OpenText Project and Portfolio Management Reviews

Scenario comparison is the feature most valuable to us and the reason why we decided to choose HPE PPM over other portfolio management products.

We are now more ready to consolidate and analyze our long term planning portfolio and understand our financial and resource levels before making investment decisions. We can also track time spent on the different projects.

User interface continues to be poor. The product does not have a similar view in the different modules, e.g., staffing vs financial management, it looks like you are working with a different product and it is not easy to use or intuitive.

The development of this product has been done module by module. Demand module having a lot of attention while reality is that we use a lot of time, financial management and scenario analysis and these have remained unchanged since v.9.14, and all our submitted enhancement requests for these modules have been rejected.

For almost five years now, we implemented it back in Nov 2012 (v.9.14).

Yes, we did in the 9.14 and 9.23 versions, now we are more stable. However, we still have problems from time to time. PPM requires a lot of infrastructure resources.

No.

PPM support maintenance services we have been contracted in Spain and are responding well. We are rating this service level as very good.

However, there is a poor level of technical support from the labs and 1st level technical support. This means that we are waiting for months in order to fix some non-critical issues. A couple of years ago, we had critical issues during the Chinese New Year and we had to wait several weeks for a solution.

No. We used internal Excel files with macros.

It was complex as PPM was rigid and could not be adapted to our environment. We are in a EUR/USD environment meaning half of our spend in the same project is in EUR and the other half may be in USD.

Additionally, it was sold to us as a multi currency tool, while this was not true, as financial summaries did not support multiple currencies for the same project.

HPE sold the tool as real multi currency and it was only after the purchase that we found out this was not the case.

As a result, we had to build our own solution/customization to work in multiple currencies and we had to pay a significant extra cost, a cost that was totally unexpected for us.

Poor management of licensing through a third party. With our first purchase, we were sold and paid for licenses we could not use, due to poor configuration of quotation. We had to deal with two different third parties.

Now, we also received an increase in the support license prices, without any advanced notice. At this point, switching to unify all our licensing under HPE and customer support has been poor.

Yes, we used a benchmark study and evaluated different options.

One of the main constraints was that HPE and HPI were the same company back then when we implemented. This was definitely one of the factors that made us choose HPE PPM over the other products (the plus functionality I described earlier).

Be ready to have a lot of complaints from the end users in terms of usability and not a high level of responsiveness from technical support and R&D. Do not expect R&D to develop on your enhancement requests.

The demand, project and time management parts are the most valuable features. We can manage our demands very easily with HPE PPM's flexible infrastructure.

The staffing profiles and work-plan structures are very useful for capacity management. It is also user-friendly.

We have some roles at PMO, one of them is a program manager. We manage a lot of programs within the year and follow the steps in Excel files. Program management can be more functional, thus it improves program management.

Budget management could be provided. Reports can be enriched.

We have been using HPE PPM for nine years.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues.

Optiim supports us for technical solutions. Our customer satisfaction is extremely high, our rating is 9 out of 10.

We used Excel before. We needed a structural tool to manage our projects, hence, we moved over to this solution.

Setup is straightforward.

It has a parametric infrastructure, which provides efficiency whilst managing projects and demands.

At the same time, HPE PPM's customization is also very easy, so time-saving is ensured.

Recent Program Management lifecycle, Program Management aggregation views due to interactive UI (selection of risks, issues, and changes in Program Overview) and “flash look & feel" of this functional chunk, which is different in comparison to other parts of HPE PPM.

This is too early to judge on 9.41, due to a recent release.

In general, PPM provided better automation for high-priority financial reports with clients (ArcelorMittal).

Currently, HPE PPM does not allow “Project” approval, but only simple “Demand Request” approval (mobility).

There is no simplified Mobile UI for the HPE PPM application, i.e., HPE PPM does not adapt, and simplifies its layout to the mobile browser.

Drag and Drop capabilities for project/proposal Gantt view within Portfolio Scenario comparisons.

Is it possible to disable certain baseline deletion?

By default, HPE PPM allows Project Managers to delete all baselines.

Is there a way to support import of work plan from XML file?

Is it possible to add and use Task Physical Quantity for calculation of real percentage complete (SPI/CPI)? (question from Mining).

Program Creation: Is it possible to add automatically projects at creation, instead of having users select one by one?

How is the Program Progress calculated from the Project’s progress? (question from Mining)

What is the Mobility roadmap? Will it eventually support Project Approval?

Recently, mainly for demonstration purposes with client(s).

The current version, HPE PPM 9.41, is not implemented yet, previous version 9.32 (SaaS) is stable (ArcelorMittal).

Idem to previous answer, except some calculations for the nontrivial financial reports.

A seven out of 10.

Customer applied HPE PPM to replace their own build solution (ArcelorMittal).

Complex, due to strong financial requirements, which are beyond ICT portfolio and project management.

They are primarily related to Run the Business domain (capitalized project to increase iron/steel producing capacities )

HPE PPM SaaS model is comprehensive, however, the base fee component has customer resistance to its recurring setup,

Customer (ArcelorMittal) has considered 69 solutions for the evaluation, coming thru multiple selection, to short list and demonstrations.

Consider thoughtful roadmap, be ambitious, but implement with a realistic sense, counting on “human/people adoption”.

Demand Management and reporting are the most valuable features.

