Great product, but UI needs a facelift.
Updated July 22, 2014

Great product, but UI needs a facelift.

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review

Modules Used

  • Project Management
  • Resource Management
  • Timesheet Management
  • Expense Management
  • Invoicing
  • Reporting
  • OpenAir Connect

Overall Satisfaction with NetSuite OpenAir PSA

Used by entire company for time and expense tracking. Then the Services and Accounting teams used the tool heavily for day to day management of both projects and financial health.

Pros

  • Integration between various modules is seamless and they complement each other well.
  • Resource management and planning.
  • Project planning and monitoring in terms of traditional project management metrics.
  • Reporting and dashboards were flexible.
  • From time sheets to customer invoicing, the workflow for approvals and reviews worked great.

Cons

  • The interface could use improvements from a usability perspective. It needs a bit of a face-lift. For example, setting up reports is cumbersome and time consuming.
  • It needs to increase flexibility for more advanced resource booking assignments such as recurring bookings.
  • Configuration by department would be ideal. For a company that adopted the solution across the board, some of the configuration options wouldn't work for some departments which required compromises and in some cases we are not using some of the features Services would have desired.
  • We increased our utilization in Services from 90% to over 100% using the resource management tools.
  • We reduced our backlog/queue time for starting new projects from 2 months to 2-4 weeks. With greater visibility, we were able to better plan our staffing needs for short/long term needs.
  • We had greater visibility for project managers in regards to the monitoring of contracts from an invoicing perspective resulting in increased billings and reduced time to get invoices out the door.
  • Given the integration of the solution, there was access to time off requests as well as company holidays (especially for co-location/countries). It allowed us to have greater visibility to ensure we had the proper staffing levels and were able to maximize our time and material opportunities over any period.
  • FinancialForce PSA,Mavenlink,Projector PSA
OpenAir was the most complete solution and was strong in all areas.
While the solution could use a few improvements here or there, overall, we were able to achieve what we need: a complete integrated solution to allow us to effectively manage and operate our professional services business.
While the solution wasn't perfect and had some areas of improvement in regards to the UI, it was still a solid application that did help us achieve our overarching goals. The integration between the various modules is key to provide a clear ROI once implemented.

Using NetSuite OpenAir PSA

100 - Every person in the company was required to use OpenAir. We licensed all the modules, so everyone was required to submit time sheets and expense reports even if they were in an Administrative/Overhead role within the company. The professional services department more heavily used the solution since they used the tool for project management, resource planning and reporting, but it was still adopted by the entire organization.
2 - Strong technically and very comfortable with computers/software

HR/Finance representative
Services representative
  • Resource planning and forecasting for financial purposes as well as defining our upcoming staffing needs.
  • Visibility into our utilization for booked business as well as sales opportunities.
  • Complete integration for customer invoice generation using approved time sheets and then getting the information to Quickbooks.
  • Project planning tools and metrics for project managers.
  • Workflow for approvals of resource requests, time sheets, expense reports and invoicing.
  • Revenue recognition and financial planning.
  • We've been able to use project stages to segment our product license contracts so that we can track invoicing, renewals and profitability.
  • Tracking sales opportunities for resource and financial forecasting.

Evaluating NetSuite OpenAir PSA and Competitors

Journyx
  • Price
  • Product Features
Ensure to speak with other clients who've used the PSA solution and understand their pros and cons after the fact.

NetSuite OpenAir PSA Implementation

The primary thing is ensure that you take the time to gather the input of the key stakeholders before configuration so you can minimize changes after the fact. In our case, one of the key stakeholders was "too busy" and it did end up causing rework and additional configuration costs. In particular when it comes to data migration, you need to ensure the proper due diligence is done so that you start out with a clean plate.
  • Vendor implemented
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled
  • Internal process changes and adoption.

NetSuite OpenAir PSA Training

  • In-person training
Very knowledgeable and able to articulate how other customers configured the solution to meet their needs as well as the best practices they recommended.

Configuring NetSuite OpenAir PSA

There is a lot of flexibility available in OpenAir. There are a few features that are limited, but overall, I see it as a robust tool that enables you to flex it for your individual business.
I would recommend using an outside consultant to implement it. One that understands your business and can spend that 1-1 time with you to ensure the implementation is seamless and successful.
No - there is no facility to customize the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
There is an advanced function available for creating custom fields and calculations that can be used for reporting purposes. This is a very powerful tool that can help provide you the information you might be need for project analysis.

NetSuite OpenAir PSA Support

They were responsive and knowledgeable. We had access to a single point of contact and we could contact him via phone/email as needed. It was very convenient and it made it easy since that person was already familiar with how we were using the solution, our configuration, etc.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
No - We had premium support for the first 2-3 months to ensure we had the resources we needed to help us get over the hump of how to use the tool. But once we overcame the basic day to day processes, it really wasn't necessary so we did not continue that service. Additionally, their normal support was responsive and quick to respond when we did have a question/issue.
Yes - It was provided to product management for triage, however it was not resolved.

Using NetSuite OpenAir PSA

Aside from Reporting, where there is some room for improvement, the usability is overall very strong. In Reporting, you can get the job done for the most part, but it might take a lot of creativity to get there.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Requires technical support
Feel nervous using
  • Project tracking
  • Time and expense tracking
  • Resource management
  • Reporting can be a little clunky to setup and figure out which reports to use for different situations.
  • Integration isn't seamless.
Yes - Solid user interface for time and expense tracking. For expense tracking you can take pictures of receipts to tag to your expense report to go completely paperless. Then when invoicing the customer for reimbursement, these can be included, so very convenient.

NetSuite OpenAir PSA Reliability

Once the system is setup, it's easy to manage and maintain.
The system up time was reliable and that was never anything we ever had any concerns/issues with.
The performance was acceptable. If you had a very large data set you were working with it might take a little longer, but within reason.

Integrating NetSuite OpenAir PSA

We attempted to integration with Salesforce but were never successful in getting their consultant team to set it up. After several months, we gave up. We had an integration with Quickbooks online which was working for several months, and then one day was no longer supported with no notification to clients. I heard from another client who attempted the integration with NetSuite Financials and it took over 6 months with many Netsuite consultants in order to get it working. Integration is an area for improvement for them.
  • Quickbooks
Quickbooks - highly integrated to generate our customer invoices. It wasn't as difficult as we thought, clearly the vendor had done this integration in the past so it was relatively painless.
  • Salesforce.com
They do support this integration, however, we just haven't pursued it yet.
  • File import/export
Speak with customers/references who have integrated to exactly the same system. Understand what went wrong and any gotchas.

Relationship with NetSuite

Tiered pricing structure with a per seat license fee.

When we negotiated year one, they agreed to honor the price only for one year. Once renewal came around, they had an increase that was substantial. In retrospect, we should have pushed harder to have that price locked for a longer period of time.
Ensure that renewal has a cap on percentage price increases.

Upgrading NetSuite OpenAir PSA

Comments

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