Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor vs. Podio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
Score 8.9 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
The Lightning Conductor is a content aggregation tool for Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Users can build rich, modern content reports based upon SharePoint lists, SharePoint Search, Microsoft Graph or Microsoft 365 Groups. Content can be aggregated from lists and libraries, and other applications such as Planner, To Do, OneDrive, and Teams.
$1,950
per year per installation
Podio
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Podio is a cloud-based platform for organizing team communication, business processes, and reporting in project management workspaces; also it may be used as a light CRM platform. It enables workflow automation and integrations. It includes a free version and paid packages with additional features.
$9
per month
Pricing
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
Editions & Modules
Lightning Conductor WSP
From 1950
per year One WFE
Lightning Conductor Enterprise Edition
POA
per year Four or more WFE
Lightning Conductor Online
From 1950
per year per installation
Lightning Conductor Plus (Includes Data Viewer)
From 2500
per year per installation
Lightning Conductor Online Enterprise Edition (>10,000 users)
POA
per year per installation
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online version)A discount is available for annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
8.6
2 Ratings
9% above category average
Podio
5.2
26 Ratings
36% below category average
Task Management8.72 Ratings3.124 Ratings
Search8.42 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management00 Ratings8.620 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings8.48 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings1.121 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings1.125 Ratings
Team Collaboration00 Ratings3.126 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings2.115 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings9.411 Ratings
Document Management00 Ratings1.122 Ratings
Email integration00 Ratings8.821 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings8.821 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings8.213 Ratings
Change request and Case Management00 Ratings8.418 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management00 Ratings1.116 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
-
Ratings
Podio
6.7
13 Ratings
10% below category average
Quotes/estimates00 Ratings1.19 Ratings
Invoicing00 Ratings8.89 Ratings
Project & financial reporting00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Integration with accounting software00 Ratings8.86 Ratings
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Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(4 ratings)
3.0
(42 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.1
(17 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
7.2
(6 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPodio
Likelihood to Recommend
Lightning Tools
Having experience of SharePoint On Premise and also SharePoint Online, there isn't an out of the box app/webpart that enables you to 'roll up content' from a variety of source's (in my case SP Lists, but there are many other data sources it works with) across site collections with an easy to use and intuitive interface which is what Lightning tools excels at.
Read full review
ShareFile
[Citrix Podios's] customer support is very quick and they provide you an option to convert your
project into small tasks so that you can better assist your team and extract
maximum work out of them hence I will totally recommend its usage. I could not think that keeping track of tasks could be this much easier and smart. It is a fully customizable tool that manages my tasks efficiently and deal with them effectively.
Read full review
Pros
Lightning Tools
  • Aggregate documents across SharePoint site & libraries
  • Filtering for owner/person responsible & due dates
  • Ease of end-user filtering on columns
  • Color-coding & other formatting
Read full review
ShareFile
  • Very easy for people without coding or technical skills to set up and maintain information in "Apps".
  • Platform is very easy to learn and adopt--it's intuitive.
  • Project management potential is awesome--instead of having to fit your projects into a structure that is industry specific, you can build an app that tracks what you want, in the order you want it.
  • Has a "relationship" field that allows you to relate an individual item or record to a record in another app. It effectively gives some of the functionality of a relational database.
  • Very useful for information sharing when staff members are in different regions or places.
Read full review
Cons
Lightning Tools
  • Mobile Friendly
  • Calendar/Gantt views
  • Complex/Custom Logic
Read full review
ShareFile
  • More filter options for calendars.
  • Customizable views for Relation fields.
  • Full featured Podio mobile App for iPad.
  • A customizable profile status – would love to work with Podio in silent mode (logged in while working, but "not available" for requests when in heavy work mode)
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ShareFile
Podio customer service is great. The cloud and mobile service is fast (almost instant, continuous syncing). With a solid user base, and backed by Citrix, this is a serious business solution. They're also constantly working on improving and making it more powerful. I anticipate it only getting better
Read full review
Usability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ShareFile
It is usable, for sure. Requires a bit of thinking to be really useful.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ShareFile
I have not experienced any down time
Read full review
Performance
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ShareFile
It works all the time and if I have a question, support get back to me ASAP
Read full review
Support Rating
Lightning Tools
The Lightning Tools support team responds quickly, and team members are very friendly and helpful.
Read full review
ShareFile
Podio support was always responsive and very quick to provide answers and assistance during the history of using this product, their support team has always been top notch. There have been several cases where calling podio support a feature was not available and they provided either workaround solutions or added the features straight into their roadmap.
