LiquidPlanner Manufacturing Reviews & Insights

Score8.3 out of 10

33 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for LiquidPlanner are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Powerful and Flexible Project Management: Many users have praised LiquidPlanner for its powerful and flexible project management capabilities. They appreciate the ability to create packages, folders, sub-packages, and tasks, which helps them keep projects organized and prevent tasks from getting out of order.

Dependent Actions: The feature of setting up dependent actions has been highly valued by users. This feature allows users to assign tasks to team members but ensures that they only see the task once the preceding task is marked as done. Users find this helpful in maintaining order and ensuring that tasks are completed in the correct sequence.

Task Assignment with Estimated Hours: Users have found great benefit in being able to assign tasks with estimated hours in LiquidPlanner. This feature helps them track how much work they have assigned to a team or individual, preventing them from overloading them with more work than they can handle in a week. It also allows users to ensure that everyone has a manageable workload.

LiquidPlanner Reviews

5 Reviews

ManufacturingMachinery1Consumer Goods1Computer Hardware1Biotechnology2

Customizable Project Management Software with Email Integration

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

January 10, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

LP is used to manage the execution of complex marketing plans and determine available resources for requested projects. Implementation is by a core team of project managers, but all individuals working on projects managed through LP use the platform to track progress, time spent and upload collateral and email conversations. The email integration is especially nice.

Pros

Email integration is really nice.
It has nice dashboard features for quick views and an understanding of where resources are being spent.

Cons

Not good for both tracking human resource availability and project management simultaneously. Setting up to do one, makes it hard to do the other.
Feels clunky and not very user-friendly.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you have a large project and all of the people working on it are assigned to a particular tactic from idea, to creation, to review, to execution. Putting everything in one tactic and having checklist items that everyone can see is really useful. However, once a tactic or project is marked done, it is hard to find assets and history if you want to build on that tactic for future project work. Personally, I don't like the user experience with the software. It feels clunky and not intuitive.

Verified User

Manager in Marketing (Biotechnology company, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Despite adoption issues, I'm still a believer

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 23, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our organization is still in its infancy regarding adoption of LiquidPlanner. I'm currently acting as the primary evangelist for the product to encourage more people to start using it. As a CPG company, I am attempting to prove out how LiquidPlanner can be employed to facilitate our product development process, for which we have many projects with complicated dependencies running concurrently, with competing (and changing) priorities.

Pros

Ability to dynamically reprioritize work and immediately see the effect on all active projects (for example, if you put a deadline at risk because another project is dropped in and takes precedence).
Great transparency of entire project portfolio, since by default everything resides in a single workspace. Nobody can hide from missed deadlines; they're there for all to see.
Product is designed to be collaborative; everyone can easily update the status of their own tasks, capture conversations at a project or task level (reducing email overload), and attach documents from other services such as Box.
Great online help/support portal with lots of video tutorials and knowledge base articles.
Our dedicated customer success manager has been more than willing to help us in any way possible to improve our utilization of LiquidPlanner by sharing best practices, reviewing our workspace and making suggestions, etc. If you are willing to invest in LiquidPlanner, they are there to support you every step of the way.

Cons

Security/permissions could be more flexible. Users can be granted access to either the entire project workspace or specific projects. I'd prefer a middle option where you can grant a user access to all current and future projects that reside in a particular "package" (a LiquidPlanner construct for grouping similar tasks or projects).
LiquidPlanner has some unique scheduling concepts that may be unfamiliar to seasoned project managers who dream about Gantt charts and are MS Project experts. In fact, this is one of the reasons why some individuals at my company have struggled to embrace it. I think that LiquidPlanner could add some modules to their online support site to focus specifically on this type of individual and help to ease the transition to the LiquidPlanner way of thinking.
Their desktop web application is stellar. However, they've been lagging in updating their mobile app. I don't think that the mobile app needs all of the functionality of the desktop web application (it would make the smartphone app too complicated to use), but the basic UI hasn't evolved along with iOS and could use some sprucing up.

Likelihood to Recommend

LiquidPlanner is great for any organization looking for an easy-to-use collaborative project management solution and is willing to break away from the "MS Project style" of project management. It is suited particularly well for agencies or consulting firms who work on client projects, although we are a CPG company, and I have no issue using it for internal projects.

Andrew Ellis

Senior Manager, Business Applications and Support in Information Technology at Just Born, Inc. (Consumer Goods, 501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Stop searching. LiquidPlanner is the only project management software you need.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 13, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

TCA is a custom machine builder. We are project based. Most of our designs are one-offs. Projects last three months to one year. Our engineers work on many projects at one time. LiquidPlanner is ideal for our business model. We especially like the ASAP feature that allows management to direct attention to where it needs to be. We also use LiquidPlanner to determine our staffing needs. I can reassign projects to virtual members to see where the revenue lands and how it impacts our sales goals for the year.

