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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    HCL Notes

    Score3.5 out of 10
    N/ANotes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.N/A

    LiquidPlanner

    Score8.3 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    LiquidPlanner is a cloud based predictive project management solution. Some key features include: Dynamic Timeline View, Workload View, and Real-Time Activity Stream.

    $0

    per month per user

    Pricing
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Free
    $0
    per month per user
    Essentials
    $15.00
    per month per user
    Professional
    $25
    per month per user
    Ultimate
    $35
    per month per user
    Enterprise
    CALL FOR VOLUME PRICING
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
    Considered Both Products
    HCLSoftware
    No answer on this topic
    LiquidPlanner
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    86%
    Would buy again
    6 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    80%
    Implementation went as expected
    4 Answers
    Features
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of HCL Notes and LiquidPlanner
    Feature
    HCL Notes
    6.9
    10 Ratings
    11% below category average
    LiquidPlanner
    8.1
    15 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Task Management7.09 Ratings8.711 Ratings
    Gantt Charts6.03 Ratings8.68 Ratings
    Scheduling8.09 Ratings8.810 Ratings
    Workflow Automation5.06 Ratings8.47 Ratings
    Mobile Access8.010 Ratings4.89 Ratings
    Search6.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visual planning tools8.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Resource Management00 Ratings8.69 Ratings
    Team Collaboration00 Ratings8.911 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings7.76 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings8.46 Ratings
    Document Management00 Ratings9.93 Ratings
    Email integration00 Ratings7.914 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings7.210 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management00 Ratings7.66 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of HCL Notes and LiquidPlanner
    Feature
    HCL Notes
    9.2
    10 Ratings
    14% above category average
    LiquidPlanner
    -
    Ratings
    Chat6.010 Ratings00 Ratings
    Notifications9.010 Ratings00 Ratings
    Discussions9.57 Ratings00 Ratings
    Surveys9.14 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase10.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting10.03 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts10.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of HCL Notes and LiquidPlanner
    Feature
    HCL Notes
    7.6
    9 Ratings
    6% below category average
    LiquidPlanner
    -
    Ratings
    Versioning9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Video files6.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Audio files6.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document collaboration8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access control6.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Advanced security features8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive10.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device sync8.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Professional Services Automation
    Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of HCL Notes and LiquidPlanner
    Feature
    HCL Notes
    -
    Ratings
    LiquidPlanner
    8.3
    5 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Quotes/estimates00 Ratings8.64 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting00 Ratings8.45 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software00 Ratings7.94 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
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    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
    Any.do
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    KanbanFlow
    Score7.3 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Microsoft To Do
    Score7.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.0
    (16 ratings)
    8.5
    (17 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    1.7
    (5 ratings)
    4.4
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Online Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    HCL NotesLiquidPlanner
    Likelihood to Recommend
    HCLSoftware
    I often work with teams from other country and regions, hence HCL Notes is a very useful platform for internal company management operations. It standardized organisational work standards in most of the offices worldwide. HCL Notes also enables chat with other team around the world that I find very helpful when initiating conversation or just want to have a quick update rather than sending emails and waiting for replies. However, HCL Notes is not very efficient in web browsing and user still need to use other internet service providers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    LiquidPlanner is amazing for any time of project management scenario where you have to manage several teams and details. Running a project through LiquidPlanner is so easy because it lets you break down the project into sections and folders and small tasks that you can assign to specific people. With a small to medium size team-- LiquidPlanner is amazing for organizing and tracking details. If you have a huge team or not a ton of details to track LiquidPlanner might not be right for you because it is a software that requires some good training to learn and has tons of functions that can be utilized so it seems better suited to be used by a smaller group looking to coordinate or for people who have lots of details that can be difficult to track.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    HCLSoftware
    • It has a really strong and robust database that's extremely scalable and holds up well to thousands of users and many different environments.
    • It has a really good enterprise-grade framework for development custom database applications
    • All of the custom database applications along with the email all have a nice uniform look and feel so their easy-to-use.
    • I really like how it's developed and supported on every client OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)! The competitors definitely do NOT offer this (M$).
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    • Priority based planning. Every other planning software we've used relies on dates and therefore needs constant attention. Priority based planning means that the plan is always up to date.
    • Ease of use. LiquidPlanner has a very short learning curve. This is critical to getting team members to use it.
    • Forecasting. LiquidPlanner makes it very easy to run scenarios by simply dragging and dropping projects and reassigning resources.
    • Awesome Support. I get personal responses very fast. Usually within a couple hours. And, they listen and ask for more information.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    HCLSoftware
    • Notes' backwards compatibility sometimes gets in the way. Menus are cluttered with extraneous, outdated options and features that modern users will never use, and Preferences are often difficult to navigate for those coming from Gmail or Outlook. We have greatly simplified this via Policies, but users still find it daunting to go through all the options that are available.