There is a need to improve the following modules:

• Project Management
• Program Management
• Portfolio Management
• Financial Management
• Time Management
• Resource Management

We are HPE PPM implementors since the year 2007.

There were no stability issues.

There were no scalability issues.

It takes longer but we always get help from the technical support.

Our customer was using another product. The older Demand Management tool was hard to develop and not so flexible so we switched over to this product.

The HPE PPM license prices are a bit high. HPE PPM does not support agile management. HPE ALM Octane, that supports agile projects, costs are extremely high.

Microsoft Project integration: Microsoft Project is, in my experience, the most used project planning tool. Companies will not change to another project planning tool. The integration is seamless and on different levels. The new file-based integration, without the need of having Microsoft Project even installed, is a huge advantage!

Financial management: The financial management is very extensive, complete and easy to use without too much configuration. Extensions to meet company needs can be done with virtually no limitation.

Resource management: The resource management module is very complete and covers most of the time all needs of customers.

Working for integrator, no personal approval. For customers: insight in the real values.

Portfolio scenarios: This is a very powerful feature. However, it’s limited to analyses. Once an optimal portfolio scenario is found, alterations need to be done manually in all effected objects (projects, initiatives, assets). There should be a functionality, including workflow capabilities for approval, to mass update the objects in the portfolio according to the defined scenario in the scenario comparison.

I have been using this for 2.5 years.

We have not encountered stability issues.

I rate support 7/10.

We did not have a previous solution.

Stops is complex and configuration is always needed. No out-of-the-box usage it possible.

It is SaaS without a base fee.

Demand, Dashboard, and Reporting. These are the most powerful modules for our customers

Our customers mostly use the above mentioned modules. Visibility, standard processes, faster development, and much less time spent for reporting

Project and Portfolio.

We have used this since 2007.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

We are somewhat satisfied with tech support.

We were not using a previous solution. Our customers were facing issues, such as hard to implement changes in old tools, no info, slow development, and no resource management. Some customers had Excel. PPM solved these issues.

It depends on customers' expectations. Some customers wanted a complex process for the start and some started with easier processes.

Our biggest competitors are MS Project Server, CA Clarity, and JIRA.

It is easy to perform changes (workflow/process). Even the customer can easily administer and develop it.

Demand, project, and time management parts are most valuable. We can manage our demands very easily with PPM flexible infrastructure. Staffing profile and work plan structures are very useful for capacity management and are also user-friendly.

We have some roles at PMO. One of them is program manager. We manage a lot of programs within the year and follow the steps in Excel files. Program Management can be more functional to provide better program management.

Budget management could be provided. Reports can be enriched.

We have been using PPM for nine years.

I did not encounter any issues with stability.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

We used Excel before. We needed a structural tool to manage our projects.

The setup was straightforward.

It has a parametrical infrastructure. This provides efficiency while managing the projects and demands. At the same time, PPM customization is very easy, so time-saving is ensured.

The portfolio management and the resource management are the key features.

When we're doing it the most successfully, we do not over-allocate resources. We schedule projects in such a way that they do not clash on resources. Instead of executing all projects at the same time, we put up a schedule. And when resources were needed, they were available as was previously agreed upon. It's difficult, but you can do it with a good planning tool.

Support and license management are two hurdles for us. Every time we purchase new licenses, it has taken us half a year to implement those. We've had to use HPE technical support to get the right licenses. We needed a cumulative license file and that took HPE forever to get right. We go through this every time. If you want to grow, there are no technical issues with stability, but the license bit is a pain.

Ten years

There were things that had to be customized to meet expectations.

Stability is great. That's 100%.

By US standards, we're a small company with about 1100 users. We have no issues. We don't need to change the scale much. We're using an on-premises solution and that's been without issues.

We had bad experience with technical support. They don't do their best to try to help us solve the case. They tend to point away from the product to other possible problem sources. These are things you don't want to hear as a customer.

I was not involved in the initial setup. I know that the project involved a lot of consulting that took a long time. But the maturity with the organization was not very high either. We didn't have the process in place and we had to learn with the product. That's why it took a bit of time. It's a maturity thing.

I'm pretty sure they looked at alternatives. I don't know what products were involved in the pre-study. They chose HPE, which was Mercury back then.

There are lots of project management tools that do a good job, but not so many that can manage portfolios and the bigger planning picture. The key reason why projects fail, is the lack of necessary resources. With this in mind, projects need to be scheduled in such a way that their resource requirements can be met. You can’t just do all of them first.

That’s portfolio management (well, part of it). To be able to successfully execute the portfolio, it is necessary to have the required resources recruited, scheduled and committed to the different projects in due time. That’s resource management. Organizations who fail at either one of these, will find that the necessary resources tend not to be available when the projects need them, causing them to be delayed or fail completely. There are also other downsides, such as inability to project cash flow, ad hoc prioritization (usually at the wrong organization level) and, for the resources themselves, conflicting loyalties (serving the one who yells the loudest?), lack of clarity of what to do next, unclear work schedule expectations (You have to work weekend – surprise!) and just general overload situations.

Lacking portfolio and resource management, you are almost guaranteed that your projects will miss their targets. That is why I consider these the key features of PPM, although there are other aspects that make PPM a very powerful tool, such as being able to define your own request types and create work flows for them. Very neat, indeed!