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Planview Portfolios vs SAP PowerDesigner comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Planview Portfolios
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Project Portfolio Management (7th)
SAP PowerDesigner
Ranking in Enterprise Architecture Management
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Metadata Management (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Enterprise Architecture Management category, the mindshare of Planview Portfolios is 1.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP PowerDesigner is 7.7%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Architecture Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP PowerDesigner7.7%
Planview Portfolios1.9%
Other90.4%
Enterprise Architecture Management
 

Featured Reviews

EduardoMaya - PeerSpot reviewer
A solution that gives you all the information you need to plan detailed projects
The initial setup was just a little complex. I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten. Deploying the solution took two weeks. While deploying the solution, we had two instances, one for the IT team and one for the business team. And we had to connect the two and explain things to the team. Only two people were needed to deploy the solution, me and another person.
Kopparapu Venkatesh Prasad - PeerSpot reviewer
Data modeling tool improves data management and decision-making efficiency
The lineage analysis helps my organization understand data dependencies at an enterprise level. As a SAP PowerDesigner developer, I monitor data across the organization, creating data models that reflect not just one data warehouse but comprehensive organizational information. If you have a small company, lineage helps track employee data across different areas such as finance and HR. Data governance prevents duplicate records, so when tracking employee details, SAP PowerDesigner highlights where data exists in various areas, helping ensure we only use the appropriate sources. This functionality allows us to assess the impact of data deletions effectively. I utilize the reverse engineering capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner. Reverse engineering is helpful, especially since I have colleagues new to SAP PowerDesigner. They often do not know which columns are available where. In SAP PowerDesigner, we can reverse engineer existing data from its source and identify errors in production. For instance, by using Ali's example, if an error arises, I can trace it back to the table and environment it originated from using the reverse engineering feature. The best features of SAP PowerDesigner, from my perspective, are its ability to keep the connectivity between the source database and the new system, data redundancy and availability, and impact analysis. The first feature acts as a bridge between systems. The second allows us to see what data is already available and what new data can be brought in. The third, impact analysis, helps determine how many tables will be affected if a specific table is deleted. This critical point allows us to capture how much data will be lost if any table is removed. Currently, these features shape my daily work. SAP PowerDesigner primarily benefits business management units by offering three types of data modeling structures: conceptual, logical, and physical models. The conceptual model communicates high-level insights to top executives, while logical and physical models address complex queries faced by developers in analytics. SAP PowerDesigner enhances the clarity of our data management significantly, as around 80% of data can be searched quickly and maintained in our SAP systems. The tool enables mapping from end to end, making my work faster and more efficient than using other ER data modeling solutions. The interface allows easy creation of data models and searching for existing data, ensuring I can complete my tasks significantly quicker. The importance of SAP PowerDesigner's collaboration capabilities lies in fostering a unified data management approach. It acts as a unified tool, preventing the duplication of existing data in analytical processes, thus saving both effort and storage costs, which is essential for effective data management. We utilize collaboration capabilities in SAP PowerDesigner with various source systems such as PG admin, Postgres, Oracle, and Snowflake. Recently, we have added Snowflake for cloud data modeling and POC work, streamlining the collaboration process across different systems.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Another good thing is that we can create custom reports, which is great. If I created a custom report, a tile that tells me how many people have logged in today. We currently have a little under 2000 users, and that's only users, we actually have integrations, that we created a custom form that sends hours directly to Planview. They're not using Planview directly, but they're sending their hours to Planview through an API."
"The financial planning capabilities are very useful. We have integration for an SAP system, and so we load financial data from SAP into Planview for prior months. And then we use the forecasting capabilities to get a complete picture of the cost of a specific project. The financial management is very useful."
"I like that it's an enterprise environment. I can look across everything that's going on and have a sense of what is going on within the organization."
"I like that everyone is able to see the same data. All of our users who aren't just time reporters have read access to all the data that is out there. So, it is one source of truth where everybody can go in and see the exact same data that everybody else sees. It is transparent."
"Whenever we have issues, there is always someone ready to help us. Their people are knowledgeable and responsive. They get to tickets quickly. Just three or four weeks ago, we were having issues with getting data into Planview. We submitted a ticket and the turnaround was probably 45 minutes to get a response."
"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 portfolio and technology management are well built."
"In my opinion, the financial planning feature is the most valuable feature of Planview Enterprise One."
"I like the property sheet capability and the user-defined attributes that you can set up."
"SAP PowerDesigner is an excellent tool that does what I need it to do. What I like most about it is that it's stable, fast, and easy to understand."
"The most valuable feature is the way you can extend it and customize it. With most modeling tools, you fit your modeling process to fit the tool. In PowerDesigner, you can make the tool fit the way you want to work."
"I like the connectivity or the lineage between the models and usability."
"The physical database model is definitely the most valuable feature because it describes normalization exactly the way you understand the data, and it deploys it perfectly with open source systems."
"The feature I found valuable in SAP PowerDesigner is extraction. I also like that my company hasn't faced any issues because of the clear documentation about SAP PowerDesigner."
"Provides the flexibility to create logical and conceptual data models."
"This solution has good tools for big data, where you can manage large and complex databases."
 

