadmap meeting with this very specific thought in mind that if we couldn't figure out how to do this in the way we needed to, then we were prepared to walk away from it. But, we did not have another vendor selected because we recognize and can see the power of the tool. It's just figuring out how do we best use it for our offices.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the product an eight (out of 10). I've seen enough use cases from other organizations who have really transformed the way that they work. It's just clear that my organization is just not there. I have a lot of hope that this product will be what we need it to be once we get this initial configurations figured out.

The biggest advice is to make sure you've done a maturity assessment on your organization. Whatever you initially implement, you're implementing at the lowest common denominator. For us, they tried to go immediately after things like capacity planning and resource management, but our maturity isn't fast. As a result, our users ended up being very frustrated. The other piece would be, when you implement it, think about the users who are doing the work. We implemented based on what we thought our executives would want to see, and that is backwards. Those are the two biggest things. The tool is so big and powerful that it is very easy to say, "I want to do all these amazing things." But, if your business maturity isn't there, you're going to fall and that will hurt.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Program Manager at Citizens Bank
Real User
We have a fairly good picture of time tracking
Pros and Cons
  • "We have a fairly good picture of time tracking."
  • "There's still a lot of reluctance within the organization. We're not using all of the capabilities that we have today. We're still doing our strategic and capital investment planning on spreadsheets rather than using the capabilities that exist within Enterprise One. I definitely need to leverage the experts here at Planview to help drive a culture change. There's just a lot of reluctance on behalf of people within the company to put data into the tool."

What is our primary use case?

It's our primary PPM tool. All of the projects across the enterprise are being managed through Enterprise One.

We've been on version 13 for two years now. Prior to that, we were on earlier versions of Planview going back to 2009. So, we've been on Planview for 10 years. 

How has it helped my organization?

We have the flexibility to choose not to use things that would be really beneficial. Unfortunately, my predecessors made that choice, multiple times, so I'm trying to undo that.

One of the things that I hope to do, because we have to upgrade soon, is spend time putting together the business benefits of using some modules and pieces of the tool that we don't currently use.

We have a fairly good picture of time tracking. So, it's helping us get there.

What is most valuable?

As a user, I really liked the ease of the status reporting and the one stop shop of everything being in one location. 

What needs improvement?

There's still a lot of reluctance within the organization. We're not using all of the capabilities that we have today. We're still doing our strategic and capital investment planning on spreadsheets rather than using the capabilities that exist within Enterprise One. I definitely need to leverage the experts here at Planview to help drive a culture change. There's just a lot of reluctance on behalf of people within the company to put data into the tool.

We have some transparency in where people are spending their time, but we haven't done a good job of resource management in the sense of predicting demand. We have a lot of opportunity there to improve.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it since the start. It is only in the last year that I have been involved in managing the application.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. It should growth with us.

How are customer service and technical support?

To the degree that we've needed it, the solution has been very helpful. 

Part of the struggle that we've had over the past year has been a 100 percent turnover on our team. Everyone on the Planview admin team today has been in the job for less than two years. So, we don't have the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience as an admin on the tool that other companies have. We're still learning. We don't know what we don't know.

It has been a struggle to make even simple changes because we have to go through statements of work to get the assistance that we need along with all of the legal hurdles and financial issues that those involve.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were previously using PAC. The move away from PAC to Planview was based on our ownership by Royal Bank of Scotland at the time. They were using Planview, so we moved to Planview.

Our prior PPM tool was a little clunkier and harder to navigate. So, ease of use has been a strong suit here. But as we now look to expand and start using some of the other tools that Planview provides. the integration of the suite is going to be a strong sell point for us.

How was the initial setup?

The last version upgrade that we did from 10 to 13 was complex because we were moving to a cloud platform from a locally hosted platforms. So, there were all of those issues. There was a significant amount of testing. However, we also had an organizational change, which changed the management of the group which was doing that application enhancement. Therefore, we had that complexity. Now that we're on the cloud, it should be pretty straightforward.

What was our ROI?

We have seen time saved but I can't quantify it.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the product as an eight (out of 10). This is based really on what I've learned the product can do, not on how we're using it.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1208601 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, PM Tools at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Projects are in a single place allowing us to do portfolio level planning. We have experienced significant issues around integrations.
Pros and Cons
  • "It has been effective for our delivery. It's given us much better visibility into what is being delivered and when."
  • "We do have some significant issues with our integrations that we're working through. Those are not as stable or reliable as what we would like."

