Planview Enterprise - a robust portfolio solution fit for an enterprise
December 16, 2016
Planview Enterprise - a robust portfolio solution fit for an enterprise
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Modules Used
- Portfolio and Resource Management (formerly Planview Enterprise)
Overall Satisfaction with Planview Enterprise
Planview Enterprise (PVE) is currently being used across our entire organization. Every resource, associate and contractor, is required to record their daily effort into the PVE timesheet. The only exception is for Executive level resources. Both project (billable and non-billable) work and non-project work are tracked to provide utilization data, as well as the raw data that feeds the Billing process and verification of vendor invoices. Although all work/projects live in PVE, we are not currently requiring traditional Project Management practices to be performed in PVE by our PMs, however some do. Currently, our projects funded by the Development Budget are tracked with more rigor and also require the PM to provide accurate forecasting data in the Financial Planning area of PVE. Resource Management practices of tracking and balancing role-based demand with supply is just emerging into our use of PVE. Efforts continue to implement enterprise-wide practices in this area to allow better management oversight with less manual tracking in outside data sources.
- Planview Enterprise (PVE) provides end-to-end work management for the full spectrum of work types in one tool. Traditional project work can be fully implemented with detailed or summarized WBS, stage gates, workflow management and content management. Non-project work can be tracked in a variety of ways. There is even an option for "ticket" type work. PVE provides 4 types of resource assignments to attach people to work; each with flexible configuration options to meet the need of the organization.
- Planview Enterprise provides robust Rating and Financial Planning capabilities, and they continue to grow in this area of the tool. Rates can be driven by attribute-based rate cards or by attaching the exact rate to the individual resource. Multiple override functions exist that allow work to be configured with the exact rates when the work is the exception to the rule. All effort data captured in the tool (both from manual entry and/or ported over from the work plans) is converted into financial data with just a few clicks. And, portfolio management of this data is easily delivered on screen.
- The analytic options available in Planview Enterprise are broad and easily made available to the appropriate audience. They are graphic, but also drillable to the desired level of detail to facilitate analysis.
- Change, Risk and Issue tracking is available in the tool currently, but it could use a face-lift to be up to par with the rest of the application. Portal visibility into this area of data could be helpful, especially when tracking for a Program of projects.
- Communication capabilities to the users currently comes in the form of onscreen notifications delivered via portlet views and/or in the form of an email notification delivered to the user's email address on file. However, these notifications are not as configurable as we would like to see. The text of the emails cannot be edited. Many notifications cannot be configured to be sent via email and must be viewed on screen by the user. However, when an implementation is less mature, or you have users that are not required to be in the tool daily, these notifications go unnoticed and are therefore ineffective.
- Recently Planview has begun to deliver Web Services to their customers to use to build interfaces and other automations. For an organization with the right talent available, these services can be very useful. The challenge is that some of them are lacking in providing all of the same capabilities that a live user would have available in the User Interface, therefore only so much can be converted to Web Services. We hope that Planview continues to invest in expanding and improving these services to meet the needs of their customers.
- Prior to tracking all work and all resource effort within Planview Enterprise (PVE), the burden on our Finance department to provide accurate billing to our customers in our Shared Services business model was a heavy burden. With nearly all necessary data coming directly from PVE, the Financial Analysts have been able to redirect many man hours to other activities that provide value to our leadership.
- By using Web Services to import key data from a legacy system that cannot yet be fully retired into Planview Enterprise, we have been able to eliminate redundant business processes and provide a more complete data source for key business reporting.
- In 2017, we will be implementing a new design to our Rating configuration that will eliminate the need for external manual processes to accurately calculate cost across our diverse resource pool of Associate, Contractor, Onshore and Offshore.
Planview Enterprise Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Yes - Yes; whenever a bug is found, especially in an area of newly delivered functionality, the issue is verified and a fix developed and delivered in a matter of weeks.
During our most recent system upgrade to version 12.4, we experienced 2 issues that had to be resolved before we could allow users back into the environment. Planview gathered additional resources for a total of 5 of their top people to help resolve these issues. They happily converted our communication from support ticket entries to a live call and a WebEx to ensure that we were all working together to resolve the issues. In the end, our outage window was only extended 1 hour beyond the original plan in order to resolve both issues and complete the upgrade.