Kantata reviews

Awesome platform that's only getting better

Opmerkingen: Overall, using Mavenlink has been great - it has made a very positive impact on day-to-day functions as a business. I would recommend it highly to agencies for its flexibility and extensive functionality to manage resources and projects.

Pluspunten:

The reporting functionality Mavenlink offers is extensive and has enabled us to get much better visibility to our project, program, portfolio and resourcing data. Which in turn has allowed us to set/adjust our KPI/KRIs and better inform business decisions with the data we have available. In using Mavenlink how it's meant to be used, not only have we improved our business practices but our PMO has gained valuable insight into important aspects of the business that were previously siloed. The fact that Mavenlink actually continues to improve its platform based on user feedback is a massive plus, as new functionality becomes available to better utilize the platform.

Minpunten:

There are some small (very small in most cases) problems we have with some functionality i.e. the naming/categorization of metrics in the reporting suite could be clearer, when approving/rejecting timesheets, adding a comment to a specific entry would be preferable, rather than the comment being published to all entries.

It's a fantastic time and task management system

Opmerkingen: Mavenlink sits directly on our Salesforce platform, and it has been great for our business to have a more comprehensive perspective from Pre-Sales through project close-out ever since we implemented the product about three years ago with the help of Mavenlink's amazing support. From the perspective of Resource Management, I find everything about Mavenlink to be extremely well executed.

Pluspunten:

My preferred time management application is extremely feature-rich, allowing for extensive customization of how time and money are spent. Mavenlink is a great addition to our corporate finance tools since it provides us with a new way to examine data and monitor progress on several fronts simultaneously. For me, it's a plus that Mavenlink is always working to enhance its platform and provide new educational resources for its users.

Minpunten:

I haven't utilized many goods or features, but it would be helpful to have a consolidated dashboard where I can observe how everything is interacting with one another.

The complete solution for efficient project management.

Opmerkingen: I love it a lot, from creating and assigning tasks to tracking the time spent on each activity and managing resources, I can have a more complete view of my projects in real time.

Pluspunten:

It is very good and I no longer have the need to jump between different tools or documents to be able to have a clearer view of the status and progress of my projects.

Minpunten:

Well, the platform allows me customization to a certain extent, there may be limitations in terms of completely adapting to the more specific needs of certain organizations.

Good system but some frustrating issues

Opmerkingen: Useful overall, but the more time I spend with it the more I realize it is missing some key functionality that would save a lot of time. It's much more difficult to update a project in Mavenlink than past systems I've used, and I think there are some beneficial tweaks that could be made

Pluspunten:

From an ease of use standpoint, time entry and project creation is fairly straightforward. It's also nice to have access to so many reporting features, although I imagine that's even more valued by the leadership team rather than staff.

Minpunten:

Three major issues stand out to me and my colleagues: 1- the software is very slow at times, and the more time I spend making edits to a project the longer it takes. In some cases, the lag is so bad that a task that should take 10 minutes ends up taking 30 since I wait so long for the system respond. The more tasks and individuals assigned to a project, the worse it is. Customer service suggested I delete my cache, but this was a temporary and fairly ineffective solution 2- It'd be great to have a simple place where I can see exactly how many hours a team member has on a project. Right now, we can only see time assigned to individual tasks, and then need to calculate the total manually 3- When tasks get extended or shortened, it'd be great to have a way to have Mavenlink automatically distribute time accordingly. For example, if I have 1 hour assigned for a 1-week long task, it'd be nice if I could automatically change this to 30min/week if that task were extended to being 2 weeks long. I know time can move automatically if the gantt is updated, but that only works if the task stays the same duration and hasn't started yet. Other systems offer this feature

Kantana

Opmerkingen: My overall experience has been pleasant using Kantana. I continue to use their product today.

Pluspunten:

The features I like and use the most on Kantana are the project planning features. It is reliable and well put together.

Minpunten:

I don't think there is anything about Kantana that I don't like. It is put together well and reliable.

Kantata is a great way to handle project/task management for your business.

Opmerkingen: A great way to monitor and build your project management, tasks. Simply and easy to use application.

