Jira Align vs. ProjectManager.com

The Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) tools help keep our scrum teams moving in the right direction. It gives Sr. Executives visibility into the progress of our digital transformation efforts. It provides information to our program manager to create the necessary artifacts to justify continued funding of our initiatives. It also supports the SAFe framework, along with some others. And the Atlassian Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) tools provide integration to other tools that we use in our portfolio.

Incentivized

Because I work with many people for whom Project Management is new, I wanted to use software that was user-friendly, fairly intuitive, and not filled with jargon. I like the fact I can use existing templates that (mostly) work for our needs, and I look forward to more things being added. They say support is 72 hours, but I’ve never waited for more than a few.

Incentivized

• Effective Sprint planning : Sprint planning can be done using Planning Poker in AgileCraft by clicking Team > Manage > Other > Estimation Games very effectively for distributed teams.
• Team Capacity Allocation Report: After tasks are created at team or program level, the report from AgileCraft cab be pulled and can be verified that no team member is under or over allocated. A report can be generated by navigating to Team > Manage > Assign Tasks.
• Effective Requirement trace-ability: To maintain requirements trace-ability follow the steps below:
• Upload test cases against the story/requirement. once uploaded test cases will be visible under that story
• Execute Test cases in AgileCraft and mark them as Pass/Fail based on the actual outcome
• Based on test results, The acceptance criterion's can be marked as “Pass” or “Fail” & if marked failed corresponding defect can be logged & can be attached with the story
• So against each story we can easily see whether all test cases been executed or not & which acceptance criterion's are failed & how many defects are in open or close state.
• Daily Scrum: In AgileCraft, the option to run a daily stand-up is available from Team > Manage > Daily Standups. Selecting the sprint number opens the daily stand-up meeting window in which each team member's tasks are visible and hours can be burned against them. Conduct Scrum meetings in AgileCraft, and burn each associate hour against the tasks created during the meeting. The burn-down chart can be generated & viewed during the stand-up to check whether the team is on track.

Incentivized

• Define the project plan and estimated schedule
• Adding the project milestones and tasks
• Assigning the human resources
• Updating the project status

Incentivized

• The initial ticket creation screen lacks some important features, such as assigning "point values" (a measure of effort needed for the ticket).
• The browser needs to be manually refreshed to see new tickets, which can make things confusing when several people in a meeting are simultaneously creating tickets.
• The interface on some smaller portions of the software are sometimes difficult to understand.

Incentivized

• Creating the schedule is probably the most "difficult" function to get used to. Linking each scope to one another and using different dates for each day can get a little confusing as it is relatively easy to break the links if you were to change the dates. If you have a schedule for a job that is 2 months long; if you revise your schedule to include a date change, if the link is broken it will not update the rest of the dates and remaining scopes. So you would have to figure out where the link has been broken within the schedule, or go through and change the remaining dates by hand.

Incentivized

There is nothing that can be better than Jira but it needs to keep improving certain areas especially the attachment size area.

Incentivized

ProjectManager.com had the full range of features that I needed to manage my projects effectively, but as a regular line manager (rather than a designated project manager) I personally don't think I actually need so many features. I could manage my own projects with a simpler product, so I would probably opt for a free or cheaper alternative in future. That's not a criticism of the product at all, just that it had more than I needed.

Incentivized

Most of the things are easily manageable except certain things that are hidden and you need to ask teammates who are aware of how they can link attachements in the comment section and so on.

Incentivized

At first, the range of features can be a little overwhelming, particularly for users with more limited project management experience. However, there is good support information provided on how to use each different feature, so with a bit of care and attention a user should find it easy to learn how to use the software.

Incentivized

Overall support from Jira team is good. It comes at an additional price but it is very efficient. There are no long wait times, you get a dedicated team to look into your issues. The support is available throughout the year and they keep a record of your issues. Overall we are very satisfied with the support they have provided us over the years, it has been very effective for the price that we pay.

Incentivized

n/a (never contacted support)

Incentivized

Microsoft Azure Devops won't have the major functionality of software management like Jira. The customization provided by Jira is having a cutting edge over any project management tool. Adds-on and Plugins feature in the Jira Tool make it as perfect as desired task management tool for any company. One of the best Agile based Project Management Tools.

Incentivized

ProjectManager.com is less pricey and has all the features of all the other software, some of which are even better. In general, I like the interface and user experience of the product and it is really appealing to use. Easy to learn, fosters collaboration, and improves team communication.

Incentivized

• It has positively impacted our tech teams, allowing them to better organize the tasks and items they are working on and has greatly improved their ability to communicate & review these tasks with other teams.
• I believe it negatively impacted other departments as lengthy training was required by many associates to attempt using the tool, only to find out it didn't meet our needs, therefore much time was wasted.

Incentivized

• less time spent “looking for things” it’s all there.
• Having all the deliverables and timelines together has been great.
• I don’t have the version with employee time tracking, but we are considering the upgrade.

Incentivized