LiquidPlanner vs. Microsoft Project Server

LiquidPlanner is amazing for any time of project management scenario where you have to manage several teams and details. Running a project through LiquidPlanner is so easy because it lets you break down the project into sections and folders and small tasks that you can assign to specific people. With a small to medium size team-- LiquidPlanner is amazing for organizing and tracking details. If you have a huge team or not a ton of details to track LiquidPlanner might not be right for you because it is a software that requires some good training to learn and has tons of functions that can be utilized so it seems better suited to be used by a smaller group looking to coordinate or for people who have lots of details that can be difficult to track.

Incentivized

You will be able to do the project management (scheduling, tasks assignment, resources allocation, cost tracking) for all your projects in one place, where the team members can contribute and keep the plans up to date. The web version does the main job right but if you find it more difficult to use you just use the standalone Microsoft Project and upload the changes back to the server.

Incentivized

• Priority based planning. Every other planning software we've used relies on dates and therefore needs constant attention. Priority based planning means that the plan is always up to date.
• Ease of use. LiquidPlanner has a very short learning curve. This is critical to getting team members to use it.
• Forecasting. LiquidPlanner makes it very easy to run scenarios by simply dragging and dropping projects and reassigning resources.
• Awesome Support. I get personal responses very fast. Usually within a couple hours. And, they listen and ask for more information.

Incentivized

• Ability to update project plans on the move in any location. Plans can even be updated offline and saved back to the server when the connection is reestablished.
• Visibility of resource assignments across the company allows us to plan project start dates easily and effectively.
• Being a Microsoft product, it is intuitive to administer and easy to configure to our individual requirements.

Incentivized

• LiquidPlanner's mobile app definitely needs some work. It doesn't display properly, having many things on the right hand side cut off. It doesn't update/refresh well. I can't imagine the mobile app will ever have the functionality of the Web version, but it needs to come a lot closer.
• LiquidPlanner requires that everyone actively participate in order to maximize its benefit. However, it can be difficult for everyone to be on top of all of their responsibilities all of the time. Not sure on a solution, but it can be a lot to manage.

Incentivized

• Resource loading and leveling extremely complicated within the tool
• Software makes incorrect assumptions and changes without user knowledge
• Inconsistencies within the tool make it hard to predict & troubleshoot

Incentivized

We may not renew LiquidPlanner's contract, but only because my company has recently been acquired and we'll be adopting some of the software that they're using to standardize process. LiquidPlanner's development team releases new features pretty often, so it seems like the gaps and inefficiencies are slowly getting smaller/less frequent

Incentivized

Easy to learn and utilize. Can export charts and reports for sharing with colleagues.

Incentivized

We don't have to worry about maintenance, upgrades, or compatibility issues. All the capabilities we need are there, and are easily customizable.

They have been great in trying to come up with creative solutions to help us do what we want to do with the platform. I would say their support has been exceptional because we have hit them with some complex requests.

Incentivized

Per Microsoft, Project Online provides more value long-term by reducing infrastructure cost and increase feature release cycle time

We had a "homebrew" time track program previously. It did one thing and it did it well--track time spent on an individual tactic or project, and it was deployed across all departments. It did not, however, capture the conversations or the work that could shed light on where problems occurred or issues were encountered.

Incentivized

I have used Basecamp which I recommend for all! This is one of my top tools for not only company projects however for projects, meetings, communication outside of work. We use Basecamp for our membership organization's dental meetings in other states to communicate events, chat with participants, send donation requests and organize events on the platform. There really is no learning curve, it's super user friendly, you don't need any experience prior and it's cost effective.

Incentivized

• LiquidPlanner has improved everybody's visibility into tasks, decreasing the communication load required and increasing client communication and status updates, effectively increasing client satisfaction and likely helping to generate more business.
• LiquidPlanner has improved our estimation and communication about changing estimates. Allowing us to keep a running estimate of the remaining work lets our account managers bill appropriately for overages ahead of time, preventing issues with customers who may not want to pay for work that was done.
• LiquidPlanner sometimes takes time to navigate, find the right tasks, etc. and in this way, it may have added time to our day that we are not getting paid for. However, this is fairly negligible.

Incentivized

• Better project management and schedule tracking which in turn improved employee's efficiency.
• Licensing aspect is complex. Issues with onboarding new users to system from licensing perspective.
• Positively, financial review process can be tailor-made which may not require further customization of the tool.

Incentivized