OpenAir - good standalone PSA solution
February 13, 2014

OpenAir - good standalone PSA solution

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction

OpenAir was in production at OpenSymmetry from April 2011 through December 2013. It was used by our entire global workforce (mostly consultants) and external contractors. OpenAir was used to track time and expenses for our projects, project management (milestones and tasks), resource management (utilization and scheduling/booking), client invoicing, and management reporting.
  • Nice UI (recently updated) - easy for end users to navigate
  • Great time and expense tracker. Once setup is complete, it is easy for end user to enter time and expenses
  • Built in workflow and approval process. The time and expenses approvals can be set up to accommodate complex approvals.
  • Many of the features need to be turned on/off by OpenAir support. It seems that these features are not documented/discussed. I can understand the need for some features to be maintained by OA support, but it would be nice to know what these features are upfront. It seems we spent a great deal of time developing workaround for features that could have been turned on by OA support.
  • OpenAir does integrate with Salesforce. However, I found that the integration is limited. I know it may be contrary to their product road-map, but I think it would have been nice to embed OA into Salesforce.
  • Integration with NetSuite financials (ERP) is also not as robust as I would have imagined. This was the main reason we no longer use OpenAir.
  • Increased frequency of billing (we went from monthly to bi-weekly) after the roll out of OpenAir. This helped improve our cash flow.
  • Better resource management. OpenAir helped us track our utilization so we could staff our projects with the right resources.
  • Better cost controls. Approval processes allowed our management team to keep better track of expenses.
I was not on the selection team that chose OpenAir. However, as I mentioned in my previous comments, I feel that OpenAir is a great stand alone PSA solution. For OpenSymmetry, we outgrew OpenAir and needed a solution that seemlessly integrated with Salesforce.com CRM data. Based on that need, we have now implemented FinancialForce. FinancialForce made more sense for OpenSymmetry because we wanted the entirety of our operational applications to be on the Force.com platform. With FinancialForce, our integration woes have been resolved.
We decided not to renew because we felt FinancialForce was a better solution for us. We really wanted a complete solution that was seamlessly integrated with Salesforce.com data and built on the Force.com platform. We also implemented FinancialForce.com Accounting solution. With both of these solutions in place on the Force.com platform, we now have full visibility of our customers. We can see the pending Opportunities, current projects and their statuses, and billing/payment data all in one place.
If someone is looking for a PSA solution that integrates with Salesforce.com and their ERP seemlessly, OpenAir is not the recommended product. If someone is looking for a standalone PSA solution, I think OpenAir does a really good job at time and expense, project management, resource management, management reporting and client invoicing.

Product Usage

130 - Our entire organization used OpenAir. Most of our end users are consultants (100+). Other users included back office personnel (Marketing, Sales, Accounting, and HR). OUr external contractors also used OpenAir.