What is our primary use case?

We're using it for IT project management and annual planning. We also have CTM (part of Enterprise One), which is the true application portfolio management tool. The application portfolio management tool is more about managing metadata around our applications that we support. However, we are looking to do the integration between CTM and the PM modules.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest impact is the maturity around getting projects in a single place so we can do portfolio level planning and use the tool for more than just timekeeping. This has been the biggest step that we've taken so far. This year was the first year that we did all of our annual planning in the tool instead of starting it in the tool, then doing it in spreadsheets afterwards. So, we're still growing there.

It has been effective for our delivery. It's given us much better visibility into what is being delivered and when.

Our finance/accounting department has been able to get more information than what they had before.

It helps connect funding with work execution. All of our projects have budgets and expected benefits to calculate an NPV. That is part of our annual planning processes. Then, we track monthly reforecasts and progress against those plans.

What is most valuable?

The visibility across the portfolio, who is responsible for what projects, who is working them, and where we are in terms of financials.

What needs improvement?

The integrations need improvement. We have some data exports. They're not even live app integrations. They're just data exports that run with our SAP instance. They either fail, hang up, or aren't configured correctly to operate. Those are the issues that we're running into now.

Some things that we're looking forward to are alerts and monitoring notifications for active notifications. We would also like more about the history of actions which are happening within the tool, so more recordable history.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the tool since 2016.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The platform is stable. We rarely have any issues with Planview for functionality. We don't have any issues with crashes.

We do have some significant issues with our integrations that we're working through. Those are not as stable or reliable as what we would like. I think it's processed-related, but it's all on the Planview side.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't run into any issues with scalability.

We have run into a few issues with performance. It just seems to be slow, depending on how many activities you have in a work breakdown structure, how many projects in a portfolio resource, etc.

We are planning to implement more features, as the organization can absorb that change. We haven't tapped all of the capabilities of it yet.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have used the professional services for the integrations. Their support is good except when the applications don't work. 

We have had several conversation, even at Horizons. It is really a process issue.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We switched from Primavera. We had sort of outgrown it. We needed more of a project and something that would be a little bit easier to use for our projects. We weren't taking advantage of the full capabilities of Primavera.

How was the initial setup?

It's very complex. Maybe it was a lack of defined processes on our side of things. We really struggled to understand how we needed to answer the questions that they were asking, so they could configure it to support our processes.

We overcame it by trial and error. We kept at it until we got to a point where we could at least deploy and start tracking time, then grew from there.

What about the implementation team?

It's been several years, but we did use professional services for their initial rapid deployment.

What was our ROI?

We would have a hard time calculating ROI at this point. It has been part of our normal operations for several years. Knowing what it would be without the tool, that would be difficult to calculate.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We recently did a new bundle for all of Enterprise One. It includes some of the newer pieces, like Projectplace and LeanKit. It bundled our CTM in with it as well. I think the total came out to be about $900,000 a year. This is for unlimited licenses.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did evaluate other vendors.

We don't use Planview's Lean/Agile delivery tools. We use VersionOne.

What other advice do I have?

Start with processes first. Do that hard work before you get Planview in and start talking about the capabilities of the tool. The tool can do pretty much anything you need it to do, but you need to know first what it needs to do for your company.

The tool is very powerful. Sometimes that complexity makes it difficult to use, but it certainly has more than what we need.

The tool has a lot of potential. Our particular implementation of it has some work to be done. I would rate it a seven out of 10.

We don't use Projectplace.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
IT Portfolio Management Senior Consultant at CNA Insurance
Real User
Real time information provided the ability to share the big-picture with the management
Pros and Cons
  • "Enterprise One has enabled us to eliminate Excel. We don't track financials anymore in an Excel format, which the company was doing before. Even now, being a new portfolio manager four months in, I'm able to just pick up my project. I'm able to see where I am right now. That improvised it to be more automated. The only missing part is the integration between tools. I'm not able to see my full schedule, but I know what are my important milestones are like watching the financials and all that stuff."
  • "Even though Enterprise One is easy and user-friendly, it could provide better training like a demo. Providing more tutorials or sessions would really help."

