Certinia PS Cloud vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Certinia PS Cloud
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Certinia PS Cloud software is a cloud-based services solution that is built on the Force.com platform. It allows companies to manage professional resources, customers, projects and financials in one integrated services management application. Because the solution works natively with Force.com, it utilizes the same data for sales, services and finance on one system.N/A
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.
$44
per month
Pricing
Certinia PS CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Certinia PS CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Features
Certinia PS CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Sales Force Automation
Comparison of Sales Force Automation features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.7
69 Ratings
0% below category average
Customer data management / contact management00 Ratings8.968 Ratings
Workflow management00 Ratings7.166 Ratings
Territory management00 Ratings8.050 Ratings
Opportunity management00 Ratings8.162 Ratings
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)00 Ratings7.265 Ratings
Contract management00 Ratings8.151 Ratings
Quote & order management00 Ratings8.147 Ratings
Interaction tracking00 Ratings7.059 Ratings
Channel / partner relationship management00 Ratings7.250 Ratings
Customer Service & Support
Comparison of Customer Service & Support features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.0
54 Ratings
8% below category average
Case management00 Ratings8.050 Ratings
Call center management00 Ratings8.044 Ratings
Help desk management00 Ratings5.048 Ratings
Marketing Automation
Comparison of Marketing Automation features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.6
66 Ratings
0% below category average
Lead management00 Ratings8.160 Ratings
Email marketing00 Ratings7.161 Ratings
CRM Project Management
Comparison of CRM Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.5
63 Ratings
1% below category average
Task management00 Ratings7.158 Ratings
Billing and invoicing management00 Ratings7.243 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings8.152 Ratings
CRM Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of CRM Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
8.7
64 Ratings
12% above category average
Forecasting00 Ratings9.054 Ratings
Pipeline visualization00 Ratings9.060 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings8.163 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.6
66 Ratings
0% above category average
Custom fields00 Ratings8.165 Ratings
Custom objects00 Ratings8.060 Ratings
Scripting environment00 Ratings8.147 Ratings
API for custom integration00 Ratings6.251 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.6
61 Ratings
9% below category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.155 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings7.256 Ratings
Social CRM
Comparison of Social CRM features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.6
36 Ratings
4% above category average
Social data00 Ratings8.135 Ratings
Social engagement00 Ratings7.236 Ratings
Integrations with 3rd-party Software
Comparison of Integrations with 3rd-party Software features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
7.2
55 Ratings
0% below category average
Marketing automation00 Ratings7.255 Ratings
Compensation management00 Ratings7.228 Ratings
Platform
Comparison of Platform features of Product A and Product B
Certinia PS Cloud
-
Ratings
Microsoft Dynamics 365
8.1
47 Ratings
8% above category average
Mobile access00 Ratings8.147 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Certinia PS CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Small Businesses
HaloPSA
HaloPSA
Score 8.9 out of 10
Salesmate
Salesmate
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 7.0 out of 10
Creatio
Creatio
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 7.0 out of 10
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Certinia PS CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(13 ratings)
2.7
(89 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.0
(20 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
2.7
(19 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(3 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.2
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
3.8
(3 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Certinia PS CloudMicrosoft Dynamics 365
Likelihood to Recommend
Certinia
PSA is great at capturing all the data you would need to accurately track and report on consulting projects. It captures project financials, calculates projected GM%, and (among others) allows for hourly tracking of employees, which breaks it up between billable and non-billable for utilization tracking to accurately understand costs. However, the user interface is tough to learn, and the stability of the data reporting functions is questionable. This tool would be great for smaller consulting shops that fit the standard contracting mold. If your business is fairly straightforward without a lot of shades of gray, you shouldn't have much trouble with the tool. However, if your business practices have a lot of exceptions based on clients, then you'll have a tall administrative task on your hands.
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Microsoft
All told, if it hadn't been for the fact that we were testing it with both employees who knew CRM lingo and those who were new, we wouldn't have found such an issue. The program itself can be very useful for people who already manage CRMs, who know how to use them, who know how to run and manage employees on them, namely because of the "one-stop-shop" concept in data visibility. When it came down to it though, if you have high-turnover, then this product will devolve into only being used for it's base components. Down the middle, we found that the people who'd been in marketing for 4-5 years fell into the product easily because of the way it was written. Everyone before that, with novice experience, thought it was written like a textbook for a graduate class - little to no leeway if you don't happen to know one specific term
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Pros
Certinia
