We're mainly using this solution for project management. We are customers of Plainview and I'm a project coordinator.
Project Manager with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides good visibility and clearly shows priorities; entering tasks needs an upgrade
Pros and Cons
- "Has good visibility."
- "Entering day-to-day tasks is a tedious process."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The solution is valuable because it gives our executives a high level of understanding of what's going on. I like the portfolio aspect that shows all the projects and the budget and you can see the priorities and whether the project is on track or not. It has good visibility.
What needs improvement?
Entering day-to-day tasks is a tedious process for project managers. It needs some improvement.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is solid and pretty stable.
Buyer's Guide
Planview PPM Pro
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Planview PPM Pro. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very good.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Licensing costs are competitive enough. The price is reasonable given that the solution is geared towards large companies.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also evaluated Asana which is not quite as robust as PPM Pro. They're both good products but focus on different things. It's difficult to make a decision between them because each covers one area extensively. If you're involved in a team working in product development at a task level, I prefer Asana. PPM, on the other hand, pulls a lot of information at the project level whereas that is complicated if you're using Asana.
What other advice do I have?
This is a solid solution and I think it's well-designed for the executive level, but there's still work to do when it comes to working with teams.
I rate the solution seven out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Business Analyst II at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Customizable and intuitive with great task management features
Pros and Cons
- "The solution is great for viewing projects and timelines."
- "The downside to the way the solution tracks time is if your project manager doesn't add you to the project, you won't see it on your timesheet, even if you did do work."
What is our primary use case?
Right now, we use it mainly for project tracking to create our task list and go through the entire project life cycle to be able to provide dashboards and report in real-time to our senior leaders.
We also just started last month being able to submit project requests for the upcoming year. Those can go through the gating system in order to be approved and prioritized prior to starting any assignments on the projects.
How has it helped my organization?
The product is providing more visibility by providing real-time dashboards so that you're not seeing incorrect information. It's all live within the system and their ability to drill down and view real-time events on a project is great. The visibility really makes a difference.
It provides managers the insight they need to empower decision-making.
What is most valuable?
I like that it's so customizable and it's so easy to customize. It's not overly complicated. We can get pretty much whatever we need out of the system. If it's not there, we can add it.
For example, the whole request process was built from scratch. We customized all of the fields that we wanted to capture as part of our initial submission and then the fields that we wanted to add on through the gating process to gather more information before final approval is submitted.
The solution enables users to create reusable project templates that reflect their own project management life cycle. We have only a few templates set up right now, however, that's something that we'll develop further as we go.
It makes our project management process more consistent across the board. We have probably 13 different project managers, from an FTE perspective, and we have a lot of consultants. Therefore, having the template already built-in keeps everybody on the same page.
It does not take long to create a new project using the solution. It's fast due to the fact that they all come through as a request and it's just a matter of adding it to the project and everything is pretty much there. You're just talking about turning a request into a project which takes less than five minutes. Previously, we were on spreadsheets and Word Docs, et cetera. As far as having the template with the tasks already in it, that obviously saves a lot of time for the project managers.
Task management features are so customizable that they're working for us based on exactly what we need. We also can always build as we grow as an organization. I like that tasks can be assigned to specific individuals so they can work on things themselves and update them in the system, as opposed to the project manager having to go in and manually do everything themselves.
With this solution, in terms of time savings, we're averaging a savings of three days per month, if not more.
The solution's time tracking abilities and allows for timesheets allocating hours. Before, we used a spreadsheet where we had to find the project in a list of 100 other projects that were going on at the same time. Being able to pull up a timesheet and only feed those projects that I'm assigned helps me as far as tracking my time.
The solution is great for viewing projects and timelines. Their reporting feature is so robust and they keep adding to it all the time and the ability to set up your individual portfolios - however you need to - and being able to report on those, is a huge advantage.
What needs improvement?
In terms of the process for building a team within a project, I'm not a project manager, so I don't really build the teams within the system. I do know that there could be some improvements, on the staffing side, such as adding staff to projects in order for those folks to track time. The way the time tracking works, we miss a lot of that if the tasks aren't set up appropriately which makes it so that the end-user can't track time accordingly. We're still figuring it out. There's a bit of a learning curve.
