GenSight Enterprise Portfolio Management vs. Planview ChangePoint

GenSight Enterprise Portfolio Management is a great tool when you need to collect and control the project data within an organization. The system is useful in almost all cases except when a business is routinely changing (> 1x a year). It can be hard to keep up with the terminology and linkages. In these cases I am not sure of any software that if always useful. The GenSight staff will undoubtedly assist you in building flexibility.

Changepoint is well-suited for consulting firms and other companies that charge clients for their time and have a need for significant project-management capabilities along with reporting and invoicing. It is not well-suited for companies that want a more basic solution to time reporting and expense reimbursement. The key questions to ask during the selection process revolve around this basic question: how are you going to use this software? Though it has a lot of functionality, the learning curve is steep and basic functionality is not as easy as one would expect.

• The system offers easy system navigation and creation of custom reports.
• The system allows a multitude of project related fact fields enabling a comprehensive understanding of project standing
• The staff is fantastic at working with the clients to make the system as useful as possible.

• There are lots of reporting options. Once you figure out how to work the parameters of a report, the system is able to provide detailed and accurate compilations of data. There are also many custom reports than can be setup, as well. In my experience, we have told Changepoint PSA administrators what kind of report we were needed and they set it up for us, available in a 'custom reports' folder.
• You can have several things open at once -- 'portals'. These are up at the top of the screen, much like how Google Chrome has tabs at the top. This is useful.

• Updates to Resource Requirements & Financial Model based on changes to Project Start and Launch Dates
• Flexibility for Portfolio Admins to change attributes
• Flexibility to run ad-hoc reports and integration to visualization tools

• The site could become slow with high volumes of traffic. This may have been due to the way that our infrastructure was setup.
• Analytic reporting was not available in the version that we used. We created external reports to slice and dice the data and view it as the business demanded.

Sometimes the decision to renew boils down to an old adage "if it isn't broken don't fix it". Previous to moving to Changepoint, it was obvious that we needed a better project management tool. Projects we completed on time but the time zone difference between the teams and several iterations of back and forth caused a number of communication issues with projects. The difference is night and day.

It could be more intuitive and user friendly.

GenSight was better suited for Integra and was easier to implement.

The system predates me as I was not working for the company when the solution was chosen - I understand this may have been an 'overpromise, underdeliver' scenario. However, we are now moving towards replacing it with Supportworks - and having seen Supportworks in action I genuinely cannot wait to switch from Changepoint and move on...

Incentivized

• We have leveraged Time Tracking Data to maximize our R&D Tax Credit
• We have been able to maximize the value of our Portfolio by enabling better visibility to programs across divisions and franchises
• We have ensured that we are working on the right number of programs by ensuring a balance between cross-functional resources required and available.

• Our ability to maintain a global IS Scorecard helped us to maintain a focus on completing projects on time and within budget.
• Having a single instance of Changepoint with projects aligned to specific portfolios helps senior management to maintain a focus on the investment of IS resources. It is foundational to our governance processes.