Planview Daptiv Reviews

Our organization was establishing a new project management office within one of the business divisions that did not utilize Planview Daptiv to a significant degree. They were planning to utilize it as their main project management tool and as a source of reports for executive-level staff following a merger and acquisition. Prior to the merger and acquisition, they were using Planview Daptiv primarily on the technical side of the business and within technical departments as a task management board similar to Jira, rather than for large-scale project management tasks like those managed using Microsoft Projects.

It's difficult to pinpoint just one most valuable feature, as there are many features that can be beneficial. For the specific use case of my client's project management office, they found the project management features of the application to be particularly valuable, such as project boards, reporting, and the ability to customize views. Additionally, task management and project scheduling were also highly utilized. However, capacity planning was not used as much as the others, as there was a lack of support from executives to invest in training and implementing it due to a lack of processes in place. The project planning features, dashboard, and reporting capabilities were considered the most valuable.

The areas that should be improved in Planview Daptiv are a subject that can be viewed differently depending on who you ask. I feel they should focus on excelling in one specific area rather than providing average capabilities in many areas. For example, their project planning software is satisfactory but not as advanced as Microsoft Projects. The same goes for the capacity planning tool and reporting capabilities, which can be improved upon by using custom Excel spreadsheets or by hiring a business analyst for additional support. In short, the biggest weakness of Daptiv is that it does not excel in any one area and only provides average performance.

In a future release, it would be beneficial to have a undo button.

I have used Planview Daptiv for approximately eight months.

There were some bugs, as is typical with software, and there were some downtimes and outages, but nothing that stood out as particularly noteworthy.

I rate the stability of Planview Daptiv a nine out of ten.

We had a total of 200 people using the solution. In our first beta, we have 54 people using the solution. We had a mix of people using the solution, I would classify the group as end users, and although some of them had expertise as architects and engineers, they were not specialized in Planview Daptiv specifically. The core team responsible for administration, including myself and two others, were considered admins and were responsible for setup, integration, and other related tasks. The remaining members were project managers, executives, staff assigned to specific projects, or administrative staff.

I rate the scalability of Planview Daptiv a nine out of ten.

The support is similar to other companies. They were not exceptional by any means. I don't see anything remarkably poor about them, but I don't see anything remarkably great. 

Their support specialists, the ones who are tied to the project, they're a nine out of ten. They're amazing. The technical team who's fixing bugs and addressing technical issues, they're neutral.

I rate the support from Planview Daptiv a six out of ten.

Neutral

The ease of setup varies depending on the specific situation. For example, in our case, we had a clean slate to work with, so it was relatively simple to set up Planview Daptiv. However, in a more complex integration scenario, it could potentially be more difficult. As someone with a background in IT implementation, I found it easy to get started and learn the system on my own. It could be challenging for those without a similar background. On a positive note, Planview offers a great service, and their integration support specialists were very helpful in guiding us through the process. They made it a smooth experience for us, but it could be a more challenging process for those working on a non-greenfield setup.

There is a difference in bringing in 3,000 users instead of 300. The integration has more challenges with more users.

The entire implementation process, from beginning to end, took me five months to complete. This included a month dedicated to training, another month for beta testing within the company, and an additional month for support before fully implementing it in the organization.

I rate the initial setup of Planview Daptiv a four out of ten.

I was the consultant that implemented the solution.

If you're considering using Planview Daptiv, I would recommend finding someone who is tech literate and has the ear of the executive staff. This person can help ensure that processes are in place and agreed upon before implementation. This will help avoid wasting time and resources if an executive changes their mind after the process has been set up.

If you have the ear of the executive staff from the beginning, you can engineer requirements that better suit your needs and pick the right tool for the job. This is a real-life example of how to approach the decision of which ERP system to purchase. Start by asking yourself, "What is our core business need for an ERP system?" If it's not everything, don't purchase Planview Daptiv. Instead, find a tool that specializes in that one thing. If you need a little bit of everything, then Planview Daptiv is a great choice.

I rate Planview Daptiv a seven out of ten.

The tool is versatile and can perform multiple tasks, which is positive. However, the trade-off is that it doesn't excel at any specific function, which is a negative. The tool was designed to be a jack-of-all-trades solution for companies that want to do a little bit of everything, as an alternative to purchasing multiple specialized tools that can add up to large costs. The tool, Planview Daptiv is charged as per the usage but might not be as efficient as specialized tools, such as Salesforce, Oracle SAP, and Microsoft.

Because I'm running a consultancy firm, we use it for the PSA side of the business, but we also do implementations and convert PMOs. So the use case would be helping the organizations reach maturity level, i.e. going from not having an application or using multiple solutions to having a single source of truth application that they would use.

I like the reporting engine, IBM Cognos, especially the analytics. That's a good tool. It's quite strong on the ideation and capacity-planning side, which is a huge plus.

