Certinia PS Cloud vs. Planview ChangePoint

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
Planview ChangePoint
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Planview Changepoint is a platform that marries professional services automation (PSA), project portfolio management (PPM) and business analytics to provide managers broad operational visibility and control over their strategic business portfolios.N/A
Pricing
Certinia PS CloudPlanview ChangePoint
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Certinia PS CloudPlanview ChangePoint
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Certinia PS CloudPlanview ChangePoint
Considered Both Products
Certinia PS Cloud
Chose Certinia PS Cloud
Pre built integration to Salesforce and ability to scale was important to us. We found others had far less integration to Salesforce (one competitor showed us a one button batch record transfer and called it an integration). We also think the mobile capabilities compared to …
Planview ChangePoint

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Certinia PS CloudPlanview ChangePoint
Small Businesses
HaloPSA
HaloPSA
Score 8.8 out of 10
HaloPSA
HaloPSA
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.9 out of 10
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.9 out of 10
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Certinia PS CloudPlanview ChangePoint
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(13 ratings)
7.5
(16 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(3 ratings)
7.6
(10 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Certinia PS CloudPlanview ChangePoint
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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Planview
Changepoint is basic and would, therefore, work for businesses with uncomplicated requests, pretty straightforward workflows and willingness to work with an unsightly solution. It is basic, from the UI to the search option and the way the information is captured, which can be frustrating and counter-intuitive at times. It is relatively robust (i.e. I have been using it for almost 2 years and have not seen it crash once) but it does log me out when the system has been inactive for about 30 minutes - and I am only notified about being logged out upon clicking the Submit button, meaning many a line of text have been typed more than once!
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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!
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Planview
  • Changepoint has significant reporting capabilities, though of course, the data that comes out is only as good as the data that goes in. I enjoy being able to use the standard reports to understand exactly how much a project has cost us and to compare it to how much we are charging. This allows us to more accurately set our prices. Though we have not used the report designer capability, I understand that custom reports can be designed with relative ease.
  • Changepoint has a versioning capability for changes made to user profiles in the system manager, which I find particularly helpful. As a non-power user, it is valuable to be able to see what changes I have made to various profiles so that I can troubleshoot a problem down the line.
  • Changepoint has significant functionality well beyond the features that we are currently using, and for this reason, I think it is affordable and a good deal. Particularly if your organization is interested in dedicating the time and resources into using all of the features around project planning, resource allocation, etc., the price is well worth the value.
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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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Planview
  • We use Changepoint to manage the IS organization. I would like to see more advancement in order to do benefits management.
  • I would like to see a capability where a project manager can build a very detailed work breakdown structure, but only require project resources to charge time and provide a task status at a higher level.
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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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Planview
Sometimes the decision to renew boils down to an old adage "if it isn't broken don't fix it". Previous to moving to Changepoint, it was obvious that we needed a better project management tool. Projects we completed on time but the time zone difference between the teams and several iterations of back and forth caused a number of communication issues with projects. The difference is night and day.
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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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Planview
It could be more intuitive and user friendly.
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Reliability and Availability
Certinia
We have maybe had 1-2 outages over 3 years.
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Planview
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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Planview
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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Planview
No answers on this topic
In-Person Training
Certinia
It was fine.
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Planview
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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Planview
No answers on this topic
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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Planview
Planview Changepoint helps us to understand our key customers enabling us to capitalize on every financial opportunity and helps us to forecast demand against the capacities required for new opportunities, and also it automates and monitors contractual terms and conditions. It gives us visibility into our employees' skills and helps to optimize resource allocation.
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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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Planview
  • Employee efficiency has decreased significantly within our Project MAnagement team. The main causes are lack of logical steps/not user-friendly and the slowness of the entire program.
  • Changepoint PSA has greatly improved being able to track budgets for all projects. Before this software, budgets were done manually by hand and cross-referenced with Accounting. Now, we can pull a report out of the system, as long as all parties entered their time and data correctly.
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ScreenShots

Planview ChangePoint Screenshots

Screenshot of End-to-end view to drive financially successful customer-facing projects.Screenshot of A flexible approach to tracking elaborate contractual terms and conditions.Screenshot of Quote-to-cash success with structured processes.Screenshot of Build project rigor and standardization for services delivery.Screenshot of Improve resource utilization on the work that best meets the needs of customers.Screenshot of Ensure process adherence to drive financial success.