Clarizen Review

PROS: Clarizen solved our problems, and went far beyond our expectations. We love its friendliness, detailed customizability, and the powerful integration with other software. At our company, we have an ERP system handling finances, and a CRM handling sales, so the goal was to find a project manager that will integrate with them. Being able to respond to this, Clarizen soon became the center of our workflow, and we all got to love it. What is really good is that you can always 'lean on' support: there is an amazing team behind it ready to answer every question.

CONS: The product is so good that I really can't think of a feature that is not there.

PROS: Very friendly program, indeed! By friendly, I don't only refer to us as a team, but to other companies' products that integrate like a piece of cake. You extract the data you need, create an amazing report, and save it in excel format. Speaking of reports, Clarizen doesn't even expect you to have your own templates and ideas-it has pre-defined reports and it fulfilles them based on the schedule data you've entered.

CONS: I like how it works, but I don't like how it looks! It is a bit too basic, likewise short term project organizers for one use. As an agency that is busy with email marketing and high project turnover, we need somehting much more professional.

PROS: This tool is fantastic to begin with. It's very configurable. As an agency specializing in software design, we take to heart flexibility and we understand well what the web can provide for us. It's great to know that Clarizen has evolved into something that can streamline our processes even more.

CONS: Fresh off an ERP-based system, reporting was a bit difficult to ramp up. The entire thing was simple. It appears backwards in some way. It took some time to adjust to how simple this tool is. The one area that it needs to improve on is data summary reports.

PROS: The software is super easy. Most users were already up and running in mere minutes. It only took a few minutes to figure everything out with basic training. Its robust social media module contains in-context discussions for every project. It even goes as far as each task level.

CONS: One area that I think that this software needs to improve on is their reporting functionality. While most basic reporting is comprehensive, we're still in need of complex reports that couldn't be achieved via the reporting tool. With that in mind, it's very simple to export data directly from the system.

PROS: This software happens is highly configurable in the PPM market. You can clearly see in the UI. Trying to meet the needs of my company for workflows and custom fields in supporting unique processes is the biggest selling aspect of this software. I find their customer support and training to be almost unprecedented. The staff are very much involved in the things they do.

CONS: Even though the V6 has plenty of customization options for its user interface, I feel the software can do a far better job in striking a balance when it comes to offering workflow options and a pre-configured UI. This is especially for those who don't require such high level of customization.

PROS: We needed a streamlined connection between various functional groups that would guarantee us that each and every project will be closed on time. Additionally, the tool had to manage a vast pool of resources (human and material), distribute them, and allow us to have an equally flexible and scaleable perfomance on micro and macro level. Personally, I perceive it as the key holder of our current success, too robust to take small bugs into account. It is indeed a high-quality product, and I can't imagine where we would be now if it wasn't for it. Greetings to the idea!

CONS: In order to put hands on full customization, you have to be a premium user. What you have in the lower packages are pre-defined and pre-packed solutions, not something that is really relevant to what you do. In future, we would like customization to spread to the standard plans too.

PROS: This tool is exellent for portfolio management. I've tried other tools like it but they don't even come close. I love how its UI is familiar to use. Those who uses their social media a lot will feel very much at home with this. It also has deep workflows as well as an InterAct engine.

CONS: If you're looking for something affordable, this tool isn't something you'd go for. But in my opinion, it has the bells and whistles that will make you want it from the get go. For its price, it's definitely worth it. A great tool for long term use. No regrets since using this from day one.

PROS: Essential features that we're using with this tool: integration to Salesforce; management integration of documents/files with Box; notifications are automated; reports can be scheduled; Gantt chart; widgets of the road map; and the ability to collaborate with each customer.

CONS: There are some areas that need improvement. One of them is the tool's tendency to offer canned reports. It was a learning curve trying to come up with customized reports. I would appreciate a convenient report suite that can at least offer samples linked to a business inquiry to help comprehend the use of and purpose of the dashboard reports.

PROS: Clarizen is one of those programs that don't require painful learning sessions in order to use it, and it definitely takes a couple of hours to perform even the most complicated tasks! They have a very solid social module, enabling discussions for every project or separate task. Simplicity being feature number one, I'd rate flexibility as number two, because screens are highly customizable, and they don't require expensive expert support to solve issues. Certain project modules are even available for free, and you can download them from your app marketplace in few minutes.

CONS: The same as other users, I'd emphasize the need for the company to improve reporting, not in terms of comprehensive and concise delivery, but in terms of complex data which Clarizen cannot handle. We're dealing with it using third party software, but it is kind of painful to export/import data each and every time.

PROS: I love everything it has! There are lots of customizations for such a powerful software. Data appears to be limitless. It even comes with an SQL-ish API. Hands down to the support team. They're an amazing bunch. The software itself is in the same level as Rackspace.