The downside to the way the solution tracks time is if your project manager doesn't add you to the project, you won't see it on your timesheet, even if you did do work. If that happens, it's a matter of having to reach out and have the project owner add you to the project so that you can track the time. I have a feeling a lot of people aren't tracking time to the appropriate projects due to this. It is a downfall that you can't add your own projects.
For how long have I used the solution?
The company started the implementation last October. We have not been on it for quite a year yet. We rolled it out to our IT department for time tracking in January of this year. I would say January is probably when we really got started using it for projects and time tracking.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. I haven't had any issues so far. The only downtime we've had is due to our own issues as we have our restricted to internal IP addresses. If we forget to add new IP ranges to our setup, then we have issues. Again, that's internal, and not the fault of Planview.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We're a small organization, however, from what I've seen, is that the other clients the product has are a lot larger than us. The things other companies are using it for, it just amazes me how it can accommodate everything from a small organization to something much larger. Having seen its capabilities with other companies, I would assume it's scalable for us in the long run.
Our organization has over a thousand users, however, we have only 130 licensed users. We have our stakeholders, which are our C-suite partner or employees, and that's just basically to approve requests and view dashboards. Then we have our entire IT department and our team users that utilize it mostly for time tracking. We also have our business team members, who also use it for time tracking, however, they can also get in and view the reports and be able to drill down into specific data on the projects.
We plan to increase usage by adding more users to the system. We've tried to stay focused on the people that work on projects probably more than half the time, however, we want to make sure that we're capturing all project team members so they can record time as well.
How are customer service and support?
I've never seen customer support like them before. I can put in a case and I usually have a resolution within an hour or, at most, the same day. They're always quick to respond and if they don't, I know where I can go to at least escalate the issue to get a resolution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, the project managers would use MS Project, which they're now really doing in the PPM Tool. We would also have the Charter and Word Docs and stuff like that we'd be trying to incorporate that into the product as well. We're not having multiple things off-site or outside of the system anymore.
We switched off MS Project for consistency - so that all of the information is in the tool and we can provide the status of the project schedule on the dashboards that are sent out to the project team members weekly. The added bonus to switching is all of the roll-up capabilities, having it all in different spreadsheets, and having to pull all that together without all the manual processes. Just having the ability to run real-time reports and have those delivered automatically is a huge benefit and offers great time savings.
There's not any direct syncing between the two tools. This product does have the ability to export into an XML file that you can upload into a project. You can do that on both solutions if you need to. I don't know how many of our project managers do that. I would imagine most of them just keep it within PPM Pro.
Overall, PPM Pro is easier to use. It's all in one place, so I'm not having to go locate several different documents to pull the information I need. It's all within the tool. I like the task list so much more than I do MS Project.MS Project has way too much other stuff that we probably don't need for our size organization.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was pretty easy. We had our implementation person from Planview working with us. We really didn't have a good foundation for what we wanted prior to our implementation, so it took us a little bit longer. That isn't the tool's fault. Once we did make our decisions, it was pretty easy to implement.
In terms of deployment, we started in October and we were up and running in a few months. That deployment time also included importing all of the existing projects that we had going on into the tool.
We didn't really have an implementation strategy. We just knew that we wanted to stick to projects, requests, and time tracking. There were some tools that we haven't quite started utilizing yet, such as PPA. They're available for us, however, we just decided to hold off on that. There were some things that we said we would wait and implement down the road.
We also purchased LeanKit and Projectplace, however, we have not really started using those yet mostly due to the change management. We wanted to make sure everybody was comfortable with this PPM Pro first before we started implementing something else.
We have one assigned main administrator for the system and I'm the backup. I do a lot of the calculated deals and some of the more complicated stuff. The other person sets up users and runs the reports and dashboards for our C-suite partners and just handles questions that come through. Our team was only maybe four people making decisions in regards to this solution.
What about the implementation team?
Planview assisted us during the initial setup. Our implementation person (Steve) was very responsive. He helped us set up everything that we needed to. I know we probably asked him lots of questions and he likely contributed more hours than he probably was assigned to, just to help us out as new clients. We were very pleased with his assistance.
What was our ROI?
From a quality perspective, I've heard our chief strategy officer loves the ability for him to go in and look and see what the progress is on certain projects on his own. He's very tech-savvy, so he's not scared of the system. He goes in and all I had to do was show him how to log in and it's intuitive enough that he could figure out where to go from there. Quantitatively speaking, I don't have any data on that yet.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would advise new companies to make sure that they really understand the differences between the user types or licensed types as we had a little confusion in that area at the beginning. The mix-up was all terminology. We made assumptions that time users could do more than they really could. Once we realized that, we ended up converting a lot of people to different user types or licensed types after the fact. New users just really need to understand what functionality each user type is allowed to do.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look at two other options before choosing this solution. One in particular just seemed a little more intuitive from an end-user perspective.
