Arena - CM to Grow With
October 12, 2018
Arena - CM to Grow With
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Arena
Arena is used across our entire company for engineering and product documentation CM control and supplier revision control coordination.
- Comprehensive - We have not yet come across an issue where Arena did not have a solution.
- Flexible - We are able to build custom Attributes into our records to match our execution model.
- UI is not intuitive - User flow is not intuitive or similar to comparative tools or standardized tools. User interaction buttons are not consistent in location and descriptions are not effective in conveying interaction effects. Having said that, once you get past the learning curve the flow/interaction does make sense and becomes less frustrating.
- We implemented Arena as our first CM control system, so the impact is consistent with all of the advantages of CM and revision control where previously there was only user discipline. We tried to use Arena for Project/Program Management but went with another tool for its advanced integration capabilities.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
Price and functionality were our key decision drivers. Pricing was okay, and Arena has capabilities that will allow us to expand our processes within the tool as we mature in this area.
Implementation time was as expected. Data transfer into Arena was the most time consuming and exhaustive effort. Getting users up to speed is still an ongoing effort. The implementation team did a good job with the large amount of data and custom configuration.
As a 20 yr Agile PLM admin and user, it is hard to make a fair comparison. The more I use Arena, the more I am appreciating its depth of capabilities.