ConceptDraw PROJECT vs. Planview AdaptiveWork

For small and medium companies or independent departments of large companies where usually an individual plans the projects this is the best tool without all the overheads of complex software like Microsoft Project and without any privacy concerns of all online project management tools being used today. Not that convenient when you want your employees to update timesheets, etc., as everything needs to be fed into the tool by the project manager.

I've been an AdaptiveWork (Clarizen) admin for the past 14 years, so I've seen much improvement since I started working with the product. I'm very happy we can utilize the hybrid mode by using the cards, I think this was long overdue but it works very well.

Incentivized

• PROJECT is tightly integrated with Diagram and MindMap, the two other tools in the CD Suite. This allows me to do initial scoping in MindMap and then switch to PROJECT and go back and forth as new requirements are exposed and tasks are developed.
• For projects that entail the development of mechanical or electro-mechanical systems it is necessary to develop a topology of the system. By using MindMap I can define the required elements of the system, switch to Diagram to develop an initial layout of the components of the system and then switch to PROJECT to start defining the task to develop the system. Once the system has been defined I use CD Solutions to generate presentations that incorporate the reports and dashboards generated by PROJECT.
• PROJECT is cross platform (Mac and Windows). We are a Mac shop, so the ability to import Microsoft project and Visio charts and export to those formats as well saves a lot of heartburn when so many of our partners and potential customers are Windows users.

• Many ways to acclimate to the system; documentation, videos, community, and contacts.
• Planview provides scalable customization options tailored to the unique needs of each business unit or department. Easily add or remove fields in the system. As the admin, it was easy to learn how to configure.
• Offers flexibility to adapt to existing systems and align with organizational workflows and processes. There are multiple ways to customize each part of the system to meet our needs.

Incentivized

• We had to spend a good amount of time to understand all the features so some interactive built-in tutorials would have made getting started easier.
• The UI does not look so good in macOS Catalina Dark Mode and I often switch to light mode when working on this software.
• Multiple people working on the same project at a time cannot update as there is no way to synchronize changes so we put the file in our code repo but manually co-ordinate to make sure only one of us is changing the plan at a time.

• Planview AdaptiveWork's ability to create relations between work estimates, resources, and time is one of its strengths but also one of its drawbacks. The average user is a little less considerate of the way these things interact with each and the automatic way in which Planview AdaptiveWork will affect one or the other can occasionally create a confusing scenario if the user is unaware of how changing one will affect the other

Incentivized

I give my renewal of this product a 9. It's only because we never know what product may come out next and how other factors in our office political environment may cause impact upon this. If I always had my way, this is what we'd settle on as our de facto project management system.

It is easy to configure, intuitive. The customization process is in some ways better than Salesforce.com. It has a great UI. It does however depend on how it's implemented.

The design of it is generally fine, however the ability to data upload people from a spreadsheet is an obvious miss.

Sometimes it is slow when everyone is entering their time on Fridays or Mondays but other than that we rarely see downtime and maintenance notifications are well in advance.

Reports: Quick to Reasonable

Most Ancillary Pages: Quick to Reasonable
(By "ancillary" I mean lesser used/master data maintenance pages - e.g. People, Customers, Individual Tasks, Milestones, etc.)

Work Plan (with 100 sub items): Reasonable to Slow

Customer service from the ConceptDraw sales team is relatively quick and they do a good job of answering basic questions. However, the user base for ConceptDraw products is not huge so finding answers online for anything beyond basic help-file questions is difficult

Incentivized

It's a good experience overall. Clarizen was useful when needed. It's mostly needed for advice on how to do more sophisticated actions or how to change something that was set up administratively. It's seldom used otherwise. The product consistently works, the documentation is acceptable, and the generally intuitive product is easy enough for most staff to pick up without much issue.

Incentivized

• We worked with a Project Manager on their side. He was very good about developing a project plan to hit our goal. I think we had weekly or twice weekly calls – very steady cadence over 3 month period.
• Their PM skills were great – kept us on task. For the last week, they sent 2 people on site and they did training for power users. After that a couple of them revisited here

It's easy to access and frequently offered. Often I'm amongst only a few people on the call and get virtually individual attention. I also learn and share with the other attendees and we can see how we've each solved similar challenges.

We have been able to implement AdaptiveWork pretty easily but it requires updating of resource availability and continuous training as roles change and new people join the company. Other documentation is used such as spreadsheets for longer range planning and project approval

Incentivized

Microsoft Project is a typical Microsoft product - too much programming overhead, poor graphics, confusing and fussy interface. OmniGraffle is close to CD PROJECT but has its own fussy parts, plus it is a lot more expensive than CD PROJECT; it is in the middle between Microsoft and CD.

Planview AdaptiveWork was the right size, at the right price point that fit our customization and integration flexibility. It is intuitive to use but allowed us to add complexity as our needs grew

Incentivized

• Inexpensive way to present a professional project plan when needed

Incentivized

• Planview AdaptiveWork allows us to report out on the status of our real estate projects on a regular basis. We have internal objectives that need to be met for on-time delivery and Planview AdaptiveWork provides us the data to be able to show how the teams are tracking on delivery.

Incentivized