What other advice do I have?
We don't have a business relationship with the vendor. We're just a customer.
This solution has not yet helped us reduce project delays as we're still a young PMO and we just have a lot of projects going on and the same resources working on all the projects. I don't know if the system is going to help that, however, having those reportable timesheets allows us to really see how long it truly is taking us to complete a project so that if the company plans on adding 50 projects next year, they're going to know that we can't possibly do all those based on the numbers that we have right now. It makes projecting what's possible more realistic.
It hasn't helped to increase the number of projects in our organization, although it's likely going to help the company become more focused and we'll get through more projects once we start putting them into a pipeline, as opposed to trying to complete them all at the same time.
New users need to make sure that they have a good roadmap of what their current processes are, whether they are done within a tool or not. If they're still doing them within Word, Excel, or MS Project, that's fine. Just make sure to have a documented process. It will make the implementation go a lot smoother.
It's a good idea to try everything in a sandbox first as well. Some things don't work as you would have expected. A lot of the gate logic, et cetera, is a little tricky when you work in requests. I play a lot. I'm in the sandbox a lot, just trying out different things before I put anything into production.
Overall, I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been waiting on some stuff that's on the roadmap. I would say once they get some of the things that are on their roadmap out there, it'll bump up real quick to a rating of ten out of ten.
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.
Buyer's Guide
Planview PPM Pro
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about Planview PPM Pro. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Project Manager at Husch Blackwell
We have a single picture of all our IT projects
Pros and Cons
- "It is flexible, because so far we haven't been able to figure out anything that it cannot do. It's highly configurable. We've added custom field design screens to fit our needs, develop reports, and dashboards that give us the ability to deliver much better information, especially to senior IT management."
- "Connecting funding and strategic outcomes with work execution is a challenge right now for us. Part of what we are facing is we have a couple of drivers of where projects are coming from. One of them is our innovation group. They are just sort of tangentially using PPM Pro for recording the status of projects and not really planning them within there. We need a stronger link between our current financial reporting system and Planview PPM Pro, so we can start to more easily record our external costs in the tool."
What is our primary use case?
It is primarily to manage IT projects. The focus right now is spent on timekeeping in IT, seeing the value-add for the IT department in the projects that they deliver to the law firm.
It's primarily me for the planning side of it.
How has it helped my organization?
It has improved our organization because the one thing that we never had before was a single picture of all our IT projects going on. Each group within IT, like operations and knowledge management systems, all had their own list of projects. Now, for the first time, we can deliver to our organization a consolidated list of what we're working on. The portfolio management has been outstanding for us.
I feel like the pace of project delivery hasn't changed much, but being able to explain where we are and the status of our projects has definitely improved since the IT department is delivering projects for a number of other business units within the firm. Primarily, this has been only used within IT at this point. We want to prove the platform, then see where we can push it into the organization further.
What is most valuable?
It is flexible, because so far we haven't been able to figure out anything that it cannot do. It's highly configurable. We've added custom field design screens to fit our needs, develop reports, and dashboards that give us the ability to deliver much better information, especially to senior IT management.
What needs improvement?
Connecting funding and strategic outcomes with work execution is a challenge right now for us. Part of what we are facing is we have a couple of drivers of where projects are coming from. One of them is our innovation group. They are just sort of tangentially using PPM Pro for recording the status of projects and not really planning them within there. We need a stronger link between our current financial reporting system and Planview PPM Pro, so we can start to more easily record our external costs in the tool.
There may be Planview products that already fill this niche. I would like a better collaboration platform with a better view at the individual level of, "What do I have to do today?" Some of the Kanban card tools and things like that are definitely next in line for us.
It has more of a classic UI instead of a more modern looking user interface. Especially IT guys are like, "How come I can't just drag my tasks from one column to another column?" We're just using PPM Pro and some of the other products may carry this. We are at Horizons to take a look at Planview's other stuff.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started implementation about this time last year. Our go live was February 1, 2019.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has been very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool can growth with us.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've only had a few instances where we contacted technical support. The experience has been excellent.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using a blend of products. We're using a Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft Teams. There was nothing that tied them altogether. We looked at trying to implement some integration tools. They worked, but you're on your own with trying to keep that all running.
