Oracle Aconex vs. Planview ChangePoint

Large, Multi-Party Capital Projects
Scenario: Major construction or infrastructure projects involving owners, designers, multiple contractors, subcontractors, and regulators. Why Aconex Fits: Provides a neutral, single source of truth across many independent organizations. Strong permissioning and data ownership model builds trust between parties. Scales well to very high document volumes and long project durations. Example Use: Design development and construction documentation for a multi-year infrastructure project with hundreds of external users.

Incentivized

Changepoint is basic and would, therefore, work for businesses with uncomplicated requests, pretty straightforward workflows and willingness to work with an unsightly solution. It is basic, from the UI to the search option and the way the information is captured, which can be frustrating and counter-intuitive at times. It is relatively robust (i.e. I have been using it for almost 2 years and have not seen it crash once) but it does log me out when the system has been inactive for about 30 minutes - and I am only notified about being logged out upon clicking the Submit button, meaning many a line of text have been typed more than once!

Incentivized

• The existence of insurance and permit tracking.
• Budgetary control measures and expense monitor.
• Job costing and logistical management.
• Skills and competencies improvement.

Incentivized

• Changepoint has significant reporting capabilities, though of course, the data that comes out is only as good as the data that goes in. I enjoy being able to use the standard reports to understand exactly how much a project has cost us and to compare it to how much we are charging. This allows us to more accurately set our prices. Though we have not used the report designer capability, I understand that custom reports can be designed with relative ease.
• Changepoint has a versioning capability for changes made to user profiles in the system manager, which I find particularly helpful. As a non-power user, it is valuable to be able to see what changes I have made to various profiles so that I can troubleshoot a problem down the line.
• Changepoint has significant functionality well beyond the features that we are currently using, and for this reason, I think it is affordable and a good deal. Particularly if your organization is interested in dedicating the time and resources into using all of the features around project planning, resource allocation, etc., the price is well worth the value.

• Sharing of projects comments and document can be more efficient.
• Estimation capabilities can be improved.
• The initial configuration can easily confuse the beginners.

Incentivized

• We use Changepoint to manage the IS organization. I would like to see more advancement in order to do benefits management.
• I would like to see a capability where a project manager can build a very detailed work breakdown structure, but only require project resources to charge time and provide a task status at a higher level.

Sometimes the decision to renew boils down to an old adage "if it isn't broken don't fix it". Previous to moving to Changepoint, it was obvious that we needed a better project management tool. Projects we completed on time but the time zone difference between the teams and several iterations of back and forth caused a number of communication issues with projects. The difference is night and day.

Requires a better interface that allows you to find all tools in order to utilise all functions.

Incentivized

It could be more intuitive and user friendly.

Aconex's document control workflow allows for multiple versions of the same revision, enabling markups to be seen and document history as appropriate. This is on par with SOLIDWORKS EPDM, and is by far better than InEight's TeamBinder, as the originator and uploader of the document are able to change the version without the need for an administrator.

Incentivized

Planview Changepoint helps us to understand our key customers enabling us to capitalize on every financial opportunity and helps us to forecast demand against the capacities required for new opportunities, and also it automates and monitors contractual terms and conditions. It gives us visibility into our employees' skills and helps to optimize resource allocation.

Incentivized

• Reductions in print costs alone (subcontractor bid process) paid completely for the use of the product. Further benefits to all project participants included process streamlining and 100% access to all project documentation (Drawings, Specifications, Contracts, Notices of Change, Change Orders etc.) from any online source including mobile devices. Benefits probably accounted for 150% of product cost.
• Intangible benefits included reduced exposure to claims as a result of good (and agreed process tracking).

Incentivized

• Employee efficiency has decreased significantly within our Project MAnagement team. The main causes are lack of logical steps/not user-friendly and the slowness of the entire program.
• Changepoint PSA has greatly improved being able to track budgets for all projects. Before this software, budgets were done manually by hand and cross-referenced with Accounting. Now, we can pull a report out of the system, as long as all parties entered their time and data correctly.