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Implementation Rating
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ShareFile
Could of got more help sooner and mapped out structure after the 1st month. Future planning
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Alternatives Considered
Lightning Tools
I haven't found another product to compare this one to. Only in SharePoint Online which has a similar App 'Highlight Webpart' ... it's far too complicated to set up and requires learning yet another language and exporting and importing via PowerShell to get any real results that would be useful.
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ShareFile
Compared to Salesforce: Podio is not as robust as a tool for CRM tracking. It also doesn't have the in-email capabilities that SF offers. Compared to Basecamp: Podio is somewhat similar to Basecamp but doesn't offer the same functionality with checking items off and archiving projects. Compared to Zoho Projects: Podio is vastly superior to Zoho Project's lack of flexibility (requiring a development team to build) and accessibility by all members (Zoho Projects requires a very limited number of "owners" of projects which makes it difficult if multiple owners need to assign one or more people to a project).
Read full review
Scalability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
ShareFile
As you business grows, so does Podio. There seems to be no limit to the workspace and apps you can create on the platform
Read full review
Return on Investment
Lightning Tools
  • Policies easier to portray
Read full review
ShareFile
  • Podio is great for task assignment and tracking. The ability to enter and assign tasks from mobile and track their completion saves me several phone calls a day.
  • Podio outdoes email as my go to place to search for information. The ability to forward emails into the system, organize by projects and contacts, and search it all saves considerable time and confusion.
  • Podio has considerable potential to reduce overall admin time spent organizing information (filing, tracking, etc) The ability to keep a single record of a given piece of information without being tied to email vs file structure works very well.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor Screenshots

Screenshot of MODERN SHAREPOINT LIST ROLLUP
The Lightning Conductor is a SharePoint Content Aggregator that can be configured quickly by business users. The Lightning Conductor can be used to aggregate content from SharePoint Lists such as Tasks, Document Libraries, Contact Lists, and Custom Lists making it easy to view content in one place even if it is distributed across many sites and site collections. Key data can be highlighted using conditional formatting and data-bars as shown. Content from Search and Microsoft Graph can also be aggregated with the Lightning Conductor.Screenshot of CONTENT AGGREGATION WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS
The Lightning Conductor Web Part can be used within Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Teams. Even if content is stored within SharePoint sites, it is useful to have aggregated Documents, Tasks, Announcements, Calendars or Custom Lists from multiple sites displayed in a single handy view in Microsoft Teams. The Lightning Conductor can be added as a Teams Tab in any Microsoft Teams Channel.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT GRAPH
The Lightning Conductor can be used (without code) to aggregate content from Microsoft Graph as well as Search and SharePoint Lists. This example displays Microsoft Planner Plans and Microsoft Planner Tasks where users can Add new Tasks, Assign Users to Planner Tasks, Delete Tasks, and Complete Tasks. The same can be performed on Microsoft To Do items and displayed within Modern SharePoint pages or Microsoft Teams Tabs. The Lighting Conductor can also contain multiple views of content, making it ideal to display all of your tasks from SharePoint Task lists, Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner in a single web part or Teams Tab.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT 365 GROUPS
Powered by Microsoft Graph, the Microsoft 365 Group Rollup Provider enables users to aggregate content by browsing and selecting Microsoft 365 Groups. Within Microsoft 365 Groups, you’ll be able to select entities such as Drive Items, Owners, Members, Planner Plans, Planner Tasks, Events, Posts,  Sites, Lists, and Calendars.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of AGGREGATING USING SEARCH
When performance is critical, search can be used for rollups. The Lightning Conductor offers three data source configurations to get to content. Object Model (Real Time Aggregation from SharePoint Lists), Microsoft Graph (Aggregation from Graph Entities such as Planner, OneDrive, Outlook), and Search. The Search Data Source enables the aggregation of content from large SharePoint lists and libraries when performance is critical. Thousands of documents can be displayed in under a second using Search.Screenshot of HIGHLIGHT KEY BUSINESS DATA WITHIN YOUR VIEWS
End users and Site Owners can highlight the data that is important to them, the data that they need to prioritize. Using conditional formatting, data bars, and icons, conditions can be configured to highlight the data that is most important. Icons and Data Bars can be any color or size desired. Examples include highlighting High Priority tasks, Showing data bars for the completion progress of Tasks, or indicating which tasks are assigned to any particular user.