View Planning Seriously? PlanView is cumbersome!
January 10, 2014
View Planning Seriously? PlanView is cumbersome!
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Enterprise
Modules Used
- Portfolio and Resource Management (formerly Planview Enterprise)
- Work and Resource Portfolios
- Capacity Planning
- Timesheet
- Work Breakdown Structure
- Reporting
Overall Satisfaction with Planview Enterprise
- Thorough summaries of baseline to schedule variances
- Simple timesheet entry when correct projects are available or relatively static
- Reporting output to Excel for further analysis
- Navigation is cumbersome even after learning one's way around
- Customizing reporting is unnecessarily awkward
- Visuals for dashboard type items are unclear and not visually communicative
- Difficult to reconcile what the tool tracks with actual financials
- Cumbersome entry for project estimates, and ongoing confusion between various time-tracking categories and assignments, leads to many hours being tracked into the wrong buckets, and a general lack of trust in the numbers the system produces after all input is done, except for gross estimation
- It is our system in place, so continues to be used, but is not 'loved' by anyone in the enterprise. Most see it as a necessary waste of time, but no alternative has emerged.
- Lack of integration would be a bottom line cost, and I am unsure if this is due to the inertia of a poorly setup structure in the system, or the system itself, but the cultural change to replace it would be massive. Yet, most staff end up with multiple ways to track their effort on projects, and most projects use exports from this tool to compare to other tracking that is done - all totally outside of planview - to get a grasp on what is going on across projects and major programs.
- Program and project annual planning here uses exports from previous tracking to help build estimates outside the system, and only enters planview after estimations are relatively complete and all resource planning is in place. Then, reconciling capacity becomes a very circular process with no really solid business logic as to why adjustments are made - all just a number matching game in the end to get an export that budgets in another system can be set by.