    • The IBM Notes client for Windows & Mac is essentially the Eclipse Java development platform...so it is HUGE. Performance initially was very slow but IBM has done a good job of speeding things up. As IBM moves more toward cloud-delivered applications, this will not be as much of a problem.
    • Notes and Domino can be complex to manage for administrators who are more accustomed to ActiveDirectory, Group Policy, etc. Editing a notes.ini file to add a feature, or working with XML files by hand to create a SmartUpgrade kit can be daunting to those coming from more modern administrative roles.
    • Some users claim to "hate" Notes mail. While I have heard this less and less over the past 10 years, we have had 3rd party software offer plugins to Outlook and it's rare to see any for Notes.
    • The client update process should be automated more. I would like to see the Notes client update quietly and quickly more like an Adobe software update. If an update fails it should automatically try again without prompting the user over and over.
    • Notes multiple language spell checking is a downloaded add-on Java-based resource that has to be deployed in a convoluted way that is difficult for users to grasp. Therefore any foreign language spell check updates must be done individually per Notes client by IT, which is unfortunate. I would prefer to see that be a "live download" update option for users to get directly from IBM (don't make me download it and put it on my network).
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    • The interface is messy and cluttered. The best way to find things and see what you actually want to see is the main Projects view which is also the most cluttered and hardest to maneuver in.
    • Clicking an external link someone posted in a comment or task description doesn't open in a new window by default, so we are constantly having to go back to get to LiquidPlanner again.
    • The way that the interface saves your state globally (rather than per tab instance) means that if you click a link from someone else to a task that's not yours, then it adjusts your filters on the Projects page. Then if you refresh another LiquidPlanner window where you were on the Projects tab, suddenly all of its filters are updated and what you were looking at may no longer be there.
    • It might just be the way that we use the system, but the Home and My Work tabs are fairly useless for us. They typically don't show the tasks we're actually looking for.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    HCLSoftware
    I've been in IT business and as a Programmer/Developer for 20+ years with too many programming languages experiences/back ground (C/C++/Visual Basic/Basic Program/Unix/COBOL/Java). Also with 18+ years with Lotus Notes/IBM Domino, I am still and always think Lotus Notes is the best RAD platform available!. When the time where resource is very limited and the expectation is very high and the turn around is too short, IBM Domino/Notes is the platform to use and it's the only choice available.
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    We may not renew LiquidPlanner's contract, but only because my company has recently been acquired and we'll be adopting some of the software that they're using to standardize process. LiquidPlanner's development team releases new features pretty often, so it seems like the gaps and inefficiencies are slowly getting smaller/less frequent
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    HCLSoftware
    Easy to use for the user, most of the apps we developed, there is not much need for user training. Most of the times, we just do a demo to the users group and they can pick up from there.
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    Easy to learn and utilize. Can export charts and reports for sharing with colleagues.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    HCLSoftware
    I've been using the production for a very long time and very happy with it. Also, all the online resources and forums for notes is very friendly and easy/quick for getting help. I found out that compared to Microsoft or Oracle or any other platforms, IBM Notes online forum is the best I have seen.
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    They have been great in trying to come up with creative solutions to help us do what we want to do with the platform. I would say their support has been exceptional because we have hit them with some complex requests.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    HCLSoftware
    Implementation is easy and smooth if the requirement is well gathered/documented. Notes is a RAD platform, all projects in Notes is simple in the implementation step.
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    HCLSoftware
    Outlook has been considered for years as a replacement platform. Pricing and support staff made it prohibitive. Our long-time use of Microsoft Office productivity suite naturally led us to consider the adoption of Office365. A recent investigation told us that Azure Cloud services propel an O365 solution to the forefront. Early adopters in international divisions have paved the way for Azure and O365.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    Miro is a more versatile tool, but not quite made for planning and organizing. LiquidPlanner is very intuitive, fast to learn and easy to communicate. The added value of prioritizing tasks, personalized boards and gantt charts are really important during the planning and design thinking in the business. LiquidPlanner is simplified yet more helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    HCLSoftware
    • Over the years, we have lost countless hours of productivity from the thousands of crashes we have experienced.
    • One benefit of IBM Notes is that it is very simple to train a new user on. Many people prefer and are familiar with Google tools, but those that use IBM Notes have very little trouble acclimating themselves.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    LiquidPlanner
    • LiquidPlanner really forces you to map out your workflow. For me, honing into a template that I can later adjust as needed has been huge, as there is less time at the beginning of a project trying to assign and figure out what needs to happen when usually it never changes.
    • Communication between employees, especially ones not immediately available in the office has been very welcomed. It helps having conversations documented in a public, logical place that is easy to find and refer to as the project continues.
    • Our productivity has definitely skyrocketed as we've really gotten a feel and committed to using LiquidPlanner daily. As we move forward, we continually try to add more and more ways for us to use the service.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    LiquidPlanner Screenshots

    Screenshot of Project Dashboards allow users to build high-level views that help visualize data.Screenshot of Workload Views allow users to see an entire team's workload at once and make resource adjustments in stride.Screenshot of Time Sheets keep track of hours per task and automatically update project estimates.Screenshot of Project View allows users to view any project in detail, assign tasks, set their priority, and access schedule risk.Screenshot of My Work View is a personalized view of all work to always know what to work on next.