  • The biggest strength of FinancialForce PSA is that it's built upon the force.com platform, which means it is very easily customizable to our business needs.
  • Projects are easily created, as well as milestones and assignments.
  • "Actuals" (dollars and hours) are calculated automatically, and are easily reported on.
  • Resources are easily managed by using the Resource Planner
  • FinancialForce PSA support is outstanding!
Read full review
Microsoft
  • Some useful out-of-the-box features, like mass uploads of Leads from trade shows or when qualifying a Lead, CRM automatically creates the Opportunity, Contact, and Account for you, etc.
  • Really powerful customizations through the user interface to improve user experience. Things like Business Rules, for example, if Field A = 1, then Field B = 2 and Field C = 2, if Field A = 2, then Field B and Field C don't apply, so automatically hide them.
  • Or other functionality that improves user experience, like Business Process Flows. These walk users step by step through our business process, helping them know when certain actions should take place, and at what point other data is now required. We've used this extensively with our Lead to Opportunity to Quote to Order process, helping users understand the business process each step of the way.
  • Customizations built on top of the platform now called model-driven PowerApps. You can have connections to "typical" data, like Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities, for example, but then connect that data to custom entities, records that only apply to your specific business. This is all done through the user interface and allows you to customize and automate specific line-of-business applications for your specific needs.
  • Behind the scenes, D365 CE is built on SQL. So the data conforms to industry standards and makes it much easier to interact with. Your developers and IT team will thank you.
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Cons
Certinia
  • The product is still maturing as a full featured PSA tool. The feature roadmap is compelling but is still being built out.
  • Tool is ideal for managing a services business. It is not yet a project manager tool.
  • Limited reporting
  • Maturing change order process
  • Limited integration to back-end financial systems beyond Financial Force Financials. We use Netsuite.
  • The underlying SalesForce UI is constrained and can be keystroke intensive at times
  • Limited archiving of historical data
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Microsoft
  • Microsoft Dynamics 365 storage & license cost can prohibit some large deployments or even cost-sensitive small projects from using the platform (although I'm certain most deployments would realize a positive ROI if implemented correctly with process automation).
  • The cost and licensing document for Dynamics 365 is 61 pages and will take a rocket scientist to understand it. It's better to just have your Microsoft help estimate the cost if they are willing to help you that.
  • The documentation on how to first fully understand the Out of the Box default solution and settings is lacking or even non-existing. This has the potential to derail Dynamic 365 launches and implementations from the gitgo. Want to use an out of the box entity?.. well it's probably related to 5 other entities that require configuration and full understanding of it to successful implement. And you ask where is the laymen guide or instructions?... User groups and forums. In Summary, Microsoft can up its game in deployment training and supporting documentation.
  • Microsoft needs to incentivize more external platforms to build app connectors for easy integration, such as ZenDesk, Slack, Tableau, etc. Even the current connector apps such as Salesforce, MailChimp, Docusign are useless or don't work at all.
  • Several limitations inhibit successful Dynamics 365 deployments such as: limited number of Rollup field calculations (summarizing fields on child/related records), limited number rows that can exported to Excel via advanced find, Dynamics 365 files, log and database storage size limit is extremely small and will always require purchasing additional storage (for Online deployments).
  • New user buy-in or acceptance or system platform changes can be difficult if a solid change management plan isn't enacted.
  • Don't expect much help from Microsoft on implementation or solutions unless it's a technical flaw with the platform. Microsoft relies on their MVP partner network to consult for implementations at a hefty cost. Hiring a knowledgeable and savvy Dynamics 365 System Administrator can reduce the need for consultant support; of course, this is dependant upon many many variables.
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Likelihood to Renew
Certinia
There is another PSA software program that we have been looking into (DreamFactory) that could potentially replace FinancialForce PSA in our organization. Like FinancialForce PSA, it is cloud based on the force.com platform. Licensing is slightly less than FinancialForce PSA, and the Resource Management tool is far superior to FinancialForce PSA. With that said, our renewal falls in Q4 2014 and I don't foresee us implementing a new system this fiscal year.
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Microsoft
CRM has allowed us to keep all of our data in one place that is easy for all users within the company to view. I came into the company after they had been using CRM for about 4 years. They have all said that since we have used this it has helped us control work processes better, it has allowed us to be able to track things so much better, and has been something that has helped unite many processes that used to be all over the place. We are currently using CRM 4.0 and are planning on upgrading in the next 18 months to the 2011 version. Support for 4.0 is almost all but dried up. Understandably so. Some of the customization we have done, and a plugins we use, are now contained within the 2011 version so we are looking forward to that upgrade. We use an email marketing company as well, and they primarily support the 2011 version, but their product connects and is integrated within CRM. This is a great benefit as well so that all of our marketing information can be contained in one location.
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Usability
Certinia
It is maturing and does what it does well although it is not fully complete.