Pluspunten:

It has multiple ways to use for project management, task scheduling and follow-up, many other things unlike available applications.

Minpunten:

For me it is doing the job required and I have never faced an issue with the system at all. Maybe it could require some work on the interface on the mobile.

Outstanding solution for our entire workforce

Opmerkingen: The overall experience from the get go was very positive, as we started the onboarding process and conducted internal training where I was able to get a lot of great feedback from my coworkers about how they find the ease of use and how they like the online product training catalog that is available.

Pluspunten:

I am able to view tasks for current projects, track upcoming projects, add notes and tag team members easily in a very organized way that allows me to save time and resources on a regular basis. My coworkers who I interface with closely have had a similar positive experience and I cannot recommend it enough.

Minpunten:

The ability to customize what is viewable and editable in the main menu ( such as projects, tasks, insights) based on user permissions would make it easier tailor the overall product experience to our teams needs.

A steep learning curve

Opmerkingen: Mavenlink is not a bad service. it does keep everything you need to manage a project in one place, as well as help you track hours spent on various tasks within projects and organize a timeline. It is somewhat difficult to use and difficult to learn how to use - I don't find it very user friendly or intuitive. I'm still getting over this learning curve, since I'm new to using the software, and will likely find that it becomes easier over time. At least I really hope it does.

Pluspunten:

Mavenlink is a great way to keep track of everything you need for multiple projects across various areas. Budget burn is clear to see, it's easy enough to add and message people on a project. Easy enough to track time, develop timelines, break projects down into tasks, etc. Good for very type A people who like to extremely organize everything.

Minpunten:

It creates a lot of work for project managers. A lot goes into designing a project and filling it out, which is very time consuming. There is also a steep learning curve, especially if you are adapting to Mavenlink after being used to different systems. The trainings were somewhat helpful, but long, boring and repetitive. While it does keep everything in one place, it is difficult to adapt to using it where you would have used email, Skype messenger, google docs, etc. especially if you're working with colleagues who are not so technologically savvy.

Kantata has transformed project and cost management

Opmerkingen: Using Kantata , we finally have a way to track the time and effort put in by our engineers across all of the projects they're working on. We were able to respond to questions from our leaders much more quickly, which helped us avoid certain personnel problems.

Pluspunten:

Kantata has revolutionized our approach to budgeting and task management. The opportunity to centralize all of our initiatives in one place and provide individualized reports that tracked our development in relation to our key performance indicators is something we are really grateful for. We also take pleasure in learning where we may be under- or over-allocating our engineers, so that we may swiftly adjust our course.

Minpunten:

As far as we can tell, employing Kantata does not come with any major drawbacks. Reports are not sorted alphabetically or numerically, however these are minor issues.

The definitive tool to manage projects and maximize results.

Opmerkingen: It has been great I have experienced a significant improvement in my ability to plan, execute and control my projects efficiently.

Pluspunten:

I love how it combines all the necessary tools in one place, which improves efficiency and communication across the team.

Minpunten:

I have occasionally experienced some occasional technical difficulties, such as errors loading large files or slow system response at times of high demand.

The Ultimate Services & Operations Management Software

Opmerkingen: The only way to describe this would be "It has been and still is fun to work with". It's a great piece of software, and once you get used to its logic you will be able to do great things - and by great things I mean measure exactly how much you sell your services for and how much resources you are actually using.
This, plus see employee performance, project performance, you can create custom fields to cover for any special requirement.

Pluspunten:

- Integrations and API - An excellent Salesforce bridge is available and can be fully customised (if you know Java!). You also get other connectors for Jira, Slack, and an API that allows you to do virtually anything. - Integrated GoodData reporting - If you are technical enough you can improve your workflows by adding custom fields and creating custom metrics. I used this solution to monitor the performances of the entire Professional Services team at Emarsys. - The software itself is essentially like Microsoft Project but online and with conversations & invoices generation - you can manage anything from a very small and basic project to a massive 2 years project thanks to the versatile task management interface. GANTT charts are available and, of course, if you know how to use GoodData you can dig even further into the project reports. - Resourcing wise it has a Master Planning tool which looks a bit like Resource Guru but completely integrated with the software, so you are really buying the full package with Mavenlink.

