Planview Changepoint is a platform that marries professional services automation (PSA), project portfolio management (PPM) and business analytics to provide managers broad operational visibility and control over their strategic business portfolios.
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Unanet ERP for AE
Score 7.0 out of 10
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Unanet AE, replacing the former Clearview inFocus acquired by Unanet, is a project-based business platform purpose-built to help A&E Project Managers, Finance Leaders and Executives drive profitability.
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.
All of our accounting needs, from Accounts Receivable tools and Accounts Payable have been able to be met and exceeded by the automation tools that Unanet ERP for AE has implemented. Less appropriate is use for Business Development and marketing, of which we have an additional external system to use as a resource.
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.
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.
I rate Unanet high because overall, it is good at what it does. It is user-friendly, allows my organization to bill properly, and is easily adapted by our staff. The drawbacks of Unanet are that its interface is outdated and it is lacking some reporting options. It also has some small issues regarding timesheets.
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...
We use both Paylocity and Unanet at my organization. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. They work well together. We use Unanet for project management and billing, and Paylocity for payroll processing and management. We chose Unanet for the listed reasons. It makes sense for our business and industry.
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.