So, instead of managing our project portfolio, we are managing the process. This is a much better tool for that.
How was the initial setup?
I thought the setup was quite straightforward. We worked on the implementation for three to four months. One thing that was very challenging is we are really new to project management in the organization. This was not only just putting in a platform to manage projects, it was sort of instilling project management principles throughout the organization. Our implementation manager helped with a lot of those questions too.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tried other tools, like Microsoft Project, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Planner. What I like about PPM Pro is it puts all of those tools together into one integrated platform. So, you have a good overview of what is going on in the project space of your organization.
What other advice do I have?
It is a solid eight out of 10.
We do not use PPM Pro with Projectplace.
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.
Director PMO at Sephora USA
Helps make good decisions on what projects to take or how to prioritize them, but we have had ups and downs with the support
Pros and Cons
- "It has helped us make good decisions in terms of what projects to take or how to prioritize projects when we have multiple directors from the business or product. It has definitely helped us prioritize and work on our critical things."
- "We don't use their existing dashboard functionality. Hopefully, with the new reporting release that is coming out in November, we will be able to evaluate as to how we can leverage that. What I hear, "Everyone has either a Tableau or something else because Planview doesn't provide a dashboard." We should not need to use another tool. Planview has the data, so it should be able to give us what we want. This would also reduce costs since we are paying licenses for those tools too."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is resource demand capacity planning.
How has it helped my organization?
It has helped us make good decisions in terms of what projects to take or how to prioritize projects when we have multiple directors from the business or product. It has definitely helped us prioritize and work on our critical things.
The biggest impact from Planview has been prioritization, planning, and taking on the right things.
What is most valuable?
I like the resource demand capacity planning module. I don't think we are using it to the fullest potential yet. There is a lot more benefit that we can get if we use it right. I have seen the dial features, which are quick. There are capabilities within the tool that give it a quick read on how the teams are loaded, and we still haven't used them to that extent.
Day-to-day, once we understand what to do, it's very easy to use it.
What needs improvement?
We don't use their existing dashboard functionality. Hopefully, with the new reporting release that is coming out in November, we will be able to evaluate as to how we can leverage that. What I hear, "Everyone has either a Tableau or something else because Planview doesn't provide a dashboard." We should not need to use another tool. Planview has the data, so it should be able to give us what we want. This would also reduce costs since we are paying licenses for those tools too.
For how long have I used the solution?
Three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is definitely stable. I haven't seen any major issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't had scalability issues too because we don't have that many entries in regards to performance and scalability testing so far.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have had both ups and downs with the support. We have been with Planview for three years. We have the new department that is just implementing Planview. They have been complaining about the support that Planview has provided for them with respect to their implementation. So far, our department hasn't ran into any issues. That's why there have been both ups and downs.
How was the initial setup?
It was pretty straightforward. There is a lot of work to do in terms of setting it up the first time, but once setup, it runs smoothly.
We are implementing Planview for another department right now.
What was our ROI?
While it has been helpful, we are not taking advantage of the tool as much as we should be.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I was talking to the Planview Chief Marketing Officer earlier about trying to see if there were opportunities where we could pilot this, even if that means getting some licenses that we can use to pilot and show the value before we actually purchase those licenses.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
The top contender was CA Clarity versus Planview. We went with Planview because Planview had a lot more flexibility than Clarity.
Most of the attributes are configurable. We can change it to our own needs, which I didn't see with some of the other tools that I evaluated before starting Planview.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it at somewhere around a seven out of 10. We haven't used some of the functionalities, so that is where I'm not going too low on the rating. It definitely serves the purpose of what we wanted it to do in terms of resource demand capacity. However, we are still not able to use the dashboard, which we will get onboard. Now, within my team, I have 18 project managers creating dashboards every week. That's almost 18 hours per week, then multiply that by a number of weeks. That's where I am reducing the rating for Planview right now. I'm hoping that will change with the dashboard release. We'll wait to see.
We don't use Planview for strategy planning. We could use the tool a lot more, and that's my takeaway from the Horizons conference too. We still use a lot of spreadsheets because it's all in people's mind. We haven't had the leadership buy-in to use the tool to support us.
