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.
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Zoho CRM
Score 8.2 out of 10
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Zoho CRM is a simple, very low-cost CRM option for the smaller end of the SMB segment.
The product has several useful integrations with other products, including QuickBooks, and Google Apps and Google Docs.
The product also has an integrated project management module.
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!
For customizing a CRM without needing specialist support, Zoho CRM is great. The admin UI is pretty intuitive and easy to use. Zoho CRM also works great for tracking contact records and relationships to other records. For instance, we run 10+ different programs, and we need to track every contact's relationship to any and all of our programs. Besides the program relationship, we also track organization/employer relationships, host site relationships for interns, team relationships for several of our programs, and we are starting to track grant disbursement as well. Zoho CRM's "joiner modules" handle all of these different connection points fairly well, though the data import process can be a pain.
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.
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.
our team found it very challenging to integrate directly to our wordpress site
while there may be a way to integrate to the SMS system, we have not discovered how a sales rep would be able to get an sms when customers leave their contact info (not through the app)
we have one team member who still works with outlook calendar. it was easy to integrate with google calendar, but a second calendar, depending upon the user
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.
Zoho has been a wonderful tool for us for several years and there is so much more we can do with it. New features are released often which give a team like us the option to further fine tune our business process management techniques. I honestly couldn't imagine running our business not on Zoho.
The methodology of the 'out of the box' user interface is fairly easy to learn. In some cases however, the interface is not consistent throughout the software. Upgrades to the interface has certainly improved some of this--- but now we are seeing the same kinds of inconsistencies across Zoho apps, particularly those more recently added to their platform. This issue is not major in that everybody on staff seems able to learn how to work the programs--- it's just annoying and less than efficient when inconsistent user interfaces or inconsistent terms are used in the programs and/or the requisite documentation.
We did the training and that was a huge waste of money. The information provided was basic and the instructor was sloppy (he even forgot to turn off his mic when he used the restroom - no one should ever hear what we heard). I offered up a 9 because we were able to find what we needed on your website.
When you switch CRMs, you can automatically assume everything isn’t going to match up correctly. We had used Salesforce for 10+ years and had a ton of data and customizations. It was not a clean transfer, but we were able to sort it all out. The only issue that really bothered me was Zoho support. Even simple questions couldn’t be answered over chat, and we would have some team members try for hours to find the right answer
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.
Zoho is the only product we have used. Our company is fairly new and before purchasing Zoho a few years ago, client files were only saved and looked at through our company server. Because of how great Zoho has been, we have never considered looking for another product because there really is no need
I think Zoho CRM is priced at a reasonable amount. Simply put, you get what you pay for and Zoho does not disappoint. My organization is comfortable with what we pay and pleased with continually renewing the software. The billing frequency is just right. There are no complaints on our end
In addition to being a user of Zoho CRM, we are a reseller as well. Often, at times our Partners request for on-boarding the platform configuration for them. During such requirements, we have utilized the Professional services team directly from the Zoho CRM team. Our partner feedback was quite positive, throughout.
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.
