Certinia PS Cloud vs. Yamdu

Simplification of multiple operations within the business and easy scheduling and task management through FinancialForce PSA is effective and easy tracking multiple previous project activities is easy. Automation tools stability is good, and flexibility on services production and even the connection of customers with services providers is amazing and the development life cycle management is incredible.

Yamdu is a good choice if you work in a professional setup, where teamwork is important, where big crews have to be handled. If you only have a few crew members in small projects, the toolset might be a bit overloaded

• Simplicity. I never felt like the system was too complicated to figure out, even as I was just starting out using it.
• Efficient. I like how easy is it to get through the entire process and see all of the data in an easy to read manner. It's good for the company to be able to organize its expense data using the product.
• Fast. I was able to complete my expense reports fast and pain-free.

Incentivized

• Customized production schedule and easy management.
• Total financial control of the project in all areas.

• The only part of FinancialForce that is very frustrating, is that we are unable to edit an invoice after it has been posted. The invoice is permanent and any small error can't be fixed, which means I have to create another invoice. Because of this, we have multiple "discarded" invoices in the system--forever!

Incentivized

• The interface can be a little overwhelming sometimes, since there are so many options available
• I wish there was true mobile support so the app could be used during production
• The cost was ultimately too high for me--I wish there was another, more affordable tier for smaller production houses

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.

From my standpoint, FinancialForce PSA is relatively easy to use. As a System Administrator, I am able to maneuver around the software with ease. As a user of FinancialForce PSA, I am able to input my timecards and expense reports without any issues. I have received very positive and very negative feedback about using FinancialForce PSA, however, from users in other functional roles in my organization.

What you see is what you get. It's easy to start working when you setup your first project. Also team members do not need many new to learn skills to work with the basic functions. Really incredible is Yamdu's help center. It is always available in the right corner. A lot of topics are covered with video links. If you need personal assistance, you can write a message within the help-box and Yamdu's crew is really fast in responding!

We have maybe had 1-2 outages over 3 years.

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)

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.

This is one of Yamdu's strongest points.

It was fine.

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.

PSA comes with a lot more data and reporting capabilities than were available at the time we switched from BigTime IQ. You get more features and functions with PSA, but the user interface is much much more difficult than BigTime. It was a fairly big trade-off to get more data and increase user accountability vs. a clean and simple tool that was easy to understand and use.

Incentivized

At the time, there really wasn't anything else like Yamdu. Especially as, in Celtx's case, at that time they weren't doing Excel/CSV exports of shot lists in the A/V format, something we required for what we were shooting. I understand that StudioBinder has increased its featureset the past few years, but Yamdu always felt like the most robust option and more familiar with the film/tv world.

• We are a boutique consulting company and having FF PSA has allowed us to concentrate on the pre-sales side of business instead of being mired in the admin of projects and people.
• There is some redundancy for our consultants in managing Project Tasks and timecards, however, this is more based on our business process than the product.
• As a Managing Partner I love the 360 view of our business we get with SF and FF PSA.

Incentivized

• Positive impact, centralized place with some good tools for film productions
• Negative impact, not that flexible and as expected and strict pricing policy with little flexibility