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Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor vs. Projector PSA

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor

    Score9 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.

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Projector PSA

    Score1.1 out of 10
    N/AProjector's cloud-based Professional Services Automation (PSA) software helps project-based services organizations track time and expenses, invoice clients, schedule resources, and manage projects. Its three modules span a more comprehensive set of uses than typical project management software. The Accounting module helps the user track time and expenses and manage invoices and billing. Also it syncs with the company's accounting systems as a sub-ledger. The Resource Scheduling module matches…

    $15

    per user

    Pricing
    Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorProjector PSA
    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 2200
    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
    Team Edition
    $15
    per user
    Professional Edition
    $25
    per user
    Enterprise Edition
    $30
    per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorProjector PSA
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. 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)—
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorProjector PSA
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor and Projector PSA
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    8.6
    2 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Projector PSA
    7.4
    11 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Task Management8.82 Ratings9.510 Ratings
    Search8.42 Ratings00 Ratings
    Resource Management00 Ratings9.510 Ratings
    Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Scheduling00 Ratings8.511 Ratings
    Workflow Automation00 Ratings9.07 Ratings
    Team Collaboration00 Ratings7.57 Ratings
    Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings5.82 Ratings
    Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings5.23 Ratings
    Document Management00 Ratings8.57 Ratings
    Email integration00 Ratings7.65 Ratings
    Mobile Access00 Ratings3.77 Ratings
    Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings9.511 Ratings
    Change request and Case Management00 Ratings5.23 Ratings
    Budget and Expense Management00 Ratings8.19 Ratings
    Professional Services Automation
    Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor and Projector PSA
    Feature
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    -
    Ratings
    Projector PSA
    7.9
    3 Ratings
    3% above category average
    Invoicing00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
    Project & financial reporting00 Ratings8.52 Ratings
    Integration with accounting software00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorProjector PSA
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    7.0
    (12 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorProjector PSA
    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
    Projector PSA
    We think Projector PSA is a great tool to track and manage people in a professional service environment like management consulting. This system is easy to set up, easy to understand and should easily suit the needs of smaller and medium sized firms. It may be less appropriate for firms that rely very heavily on project management through another system (like MS Project) or firms that rely very heavily on a sales pipeline tracking system. While still very much possible to use, you would (I believe) have to do some re-keying between systems
    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
    Projector PSA
    • Projector is a very well designed tool for project management. It has allowed us to eliminate a number of auxiliary tools for project timelines and WBS for the vast majority of our projects.
    • Time and expense entry is intuitive and quick for our staff.
    • Our forecasting and resource management capability has improved greatly with Projector and allows us to grow our team efficiently with minimal additional administrative burden.
    • Reporting is extremely robust. It does require some time to really get a handle on the full functionality of the reporting tool, but once you do, you can get almost any kind of report you want out of the system!
    Read full review
    Cons
    Lightning Tools
    • Mobile Friendly
    • Calendar/Gantt views
    • Complex/Custom Logic
    Read full review
    Projector PSA
    • Release management process needs to be improved. Currently no facility is provided to test the impact of new releases in a sand-box. This introduces business risk if there are interfaces into Projector PSA as part of it's use in the business.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Projector PSA
    We have been using this tool for a year now and find our use of it continually evolves and broadens. We are also very excited about the overhaul that's under way and feel many of the improvements being put in place will help make us that much more effective and efficient. The Projector team is also very responsive and collaborative in terms of user feedback and improvement suggestions, which helps us know they will work hard to help us get what we need out of the tool.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Projector PSA
    Desktop interface feels complex to new users.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Projector PSA
    In 5 years of use we have never experienced an unscheduled outage.
    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
    Projector PSA
    No answers on this topic
    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.
    Read full review
    Projector PSA
    We did pursue Quick Arrow another tool that was similar. We found that be in inflexible in use. Projector allows a lot of flexibility in setup. Our organization has very specific business processes and we were able to set up Projector to work with those processes. Several other systems we tried were not as flexible in allowing set up to our needs.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Lightning Tools
    • Policies easier to portray
    Read full review
    Projector PSA
    • Even in the small time that I stayed to see Projector PSA reporting I saw ROI projections become more realistic. There was real data to analyze that proved we were spending way too much and charging way too less on some projects.
    • Although employees were not used at entering their hours, this single reporting improved operations management and validated employees concerns that more people were needed to manage workload
    • Project proposals were more realistic because they were driven by real data.
    • Decision making overall for the department became more efficient and effective
    Incentivized
    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 HIGHLIGHTING KEY BUSINESS DATA WITHIN 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.

    Projector PSA Screenshots

    Screenshot of Employee Dashboards help resources stay on task by displaying schedules and alerts.