Microsoft Project Server vs Planview Portfolios comparison

"I like being able to manage the capacity in terms of the resources. I also like being able to share documents and information between teams. It's the best solution for collaboration."

"Microsoft Project Server helps organizations in collaboration."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that the tool's reporting is very good."

"The ability to track a project's progress using Microsoft Project Server is the most valuable aspect. It depends, especially when managing multiple projects."

"We are able to know what we are doing, how much we have spent, how much time we've taken, and it tells us how much money is left for the project. It also tells us whether we are below or above our expenditures, whether we are below or above our budget."

"The solution is scalable and easy to expand."

"I like the way you can build the schedule by the Don't Start Before or Don't Start After values. You can use it to build your schedule based on how you change your dates. This is how it actually builds the schedule."

"The usability is excellent."

"The solution view into resource capacity and availability helps us to manage work."

"The most valuable features are the resource management, the time sheet entry and usage, and the financial planning. With our projects, we primarily focus on resource assignments, as far as determining the actual forecast and actuals of our projects. A lot of it is based off of the resources utilized on those projects. The time based helps us capture the actuals. The amount of time people are spending on working on their project tasks. Because they've built this into the schedule, so we can build the forecast. With financial planning, we're able to look back on what our variance is and if there is anything between the scheduled forecasted hours, dollars against the actual hours, and the costs that they utilize."

"Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and collaboration platforms."

"Planview has helped connect funding and strategic outcomes with work execution. That is the key use that we have for it. We use it to validate the work that we're doing and the funding that we need. The difference between the previous version and current version for us would be the ICPM and the way it gives us different scenarios. We can go in and build that out."

"Enterprise One has enabled us to eliminate Excel. We don't track financials anymore in an Excel format, which the company was doing before. Even now, being a new portfolio manager four months in, I'm able to just pick up my project. I'm able to see where I am right now. That improvised it to be more automated. The only missing part is the integration between tools. I'm not able to see my full schedule, but I know what are my important milestones are like watching the financials and all that stuff."

"We use time reporting. We convert time reporting into financial costs and do contractor and capacity planning for our resources. We track our work. So, that's the module we use extensively. As a matter of fact, we have upwards of 300 open projects at this given moment. It is pretty close to 300 open activities that are working."

"Enterprise One provides a variety of types of resource assignments for assigning work to people. It's very easy and straightforward to configure these assignments. Planview allows us to see the entire workforce. We can see where our skill sets of people are, what they're working on, and allows us to make informed business decisions based on priority."

"The solution’s integrated product portfolio has transformed our organization’s delivery because people are a lot more accountable. When you have no accountability, then people don't always deliver the way that you want them to. Once you get accountability, they know that somebody is watching and the way that they manage their work changes quite a bit."

"The solution's desktop version is not compatible with the MacBook."

"It should be more agile and more flexible when it comes to customization."

"It would be useful if the solution allowed us to share files or project schedules. You may get that with the cloud version. However, it's not available on the on-premises versions."

"The user interface looks quite old and needs to be improved."

"Microsoft is going to integrate the Co-Pilot features into Microsoft Project. The AI feature is an additional feature. It can look at the plan and identify risks early on from any part of your project."

"It needs to be more collaborative from inside the application. It only does project scheduling for me. It would be good if it could do other things and be more collaborative, such as sharing tasks for users. It is not really incorporated into MS Office, so you can't copy-paste stuff. It is on its own, doing its own thing. It is only used for scheduling, and it doesn't work well with anything else."

"There are certain shortcomings in the documentation part where improvements are required."

"The reporting aspects can be improved, which is one of the reasons why I'm using Qlik Sense. In the older on-prem versions, reporting was lackluster, to say the least. Project Online has a better handle on that. However, we will still be using Qlik Sense. We're also looking at an add-on app from a company called OnePlan that adds some additional functionality where Microsoft is not as clean in its approach for things such as portfolio management and some of the trends analysis."

"The solution is stable. However, it's so robust, there's so much data, that it has the tendency to lag."

"Configuring the UI in the content management system is too elaborate and too time-consuming."

"The scheduling's kind of clunky in terms of its ability for us to see what stage work is at. They could have done better with that. It can be difficult to use."

"We have required more time from our resource managers to spend time in the tool. The adoption has been slower than we would have hoped. So, I would think from a rollout perspective, if Planview could help us with material which gets non-Planview users or previously light Planview users to become more heavy users of the system, then this would help us with the rollout."

"When it comes to reporting there are some challenges with integration."

"The number one thing that needs improvement is the UI. It should be easy for a casual project manager. It should provide customizable screens that can be a choice for project managers to choose as a professional level, medium level, and a very easy level."

"Visualization and reporting areas could use improvements by having canned reports."

"I would like to be able to copy and paste from Excel into work and assignments along with roles and hours, as opposed to having to type it out one by one."

"It has features that cannot be bought by other rivals, so cost does not matter."

"There is a licensing cost."

"There is an annual license required for this solution."

"It is an inexpensive product."

"I rate the pricing a one out of ten because the price is way too high."

"There are some payments related to the licensing cost of Microsoft Project Server."

"I think they need more flexibility with licensing, because there are preconceived ideas that don't allow as much flexibility with the various licenses."

"It's not subscription-based, we purchased the on-premises version."

"We are on the Flex licenses."

"In the time that I've used it, we've doubled up the amount of dollars on our intended projects."

"We have portfolio managers, resource managers, project managers, and time reporting licenses. These are the licenses that we have."

"Our licensing costs are probably $150,000 to $180,000 a year with 270 licenses total."

"When we went through that process, I believe it is competitive with others on the market. However, there are less expensive options available. It's a more premium offering at a higher price."

"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."

"We overbought our licenses. We looked at our needs three to four years down the road and tried based our contract on that. However, we were over aggressive. We use about a third of the licenses that we have. We're looking to adjust the makeup so we can start utilizing the amount of money that we are spending. Right now, we're overspending, and my organization is not seeing the value in Planview because we are paying so much for licenses that we're not using."

"Our licensing costs are about a quarter of a million dollars per year."