Minpunten:

I believe the biggest flaw in Mavenlink is the absence of a "real" administrator. Essentially, you can be an admin but if a project is set to "Invitation only" you cannot join it unless someone invites you. So being a Mavenlink admin is not like being a Jira admin where you can do anything you want, you are more of a "open projects administrator". The workaround is to have an integration user creating the projects and a good integration with your CRM that allows you to update fields that would be otherwise not accessible. Mind that you can still remove the integration user from the project, and at that point the only way to re-enter the project is to ask the project lead to invite you. This should clear any security concerns, if your projects require extreme privacy.

So, yeah, you could call me an evangelist

Opmerkingen: We implemented Mavenlink specifically to disabuse our organization of several disparate systems we were using for tracking time, task-level project management, and reporting on specific measurements/metrics like utilization, margin and capacity saturation so that we could improve operational efficiencies. We've found that the tool is very flexible, has some great native reporting capabilities that become exceptional when coupled with the Business Insights add-on, it integrates well to SalesForce, it has given us a much better ability to manage projects for clients as well as internal product development projects, and it provides us with much better capabilities toward planning organizational growth and managing to margin at the business unit level down to the project level. While there are still some glitches/issues with the Gantt views, and there are still things we wish it did better, Mavenlink has proven itself to be an exceptionally valuable (and very cost-effective) management tool; the company is consistently providing updates that are meaningful and adding value with subsequent releases that clearly indicate a willingness to listen to the voice of the customer in new feature requests. Overall, I'm personally very impressed with the software, given my team's requirements and unique operational environment.

Pluspunten:

Flexible, provides the ability to set up multiple templates for different types of projects, supports T&M and Fixed Fee contract types, integrates to SalesForce, provides multiple views toward project status, continually adding new features and capabilities

Minpunten:

Gantt charts are still in need of a lot of work and help. Still buggy, no user-defined view preferences can be saved.

Needs Improvements But Works Well for Viewing Burn Rates

Opmerkingen: In the beginning, Kantata really helped us have a better view of project health, but as we have grown and clearly defined processes, etc. Kantata has not grown with us. It looks and feels dated.

Pluspunten:

The best thing about Kantata is the ability to see project burn rates at a glance. The time-tracking system is a huge part of that being accurate as well. There are multiple options for our team to track their time so that we can see project burn rates.

Minpunten:

There are several things that haven't been improved at all in the 6+ years that we've used this software. For example, basic things like not being able to customize your task statuses (or at least new options being added), being able to mark a task as complete even when none of the checklist items have been checked off, and not getting a notification when a due date is coming up to remind a team member of a deadline before it is missed, etc. The mobile version is pretty much useless which is sad now that the working world is mostly remote.

The Top Reasons We Chose Mavenlink

Opmerkingen: RESOURCE ALLOCATION
Resource allocation is critical in our line of business and it was a major component missing from Active Collab. It is the norm for us to have multiple projects at varying phases of completion and up to 10 team members working on various tasks. As you can imagine, it can become very hard to keep track of workloads and schedule new tasks appropriately. Mavenlink has been a game changer for us in terms of resource allocation! With the click of a button we can now view every team member and get a detailed view of their workload.
FINANCIAL REPORTING
While Active Collab was not void of financial reporting, we needed a solution that was more robust. Once again, Mavenlink did not disappoint. From financials to projects to people, there's a report for that! As the Business Manager, I really appreciate the ability to create custom reports. Every client is unique in their needs. Mavenlink helps me satisfy clients' needs as well as our own internal needs. USER INTERFACE AND EASE OF USE
We really love Mavenlink's visually pleasing interface and the ability to custom brand it. We liked that the company utilized features similar to some of the popular social network sites. This helps to give it a familiar feel to new users. We also like that it does a good job being intuitive to users' needs. This makes it pretty easy for new users to navigate without much instruction. Although we did put some how to videos together for our clients to ensure that everyone is comfortable using it. CLIENT COLLABORATION
Our clients' perception is our reality. It is essential that our clients be able to collaborate with us on their project every step of the way. We were very surprised at the number of solutions that did not allow this. Mavenlink really goes above and beyond in this department. Clients can even use their free profile to create and manage their own personal projects outside of their CommonPlaces project. COMMITMENT TO IMPROVEMENTS
No one solution is going to land a check mark for every requirement on your list. The one thing that really put Mavenlink ahead of the other solutions we considered was the company's commitment to improving their product. Along this journey we heard over and over, if you notice that there is something that we can improve upon, please take a moment to email us with your suggestions. In the 3 months that we have had Mavenlink, we've already been notified of 2 great improvements!