What is our primary use case?

We use Enterprise One for our Project/Portfolio Management. I'm new so I'm still learning about the tool but from what I know so far, right now, we mostly use it for tracking, status reporting, budget/financials/contracts, level of effort time tracking, and project governance.

How has it helped my organization?

Enterprise One has enabled us to minimize the usage of other tools like tracking in Excel and have one place of the source at a consolidated level. This tool has reduced the amount of time and improved visibility across the organization on Portfolio Management. Everything is in Planview. Planview is the source of truth. So that really helps us to efficiently look at the budget, scope, schedule and to identify if there is any variance. There's a lot of learning still to do as we are also new to this tool, but right now it works for us. 

There are also a few tool limitations, but this has also brought us together as a team and community to be creative, to revise and simplify the governance, focus on what is important to be tracked and reported. 

What is most valuable?

Real-time information. Enterprise One is good for enabling me to see what stage of work and the current financials. I'm able to see where it is during the project adaptation, project summary, and also comparison to the performance baseline. Since I'm still a little new to this, I am still learning how the organization is adapting to the tool. The Planview conference gave me a lot more ideas, in terms of what more I can do with Planview. 

We do have an in-house reporting and analytics team that are working on creating custom build reportings to generate tiles and utilizing the Power BI functionality. It has been really a very cool report that has graphics with color-coded information making it easy and user-friendly. Again, as we are still new to this tool, it has been continuous learning on how to use it better and as we continue to invest time, cost and efforts we are excited to explore what would be its full capabilities. 

We think that Enterprise One will help with the prioritization of projects through alignment with strategic objectives. We haven't gotten there yet because we're moving towards the product Portfolio Model.

What needs improvement?

When I just joined, it was very easy for me to pick up. I was able to get myself familiarized within a month or two. I think it's a very easy tool to use. Although Enterprise One is easy and user-friendly, currently the learnings have been more via trial and error, I think if Planview could provide better consistent training like a tool demo, structured training, how-tos that would help tremendously.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Enterprise One since I joined my company around four to five months ago but I believe it was rolled out in the organization about 1 year ago.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We're still learning about the tool being about 1 year in, so far it has been fulfilling the purpose and the need of the organization. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We are currently transitioning to a more Product based model and Planview has been a great tool to help us and I believe as we succeed that might give us the opportunity to explore other Planview products that might scale the use of this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Initially, it was challenging but most recently its been great. I've been in one of the few sessions that we had with the point of contact. We do have a list of the backlog of the things that weren't functioning as intended or something that needs to be added. Our recent rep has been very helpful.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, my company used Oracle Primavera. I think they switched because of the stability. Planview gives the organization what they want. We're able to do all project/product management in a very simplified and yet robust manner without any added complexity.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in the setup of the tool here, but I heard was it was quite challenging specifically for configurations and to receive good technical support. It took a few executive escalations, but we were eventually assigned an excellent support representative. 

What other advice do I have?

I wasn't intimidated by Enterprise One because even though I'm totally new to Planview, it is very easy to use. It fits the purpose of what the organization wants. We just want to make sure we know how are we tracking our resources, budget, etc. Enhancing the integration part would help. So once we explore the integration aspect, like with JIRA, where we can pull the milestones in and automatically log time, etc, I think that will enhance what the company is trying to achieve.

Planview is pretty cool. It does what you need to do. My advice would be not to overcomplicate it.

I would rate Enterprise One an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1422000 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Offers a full view of projects, allocations, and effort to deliver our portfolio projects but the setup is very commplex
Pros and Cons
  • "Its view into resource capacity and availability absolutely help us manage work. We can't plan out projects for delivery until we know if we have resources available to deliver them. That's been really critical. We look at our projects and see what availability of resources we have. That helps us to determine when we can start new work."
  • "The scheduling's kind of clunky in terms of its ability for us to see what stage work is at. They could have done better with that. It can be difficult to use."

What is our primary use case?

We use Enterprise One to capture everything in IT that we're working on from projects that require capital funding, to running the business. We are doing everything from soup to nuts, including timesheets. We've established the full implementation.

How has it helped my organization?

