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Still maturing PSA product. Resource management capabilities strong.
December 07, 2012

Still maturing PSA product. Resource management capabilities strong.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Enterprise

Modules Used

  • All

Overall Satisfaction

  • It integrates really well with Salesforce.com for front-end opportunity management. The transition from a booked deal to a project is a very smooth process
  • The resource management function is visual and pretty efficient, better than other tools reviewed.
  • Time tracking can be done on a smart phone which provides more options to enter time
  • The product is still maturing as a full featured PSA tool. The feature roadmap is compelling but is still being built out.
  • Tool is ideal for managing a services business. It is not yet a project manager tool.
  • Limited reporting
  • Maturing change order process
  • Limited integration to back-end financial systems beyond Financial Force Financials. We use Netsuite.
  • The underlying SalesForce UI is constrained and can be keystroke intensive at times
  • Limited archiving of historical data
  • We used to do our resource management on a white board. This is far more efficient. We are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were operationally in running the business.
  • The credibility of accounting data is far higher than in Open Air. Not all due to the product. When we implemented Financial Force, we used the transition to put in place change controls – much more rigor to support our public company reporting.
We would renew but have been acquired and our parent company will drive the decisions around PSA systems.
Prioritize your integration points as different vendors are going to offer stronger integrations in certain areas (Financials vs. CRM)
The software is robust and flexible and supports multiple ways to get things done. Standardize on best practices for common processes, i.e., resource management.
Pick your user champions to help guide the process and drive adoption

Product Usage

110 - Professional services; business leaders, program/project managers. consultants
5 - • 3 services ops people – in the system half time, but using as well as administering
• Business analyst – minimal time
• Programmer - 20% of time.
  • Project management
  • Change management – change order processing around products
  • Project status/ reporting
  • Resource management
  • Time management – time tracking and making sure time is allocated to right project/ charge number
  • Project accounting

Evaluation and Selection

OpenAir from NetSuite
We did look at other SaaS based systems but Salesforce integration was very important in our selection criteria.

Implementation

Appirio did a good job, however, the user team didn’t know enough to make all the right configuration/customization choices. The team focused too much on replicating existing processes vs. reengineering them. In hindsight we should have had deep dive reviews at key milestones and enforced more focus on how the software would operate. We didn’t have access to true best practices expertise. In hindsight, a consultant from the outside would have been helpful to drive this.
  • Vendor implemented
  • Professional services company
Appirio (a professional services firm that developed the product before selling it to FinancialForce) did the implementation and did a good job.

Training

  • In-person training
It was fine.

Configuration

Support

Pure customer support is fine and we have not needed much of it that I am aware of.
No - Has not been needed

Usability

It is maturing and does what it does well although it is not fully complete.

Integration to SF is great.

Gives great visibility to incoming services projects and allows the staffing process to start on pipeline deals.

There are certain processes that take more click-throughs then needed so there are refinement opportunities around the UI.

The resource management screen and project status views have really matured since our original purchase, and while not perfect, allow business leaders to do their jobs.

Configurations vs. customizations. We seem to have to bring in an Apex developer to do a customization for changes I would think could be configuration settings.

Reliability

We have maybe had 1-2 outages over 3 years.
Most of the time it is fine. There are peak periods of usage where performance noticably slows down (i.e., Monday mornings when time is due and many reports are being run).

Integration

It's native.
  • Non-Financial Force financial systems
  • Project management tools
i do not know.

Vendor Relationship

Financial Force has been good to work with from a product/support/services perspective. I don't have insight on how Financial Force is to deal with at a business level.
We received very favorable terms because we were an early adopter. Our biggest concern was financial viability of Appirio and we researched/investigated that aspect of the transaction.

Tips:
- Ask for a renewal increase cap to protect yourself in long term
- Ensure you have a very good, vetted concensus on how you want to operate your business and your priorities for a new PSA system
- Ensure you have thought through and budgeted for change management to drive tool adoption