Deltek Ajera vs. Deltek Vision (legacy product)

Ajera is great for small firms in the AE industry. I would not use Ajera if you are not in the AE industry or if you are a very large company. It is the perfect software for those small companies that can not get the information they want from QuickBooks type softwares.

Deltek Vision is perfect for both small and large businesses to implement. Especially when this program can be hosted in the cloud, users then can access from anywhere across the globe via the internet to print reports & track time spent on various projects.

Incentivized

• Project cost management.

Incentivized

• The ability to build out your own user-defined fields, grids, and even whole Info Centers is a huge plus. We can build out what we need in-house, without needing to engage outside consultants for most needs.
• The ability to create both user-initiated and scheduled workflows allows us to add intelligence to our actions within the system. We have weekly scheduled reports going out to the various levels of our organization, as well as workflows to trigger multiple field updates, alerts, emails, etc. to keep necessary people on the path and informed.

Incentivized

• They are working towards being browser agnostic. Ajera is still quite dependent on Internet Explorer's Runonce features for many functions.
• Developing custom SQL queries is quite difficult given the highly interdependent DB structure. No meaningful data dictionary is available.
• Their support department isn't always responsive.
• We'd like more options for electronic payments for AP/EFT.

Incentivized

• Mac users have a different view from PC users and it is not as robust as what you can do on a PC.
• You can only access the platform through Internet Explorer on a PC, which is an outdated browser not a lot of employees use for anything else.
• User interface is a bit outdated, it could use a refresh.

Incentivized

Because we are looking to upgrade to the next software level of Deltek.

Incentivized

It's on the verge of being awesome. Right now it's a matter of money -- if you have the money to hire consultants round the clock, yeah this is awesome.

Incentivized

99% of the customer service specialists and technicians that I've encountered are quite awesome!

Incentivized

The previous systems were essentially timesheet systems only with very basic accounting. It's mostly the accounting subsystem that made us select Ajera.

Incentivized

I've used QuickBooks Online and other QuickBooks products but they were not for the same purposes as my experience with Deltek. I also was not part of the team that selected Deltek as that was prior to my arrival at my firm.

Incentivized

• Ajera has allowed our company to become more efficient when it comes to compiling project management reports.
• Ajera has allowed us to become more efficient when it comes to monthly invoicing.
• There is some initial downtime when we hire new project managers as many are not familiar with Ajera so we need to train them on the software and how to run reports, task management, budget management, etc.

Incentivized

• Deltek Vision allows us to configure the standard info centers to capture the information we need to support our business model and decision making processes. We are able to create user-defined fields (date, numeric, currency, character, drop down list, pick lists, memo/rtf and relational database fields) on both standard tabs and user-defined tabs. This has made the product very valuable to using the system to support our business policies and help data management to support decisions easier.
• Deltek Vision's custom proposal module and government forms modules shaves hours off of proposal preparation. Because Deltek Vision is the "source of truth" for our employee history and project history we are able to easily and quickly pull information from Vision onto proposal templates in minutes. Pulling information from a centralized repository gives our users confidence in the data, employee updates/feedback are made one time (in Vision) rather than every time a new proposal document is put in front of the employee, and gives our marketing professionals the extra time needed to craft the proposal to meet the RFP and client requested information. We use Deltek Vision to support of Strategic Plan goal for our company growing and win more work!
• Deltek Vision has utilities that can be managed by designated system administrators. You don't have to have a SQL expert or DBA on staff to write basic workflows, queries and reports. If you have savvy staff on hand, that takes the time to learn the front end of the Vision product, you will be able to set up some automation and configuration that doesn't require an expert. Deltek Vision also allows you to design the layout of your screens using a easy Screen Designer tool.