ConceptDraw PROJECT vs. Replicon Polaris PSA

For small and medium companies or independent departments of large companies where usually an individual plans the projects this is the best tool without all the overheads of complex software like Microsoft Project and without any privacy concerns of all online project management tools being used today. Not that convenient when you want your employees to update timesheets, etc., as everything needs to be fed into the tool by the project manager.

Really do your homework so make sure this is the right product for your company needs.

Incentivized

• PROJECT is tightly integrated with Diagram and MindMap, the two other tools in the CD Suite. This allows me to do initial scoping in MindMap and then switch to PROJECT and go back and forth as new requirements are exposed and tasks are developed.
• For projects that entail the development of mechanical or electro-mechanical systems it is necessary to develop a topology of the system. By using MindMap I can define the required elements of the system, switch to Diagram to develop an initial layout of the components of the system and then switch to PROJECT to start defining the task to develop the system. Once the system has been defined I use CD Solutions to generate presentations that incorporate the reports and dashboards generated by PROJECT.
• PROJECT is cross platform (Mac and Windows). We are a Mac shop, so the ability to import Microsoft project and Visio charts and export to those formats as well saves a lot of heartburn when so many of our partners and potential customers are Windows users.

• Timesheets are pretty straightforward, you just have to choose a client/project/task that you worked on (in that order), and put the hours for each day. You can then specify if it is billable or not and that’s it, you can submit.
• Time off are also very efficient, as you can select your days off from your calendar, and choose if it is a paid time off, sick leave, or other type of leave. By selecting a range of days, it automatically subtracts weekends, bank holidays, and gives you the remaining days off that you have (and if it is possible to request paid time off for example). The calendar view is very good.
• Expenses management are very efficient, you just have to describe what you spent and select on what project or client, then put the incurred amount and upload scans of your receipts. It also handles different currencies which is good for international companies, and you can keep track of the approval status, to know when you are going to be reimbursed without asking the finance team.

Incentivized

• We had to spend a good amount of time to understand all the features so some interactive built-in tutorials would have made getting started easier.
• The UI does not look so good in macOS Catalina Dark Mode and I often switch to light mode when working on this software.
• Multiple people working on the same project at a time cannot update as there is no way to synchronize changes so we put the file in our code repo but manually co-ordinate to make sure only one of us is changing the plan at a time.

• Rejected timesheets are sometimes harder to update and send back.

Incentivized

Customer service from the ConceptDraw sales team is relatively quick and they do a good job of answering basic questions. However, the user base for ConceptDraw products is not huge so finding answers online for anything beyond basic help-file questions is difficult

Incentivized

Microsoft Project is a typical Microsoft product - too much programming overhead, poor graphics, confusing and fussy interface. OmniGraffle is close to CD PROJECT but has its own fussy parts, plus it is a lot more expensive than CD PROJECT; it is in the middle between Microsoft and CD.

We used to track time on JIRA on the tickets. This was good enough for time tracking, but didn't integrate efficiently with accounting software, so accountants had to replicate manually the data from JIRA to their software in order to bill clients. Using Replicon made things much easier for them.

Incentivized

• Inexpensive way to present a professional project plan when needed

Incentivized

• Improved ability to track employee hours and time off.
• Improved ability to track and check employee expenses.
• Iimproved ability to assign resources to projects.