People and projects are the heart and soul of a business. So Deltek created Vantagepoint, which they present as a powerful, intuitive solution that helps users manage projects from start to finish. Deltek Vantagepoint’s 360-degree view of projects puts client, project and financial details in a single location. The vendor states this adds up to making well-informed tactical and strategic business decisions and a more efficient, productive and profitable company.
I have used Vision/Vantagepoint with 5 different companies. Where the business model is project-based it works very well. This is the rule for most AEC companies. My current organization does not really have a project-based business model as they have many, many small "projects" that never get entered into Vantagepoint as it would be time prohibitive to do so. This makes the use of the system very limited for all employees outside of accounting and unreliable for reporting pipeline and historical revenue data. This is not the fault of Deltek, however, just an observation of how it is used with my current company.
Sage Estimating was initially created for the construction industry and many of its current users use it to estimate buildings, but it has adapted quite well for the oil and gas industry. If the user is willing to invest the time and energy to develop and maintain their database, I can see it working for any industry. It is very easy to adjust and adapt the database as estimating methods and project designs change. As an example, our accounting department sometimes changes the way projects are reporting in our accounting software. Because I can go through our 9000 line item database in a couple of days, I am always ahead of the curve and can report my estimates in the format they require.
The program has a fairly antiquated user interface such that someone working in it may not feel like they are working with advanced software.
Sage Estimating has absolutely no remote access capability outside running it in a Citrix/RDP environment so users have to be using a fat/full client vs. any hopes of access on a mobile device.
It is ok to use; it is not the easiest to use in terms of usability and user-friendliness but it is not the worst. It still feels somewhat outdated. Many cloud options are cleaner or look more modern. But it is good enough and you should be able to get the hang of it.
I would rate Deltek VantagePoint highly in terms of the overall support. You can receive support any time you need it and there is a representative from Deltek assigned to your account so that you can always get the help when you need it. Sometimes, they want to go more in-depth than I would like, however.
Sage's support of Estimating is adequate though frankly we rarely need it. Outside of more complex operations such as upgrades and installation problems the program itself is so straightforward that we do not usually have any "issues" and questions that are more about usability can easily be answered in online forums. We trust Sage's capability to answer these questions if needed but rarely use it.
BQE Core. I think that BQE Core is definitely harder to use, and has a lot of features atleast from the users perspective that dont seem entirely neccesary. Deltek is very straight forward and easy to use.