We don't use PPM Pro with Projectplace.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Director IT Strategic Initiatives and PMO at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Offers the right picture in terms of the dollar amount being spent on each and every project
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's time-tracking abilities are one of the strong points. The only challenge is enabling it to the minute-level task. It's not at a project level but it's at an organization level. If I want it to be at a higher level as compared to some of the other projects where I want it to go to the nth level of a task for the time reporting, I cannot control it at a project level but it's controllable at an organization level. That's the only big challenge that I have."
- "The integration with some of these other tools that we use, like the Azure DevOps needs improvement. I heard there are few things coming within Planview or PPM Pro itself, but I think it's still future dated. These integrations are key for us from an organizational perspective."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use cases are for capacity management, resource management, and time tracking.
How has it helped my organization?
Previously, a lot of activities were done using Microsoft Excel and they had to be recreated. There were a lot of formulas and stuff like that, with a lot of manual work that resulted in a lot of errors. With PPM Pro, we don't get any errors in terms of the calculations. We get the right picture in terms of the dollar amount being spent on each and every project.
It helps from a historical perspective. In 2020, we sometimes go back and refer to 2017 for some of the projects or some of the work that was done.
What is most valuable?
Based on our usage, capacity management and resource management are the salient features. The challenge that we have in terms of managing the portfolio is arriving at the different projects within a portfolio and ensuring that the capacity what we have meets the need. When we do the portfolio planning, the tool helps us a lot in doing so, and from the reporting perspective, it provides a good overview of where time is spent as compared to what was planned, which I feel is key for a standard project and portfolio management.
PPM Pro enables us to create usable project templates that reflect our project management lifecycle. I think it works beautifully for the waterfall-based project, though Agile-based implementations have challenges in defining such templates. The level of detail is a bit different when it comes to Agile as compared to waterfall projects.
We have customized the templates for our needs, based on our definition of waterfall and Agile. If it is a waterfall template, then you're defining your activities, you're defining your time, and the schedule. So when people report back to these specific tasks or a specific area, the time gets captured according to the phase and work that they have been doing. This works out pretty well when you take a report and compare it to say, "Okay. Where are you? What was planned?" If the design was planned for 1,000 hours of work we can see how much we have spent, where we are, and how much more is needed. It is pretty well documented.
Once the task gets completed or closed, you can't expect people to go back and report any time on it, so it's locked from that particular perspective. In terms of the Agile template, it's a different thought process altogether, specifically when a project might use different teams to work on the same project. It becomes a bit challenging, because two teams might do the work at two different times, and you may still want to keep the task open for a longer duration. It's a bit of a challenge and we are learning what the optimal way of moving forward with the Agile process is.
Because most of these Agile teams work with the task breakdown or they plan with Azure DevOps, we have a whole gamut of activity that breaks down within the Azure Boards stating the Epic's features and the task level detail. With PPM Pro, we define a high-level Epic or a feature so that the team can report the hours. There's a bit of duplication of effort there because the team has to update their activities on Azure, as well as come back and do the time reporting in PPM Pro. One of the initiatives that we have engaged with Planview is to see how to integrate both the tools.
It only takes a few minutes to create a new project. It's just a copy and paste to create a template.
In terms of the task management features, based on the parameter of the project, we have the standard tasks being defined. They would have been mostly waterfall-based projects. Then we do the phase-wise tasks, the initiation, elaboration, construction, warranty, kind of a thing. But if you take a modified Agile project then the task is derived based on the higher level Epics. It has brought a positive impact to the project management process, mostly in terms of planning financial controls or budgeting process. We rely on the tool itself to let us know the overall plan, as well as the dollar amount that is forecasted and spent.
The solution's time-tracking abilities are one of the strong points. The only challenge is enabling it to the minute-level task. It's not at a project level but it's at an organization level. If I want it to be at a higher level as compared to some of the other projects where I want it to go to the nth level of a task for the time reporting, I cannot control it at a project level but it's controllable at an organization level. That's the only big challenge that I have.
The leveling of time reporting is centrally controlled as compared to the control at a project level. For example, if I create a task and I create a task as a phase of initiation, elaboration, or construction and if I enable the time reporting to be at a task level, these tasks would be seen by the timesheet report by the user, to say that this project has an initiation task assigned to him and he can report the task. But if there are multiple levels of those tasks, it has a folder with three or four tasks. If the time tracking is enabled at a task level, the number of steps that you would have defined in your task shows everything to all the users.