Software Implementation Process with Mavenlink

Pluspunten:

We have only been using Mavenlink for a little over 3 month and have already started to see visibility and transparency across the organisation. Mavenlink Insights and analytics reports provide the company with a holistic view of all projects and accounts. We are now easily able to identity project metrics and figures without all of the manual collation and reconciliation which takes an enormous amount of time. Mavenlink have been extremely helpful and accommodating to get us to this point with help of the guys from the MavenOps Program. The 3 months of MavenOps has been fantastic as the team who have been working with us are always willing to help and offer suggestions. Mavenlink were very responsive to our requirements and always willing to help and provide alternate solutions or workarounds if system could meet the requirements. Additionally MavenOps were very quick at turning around reports that we requested. The reports were completely customised to our needs. If a feature could not be achieved the company can submit a "feature request" which means there is a chance that feature can be built later down the track. Mavenlinks 24/7 chat support has also been fantastic in helping the wider organisation with any questions. Overall the software is great but the level of support really helps to lift the product and the overall engagement.

Minpunten:

Given we are an Australian based company there are a few things within the software which are set for the US, for example the date is in the wrong sequence and data refreshes happen at awkward times. These are only minor and don't stop us from achieving our main objectives. It would be helpful to have a little more control over these settings. It would be also good for Super Admin users to have a greater level of visibility. At present even admin need to be invited to a project to view the tasks and approve time etc. It would be helpful for Super Admin users to have this level of visibility with having to rely on a project lead to invite them to a project.

Corporate user review

Opmerkingen: I really enjoy mavenlink but I see so much more potential and I keep asking them to make simple changes that would absolutely rock the software into the next phase of a PSA but I don't ever get a response.

Pluspunten:

I like the ease of use and the simple layout of mavenlink

Minpunten:

I wish there was a way to put non-billable time into projects such as accountants time on invoicing, marketing, and finance. These items are the bleed on a project if you don't factor them into the profitability margin.

A Robust Must-Try for Service-Based Orgs!

Opmerkingen: ML has helped my organization to clearly define accountability and responsibilities. Additionally, it allows for project profitability to be easily found without having to compile data from multiple sources.

Pluspunten:

I believe that the best part of Mavenlink is that it's an all-in-one program. One could use this for the day-to-day management of their projects without having to use outside programs. It combines project management, resource management, budget management, estimating, time-tracking, reporting and so much more.

Minpunten:

I think the learning curve can be pretty steep. I attribute this lack of intuition to the robust nature of the service, but it could do with a revamp of the UI/UX. I also dislike the format of the resource management. There are currently two ways to manage resources: Master Planning and Resource Planner. The two work together but are also very separate features. The entire reource management system could use an overhaul to reduce confusion and to make resource changes easier.

One of the weaker project management tools out there. I wouldn't recommend this product.

Opmerkingen: The ability to see my project list at a glance, although this product is plagued with poor support and ultra slow development.

Pluspunten:

The UI is simple to use most of the time. It's easy to see your projects listed out, even though the organization tools are pretty weak.

Minpunten:

The software is slow. Updates happen at a snails pace. Our team worked directly with the development team at Mavenlink and their process is just plain slow. The program is bogged down and sluggish. It lacks sub-tasks beyond 5 layers, the estimating feature is a joke and they only just recently implemented a basic WYSIWYG in the activity section. You also can't undo activity unless you go back to the feed. Talk to PMs who actually use this product!

Abruptly changed pricing.