CONS: I was hoping it would come at an affordable price. Or at least have flexible options to choose from. It's not such a bad thing. But it's obvious people want to buy things at a cheaper price. One hurdle that they need to get over with is the canned process for first-time project managers.

PROS: Clarizen is one of the most advanced cofiguration platforms I'm aware of, and has fantastic and very flexible features. Being a software design company ourselves, we have a pretty clear picture of what a Project Management tool should look like, and we chose Clarizen with expertise and care. To be honest, we'd streamlined our workflow even before we purchased it, but the difference it made is still very visible.

CONS: Simplicity was a knife with two blades for us, because we were coming from a developed ERP system, and we expected reporting to be somehow deeper. Simple as they are, their reports are still doing what they're supposed to, even if I believe there should be a better way to summarize data, at least something that would replace the need to use excel plug-ins to enable pivot tables to do their work.

PROS: Clarizen is a master portfolio system, and I know this because I've tried many of them. The interface is very intuitive, even when you're encountering the program for the first time, because is really made to resemble social media. Obviously, unlike social networks, Clarizen hides a lot of depth inside, based on a powerful InterAct engine which allows you to literally everything by filling few custom fields. If you ask me, Clarizen is the dream of every administrator, because it is both functional and free. With Clarizen, you get to share customized screens with all users, including such that have no license to use it. In fact, bringing all users together for effective communication was one of our priorities, and Clarizen made it possible.

CONS: If you consider the license, Clarizen may not be exactly the cheapest software ever, but I still believe that's a fair investment.

PROS: Many times, a program offers to handle your business, but puts its own priorities and rules on top of yours. Clarizen goes out of the box, and respects your rules and the way how you want to handle your projects. They started on a basic business level, but they imporved reporting so much that they pushed their way in every aspect of our business. Our requirements are growing, and so is their capacity to respond to them. The Salesforce integration is great.

CONS: As everybody else, we'd vote for more customization and advanced reporting, just to push the tool a bit further towards the accomplishment of our goals. However, we've seen nothing but improvements in the last 2 years, so we trust them to continue with the trend.

PROS: The highlight is definitely Salesforce integration, but there are many other things you should know about Clarizen: it is integrated with Box, which emopowers it to manage files; it improves customer collaboration; it generates reports based on your schedule; it empowers social collaboration; it respects the rules of your workflow; has an amazing, customizable dashboard; its provides automated notifications; it uses widgets such as Gannt Charts and Road Map; delivers project highlights reports; and finally-you can add as many plu-ins as you deem necessary.

CONS: It's not like I personally dislike whatever, but I think many areas could use improvement. For instance, they're stuck with canned reports that don't really do the work if you need a customized reporting solution for your business, as for instance to tie business objectives with the accomplishment of a specific task. There are some reports, dashboard ones, for instance, whose purpose I still can't understand. Salesforce integration is there, unfortunatelly not as API-secure as our IT team would like to see it, so that's putting even more burden on their shoulders. Finally, the Box intgeration was not planned, we only did it when we understood that Clarizen cannot handle file management on its own.

PROS: Clarizen goes beyond the limits of traditional collaboration, not just because it is cloud-based, but also because it is an amazingly adaptive and flexible project management software. I mean, the possibility to personalize it to your brand is almost surreal, and resembles somehting you've created on your own, not a program you've bought and customized. On top of it, managing projects with it is very efficient, and the time factor has almost no influence over it. This being said, Clarizen is the most flexible product we have in office right now, and it has set the standards quite high for other programs as well.

CONS: During the last few months, they've made things for end users pretty cumbersome and difficult-they've invested so much effort to make 6.0 customizable that it resulted in a serious loss of screen real estate, and endangered functionality. It is not that bad yet, but I'm afraid that if they go on like this, they'll edn up offering a 'developers only' product. To be completely honest, I think that even developers would find customization cumbersome by then, unless they know a bit of HTML programming, or if they're relying on Clarizen for some trivial stuff that don't matter so much.

PROS: My team thinks that Clarizen is an ideal project management solution. What we do is to implement management solutions for companies ourselves, so Clarizen is a tool that 'helps us help', which includes a long list of specific requirements, as you can probably imagine. What is lovable about Clarizen is how accomplishes tasks without duplicate entries, and how everybody understands it after using such an outdated project management tool. Overall, Clarizen has clarified our working process, meaning that it streamlined our complex system clients of all scales, branches, and needs. Therefore, when a client is new or difficult to handle, Clarizen refers it to the right implementation consultant who is the most experienced to solve his issue.

CONS: For the time being, nothing but the lack of Outlook integration. We would like to use Clarizen's Work Plan for scheduling meetings, and set up Outlook invites for the purpose. A good idea for the future would be to include email templates, or at least email reminders for clients about to attend a meeting or to send an attachment.