It provides managers the insight they need to empower decision-making. When we look at our portfolio and when we want to work around either increasing or reducing that portfolio, we do use a lot of what-if analysis. That helps us in making very meaningful decisions to say whether we would be switching or investing in something else, whether that would be working on a specific system or diverting diverse posts to a different system, which would have a better return on investment.
What needs improvement?
The integration with some of these other tools that we use, like the Azure DevOps needs improvement. I heard there are few things coming within Planview or PPM Pro itself, but I think it's still future dated. These integrations are key for us from an organizational perspective.
We're looking forward to the new dashboards and some of the capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using PPM Pro for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable. It has matured a lot since the time it was called Innotas. I find the solution to be stable and robust.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have around 200 users in my company, including portfolio managers, project managers, and two admin.
We are at an optimum level right now so we don't anticipate more users at this point in time.
How are customer service and technical support?
Support has been great. Last year we engaged with Planview to help us with some of the apps that we've been doing, specifically in terms of the forecasting, and how to manage the contingency. We did have one of the consultants engaged and working with us, but unfortunately, it was not of much help. In most of these cases, I think consultants revert to saying, "Okay. We are coming with the new financial tab and the functionality." So our problem didn't get resolved at that point in time last year. But we are hoping that the new features that are being rolled over right now will help us in what we are looking for.
I would rate their support a four out of five. There are gaps in some of the work they do but they are responsive and knowledgable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
When we purchased it, it was still called Innotas. The organization hired a PMO manager who had worked in a different organization and he had experience working with Innotas.
We use MS Project and MS Teams. We never looked at any integration with PPM Pro, since we worked the process to a different aspect of work. Microsoft and PPM Pro are two different things. From the project management perspective, you can't do any time tracking in Project, and you can't do any capacity management across your portfolio. PPM Pro is focused on complex projects.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup requires some work to be done, but it was not complex. You have to setup the organization, have customized reports, and customization. It was more of a standard process, but it was not so straightforward.
What was our ROI?
From the PMO perspective, I've written off 30 to 40% of the effort from my PM constitutes to a good amount of savings at the end of the day.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have different models, some are user-based, some are a license for all the tools underneath it. It's a different combination and capacity based on the user's needs. It is optimally priced.
What other advice do I have?
You need to have a very clear understanding of what your requirements are, the use cases that you want to implement, and what is that you would like to develop in the tool. Based on that, you need to ensure to put the right configurations in place so that the right kind of data can be populated. Doing a thorough analysis of that requirement is key for putting up the right design and right configuration for the tool.
I would rate PPM Pro an eight out of ten. There are still features that the product needs to deliver. The standard project management, in terms of the capacity of the use cases related to the portfolio, capacity, refills, time-tracking, is all good. Other features that are key from a project at a portfolio perspective in terms of auto-calculation, managing contingencies at a project level and the portfolio level need improvement.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr R&D Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific
Ensures people are aligned on what they're supposed to do
Pros and Cons
- "It gave us a clarity of purpose. Everybody knows what they are doing and that they are all aligned: Managers know what employees are doing. Employees know what they are doing and the managers think they should be doing. That is the clarity which really helps in efficiency."
- "We found that sometimes when they have monthly rollouts that there might be some unintended consequences."
What is our primary use case?
We have been using the tool for portfolio management with the resource allocation piece being a big part of it. We are using it to generate data to try and get a real-time report out of all the information needed to prepare for our quarterly reviews, etc.
How has it helped my organization?
It gave us a clarity of purpose. Everybody knows what they are doing and that they are all aligned:
- Managers know what employees are doing.
- Employees know what they are doing and the managers think they should be doing.
That is the clarity which really helps in efficiency.
When you look at your organization, and what everybody is working on, you now know what capacity you have to take more things on.
The biggest impact was making sure that people were aligned on what they're supposed to do. This has really helped us because we're all going in the same direction and we know it.
What is most valuable?
It makes clear what people are working on. It is not just for managers but it is also for the people themselves. They are able to see and say, "I am on this project, and it's official. My manager knows it. Everybody knows it." That helps them with their motivation.
What needs improvement?
Anyone can go in and jerry-rig it. We would like the tool to be more locked down.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been work with Planview PPM Pro for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We found that sometimes when they have monthly rollouts that there might be some unintended consequences. However, the program is so flexible that sometimes we're not sure if the issue is because of the rollout or because we did something wrong.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It should grow with us for now.
