Deltek Vision (legacy product) vs. Viewpoint Spectrum

Deltek Vision is perfect for both small and large businesses to implement. Especially when this program can be hosted in the cloud, users then can access from anywhere across the globe via the internet to print reports & track time spent on various projects.

Incentivized

Viewpoint Spectrum would be fine for small to medium-sized companies. It would be great for transitioning from an in-house paper-based process, especially since it's designed with small construction companies in mind. They're making it even easier for smaller companies by offering additional features that you'd normally have to find in other products. However, companies can easily outgrow this system. We have about 15 years of data in the system, over 300 active jobs, and nearly 1,500 employees. In the past 3 years we've noticed slower performance and frequent locks in the system that require intervention from a system administrator. We moved to the cloud about 2 years ago and this has made troubleshooting even more difficult as we don't have the same access that we did before to resolve performance issues.

Incentivized

• The ability to build out your own user-defined fields, grids, and even whole Info Centers is a huge plus. We can build out what we need in-house, without needing to engage outside consultants for most needs.
• The ability to create both user-initiated and scheduled workflows allows us to add intelligence to our actions within the system. We have weekly scheduled reports going out to the various levels of our organization, as well as workflows to trigger multiple field updates, alerts, emails, etc. to keep necessary people on the path and informed.

Incentivized

• Dashboards make navigating to the crucial information quick and easy.
• The layout with what we affectionately call the job info bar helps our project teams to quickly get where they need to go in the system.
• Crystal reports are easily managed and integrated with Spectrum, giving us great flexibility in custom reports.
• With a little training, and I mean a little, Spectrum is user friendly. Easy to create favorites/shortcuts for ease of use.

Incentivized

• Mac users have a different view from PC users and it is not as robust as what you can do on a PC.
• You can only access the platform through Internet Explorer on a PC, which is an outdated browser not a lot of employees use for anything else.
• User interface is a bit outdated, it could use a refresh.

Incentivized

• Subcontract Kiosk can be glitchy - allows subs to overbill on subcontract billing items
• Document Imaging can be glitchy - often says users do not have adequate security to view/add documents, but they do - if they sign out and back in, it works fine
• At times, support can be lacking - sometimes case responses are delayed or you get an incorrect answer

Incentivized

Because we are looking to upgrade to the next software level of Deltek.

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It checks all of our boxes at the moment.

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It's on the verge of being awesome. Right now it's a matter of money -- if you have the money to hire consultants round the clock, yeah this is awesome.

Incentivized

Some things in Spectrum are NOT that intuitive, but I think knowledge of the software just comes with time. There are still some things I need assistance with in Spectrum but I'm very comfortable with my day to day items now that I've been using it for years. However, if there is something I don't do often or haven't done before, I don't find the software to be that intuitive, I actually find the logic on some things to be a little weird but it's fine once I know how to do it.

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Very little down time. They host our system.

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For the most part the product is very reliable. Since we are hosted we sometimes have connectivity issues but I would say that is more our ISP than Spectrum.

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99% of the customer service specialists and technicians that I've encountered are quite awesome!

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The support has recently changed. Last year, you could call in and get an immediate response. Now that doesn't seem possible unless you have an urgent situation with access to the software, payroll or payables. I have found that using chat or e-mail works nicely for the most part, but sometimes I feel it would be easier if someone from support would jump on our site and take a first-hand look rather than going back and forth

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Our trainer was excellent and navigated the time zone differences expertly. She gave us test assignments to complete and was available for questions at any time.

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It is important to have a strong implementation partner. It made the transition from our old system to the new system easier.

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I've used QuickBooks Online and other QuickBooks products but they were not for the same purposes as my experience with Deltek. I also was not part of the team that selected Deltek as that was prior to my arrival at my firm.

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Spectrum, when compared to Simply accounting, is better. It has more options, and it is easy to navigate. Spectrum meets our needs better. Spectrum, when compared to Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate, is better. Spectrum has better connectivity between its project management system compared to Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate. Spectrum, when compared to CMIC, I believe they are equal. CMiC has a better project management system, but Spectrum has an easier accounting system to navigate.

Incentivized

You can grant user specific access which is nice. Project managers do not need all the same modules as Accounting. But Accounting does need access to PM modules as well

• Deltek Vision allows us to configure the standard info centers to capture the information we need to support our business model and decision making processes. We are able to create user-defined fields (date, numeric, currency, character, drop down list, pick lists, memo/rtf and relational database fields) on both standard tabs and user-defined tabs. This has made the product very valuable to using the system to support our business policies and help data management to support decisions easier.
• Deltek Vision's custom proposal module and government forms modules shaves hours off of proposal preparation. Because Deltek Vision is the "source of truth" for our employee history and project history we are able to easily and quickly pull information from Vision onto proposal templates in minutes. Pulling information from a centralized repository gives our users confidence in the data, employee updates/feedback are made one time (in Vision) rather than every time a new proposal document is put in front of the employee, and gives our marketing professionals the extra time needed to craft the proposal to meet the RFP and client requested information. We use Deltek Vision to support of Strategic Plan goal for our company growing and win more work!
• Deltek Vision has utilities that can be managed by designated system administrators. You don't have to have a SQL expert or DBA on staff to write basic workflows, queries and reports. If you have savvy staff on hand, that takes the time to learn the front end of the Vision product, you will be able to set up some automation and configuration that doesn't require an expert. Deltek Vision also allows you to design the layout of your screens using a easy Screen Designer tool.

• Viewpoint Spectrum has allowed us the opportunity to be proactive in analyzing the costs for a project in time to make a difference in the outcome of the project. It has allowed us defense in supporting our communications with the project owners.
• Viewpoint Spectrum has allowed us to become more productive with its accounting software and the cohesion between the modules. It has definitely streamlined the processing necessary to account for the business.

Incentivized