It provides end-to-end work management for the full spectrum of types of work in one tool. We're able to see the full scope of what people are working on. We can see all the different types of activities that they are charging time to and we can do an analysis of whether we think that's the right distribution of the workload.

Enterprise One has improved my organization in terms of everything that we're working on. We're able to see where our resources are allocated and when we have availability, which helps us to schedule the portfolio. That's really the main intent of Enterprise One.

What is most valuable?

The ability to capture timesheets is the most valuable feature. Also, the ability to see what the full organization's working on is probably the biggest bang for the buck.

Prior to implementing Enterprise One, we didn't have a tool to do any of that. We were hard-pressed to understand what our people were working on. Now, we have a full view of projects, allocations, and effort to deliver our portfolio projects.

Enterprise One's ability to forecast remaining efforts is pretty good. It's a regular schedule, so you can see your burndown rate and see what's left on the project to spend from a labor and non-labor perspective.

Its view into resource capacity and availability absolutely help us manage work. We can't plan out projects for delivery until we know if we have resources available to deliver them. That's been really critical. We look at our projects and see what availability of resources we have. That helps us to determine when we can start new work.

Project managers can group work together and see the resource demands and costs at a consolidated level. They can create portfolios. 

We are able to drill down to the underlying details via consolidated information. We can see exactly what people are working on and we can see where they're charging their time. We can see their allocations and redistribute the load if we need to based on how much is being demanded for individuals.

We hope that it will increase our on-time completion rates. That will hopefully happen when the projects are delivering. Some of them have end dates coming up in the next quarter and some not for another 6+ months. We'll probably be able to start viewing that within two to three months.

I don't initially expect the on-time completion rate to be increased, but I'm hoping over time, we get better at project intake and estimation. That will help us to deliver things more efficiently and meet our timelines.

What needs improvement?

The scheduling's kind of clunky in terms of its ability for us to see what stage work is at. They could have done better with that. It can be difficult to use.

We don't use its ability to create summary reports across multiple projects. I think it's poor.

For how long have I used the solution?

We implemented Enterprise One three months ago. We're about to upgrade to the September release so, we'll be current as of next week.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's mostly been stable. There have been a few times where things were delayed but it came out pretty quickly.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We will be rolling it out more broadly across the organization. I don't envision any issues with scalability. We plan on expanding it to many other areas. I'm already talking with seven other departments within my company. It's going to be rolled out enterprise-wide. The supply chain is probably the biggest organization next to ours, then there's legal, and a couple of other departments who it will make the biggest impact for. 

There are 750 users across our organization. 

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is fair. Some people are very talented and very knowledgeable but others are not. They're generally responsive. There have been some times when they've not been, but they are 75% of the time.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very complex. If you've ever done the implementation it's not an easy implementation. It's very complex. We had a group of 20 people working on this project for 6+ months to implement the tool. The configuration alone was six weeks just to set up resources, initial lifecycles, and things like that. 

In terms of the implementation strategy, we had the project all laid out. We knew what and when we needed to deliver it. We knew what the scope of our work was. We had a massive communication exercise. The change management aspect of this going from no tool to a very sophisticated tool like this one required extensive communication and change management. I was the project lead, I lep up the whole implementation and worked with project managers. 

Maintenance requires three people. I oversee them. I have two full-time people.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with Planview's implementation team for the deployment. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

As long as we can get enough participants, it will make the pricing more reasonable. We signed up for an enterprise license. That makes the per person cost much lower.

Aside for standard licensing, we had a cost for the implementation but nothing besides that. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated nine other solutions including Planisware, Clarity, Microsoft, and ServiceNow. Enterprise One is very similar out of the other two industry leaders. Clarity, Planisware, and Planview are the three industry leaders. They're all pretty comparable. We ended up getting a reasonable price, which is why we went with them.

What other advice do I have?

For the organization, people really have an appetite for the data. Being able to pull it all together really was the biggest benefit for us.

My advice would be not to underestimate the amount of effort it takes to implement. It's much more than the vendor would tell you.

I would rate Enterprise One a seven out of ten. I would give it this rating because of the amount of effort it took to implement and bring an organization this big along. It was a monumental effort. It took a lot of work to do that.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Planview Portfolios Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Planview Portfolios Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.