Deltek's Ajera is an integrated project management and accounting suite for architectural and engineering (A & E) companies that includes light payroll functionality and also can integrate with third-party payroll providers (ADP, Paychex, Quickbooks, etc.). The product was acquired with original developer Axium in June 2014. CRM functionality can also be added via integration with the Deltek Ajera CRM.
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OmniFocus
Score 8.3 out of 10
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OmniFocus is a project management platform for iOS: Mac, iPad, and iPhone. It has features such as task management, Siri capture, and workflow automation.
For small to medium engineering and architecture firms, Ajera appears to be the right size. Beyond the engineering software, Deltek Ajera has all the features a small to medium firm will need for smooth operation. AR, AP, Payroll, reporting, project management are all in one package. We chose to self-host because the licensing was more cost effective for us, but cloud hosting is also available.
1) Great for managing your work and personal activities. 2) One of the best implementations of the Getting Things Done method. 3) Not really suited for collaborative work management; OmniFocus is managed on a per-user basis so you can't share/assign tasks.
Widgets are the best feature of Ajera. Designers can make tiny reports for the entire company, or for one or two individuals. These little reports are the first things that the employee sees when they log in. Viewers of the reports are able to filter, sort, group, print or export the widget without impacting the other users. Deltek has been releasing new features that allow the editing of data in widgets. You can now create new projects or edit timesheets from the widgets.
Credit card importing and credit card reconciliation in Ajera has greatly decreased time spent by administration. You can import credit card transactions from your credit cards. It saves on data entry, and it is easy to see what receipts you are missing when you get the statement.
Mobile timesheets and expense reports help engineers or other users enter their time and expenses as they are on the go. They can take pictures or receipts or submit their timesheet from home.
The Project Command Center is a one stop fountain of information. Everything the project manager wants to know about a project can be found here. You can also add custom fields that allow you to tract addition information.
Ease of viewing what tasks need to be done at the present moment and the sorting of those tasks by availability, due date, start date, needed resources, and project.
The visual interface is really nice to work with, the UX/UI is intelligent and intuitive.
It's the most extensible software I've used. There is a community of people that publish compatible scripts for Omnifocus at no charge.
The code is robust and I've almost never had a bug or a glitch that resulted in issues.
The software syncs in the cloud between MacOS and iOS seamlessly and faster than other To-Do software. The sync aspect is available free of charge.
The development team at Omnifocus is on top of bugs and they have been adding releases regularly to increase functionality and performance.
While OmniFocus adheres to the GTD (Getting things done) principles, it can be used in almost any manner and you aren't stuck with just that methodology.
I would really like to see graphic presentations of how I allocate my time, what categories of tasks don't get accomplished, etc.
I would like to see OmniFocus include Gantt chart functionality, such as allowing me to see how long it took me to accomplish a task from start to finish. Allowing me to actually input time spent, and seeing it on a Gantt chart, would be icing on the cake.
OmniFocus has excellent user forums. They're active as well as mature, since the product has been around for years. I've never needed to actually contact customer support because OmniFocus is popular enough that I've always been able to find an answer in the forums, or in an article, or in a YouTube video.
The previous systems were essentially timesheet systems only with very basic accounting. It's mostly the accounting subsystem that made us select Ajera.
OmniFocus is built for the user with a lot going on - consequently, it does a great job at organizing lots of things in a manageable workload. It's perfect for taking a project and breaking it down into small tasks for yourself or teams. Once you get past the learning curve, it's quick at adding new tasks. Overall, it's an excellent product.
OmniFocus keeps our tasks moving forward. Using a free script you can search all your current projects for projects that have no next step assigned to it to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
When we serve our clients, the attention to detail we are able to give them comes from accurate tracking of what we need to deliver.
We complete projects 25% faster than before and we can see where the bottlenecks are immediate. We have also been forced to document tasks in a more concrete manner which allows for better execution.
