Bubble PPM vs. Kantata PS Cloud vs. Oracle Instantis EnterpriseTrack

Bubble PPM is well suited for anyone who manages product related projects, especially new product development. As we've matured in our implementation of the system we found that it is great for managing all projects, but the specific strength is product development to launch. Bubble PPM would not be as appropriate for use as a CRM tool, as the references to people are best suited to users within the organization

It is appropriate and even exceeds expectations 90% of the time. It makes project tracking very easy and visually accessible for most cases. The only occasion where Mavenlink came slightly short was for a special project that required more interaction options among project members. I am certain there are ways to work around that issue, but we did not find them.

Incentivized

• I already mentioned the simple user interface for data upload, and the equally intuitive customized reporting. Leadership and "supporting" functions for product development get tremendous value from this because they don't need to hunt down answers anymore. Everything from pipeline planning to operational planning can be built on the same foundation of objective data, rather than many different sources interpreted through many different lenses.
• But the greatest value I think Bubble Innovator delivers is not really the product itself. It's the sense of partnership and responsiveness from the Bubble Innovation team. The Bubble Innovation team becomes a part of your team. They are valued consultants with helpful input on best practices for stage gate management, portfolio analytics, and report visualization. I have continually been impressed with the responsiveness and effort that their team brings to the table. When we have challenges and need to customize our data or analytics or reporting, they are right there beside us, finding the best solution, sharing prototypes in a test environment, and implementing as fast as possible.

• With Mavenlink when starting to assign tasks to people, set deadlines and milestones, and add files to our projects we can look at it all from a variety of perspectives, including a task tracker view and a Gantt chart view
• Through Mavenlink each project also includes an activity stream where we can view all project details as they come up, as well as an activity feed for all the projects it is linked to.

Incentivized

• Development of custom functionality, and redefining 'standard' options for the software. As Bubble grows and their customer base increases there will be opportunity for this, at present development projects can be slow and expensive. However the standard software options are excellent, but as processes evolve within organisations the flexibility to evolve the software could be made simpler.

• The Gantt chart does not allow for baselines to be stored
• There is no means to upload an excel task tracker and build a plan using an upload
• The schedule does not allow for planning of holidays
• The status report functionality needs to be improved

Incentivized

The business has been extremely satisfied with Bubble Innovator and is in support of rolling this tool out to our other businesses within the overall franchise.

Although the company I currently work for does not use the product I have recommended that we do switch to Mavenlink. We will be opening some new sites internationally this year and I can see that Mavenlink would be a great product for us to use

The user interface is highly visual and simple. Literally within 10-15 minutes of my introduction to the software, I was up and running. Of course, deeper capabilities become apparent after additional use, but the basic functionality is very simple to grasp. Where there are consistent challenges reported by multiple users, the Bubble Innovation team is quick to connect and put plans in place to address the challenges.

I think Kantata is one of the most robust and best project management tools out there for an organization like ours. However, some of our staff feel like it isn't as user-friendly as it could be. From a Director point of view or a Project Manager point of view, Kantata is exceptional. From the point of view of a task-doer, it could be more visually appealing. Also, the mobile version isn't great.

Incentivized

Mavenlink gives advance notice for system upgrades, and they're not during our business day. Mavenlink has always been available when we needed it.

Very good integration with Google apps. Some complexity is called however in the synchronization between Google Tasks and Maven links tasks. This can sometimes lead to duplicate records in Google Tasks. It has been dissolvable that becomes cumbersome if not properly curated.

Outstanding response times, and solutions to issues requiring support are quickly implemented. For bigger issues or longer term developments, Bubble happily takes the time to meet in person and discuss requirements to drive detailed solutions.

Kantata support is fantastic! Any issues that arise are always handled quickly and efficiently. Granted, we haven't had many issues to report. Typically, my team tends to only reach out to support if they need assistance remembering how to do something or asking about an improvement. We had Kantata build an integration when we first started using the software, and the support team worked hard to listen and improve the integration.

Incentivized

We prepared questions in advance, and our trainer was an expert in what Mavenlink was and wasn't able to do. We were able to have multiple people trained at once.

The training was very well-organized. We were able to send questions in advance so the instructor knew what to cover, and the brought up related topics to maximize the usefulness of what they were teaching us.

The number of variables made this extremely challenging (org changes, stage gate harmonization, pipeline prioritization, and new governance model). I think the implementation was handled very well in spite of this, and managed to deliver on time and on budget.

Dedicate as much internal time to the implementation effort as possible, even if you're using a 3rd party or Mavenlink services. Your team knows your processes the best

When evaluating Bubble Innovator against the competition, we felt that Bubble Innovator gave us the flexibility that we were looking for. Other solutions tended to have some hardwired functionality. Bubble Innovator was a great fit for managing our projects and was efficient to deploy, especially within our existing business processes.

We have since switched over to JIRA and let me tell you, it was probably the best decision we have made as a company. We chose Mavenlink based on promises from the sales team about future roadmap work that really never happened. We thought Mavenlink would easily integrate with our billing software but we couldn't have been more wrong. We ended up never utilizing Mavenlink invoices as they don't even allow you to fully customize your invoices that go out to clients!

Incentivized

It's very easy to add users and contractors into Mavenlink. There's also an option that let's you manage access for teams in multiple locations.

• Increased efficiency at several levels - Proejct Teams/Project Managers/Portfolio Decsision Makers
• Driven consistency of process and reporting across a complex global organization
• Greater visibility of NPD pipeline has led to improved cross functional alignment on priorites
• Improved portfolio decision making capability

• Manvenlink is perfect for showing expenses and income over time and across people.
• Manvenlink is adaptable for the integration and automation of the processes of each of our projects in order to optimize resources and improve operational performance.
• Mavenlink allows us to determine if our projects are profitable or not, as well as save significant time by automating components such as recurring tasks and having templates, among other things.
• Manvenlink is advantageous for our operations due to its simple portfolio management of our projects: manage several projects at once and receive a complete perspective of the development of each one at a glance.
• Manvenlink kindly provides us with robust discussion threads, access restrictions, and built-in document management, allowing us to contextualize communications.

Incentivized