Kantata Reviews

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

WorkflowMax and Adobe Workfront

Reasons for Choosing Kantata

Budgetary reasons mainly but we also needed a platform that would allow us to manage resources more efficiently as well.

Switched From

Adobe Workfront

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Fitted to our budget and offered functionality we saw as essential to resource management.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

Ease of use and implementation. Knowledgebase is extensive.

Cons

Some basic features lack customisation and could use with better enhancements.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

Customization and the integration with Jira

Cons

Some features could get and improvement to make ir easier to user

Pros

The best feature of Kantata is that is provides a combination of Professional Services Automation (the ability to track time, assignments, tasks, project margins, etc.) along with an end-customer collaboration capability to jointly track project task progress, shared documents, and shared task progress.

Cons

The more challenging part of Kantata is the custom reporting aspects. During implementation, we have several custom reports built by the Kantata team. These are working acceptably, but if you want to modify or change those reports it takes a pretty high level of knowledge and experience.

Alternatives Considered

Jira, TeamGantt and monday.com

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Kantata provided the combination of both PSA software and project execution collaboration with external customers.

Pros

Ease of use, Reporting, Project Financials

Cons

M Bridge integration platform is a complete failure. Its terrible. Training during implementation was not good. We've learned more on our own in a few classes. Time entry is weak and poorly designed. Lacks subprojects. User permissions are all or nothing in most cases.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com, Hive, Wrike and Asana

Reasons for Choosing Kantata

Workfront was too dificult to use, our clients could not or would not engage with us using it. THe functionality was there, but the interface was very poor.

Switched From

Adobe Workfront

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Simple workflows, reporting and ease of use.

Pros

We are new to having a PSA and PM tool. So it was great to go from each department having their own spreadsheets to one point of truth and full visibility across the project. But as well - all the in built finance management and integrations we setup has streamlined so many additional administrative elements of managing our work. And the real time visibility to project performance (timelines and finances) is great.

Cons

Navigating some of the integrations has been a little longer than I would have hoped for the roll-out. The support to get things implemented was not as timely as we would have hoped.

Alternatives Considered

BigTime

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

It not only met our needs but excelled compared to others. It has additional functionality we can grow into as we evolve and advance.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

User friendly and insights configuration

Cons

Reports not able to update in real time. Takes 30-40min to refresh data

Pros

There's a lot of functionality at the higher up space

Cons

As a user who enters their time the time entry screen is an extremely overcomplicated experience.

It should be as simple as picking a project, sub-code and then entering time. My experience so far is vastly overcomplicated with different places and ways to enter it. I came from using harvest to track time and their weekly view with a row of the project and code i use frequently is most excellent.

Pros

- 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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

- Time tracking integration. Don't have to use a third party tool.
- Smart project task management.
- Easy to track if "to do" is a "task" or an "issue" (very helpful for website projects where you have a TON of issues to deal with).
- Easy to move tasks around and see the overall items you're working on.
- Google docs integration.
- You can track conversations all in one feed-- on more email.
- You can respond via email.

Cons

- So many features. I don't use all of them.
- They add on cool features... but want you to pay for them.
- Expensive -- but worth it when you're managing a team and don't want to login to a ton of applications.
- No dropbox integration.
- Takes awhile to get used too.
- You can't rename the issue or task items. For example, sometimes I want to change the status title from "needs info" to "client review" -- and I can't edit the status (I could do this in Wrike).

Pros

I like the ease of updating time tracking and making changes after the fact. I like the ability to quickly see project run rate and status. Our last CRM had very limited skills and resourcing capabilities, and so this was both one of the big reasons why we switched to ML and one of the best things about the product.

Cons

I don't like the limitations on setting boundaries on projects. Mavenlink requires much more manual work than our last CRM in the invoicing and expense categories. There are some things that just don't make sense to me, like having the ability to mark expenses as paid. We've had to create a tracking system outside of ML in order to deal with expenses. I also don't like that administrators can't update/edit expenses.

Pros

Ease of use and communication. The ability to start threads regarding specific tasks, upload/share google docs, post messages that also go to email, etc. has been critical to successfully completing projects.

Cons

The only dislike I have is that I cannot push a change across multiple projects at one time. We use templates for almost every project we launch. Sometimes those templates get updated and those changes need to be applied to current projects.

Pros

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)

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

ERP Cloud

Pros

When a client assigns a project to our team we add a new page to our Mavenlink platform and share that with client and all the team members who will be working on the project. Clients can see updates, modifications and even daily reports. Our team don't have to update each time with the client or send them an email at the end of each day. Even if a client has different projects, they will see it on different pages which avoids confusion. The Gantt charts are the best feature included to avoid keeping multiple tabs open.

Cons

One of the main cons is that it will take considerably more time setting everything up. One has to dedicate for at least 4-5 hours to learn everything pretty well. The date format is given only in US standard and troubled us a lot in the beginning.

Pros

I like that my staffing projections are easy to access, view and share across digital teams.

Cons

Forecasting hours by the week/month needs to be automated - this is too manual and time consuming at the time. Need to be able to drag and drop hours, or somehow more speedily be able to populate staff allocations. Also finance reporting / utilization reporting is incredibly difficult of not impossible due to my current access level. I have to rely on the finance and resourcing department for all reporting - this is not sustainable for project management.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

The tool is quite easy to learn and is very intuitive. It was easy to set up and customer support was great (at least in 2016 - we've been clients for almost 5 years). It integrates with a few other platforms like Salesforce and can be customized using API. In addition, it provides client access and we see constant improvements.

Cons

Two biggest concerns:
1. You can't perform mass actions on tasks/milestones/issues. I.e. if you need to update multiple tasks with the same dates or status or assignee - you can't do it. You'll need to edit each task manually.
2. There are issues with email notifications - there were a few outages last year that resulted in delayed notifications which impacted our work.

Pros

I dont think I can think of one thing in Mavenlink that another tool did better. It is simply inferior in so many ways, even to free project management tools.

Cons

It is extremely slow! Every click results in a loading.gif. In comparison to Asana which is INSTANT no matter what you click.
I cant find my projects where I need them, I cant find my tasks where I need them, I cant get to important information without clicking 10 things and sifting through scrollable windows and sliding boxes. They are HIDING content behind and Show More; links. They are using PAGINATION on lists of projects... omg. No. Show everything, list everything, please stop making us bob for apples every time we need to find something.
Oh yeah, and the proofing system doesnt even notify you or the task about a conversation happening within it. Changes to your proof? No clue.
You cant mention someone in each area, only in the activity feed.