Microsoft Viva Goals (formerly Ally, or Ally.io) was a Strategic Goal-Planning & Execution Management software. Ally.io became a Microsoft brand after the October 2021 acquisition, and is slated for retirement December 2025.
$48
per year per user
Workboard
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Workboard from the company of the same name in Redwood City, California is an objectives and key results (OKR) software tool.
I believe Ally.io to be one of the best OKR software tools available and it can be deployed easily to small, medium, large enterprises. The tool is easily scalable and its implementation can be deployed without necessarily having a pilot test. I can not find scenarios where it would not be appropriate.
Workboard is well suited in any organization IMO, it allows the individual business units to quickly set, define, organize and track their respective OKR's and align them with the larger business goals. The speed at which we're able to do this with Workboard has allowed us to spend more time on the goals themselves and less time on the management of the goal-setting exercise.
The default state of transparency. This helps in reinforcing the superpower of OKRs. In Ally.io, the default mode of any objective created is public (unless stated otherwise). This helps people across the organization to understand where and how the organization is progressing.
The above feature of transparency is also reinforced by the feature of creating dependencies. This allows for people to understand the parties involved in achieving a particular goal and creates accountability. It is clearly understood which party has not contributed enough and RCA can be done on the same.
It allows for integrating with a host of other tools such that the check-in process can be automated. This allows for reducing the effort of managers in terms of updating multiple tools.
The dashboarding feature has helped us in reducing effort spent in creating presentations for retros, planning, and demos
Ally.io's customer success team is among the best that I have worked it. Always ready to help, proactive, and up for the next challenge. They take the success of their customers extremely seriously. Kudos to the team for this attitude.
Project management at higher level - includes tasks assignment, visual representations of the project status and deadlines
Increases the team members' sense of ownership - especially for people that are not used with or exposed to dedicated project management tools like Microsoft Project is.
User collaboration - which in turn reduces the communication via email
Increases the efficiency of the meetings - by quickly going through the action items and updating the task progress in the tool itself
Workboard vs Microsoft Project(and its Server) is like comparing a regular sport car with Formula 1 cars. One is lighter, nicer, with a broader audience, it gets you there fast while the other one is dedicated, not as nice, especially built for it, not for everyone and it will get you there much faster.