It would be great to have what Xero does in a PPM solution—integration with an ITFM kind of tool. I'm not sure if there's any tool out there on the market that's doing that, but it would be great to see how they incorporate ITFM into the PPM services space. It would also be nice to see some improvements on the IBM Cognos Analytics. There's still work to be done on the analytics side of things, like your condition formality. On the tool itself, they've done quite a bit to improve functionality. While the user interface is quite good, it could offer some customization features. Since it's a cloud solution, they could let each client choose their own color schemes based on their corporate colors. 

I've been using Changepoint for at least seven years.

We've never experienced any downtime where we haven't had access to the application.

The scalability is quite good. We've done a couple of integrations. The last one that we did was with Oracle. So it's been good. 

I would rate Changepoint's technical support about nine out of 10. In terms of critical support, then it's a 10. On issues where you have to implement a workaround, I would give them a seven. All in all, it hasn't been a dreadful experience.

The initial setup was straightforward. We did need a bit of training. I went to Amsterdam for that. Changepoint has quite a lot of material on their website as well, and there are videos on YouTube.  There are many partners who are willing to share use cases and experiences. 

It's a yearly license, but it's not an open license. It's based on users and their roles. So your administrator is priced differently from your timesheet user. They also offer volume-based discounts. Once you reach a certain number of licensed users that places you in a certain bracket, it offers you a discount. The pricing model is quite flexible, instead of just an annual subscription or a multi-year subscription. 

I'm happy with the pricing, considering that it's an American solution. Any time you're converting from US dollars to any other currency it tends to be a bit expensive. But in comparison to other tools in the market, I think the price is fair.

I would rate Changepoint nine out of 10. The experience with Changepoint has been great considering that most organizations won't use 90% of the application's features. To those thinking about adopting Changepoint, I would recommend getting all the in-house processes and policies in place before deploying a solution. Once processes and policies are clear internally and in alignment with what you want to achieve, then it's easier. Then making a change on the management side of things isn't dreadful for the organization.

We primarily use the solution for tracking our projects. That includes tracking our projects holistically, and tracking time, general financials, and status reporting.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is probably just the project repository. It's a great place to keep our projects. 

The timekeeping features are great and very helpful.

The user interface needs a lot of work. If find that the UX/UI in general is pretty clunky. It could be much better.

I find the solution has an excessive amount of features. Many aren't even kept current. Some aren't useful at all. There's an overall lack of coherence within the solution. It can make the execution difficult. Many features can easily be eliminated and it would help streamline the solution. They should get rid of 80% of the features and then really focus on the leftover 20% to make it a really great product.

We have been using the solution since maybe the beginning of 2019. It's been almost two years or so.

The solution is pretty stable. I'd rate it four out of five. It's quite good. I can't recall any issues. I don't remember dealing with any glitches or bugs, and I can't recall it ever crashing on us.

You are able to scale the solution if you need to. I'd say it's pretty good in that regard.

We have about 190 users on the solution right now in our IT segment. It's mostly people doing timekeeping. We also have project managers and portfolio managers on the solution as well.

I've dealt with technical support in the past and so far I have to say I've always had a good experience. I'd rate them four out of five.

That said, new users need to be aware that they do tend to charge for their services once you ask for anything behind just a ticket.

I can't really speak to the initial setup. I don't know if it's complex or straightforward. I was hired as the company was finishing the implementation, so I missed the initial setup and full deployment.

Since it's a cloud solution, an SaaS, they tend to let us know when downtime will happen for maintenance. The solution handles the maintenance on their end.

The licensing is pretty complex. Each kind of user is a different price. It's approximately $300 per year. They charge additional fees for technical support and other additional services.

We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with the product.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we are using. It's on the cloud, so it is probably the latest version of the solution.

I probably wouldn't advise someone else to go with Daptiv. I'd probably tell a company to go with a timekeeping app, or, if they're trying to do project tracking, there's probably a different SaaS project tracking app or solution that would be better.

Overall, I'd rate the solution four out of ten. There are other solutions that may be more suitable. This solution lacks a lot of UI and is overstuffed with too many features that daren't useful.

Ferromex in Mexico used Daptiv as their project management platform, they administrate IT projects and construction projects as well.

I started using Daptiv PPM at SAP R/3, 22 module implementation, with over 80 functional team members, in different geographic locations. It definitely gave us the opportunity to centralize all schedules per module and assemble work teams for each subproject, binding them with co-dependent tasks in other modules. This type of tool allowed us to finish the back office stage just a week behind the original baseline, a real record for SAP R/3 implementation.

The powerful collaboration is definitely the most valuable and the fact that you can adjust flexibility to almost any methodology, and the easy creation of complete new functionalities without programming code.

Expense management, simulation scenarios, and budget control could be great and useful features to include.

I have been using this solution for three to five years. 

There are no issues with stability.

We have no issues with scalability. 

They have very good customer service and technical support.