Opmerkingen: Long story short, I had been paying a certain amount for 6+ years, they kicked my credit card, made me reenter the info and told me that plan wasn't available anymore (no prior notice). Then I was faced with the decision to upgrade to a plan that was 6x more than my original plan! I talked to 2 reps and they both told me "we don't offer that plan anymore". All of this happened in the middle of the week while I am trying to deal with my clients. Anyway, I began using zoho projects which I like much more, it has an app and it integrates with a lot of other zoho products. I would highly recommend since the pricing is similar. I left Mavenlink mainly because of the inconvenience, but ZoHo truly provides the same service plus more!

Pluspunten:

The workspace was professional, branding gave the sense of personalization. The file space seemed to be unlimited at the time.

Minpunten:

They don't have an app, the mobile equivalent site is not as user friendly as an app would be. Some of the screens are not responsive on a desktop.

Difficult to reconcile with our accounting software - rounding issues

Pluspunten:

Easy for resources to book time against multiple different projects - good data contained in time entry exports (granular, gives lots of information that I can pivot off of to provide different views to the end customer)

Minpunten:

Mavenlink rounds time entries billed at an odd number (such as $171.77/hr) that are logged in half-hour or quarter-hour increments differently than Sage IntACCT - this makes reconciliations arduous when it's time to invoice the customer.

Good tool for Internal improvements

Opmerkingen: Our organisation has been able to streamline a group of integrated teams into a well structured project management tool. It's helped to track our progress in many ongoing projects. It made the team fulfil tasks faster.

Pluspunten:

Absolute perfect customer support. We have put resource planning somewhere easily accessible for the whole company. Even before Mavenlink, we had Microsoft Project for this, and it was not as easy-to-use as Mavenlink. The support we've gotten from the Mavenlink team is awesome. Whether it's getting questions answered, prioritising potential feature enhancements, or giving feedback on the product road map . I always know that our voice will be heard and considered.

Minpunten:

Everything is fine, it is just we use custom fields on almost all tasks we create, so when created templates with these task lists because we re-use a lot of the same tasks. Unfortunately, templates do not save custom fields so we've had to add these each time we apply a template. It could be improved.

The basics are there, but too many features fall flat.

Opmerkingen: Benefits include matching estimates and budgets to tasks and breaking apart milestones with tasks and sub-tasks. Activity communication is pretty good.

Pluspunten:

I can add a project, estimates and budget and track overall progress. It has given us a more robust look at what is happening across all projects.

Minpunten:

Too many features feel incomplete. The invoicing, estimates and user permissions are convoluted and lacking enough that our company cannot use them. Resource Management requires duplicate entry of information between planned and scheduled time. It should be easier to link the two together and plan around exceptions.

Good time management SaaS solution

Pluspunten:

- Mavenlink allows us to bill times to projects and individual tasks. - Can see time spent against the project budget

Minpunten:

- The task assignment and updating via Outlook is clunky, and it feels like it could do with some refinement.

Flexible platform, engaged support team, always getting better.

Opmerkingen: The client success and technical support teams have been exemplary to work with. They truly work to understand your use case for the product and offer solutions, and even involve us in conversations with the product teams to share our perspective on new feature sets.

Pluspunten:

It's clear that the platform is designed to fit many different styles of work, and much of it is highly configurable to your preferences. With the integrated APIs to Salesforce and Active Directory, among others, it's worked well to seamlessly stay in sync with the rest of our systems.

Minpunten:

The Insights reporting platform is very powerful, but complex to learn how to implement custom configurations. You'll do well here if you have experience querying relational databases like SQL, but otherwise you will depend heavily on assistance from the support team and documentation to make adjustments to the custom reports.

One of the top project management solutions out there

Opmerkingen: We've been utilizing mavenlink for over 4 years and I have nothing but great things to say it. They've come a long way from 4 years ago and there's been many updates and improvements that pretty much covers everything you would need in order to manage any projects with team members across the globe or locally. It's a very robust solution that makes things easier to communicate with team members, assign tasks, dead lines, create templates for projects and even involve your client to review the progress and comment. It also intergerates with Google Apps which is great and you can easily sync your tasks on to your google calendar and attach email communications. any firm that focuses on team projects should give mavenlink a try.

Pluspunten:

simple to you use, assigning tasks, creating templates, mobile friendly, integration with google apps.

Minpunten:

not much we can think of.