How are customer service and technical support?
I don't interact with the technical support of Planview that much. We have our own IT department. Usually, we interact with them first. Then, if they have issues, they contact Planview.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using something called PDWare. People hated it. Then, we had a team that went out and looked at the other things out there. I'm not sure of all the things that they considered but when they showed us what PPM Pro could do, it was such a big difference from what PDWare was doing, we said, "Let's give that a try."
Before we started using a tool like this to track what people are assigned to, we would have people who the managers thought should be on certain projects but they apparently had never heard of them. They didn't know they were on those projects and they would be working on some other projects that they thought they were supposed to do. The managers were like, "No, you're supposed to be on this one." So, there was a lot of miscommunication going on.
Now, everything is clear. They can go through the tool, look at it, and go, "I'm on this one." Or, if they see something that they don't agree with, they say, "Hey, I thought you told me..." and then at least those conversations are happening and clears things up.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is pretty straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
With upgrades, we have had Planview come in and talk about what they're thinking about with the new features coming in. Some of them we see that there is a use for them. Others, we are not at a stage to really see the usefulness of them.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I would rate it at about eight (out of 10) only because we've been using it for two years but there have been some growing pains as we are learning how to use it and getting the team adopted. I definitely see that adoption has happened and people like what they're seeing. However, I also see some areas where they could make it stronger.
Some of the things that we are looking at seem to be maybe in Enterprise One. So, a lot of the talks are now on Enterprise One. We are saying, "Oh wow, they are pretty similar." Then, we start to talk with people, and they're like, "Yeah, we can do this there." So, we should maybe be looking at what the differences are and what exactly they can do
What other advice do I have?
We are not using Projectplace. We have been using JIRA. A lot of our technical teams is still using JIRA and most of the type of stuff is happening in JIRA, then we do a lot of the PMO stuff on PPM Pro.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Project Manager at New Orleans Convention Center
We have created canned reports with dynamic data resulting in huge transparency. The reporting and performance need improvement.
Pros and Cons
- "In my current company, it provides a quicker ramp up to understand what it can do for people by taking away all their barriers to entry: time, managing resources, and linking projects."
- "I would like to see integration with third-party applications, like the JIRA, Microsoft Project, and financial applications."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is for managing all our products and programs, along with resource management. That is a key. Those are the two main reason: resource management and project management.
How has it helped my organization?
In my current company, it provides a quicker ramp up to understand what it can do for people by taking away all their barriers to entry: time, managing resources, and linking projects. It's made it so easy that people no longer say, "I don't want to do this because..." Other than "because", there is nothing else for them to say.
It is slowly maturing the company in the project management space by:
- Understanding the value of the project management as a function.
- The data that comes in and the structure that it provides.
- The predictability that it's providing.
- The transparency in terms of the analytics.
It is adding to the maturity journey that the company is going through.
From an IT perspective, it has transformed the IT strategy. From an overall business strategy, we are not yet connected there. That's influence we are trying to get. We want to get those things connected.
We are planning start using the lean/agile process, especially on the business side, because they're into waterfall. We are trying to get into agile. We have done a lot of iterative development or fast track development. The issue is not from the IT space. We are trying to more to the business processes.
We're still using it in a sandbox area.
What is most valuable?
The flexibility is amazing. It is UI driven.
What needs improvement?
I would like them to improve the reporting and tying in the strategy more easily. Planview has already made some updates, so I'm trying to learn what those features are.
I would also like to see integration with third-party applications, like the JIRA, Microsoft Project, and financial applications. That is where we get our data. We want to look into these integrations, but I don't think these are there today, but I can see those things down the roadmap.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using it from its initial days of Innotas, so it's been five years.
How are customer service and technical support?
I don't directly deal with the technical support because I'm a super users.
We have an admin team for PPM Pro. They are the ones who use the technical support. From what I've heard so far, they open tickets and get good feedback very quickly. We have a dedicated customer rep, Katie, who works with us and addresses all our concerns. So far, so good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This is the third company that I have used the solution in. I was the one who was instrumental in managing the tool at the previous two companies.
How was the initial setup?
Because it's cloud-based, it's behind the scenes. The setup is pretty seamless since it is done in a sandbox. From a user point of view, we don't feel it at all.