Cons

"When we first deployed, there were some issues. We never got to the root cause of why they happened. Since we didn't have any history with it, we weren't quite sure if this was a standard operating procedure or it truly was a glitch."
"Support is still a challenge. We find it challenging more due to the responsiveness and getting a case or ticket assigned to an analyst. That's what I was just doing. I was following up on an email that we opened last week. We haven't heard anything, so following up on that."
"Its ability to create summary reports across multiple projects is very limited. In terms of the out-of-the-box reporting for summary reports, the reporting that we typically leverage is around forecasting for resources, timesheets, and actuals, and just looking at what is the capacity. There is no real summary of what work is being done and how work is being accomplished. So, what we typically do is that we get a copy of the data files from Enterprise One daily, and then we have a team that manages the data mod outside of Enterprise One. They use data from Enterprise One as well as other additional sources to provide the reporting that we share with the management. So, we leverage a lot of Enterprise One data for reporting, but we don't use the reporting capabilities within Enterprise One. So, reporting can be improved, and they could help us make more customized reporting. I know it is very configurable out of the box, but we have to leverage an outside data mod that pulls in a lot of data from Enterprise One. So, the reporting function, and being able to customize reports, is the area that could be very beneficial."
"The outcome management and work resource management in terms of teams needs improvement. Team handling, how team requirements are generated, and how the resource managers can work with teams needs to be improved."
"Visualization and reporting areas could use improvements by having canned reports."
"One big issue we have been having during our annual planning is that only the creator of a portfolio can edit it. This means that only the creator of a portfolio can edit which projects are included or excluded in it."
"The out-of-the-box reports, as far as I can tell, are weak. We've had to build a lot of reports using Power BI, which we connected to it."
"I think that the user interface needs some getting used to. It's not immediately intuitive. That's potentially room for improvement. I think also that an organization needs to have good support from some senior management to get something like Planview established."
"There should be a better usage of current hardware including multicore CPUs, higher resolutions, and multiple displays."
"You have the possibility to complete a connection for abbreviations if you are creating columns or names of the tables. In the Citrix environment, this has been lagging to the point where the PowerDesigner was not usable."
"This product does not have a good BPMN Modeler."
"The portal of SAP PowerDesigner could be better. The tool also needs more features and integration with other products, such as Collibra. It would be interesting for SAP PowerDesigner to have more integration."
"Regarding improvements, I suggest enhancing the connection between objects in process and data models. It's crucial to define the structure of objects, especially when dealing with standard frameworks like VMM. There should be better visualization of arrows between BPM and data modeling objects, specifying their structure and impact. For future versions, a feature similar to Bizagi, allowing users to see forms or SQL representations of objects, would be valuable for demonstrating and presenting project details to stakeholders."
"This product lacks artificial intelligence that should be very good in terms of automatically identifying the classification of elements."
"One issue is the cost, as it is a high-priced tool coming from SAP."
"It would be helpful if there were glossary, catalog and governance tools. It would help make it a true end-to-end product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
"Our licensing costs are about a quarter of a million dollars per year."
"The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
"With the costs, they were very understanding. Knowing that we were an existing customer, they were very much willing to work with us to make sure that we were able to transition to Enterprise One from PPM Pro."
"We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
"We are on the Flex licenses."
"We have portfolio managers, resource managers, project managers, and time reporting licenses. These are the licenses that we have."
"I don't know about the actual pricing. I have not come across any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The ROI has been 43%."
"The price of the solution is low."
"When you purchase the license for SAP PowerDesigner, you have to buy one year of support. The tool is worth the money."
"Regarding costs, SAP PowerDesigner is pricey, as I've heard from my team manager, which is why the company has been thinking of bringing another solution on board."
"I bought the software outright and do not pay a licensing fee."
"I would like SAP to prove free licenses to professionals that are using the solution. The free version is limited."
"The pricing varies based on functionality and users."
"SAP PowerDesigner is cheaper than eriwin."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise18
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Planview Portfolios?
Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM) syst...
What needs improvement with Planview Portfolios?
Enhancements are needed in: Advanced reporting and analytics: While Planview Management provides robust reporting and analytics capabilities, further enhancements could include more advanced data v...
What is your primary use case for Planview Portfolios?
We use Planview Management to assess the current project portfolio, evaluate resource availability, and prioritize projects based on strategic objectives, ROI, and risk factors. Planview Management...
What do you like most about SAP PowerDesigner?
It allows us to have proper documentation in terms of the databases.
What needs improvement with SAP PowerDesigner?
It was a long time back when my company purchased it, but I am now participating in upgrading it to the latest version. I found customer support to be tedious during the upgrade process to the late...
 

Also Known As

Planview Enterprise One, Troux
Sybase PowerDesigner
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Planview Portfolios vs. SAP PowerDesigner and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.