Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor vs. Planview ProjectPlace

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
Planview ProjectPlace
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Projectplace is a collaborative work management solution. The vendor says the product is built with teams of all sizes and complexity in mind, from virtual teams of five to entire global enterprises with tens of thousands of active users. It is also designed to incorporate waterfall and agile workflows.
$29
per seat
Pricing
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
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
Projectplace Enterprise
$29.00
per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
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. 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
Community Pulse
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
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
Planview ProjectPlace
8.2
192 Ratings
9% above category average
Task Management8.72 Ratings8.4185 Ratings
Search8.42 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management00 Ratings7.8154 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings8.4166 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings7.9165 Ratings
Team Collaboration00 Ratings8.8187 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology00 Ratings7.9146 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology00 Ratings8.2137 Ratings
Document Management00 Ratings8.1178 Ratings
Email integration00 Ratings8.1158 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings8.2147 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking00 Ratings8.2129 Ratings
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Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
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User Ratings
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(4 ratings)
8.0
(192 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
9.5
(9 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(76 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(1 ratings)
7.8
(74 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Lightning Tools Lightning ConductorPlanview ProjectPlace
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
Planview
ProjectPlace has formats that ensure every project is handled in a friendly manner and that results attained are optimal. Besides, ProjectPlace has an excellent time locating system, where every action is well planned and resources channeled to meet the needs. Further, ProjectPlace has the conventional way of demand planning by learning the market.
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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
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Planview
  • As a cloud based solution, Projectplace is one of the few true multiple location, multi person project management tools available for large teams. The reliability for large projects (with teams of anywhere between 50-200+ people) was a huge selling point for this and I witnessed this first hand.
  • The Windows and Mac applications for Projectplace are well designed and work impressively well for a project management tool. I found most of the teams had either application installed on their machine and did not have any complaints about it.
  • Features like AI and project management viewing styles like Kanban, Ganntt and others make the experience customizable for each user and made them adapt it to their preferred project management style.
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Cons
Lightning Tools
  • Mobile Friendly
  • Calendar/Gantt views
  • Complex/Custom Logic
Read full review
Planview
  • Under the time tracking, it would be nice to have a set template that would load each week and not have to click a button to load the previous week's template.
  • Somehow making it more intuitive.
  • Having to add in each service line and each detail that I cover for every service line each week is a bit ridiculous.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Planview
We're committed now & have >50 users on Projectplace. All our projects are now tracked in the tool. We this investment of time & training, the cost of maintaining Projectplace is relatively low for the benefit. So we will renew, even if there are some idiosyncrasies in the tool & there are opportunities for improvement.
Read full review
Usability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Planview
Planview ProjectPlace is consistent in delivering the promised performance, which is a functional part that brings clarity. Further, Planview ProjectPlace increases the value of every transaction, where recording and documentation are well enhanced to bring a concrete way of business coordination. Finally, Planview ProjectPlace has an orderly way of bringing substantial communications.
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Reliability and Availability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Planview
No downtime-issues since the implementation. It has been very stable
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Support Rating
Lightning Tools
The Lightning Tools support team responds quickly, and team members are very friendly and helpful.
Read full review
Planview
Planview ProjectPlace is quite complex, but it demands better engagement with various stakeholders to initiate a useful work environment. There are credible ways of establishing more live engagement, from direct chats and audio engagements. More so, Planview ProjectPlace is more formal, and this limits some users from outlining their demands or desires in matters of program performance.
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Implementation Rating
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Planview
create an extensive change management process to help folks embrace the change
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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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Planview
It offers a simpler alternative that's easier to manage by the less tech-savvy people. I also think that Planview Projectplace has managed to keep the product updated compared to other project management tools. Miro is perhaps the one that comes to mind, but while evaluating, we saw fewer issues with Planview Projectplace. Overall, the decision came down to the project manager, that had previous experience and recommended the product. For me, using a product from a smaller company is better because I know that there will be a focus on improving it, unlike, for example, Microsoft products that can be discontinued at any moment.
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Scalability
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Planview
It is a bit more difficult to fluently use in large scale implementations
Read full review
Return on Investment
Lightning Tools
  • Policies easier to portray
Read full review
Planview
  • [We have the] ability to support remote work through projects that scale across multiple groups
  • We have large-scale quarterly projects, so the ability to save and duplicate project templates are helpful for us to keep track of tasks down to the specific card
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.

Planview ProjectPlace Screenshots

Screenshot of Collaborative Workstream: Streamlined interaction between activities, boards and cards. Plan and follow up in the Gantt while your team enjoys executing and collaborating for optimum productivity on the Kanban boards.Screenshot of Document Management: Ensure changes to documents are visible in real-time. Version control ensures that team members see the latest document versions with access to document history.Screenshot of Gantt Charts: Plan and visualize every step of your work and projects with Projectplace Gantt Charts. Track progress to make sure you'll meet your deadlines and know when things are not happening on time.Screenshot of Kanban Boards: Enable your team to execute and collaborate for optimum productivity on Kanban Boards. Get activity notifications, messaging and visualize progress of day-to-day tasks.Screenshot of Workload View: Visualize the workload of members in all workspaces to determine whether a team member is overloaded with work, or has room to do more.Screenshot of Workspace Overview: Get an overview of all your work and tasks that have been assigned to you across all workspaces. Add personal tasks that only you can see to get a complete picture of what's on your plate.