What was our ROI?
The biggest ROI is the adoption of the tool in the company, not just by the worker bees, but also by the senior leadership. Now you have access to the data at the tip of your finger. It's dynamic data. They don't need to wait on anything. There are all types of the canned reports that we have created and anybody can access the data. There is this huge transparency.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Microsoft project is always out there. Project Server was horrendous. However, for the desktop, a lot of people prefer Microsoft Project for managing their project tasks.
The PPM Pro tool is where the portfolio program management and the milestone plan of the PM is done, but the detail project plan is still maintained by our PMs in the Microsoft project.
What other advice do I have?
The product has grown a lot in terms of the resource management, what-if analysis, and now, in terms of the intake process. I've also seen a lot of Spigit. Planview is now able to integrate with other things that they offer on their platform.
I would rate it a seven out of ten. There is room for improvement but they have come a long way. It's quick to use, but the performance is still sometimes slow because of the cloud or whatever the reason. The reporting also needs improvement. Outside that, I'm pretty good.
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.
Director of Project Management at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Brings visibility into our resource utilization and project status with clients
Pros and Cons
- "Flexibility is the most valuable feature of the solution. We're able to do a lot of integrations with ConnectWise, which is another IT services tool that we use. So, we can integrate with that, and it's pretty flexible. We just went live a couple of weeks ago, but already we're able to bring visibility into our resource utilization and project status with clients."
- "The biggest things are the status notes and internal notes. They have made some great improvements these past couple of weeks, but they are still lacking a bit. There are still a little kludgy. It just needs to be a bit more straightforward with notes, copying and pasting. They've made huge improvements, but it still could do some work. E.g., for some reason, the formatting is still looking a little bit weird on selecting different fonts."
What is our primary use case?
We provide IT services to organizations. We manage all our customer delivery projects with the tool.
We are using the latest version of the solution.
How has it helped my organization?
Before, we didn't have any visibility into the actual task. Now, we have fact tasks and time-on-task, which are very specific to the engineers. We can now look at a task, see what they have done, and what notes are around that task.
We had a strategy, and it just helped us meet it.
With our delivery, our clients can have visibility into what they are doing. It keeps the client updated on where we are at. Before, we would just hold status meetings and do notes. Now, in the status meetings, we bring up exactly what's been done and the client can see it right upfront.
The biggest impact has been the visibility that goes with getting into our task or work.
What is most valuable?
Flexibility is the most valuable feature of the solution. We're able to do a lot of integrations with ConnectWise, which is another IT services tool that we use. So, we can integrate with that, and it's pretty flexible. We just went live a couple of weeks ago, but already we're able to bring visibility into our resource utilization and project status with clients.
This system is fairly adaptable.
What needs improvement?
The biggest things are the status notes and internal notes. They have made some great improvements these past couple of weeks, but they are still lacking a bit. There are still a little kludgy. It just needs to be a bit more straightforward with notes, copying and pasting. They've made huge improvements, but it still could do some work. E.g., for some reason, the formatting is still looking a little bit weird on selecting different fonts.
For how long have I used the solution?
We went live a couple of weeks ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable. I haven't had issues with stability at all.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It can grow if we need it to.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is excellent. They are knowledgeable and quick to resolve issues. The only issue I have is with offshore support: The time difference is a pain. Other than that, everyone knows what they're doing. They are friendly and helpful.
They support you and will be there at every turn. They have very technically competent people who understand the processes.
Matt (account manager), Daryl (integration), and Lena (customer success manager) have been a big help to us.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No one knew what was going on and projects weren't getting completed.
How was the initial setup?
The system itself was straightforward. Our needs were complex. We did an integration with another tool ConnectWise. It is a pretty complex integration. Our requirements made it complex, but the system is straightforward. The consultants helped us with the integration. From start to finish, it took us about eight months.
What about the implementation team?
We used the Planview consultant who was great. They were helpful.
What was our ROI?
We have gotten what we are looking to achieve on the solution, but we have not yet achieve monetary ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are looking at Projectplace.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at a whole list of vendors, include Project Server.
We chose Planview because of their support. Another reason was we had the ability to add notes onto time entries. We are different than a lot of their customers with billing. Our notes are how we explained to the customer what we did, and that was key.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a good nine out of 10.
We are still working on how the solution’s collaborative work management will affect our operations.
We are not yet using 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.
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Updated: January 2025
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