Pros

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.

Cons

Importing. Right now, LiquidPlanner only imports some fields. I have made an Excel spreadsheet that generates the labor tasks for our projects. I need importing to allow for dependencies, default activity and multiple owners. I've submitted a request for this. They are working on it.
Dashboards. Dashboards were just rolled out in the last release. I haven't found it particularly useful just yet. They have not exposed a lot of information for use in the widgets thus far.
Fixed expenses. It would be great to have the ability to account for fixed expenses for a project.

Likelihood to Recommend

What happens to your plan the day after you create it? For other software, it's out of date. Because LiquidPlanner is priority based, the expected due dates are always valid.

Robert Tupa

V.P. in Engineering at Twin Cities Automation, Inc. (Machinery, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

LiquidPlanner is a low-cost alternative to traditional PM software

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

March 7, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

LiquidPlanner is the primary software used by Redapt, Inc. for project scheduling and resource allocation. LP allows us to track and assign project tasks in real-time, creating an integrated experience for team members and management. We are able to evaluate the utilization of resources and make educated decisions on resource allocation through the Analytics module.

Pros

The ability to organize projects into packages and easily move projects between ownership makes the tool quite useful.
Creating templates provides the ability to quickly and easily create new projects with similar tasks.
The reporting features allow for a multitude of views into the productivity of resources and project completion.

Cons

Reporting can be somewhat difficult to manage without some trial and error.

Likelihood to Recommend

LiquidPlanner is quite useful for multiple small projects that are shared across a large number of users. The web-based interface allows for quick updates across the enterprise. I would not recommend using this tool for projects that contain a large number of dynamic tasks. The web interface can be somewhat slow in making changes to project structure.

Mike McQuery

Production Manager in Manufacturing at Redapt, Inc. (Computer Hardware, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Easy to use for scheduling and task management

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 7, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I used LiquidPlanner to create the Gantt chart for following progress and milestones for a project. You can visualize when deadlines are and when you want to start working on a milestone. You also get reminders about starting something or when a task is due. It helps make the responsible person and project manager accountable for tasks.

Pros

Visualize tasks and milestones. It was very easy to create tasks and relations between tasks. Nice to be able to export them for others to see.
Reminders for tasks and milestones. This really helped keep everyone on task for their responsibilities.
Create reports. These were very useful for meetings and showing others about project progress.

Cons

It was very difficult to have any overlap between tasks that needed to be worked on at the same time. The schedule would not allow it.
The task/milestone list was listed in order of priority as opposed to the order that you want them. It was difficult to see relatedness between tasks.

Likelihood to Recommend

Liquid Planner is well suited for situations where you want to make sure every hour is accountable and scheduled. It is less appropriate when the times that you work on certain tasks overlap and are less strictly defined.

Verified User

Project Manager in Research & Development (Biotechnology company, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Loading Reviews List....

Despite adoption issues, I'm still a believer

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 23, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Ability to dynamically reprioritize work and immediately see the effect on all active projects (for example, if you put a deadline at risk because another project is dropped in and takes precedence).
Great transparency of entire project portfolio, since by default everything resides in a single workspace. Nobody can hide from missed deadlines; they're there for all to see.
Product is designed to be collaborative; everyone can easily update the status of their own tasks, capture conversations at a project or task level (reducing email overload), and attach documents from other services such as Box.
Great online help/support portal with lots of video tutorials and knowledge base articles.
Our dedicated customer success manager has been more than willing to help us in any way possible to improve our utilization of LiquidPlanner by sharing best practices, reviewing our workspace and making suggestions, etc. If you are willing to invest in LiquidPlanner, they are there to support you every step of the way.

Cons

Security/permissions could be more flexible. Users can be granted access to either the entire project workspace or specific projects. I'd prefer a middle option where you can grant a user access to all current and future projects that reside in a particular "package" (a LiquidPlanner construct for grouping similar tasks or projects).
LiquidPlanner has some unique scheduling concepts that may be unfamiliar to seasoned project managers who dream about Gantt charts and are MS Project experts. In fact, this is one of the reasons why some individuals at my company have struggled to embrace it. I think that LiquidPlanner could add some modules to their online support site to focus specifically on this type of individual and help to ease the transition to the LiquidPlanner way of thinking.
Their desktop web application is stellar. However, they've been lagging in updating their mobile app. I don't think that the mobile app needs all of the functionality of the desktop web application (it would make the smartphone app too complicated to use), but the basic UI hasn't evolved along with iOS and could use some sprucing up.

Likelihood to Recommend

Andrew Ellis

Senior Manager, Business Applications and Support in Information Technology at Just Born, Inc. (Consumer Goods, 501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile