ePlan is the best product in this business. ePlan performs well, has never issues, so it functions always well and with the use of ePlan it is for us possible to generate about 80% of our drawings. This saves us a lot of time and costs and the time to market gets shorter with the use of ePlan.
I believe SmartDraw is a great tool for small- to mid-sized organizations for simplifying the production and management of org charts. We've also had the PMO experiment with the use of some of their flow charts as well. If an organization has an HCM with the capability of producing (good!) org charts, that is likely the best option... but many that I have used in my 30-year HR career don't. So there is definitely a need for SmartDraw in the market!
I rated 8 because its simple to use and easy to create network topologies quickly. I liked the drag and drop option which makes designing the network topology and flow chart easier. In general its does what it needs to.
They are always very helpful, we get computers every two years and I have to call them to move the license from one computer to another and they do it with a smile in their voice!
ePlan is the most suited product if you are looking for a product to design panels and draw electrical schemes. ePlan offers great functionability compared to AutoCAD Electrical. ePlan also offers good export functionalibilty, which enables further customization and automation. ePlan is the most used product, so when looking for new employees the most of them have experience in using ePlan.
We have used Corel Draw and Adobe Acrobat. Both of those tools were good when they came out but the abilities of SmartDraw far outweigh both those tools. Corel Draw was also more complex to operate and do tasks, as was Adobe Acrobat in which some basic tasks took additional steps to complete.
SmartDraw has provided good return for our internal purposes. Using it to understand an organization's structure and inner workings has been valuable. On the client side, creating steps and businesses processes has also been a big plus. It has helped decrease confusing reporting structures and has provided a detailed map for individuals to understand where they fit within their organization.
Unfortunately, SmartDraw has been somewhat inefficient with some of the more complex projects on our plate and has really deterred certain employees from even wanting to use it.