We previously used Microsoft Project Server and IBM Rational.

The initial setup was very easy, its a very intuitive tool.

A local dealer implemented the product and they have very good experience and knowledge of the tool, making the implementation easy for us.

The ROI depends on the size of the portfolio projects but must be less than three months.

The best part of Daptiv PPM implementation is that Professional Services are paid only in the setup phase, it depends on the complexity (a very basic model of $6,000 USD), but if the methodology is very complex, it takes about 9 implementation weeks for about $18,000 USD, and subsequently yearly licensing is less expensive than the stand-alone version of the most popular project software on the market.

We also evaluated Microsoft Project Server and IBM Rational.

My advice is: Do not be afraid to migrate to cloud solutions. Information is often safer in the cloud than in our own infrastructure. When you begin Daptiv PPM implementation, make sure that the consultant understands perfectly your requirements and the reports you need, in order to get a better implementation service rate and guarantee that the company methodology will be embedded in your environment.

We use Changepoint to perform Multi-Project Management with more than 100 resources in different projects.

Changepoint gives us a view of the project status and needs very clearly, which are things that we used to miss with MS Project and Excel.

The most valuable feature is the reporting functionality.

This solution needs more standard connectors to other solutions i.e. to Infor ERP, Confluence, ...

I have been using Changepoint Daptiv for three years.

100% availabilty

Works fine and is usabl for companies

Works well

Prior to using Changepoint, we used Microsoft Project.

Straghtforward

In-house with little support

Hard to say, today we know much more about our projects health

Complete Daptiv Package was better

Clarity, MS PRoject

Reporting Engine

Changepoint is the application my firm uses for professional services time keeping, revenue account and projection, non-working time accounting and project management. Why? All employees record their time in this application, Changepoint allows us to accurately record and analyse all billable and non-billable time, determine resource demand for projects, analyse utilization factors and report on sales pipeline and revenue generation.

Consequently, it is the single point of truth for both our project managers and our senior leadership.

Over the past 3 years, we have enforced accurate and complete data entry at all levels. As a result, we are now able to report on ‘actual’ results through the entire business and project life-cycle and are now analyzing ‘predictive’ information to provide more accurate and complete information about future demand and revenue projections.

Accessing some functions is a bit obscure and requires some knowledge of how the product works, but the upgrade from v2012 to 2014 improved that situation and I expect the upcoming upgrade to 2017 to further streamline operations.
Did you encounter any issues with stability? None that I have encountered, though our implementation is ‘hosted’ rather than in-house.

3 years.

Not to this time. We have some very large projects (2000+ lines) that are running without issues.

Excellent. The online documentation is very complete and useful, particularly for functions that are not often used. The technical support personnel who provide us with error-correction and administrative requirements are knowledgeable and responsive. It is always a pleasure to deal with them.

Changepoint was in place when I arrived, though I have taken over System Administration and now perform all of these functions. It appears that the initial setup was probably pretty complex and I have altered some of the base settings as we have evolved the use of the product and the organization.

I am only marginally familiar with pricing and licensing as this product was already in place when I arrived.

I recommend it as a one-stop-shop for professional services.

Resource management is a valuable feature of this product.

The only marked improvement was in resource management. Changepoint allowed us to model resource request/assignment workflow in our large PS organization.

The timesheet app is outdated. Web portal functionality is lagging behind in other features.

I have used this solution for around 16 months, i.e., from November 2014 through March 2016.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

The technical support is good, but not great.

We switched solutions due to the corporate mandate. The previous solution that we were using was Projector PSA; it was overall a superior product.

The setup was complex. It took us around 18 months from start-to-finish.

Do not go with perpetual licensed solution!

As I mentioned earlier, it was a corporate mandate, so did not evaluate other options.

You should check on ownership situation. CP was in the middle of spinning out of Compuware when we implemented it. Thus, there were many questions about the future, new direction, etc.

The most valuable features are resource allocation and capacity planning.

The user interface is quirky and does not always conform to the expected Microsoft UI standards. Several areas of the product use Silverlight technology. This will be replaced in a future version of the product, but that is taking some time.

Here is an example of the user interface:

To change the value in a drop-down list box, you cannot simply click on the down arrow and choose a new value. You must use a backspace to clear the current value, then press enter to refresh the full list, and then choose the new value. And this is not consistent throughout the product. 

In some cases, the listbox works in this way, and in other places in the product, it does not.

We have been using this solution since 2013.

I don’t know any details about scalability. However, we have Changepoint deployed at a number of sites worldwide, with about 1,000 users.

I was not part of the negotiations. I do know that the licenses for people with project manager and other advanced permissions are more costly than for those who only enter time. We needed more people to have the project manager and additional permissions licenses than Changepoint initially estimated.

It is important to have a Changepoint expert/consultant to assist with the initial setup. You need to know a lot of details about how fields function so you will know how to choose the configuration settings.