clarizen analyst-review-october-2011

Clarizen Product Review 01/10/2011 Produced by Eval‐Source http://www.eval-source.com and GetApp.com http://www.getapp.com

Key Features: Project Management, Time Tracking, Task Management, Project Portfolio, Budget Tracking, Project Scheduling Industry: Non Specific Customers: Mid Size Businesses & Large Enterprise Geography: US/Canada/Australia/Europe/Israel/Asia Languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish Cost: Starts at 24.95$/month – 30 Days Free Trial

Review methodology

This review constitutes an analysis based on a product demonstration and software review by qualified system software experts at Eval‐Source. The demonstration Eval‐Source received from the vendor was based on its own custom vendor script, designed to validate and/or disprove vendors’ claims. The script was specifically prepared to identify functionalities and form an impartial analysis and software review for a Project Management Solution.

Business Problems Addressed

Today’s business environment has enabled companies to operate virtually. Companies are collaborating more frequently with many different internal and external partners and as a result, diversified, cross‐functional project teams are in greater demand than ever before. The adoption of best practices has made project management a staple operation within companies and changed the way in which they execute initiatives. In fact, while traditional project management still exists in IT, R&D, and software development, other organizations like marketing departments and professional services groups are also leveraging these methodologies. This evolution has caused a significant need for project management solutions to be intuitive and incorporate the fundamental methodologies of project management. This evolution has generated the need for project management solutions to be intuitive enough for non‐trained project managers, yet incorporate the broad and fundamental methodologies of project management.

The five phases of true project management are: initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing. Organizations that require project management solutions should always be aware of the basics of project management and how a vendor’s solution addresses each component of the methodology. Examining what your organization requires to execute projects and matching those needs to the appropriate software is the ideal way to find the best solution.

For highly project‐driven companies, the ability to execute can determine the success of a project. Like many other business tasks, there is pressure on project managers to become leaner and more streamlined ‐ providing more detail,


collaboration and execution for the project teams. To achieve this, project teams require more dexterous tools than spreadsheets and light collaboration. They need project management tools that offer in‐depth collaboration, time and budget management, resource management, change management, customizations and fulfil other project related tasks required to complete a project on‐time and on‐budget.

Clarizen has the ability to address these requirements, combining project management and collaboration in an easy‐to‐learn interface that will work well for many organizations – big or small. Clarizen’s approach to project management examines the steps and components that comprise a project, and streamlines the execution in real–time, with visibility and collaboration across an organization. Clarizen focuses on delivery, usability, visibility, collaboration and execution. The Clarizen tool is delivered with a pure Cloud‐based, Software as a Service model, which allows for easy adoption – though users will have to have internet to use it.

Clarizen’s in‐depth project functionality and integrations to other software applications can simplify project management and unify functions like CRM and accounting from different vendors through a single sign‐on interface.

Target Market

The Clarizen target markets are SMB through to enterprise. Medium to large companies are quickly adapting project methodologies throughout their organization for different departmental needs like marketing or their services organizations. By providing a project management tool, organizations create a framework to follow for all company related activities. Clarizen can provide the project management glue to establish, execute and monitor company‐wide initiatives.

The Clarizen project management application is not vertical specific – meaning it has wide appeal and can be inserted into any application where a project management tool is required. The main customer types that Clarizen targets are: High Tech, Healthcare, Consulting, Banking, Telecom, Marketing Service Companies, IT, Research and Development and Operations within Manufacturing.

Clarizen’s head office is located in Hod Hasharon, Israel with sales offices in San Mateo, California, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Taiwan and Australia. The Clarizen application is available in the following languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.


Pricing Model

Clarizen Software comes in three versions: Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited. The graphic below indicates the basal features of the Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited editions. The free 30‐day trial includes full application functionality and a credit card is not required to initiate sign‐up, thereby allowing organizations to fully evaluate the capabilities of the software. All projects created during the trial will automatically transition seamlessly once the account is converted to a paying account so no data is lost.

