Aras PLM vs. Roadmunk

Aras PLM works for our company, yet I don't have experience with any other software system. The system does not refresh and update quickly. Often times users need to force a refresh or logout and logon to verify changes and updates. The Lock and Unlock feature needs getting used to.

Incentivized

We replaced Trello with Roadmunk for our Roadmapping purposes. For the poor Product Manager and Product Team that is incessantly asked "where is the product roadmap" by Sales and Management, this is the tool for you! Easy, simple, and makes pretty pictures for those constituents. It is less useful for full Requirements documentation. "Ideas" is OK, but too hard to get submissions from non-Roadmunk users, and clunky integration back to the primary road mapping function. Needs an improved editing environment to fully express Reqs using this tool, but it's not that far off!

Incentivized

• Aras PLM definitely controls documents and provides the approval levels needed to be compliant.
• Aras PLM makes organizing and structuring libraries logical and intuitive.
• The search tools in Aras PLM provides quick and efficient access to documents

Incentivized

• Allows us to easily customize swimlanes based on audience and task
• Provides a visualization of resource load "weight" in a particular swimlane
• Gives us a visual vocabulary to explain our agile process and its impact to customers

Incentivized

• Aras PLM uses terms and labels that can be confusing like Subsystem / Subsystem Version, Project Record Number (PRN). Companies need to understand these terms and develop business processes to set user standards.
• I personally use Aras PLM to manage information technology project documents. In my opinion, Aras PLM is more geared to product and engineering. I would like to see a general project management Aras PLM version with terms and labels that I am familiar with.
• The description field should be made required. Many of our engineers have created records and left that blank because it was not required. This would help with the context or background of each record.

Incentivized

• The fact that you have to add a date to everything; dates stick to people’s minds.
• Connecting bars to milestones; unclear which to use when.
• Collaboration isn’t great; can’t track changes, add comments, etc.

Incentivized

Our company is moving from repositories like IBM Notes, MS Sharepoint, and plain network file share directories to a more controlled system of recordd like Aras PLM.

Incentivized

Performance has improved meaningfully over the last 12 months or so, especially in our views that contain many roadmap items. Some challenges remain, however, particularly when changing the timeline and in scenarios of multiple users interacting with the roadmap simultaneously.

Incentivized

We never really had to go back to Roadmunk for support, but they do provide a wealth of informative updates that can be consumed at the individual user's own pace.

Incentivized

Our company developed numerous IBM Lotus Notes databases to perform document control. Aras PLM is the better choice to IBM Notes databases and home grown databases.

Incentivized

We've used Google Calendar, Microsoft Office products, Trello, and others. Roadmunk seems to combine the best of all of those, and then offers a little more.

Incentivized

• Aras PLM has kept our company compliant and on the right side of audits with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
• Aras PLM keeps our project document history readily available and works well without stage gate review and approval processes.

Incentivized

• Def saves us HOURS per quarter probably 50 man-hours per year re: automated visualizations vs. yoga poses trying to use Excel, JIRA, PowerPoint, Visio, etc.

Incentivized