Deltek Ajera vs. Slack

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.

Incentivized

I think Slack works really well in office settings, or even for any group of people who need an easy way to communicate with each other through organized channels. It may not be the best for those who intend to use it as a social media type app, it is more geared towards business use.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Automated Notifications: Integrated tools like Jira, Trello, and Google Drive to receive automated notifications and updates directly in Slack, improving visibility and efficiency within the team
• Message Encryption: Slack encrypts the messages in transit and at rest, ensuring the security and privacy of sensitive information and making our IT team's life much easier.
• Reminder Bots: We used Slackbot to set reminders, automate follow-up actions, and provided information based on user queries.
• SurveyMonkey Integration: Integrated our Slack with SurveyMonkey to distribute surveys and collect feedback from team members, streamlining the feedback-gathering process which was a huge support to our HR and Admin team.

Incentivized

• Would be nice if the reports would have more creativity with the ability to add more charts and graphics.
• The user interface for time sheets could be more user-friendly.
• The user interface for expense sheets could be more user-friendly.

Incentivized

• The only thing I can think of is that it is easy to create too many channels. This has more to do with the team using Slack and less to do with Slack itself. maybe some direction on Slack's part on how best to utilize channels would be helpful.

Incentivized

As useful as Slack has become within our company, I feel fairly confident we will continue to use Slack as a communication tool. They continue to improve their software and add value to its use within our office. Customer service delivers, which is an absolute must. Looking forward to how they improve.

Incentivized

As long as you use the basic chat features and nothing more, it really is super easy to understand and use. Once you want to take advantage of some of the more advanced features and capabilities, that's when things get complicated. Anyone who has use SMS or a chat program before will be able to figure out the basics though, so rolling this out should be relatively straightforward and not required exhaustive training. Teaching chat etiquette is something else though.

I've never had to contact support for Slack which is a great testament to its ease and use. Adding people outside of the organization takes a little getting used to, but ultimately allows for greater collaboration between FTE and contractors. There is no clear alternative to this software, so it's the best we can do for now.

It always helps if you communicate to everyone in the organization how important it is to drop whatever other chat tools they are using and jump quickly to Slack. They will all fall in love with it.

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

Slack is the superior offering for what we do and who we communicate with. The other programs offer basic features, but Slack continues to innovate and is business-first, which is very helpful for our small team. The feature set and integrations are better in Slack than other offerings we have evaluated

Incentivized

• Made accounting and payroll's jobs harder.
• Improved visibility on project cost management and profit.

Incentivized

• We have a story when one guy mentioned in a our site group with tag @here about his wedding, he didnt know that @here works only for people who are online, so most of the people missed the message, slack is not the best place to update about the important things
• Slack helps to solve and be updated if you have an internal problems and you want to know how the solving goes

Incentivized