Integration to SF is great.

Gives great visibility to incoming services projects and allows the staffing process to start on pipeline deals.

There are certain processes that take more click-throughs then needed so there are refinement opportunities around the UI.

The resource management screen and project status views have really matured since our original purchase, and while not perfect, allow business leaders to do their jobs.

Configurations vs. customizations. We seem to have to bring in an Apex developer to do a customization for changes I would think could be configuration settings
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Microsoft
The user-interface is very clunky, truncating data fields while wasting space on the screen. There are too many menus.
Getting bulk data into the system used Excel. This caused much "mojibake" (look it up in Wikipedia) by the poor handling of different character sets (UTF-8 and Windows 1252).
Getting data out of the system was extremely long-winded and unreliable. It seemed that Microsoft never wanted us to copy data out of the system.
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Reliability and Availability
Certinia
We have maybe had 1-2 outages over 3 years.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
Certinia
Most of the time it is fine. There are peak periods of usage where performance noticably slows down (i.e., Monday mornings when time is due and many reports are being run)
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Certinia
Every time I submit a new help request, whether it's an actual help request or just a question about FinancialForce PSA, I always feel that I'm receiving world class support. The support we receive from FinancialForce PSA is always very detailed and professional. There are some requests that take longer than other for the initial response, which is why I did not give a full 10.
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Microsoft
Our partner, Ledgeview Partners has been FANTASTIC to work with. They are always timely in their response and have taken time to understand our business and our specific needs. We've made a lot of advanced customizations and they have been a great help in making those updates.
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In-Person Training
Certinia
It was fine.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Certinia
Appirio did a good job, however, the user team didn’t know enough to make all the right configuration/customization choices. The team focused too much on replicating existing processes vs. reengineering them. In hindsight we should have had deep dive reviews at key milestones and enforced more focus on how the software would operate. We didn’t have access to true best practices expertise. In hindsight, a consultant from the outside would have been helpful to drive this.
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Microsoft
We used a data warehouse to house our data, and our IT team and implementation vendor worked diligently ahead of time to construct idea implementation plans. Out of millions of records- we had less than a dozen errors, which is remarkable. My major insight is simply having a group of completely devoted individuals working towards your goal who fully understand the desired outcome. Focused resources for implementation season are critical to success.
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Alternatives Considered
Certinia
FF PSA is a robust Project Management solution that can be configured to fits any size business. We have tried several other applications and PSA so far has met and exceeded our needs. We run our day to day operations on Salesforce so having a solution that is native was a must have. PSA met that requirement and much more.
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Microsoft
Salesforce has more desirable functions than Microsoft Dynamics 365, at a competitive price. Its user interface is far more superior, it has more customization, easier customization, and out of the box it is more pleasing to the eye and to the end user. If the client doesn't have a deep-rooted connection with Microsoft I wouldn't leap to Dynamics 365.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Certinia
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
On our purchase, I'd been interrogated about our usage. Our needs are met by Microsoft Dynamics 365, which is simple to use. With so much data and information available, we must ensure that it is presented correctly to managers. Due to a lack of use, we don't have to spend as much money on Salesforce.
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Professional Services
Certinia
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
My company's preferred program right now is Microsoft Dynamics 365. We use it to keep track of customers and important sales metrics in a streamlined manner. Anyone familiar with CRMs will find the tool extremely useful. Considering that we have a good turnover, this product will be used for its basic segments. As a result, there are few chances of error with Microsoft dynamics because it is so easy to use. Many options for recording data on these leads are available. It meets our needs and pays off.
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Return on Investment
Certinia
  • FinancialForce PSA has helped us improve our data tracking and allows us to get more granular about our financial information and performance.
  • PSA has given more tools and reports to individual contributors to take greater ownership over their own data, and has increased accountability across the organization.
  • PSA has added a fairly hefty administrative burden to individuals, project managers, and our financial team.
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Microsoft
  • It is hard to say, the reason why we are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM is because it is provided to us for free.
  • It could be worthwhile to investigate whether an alternative CRM (even though paid) can be used to boost the ROI
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