OpenAir PSA

Score8 out of 10

50 Reviews and Ratings

What is OpenAir PSA?

NetSuite OpenAir is a cloud-based Professional Service Automation (PSA) product which includes capabilities around project management, resource management, project accounting, etc.

Categories & Use Cases

Invoicing
Ability to create, manage and send invoices to clients during or after completion of a project
Category average: 7.6
Integration with accounting software
Real-time, two-way sync with accounting or financial software to facilitate project and financial reporting
Category average: 8.3
Document Management
Document management provides for centralized management of all project documents.
Category average: 7.9

Scheduling
Scheduling capabilities allow users to set schedules on tasks, and create timelines and milestones.
Category average: 8.2
Workflow Automation
Workflow automation is the ability to route work requests along an approval process automatically.
Category average: 8.6
Support for Agile Methodology
Agile is a time boxed, iterative approach to development that builds software incrementally instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end.
Category average: 8.1

Mylene Beatty View profile

Project Administrator in Corporate at Kermodei Construction Company Ltd. (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Oracle in conjunction with a large General Contractor we do work for. The General Contractor utilizes their services for Contract management and progress billing applications as well as Document Management. We have regularly used it for progress billings and contract document management for a variety of projects we work on.

Pros

Contract Management.
Progress Applications.
Document Management.
Reminders

Cons

Document Management updates.
Frequency of Password changes.
Project Administration.

Most Important Features

Contract Management.
Document Management.
Progress Applications.

Return on Investment

Frequent payments without holds.
Contract management fee we neglect to include in bid prices.
Contract increase equals additional fee.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and Procore

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, Procore, Microsoft Excel

Bryan Parry View profile

Senior Manager Business Operations in Professional Services at Medallia (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

It does the very basics of a PSA tool (time tracking, connecting with NS for invoices) relatively well, but the UI still leaves a lot to be desired.
The integration with NetSuite is easy and fluid. This is the main pro of OA.

Cons

The UI of many parts of the system is really poorly designed. Inputting and updating forecasts is a very time-consuming and difficult process for our PMs and it doesn't allow any type of upload from a spreadsheet (which might be easiest in absence of a decent UI).
I have extensive experience with the reporting piece of OA and have a list of notes and improvements. The entire module is very inflexible at least pieces of it are not intuitive. Easy example: If you create a custom calc with a filter on Project Type to only include hours from our customer projects (Impl and MS), but then create a report with a filter to only show hours from MS, that custom calc won't work properly. The filter logic is unable to handle multiple filters on the same field.
Specific example of a ticket we've filed but not heard back on: When you close a project, any remaining forecasts from that project remain active and show as "committed hours" against those individuals which doesn't make sense on projects that are closed. Why would you not give an option to delete any remaining forecasts when closing a project as default behavior?

Return on Investment

Lots of dissatisfied users. We have been discussing purchasing a new system for the past 3 years but switching costs are high.
If your needs are uncomplicated and very basic, OA can satisfy your needs.

Alternatives Considered

Mavenlink

Other Software Used

Medallia, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Workday Human Capital Management

Verified User

Administrator in Corporate (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use this product to pull information from our other reporting platform such as Hubspot, to drive the vast majority of our information and sales process. This product has simplified and automated a once complicated procedure for our company. This pulls in data from our company CRM and shoots off-invoice directly to our customers. It also allows us to set our clients up on automated subscriptions for our products without having to do a single thing (except make sure the data input is correct). This has truly aided in transforming the way we work.

Pros

Simplifies Data.
Inventory Management.
Account/Billing Driving.

Cons

Bulk Editing Feature Needs Tweaking.
Complicated to learn for the non-tech savvy.
Could use a bit of a facelift.

Most Important Features

Ease of access.
Data driving.
Easy to implement.

Return on Investment

Simplicity with use.
Automated features.
Data must be correct or billing issues will occur

Alternatives Considered

HubSpot CRM

Other Software Used

HubSpot CRM, monday.com, Stripe, Xero, PandaDoc

Cristian Bodnarasec View profile

Senior Software Development Manager in Information Technology at eSilicon (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

Time tracking - OpenAIR covers the corner cases as well, like when end of the month falls in the middle of the week and people are require to submit the timesheets for the current month only
Project management - using the project team, assigning tasks and using the existing reporting can really help a project manager in doing his/her job
Reporting - many built-in reports and the ability to create custom reports.
Okta integration - very helpful for single sign on, especially for cloud applications as OpenAIR

Cons

Email notifications - as a project manager I need to be notified whenever team members submit their timesheets so I can review and approve/reject. Currently these notifications are a little more difficult to be set up.
Reviewing timesheets - whenever there is a list of hundreds to be reviewed and approved, I find it quite difficult to do that in a timely manner. Going one by one is needed but the information to be reviewed is not standing out, like team member name, project and task, hours. Not sure if this is possible through configuration or not.
User Interface - in many parts of the UI there is a usage of a popup window that displays way too many options. Some functions are only accessible from that popup. To me, this is something to be avoided/improved.

Return on Investment

It covers our requirements for time tracking and project/resource management better than the previous solution we used.
Project managers are happier having this tool for their job and also because it is running on the cloud as opposed to running on-prem.
It doesn't help in any way improving the "chasing" of the people that don't submit their time-sheets in time. This one stayed the same as before.

Other Software Used

Skype for Business, Skype, Ipswitch MOVEit, Oracle CRM On Demand

Dan Lobring View profile

Vice President, Marketing Communications in Marketing at rEvolution (51-200 employees employees)

Pros

Ease of use for time management
Ability to access remotely via the web & mobile app
Easy to use to track job numbers & personnel assigned to projects

Cons

The robust interface can be overwhelming
Lack of training
Ability to hide modules & sections not used by the teams

Return on Investment

Positive ROI from tracking time standpoint
Positive ROI from expense report standpoint
Negative impact on integration with other internal systems

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions

Other Software Used

Cision PR Software, NUVI, MailChimp

OpenAir PSA

What is OpenAir PSA?

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Invoicing

Integration with accounting software

Document Management

Areas for Improvement

Scheduling

Workflow Automation

Support for Agile Methodology

Reviews

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Cons

Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

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Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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Return on Investment

Other Software Used

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Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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