A Workfront (vs. Basecamp) User
February 23, 2016
A Workfront (vs. Basecamp) User
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Workfront
It is used across the whole organization to solve issues such as:
-Project management
-Time management (track and optimize hours)
-Cross-department collaboration
-Communication
-Budgeting
-Scoping projects accurately
-Following process
-Understanding (need for) team resources
-Understanding chargeability
-Managing deadlines
-Managing expectations
-Creation and maintenance of workflows
This process is owned by our PMO team of project managers. This is an internal tool (not for clients).
-Project management
-Time management (track and optimize hours)
-Cross-department collaboration
-Communication
-Budgeting
-Scoping projects accurately
-Following process
-Understanding (need for) team resources
-Understanding chargeability
-Managing deadlines
-Managing expectations
-Creation and maintenance of workflows
This process is owned by our PMO team of project managers. This is an internal tool (not for clients).
- Time management - the platform caters to time tracking. Logging time to client or non-billable, you can understand where time is spent for team members and who is not tracking their time. This helps understand need for resources across the organization.
- Workflows - Their internal algorithms lend itself to a natural workflow with predecessors, allowing employees to begin their task when the should. For example, task A must be completed before task B should begin. The workflow mentality encourages more efficient processes, especially in a large organization with multiple departments.
- Training - They have comprehensive videos to train the team on how to use the platform. It makes onboarding a new employee seamless.
- Formatting - I really appreciate text formatting in order to quickly digest content and better organize my message. In Workfront you are unable to produce anything but plain text (no bold, no italics, no underlining, no indenting etc).
- Complexity - Comparative to another project management system like Basecamp, nothing in Workfront is very straight forward. Although they offer extensive training on the platform, anything that complicated to me illustrates a need for simplicity in order to create an optimal user experience. In another comparison, if Basecamp is like an Apple Mac product (simple, great UI/UX), then Workfront is like a PC (complicated, not as seamless). See "Documents" point below for further explanation.
- Documents - When you want to upload a document, you have to do so in a different tab, which silos the document from the original conversation within the updates tab. This does not give way to a seamless conversation, having to constantly reference to another area.
- Efficiency - Understanding our chargeability so that we can be more efficient with our hours per head, therefore, understanding any gaps in ROI. For instance, figuring our that our (internal) hourly rate needs to be as close to $125 an hour as possible to reach our profitability goals. This is based on the time tracking and labeling capability.
- Accountability & Process - Our new workflows have enabled us to really follow the unique process that each project needs. This has made more a more accountable culture, which is turn leads to better results (Read: Change the Culture, Change the Game).
We used Basecamp in the past. We chose to switch based on the need for time management as well as a more complex project management system to allow better tracking of our resources in order to solve ROI issues.
As an employee who uses the software, I like Basecamp much more. As referenced earlier in this review, Basecamp is simple, straight forward and provides a space for a seamless conversation. Small things such as documents living in a separate tab as the Update tab obstructs the flow, forcing the user to reference a different tab, versus being able to say "see below" and the document is attached to that specific update message.
As an employee who uses the software, I like Basecamp much more. As referenced earlier in this review, Basecamp is simple, straight forward and provides a space for a seamless conversation. Small things such as documents living in a separate tab as the Update tab obstructs the flow, forcing the user to reference a different tab, versus being able to say "see below" and the document is attached to that specific update message.