Item: Kantata Cloud
Rating: 10
Author: Rachel Stantliff

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Mavenlink is used across our entire organization. We use it as a project management tool. We manage monthly, recurring marketing projects/services as well as one time, web development projects. Mavenlink helps us manage budgets and timelines in real-time. Mavenlink also provides insights into our bottom line and helps us project future needs to continue growing our business.

Pros and Cons

Real-time view of budgets/burn rate
Time entry is easy
Integrates well with Google Drive
Provides a central location for all project information
Helps us to accurately forecast how long it takes to do things

Checklist items need to be checked off before a task can be marked complete
Would love a more visual way to create and manage tasks for staff that work better in a visual environment
Integration with Trello

Most Important Features

Quick and Easy View of Project Burn Rates
Easy Time Entry
Templates for Cloning Projects

Return on Investment

Easier to enter time into tasks/projects (estimate 5 hours/week used per Project Manager & 2 hours/week used for other staff clocking in and out prior to Mavenlink)
Real time view of budgets/burn rates (estimate 2 hours/project of time used to see burn rates per project prior to Mavenlink)
Better insights into estimating project costs (Having a real time view of budgets has helped us improve our estimations and see a better ROI on projects.)

Alternatives Considered

Trello, Smartsheet and Asana

While Trello is very visual, it doesn't have the same, robust abilities that Mavenlink has for time-tracking, burn rates, and timelines. My design and development teams love the visual aspects of Trello for QA and for Content Layout of website builds, but Trello lacks all the things that Mavenlink provides for managing a project from start to finish. Smartsheet is basically a glorified spreadsheet system and doesn't come close to comparing to Mavenlink. Asana is okay for managing issues/bugs but isn't as robust as Mavenlink.

Key Insights

Do you think Kantata Cloud delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Kantata Cloud's feature set?

Yes

Did Kantata Cloud live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Kantata Cloud go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Kantata Cloud again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Trello, Slack, Google Drive

Likelihood to Recommend

Before Mavenlink, our organization used several disconnected softwares to manage time, budgets, tasks, etc. We wasted so much time trying to find and connect time entries to project budgets and were constantly going over budgets but not knowing early enough to keep it from happening. Mavenlink has made our organization more efficient and has helped us deliver projects on time and within budget.

Support Rating

Mavenlink support is fantastic! Any issues that arise are always handled quickly and efficiently. Granted, we haven't had many issues to report. Typically, my team tends to only reach out to support if they need assistance remembering how to do something or asking about an improvement. We had Mavenlink build an integration when we first started using the software, and the support team worked hard to listen and improve the integration.

Usability

I think Mavenlink is the most robust and best project management tool out there for an organization like ours. However, some of our staff feel like it isn't as user-friendly as it could be. From a Director point of view or a Project Manager point of view, Mavenlink is exceptional. From the point of view of a task-doer, it could be more visually appealing. Also, the mobile version isn't great.

Mavenlink: A Masterful Tool for Project Management

Overall Satisfaction with Kantata Cloud