Figure 1. Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited Editions

Clarizen supports three types of users: Full users, Time and Expense Users, and an Email Reporting User.. Full users have a complete login to the Clarizen system, and can see any data that is allowed by the administrator based on configurable permissions. A Time and Expense User costs less, but is appropriate for users who only need to access timesheets and expense modules of a project and report their progress through email. Clarizen allows an unlimited number of free Email Reporting Users. These users are typically contributors or resources on a project who only need to be able to receive notification of assigned tasks and to report on the status of their progress via email – but do not need full access to Clarizen. See Figure 2 for Time and Material User pricing.

This feature can prove very useful for organizations that outsource to contractors or have many stakeholders that are not directly involved in the main milestones and key deliverables, but play an important role in supporting the task dependencies.


Figure 2 Time and Material User Pricing for Professional and Enterprise.

Total Cost of Ownership

For SaaS based applications, total cost of ownership is calculated differently from on‐premise. Our analysis has identified 11 items that should be included when calculating the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a Cloud‐based solution. This provides a starting point for determining the TCO over the application lifecycle and provides the basis for the calculation of ROI. In a SaaS based offering, these items are usually included and if not, organizations should inquire as to how they are priced in addition to the monthly subscription fee. Most of the components for a SaaS/Cloud solution are included within the monthly subscription fee or pricing model. This list represents the most common components that compose a SaaS or Cloud solution.

Are these components included the SaaS subscription?

1. Hardware Yes 2. OS Licenses Yes 3. Database Licenses Yes 4. Middleware Licenses Yes 5. Software Licenses Yes 6. Software Support Yes 7. Hardware Maintenance Yes 8. Software Maintenance Yes 9. IT Operations Yes 10. Upgrades Yes 11. Training Basic Training Included, Free Unlimited live Webinar Q&A

forums always available, additional training available


SaaS Checklist

In order to fully understand SaaS and Cloud‐based solutions, Eval‐Source has created a checklist that businesses should apply when engaging a SaaS or Cloud vendor. The components of this checklist cover the Cloud delivery model and provide details that may require further investigation. This checklist serves as a starting point for SaaS/Cloud basics that the organization should bear in mind before choosing a SaaS/Cloud solution.

1. Tenancy ‐ Multi or Single: Multi ‐ tenant 2. Cloud Structure Public or Private: Public – Designed specifically as a PM SaaS software 3. Subscription Terms: Per user/ by month 4. Data Security Standards: Y Data center is SAS70 ‐ II certified 5. Business Continuity/Data Recovery: Y – Fully redundant failover 6. Encryption Type: SSL 7. Version Release Schedule: 3 major releases a year, with minor weekly updates 8. Current Version Released: 5.3

9. Session Management: Y

10. Application Level Security: Y 11. User Limits: No user limits 12. Data Migration Services offered: N, though a tool is included to import project from Microsoft Project 13. Free Trials/Sandbox Testing: Yes, there is a free 30 day unlimited usage trial 14. Application Customizable by User: Y. Workflows, custom fields and validation rules can be configured 15. Application Customizable by Vendor: Y 16. Set Up Fee (admin fee): N 17. Charge for Additional Space: N

Solution Analysis

Functional Areas

Clarizen is a nicely designed end‐to‐end Project Management tool with all the necessary supporting functionality that project management requires. The functional modules of the Clarizen applications are: core project management capabilities, resource management, task management, issue management, team collaboration, budget management, time tracking, customization features, dashboards and reporting. The figure below highlights the key features of each of the functional modules. See the technical analysis section of the review for the integrations to other software packages.


Core Project

Management Features

Advanced Inter‐Dependencies

Automatic Notifications

Budgeting

Critical Path Method

Project Baseline

Gantt Charts

Project Hierarchy

Project Portfolio Management

Multi‐Project Management

Project Indicators

Project Roadmap

Project Templates

Scheduling

Task Management

Time Tracking

Personal Calendars

Resource Management Features

Resource Load Simulation


External Resources

Email Only Users

User Groups

Interactive Resource Load Views

Resource Calendar Views

Resource Details

Role & Assignment Per Project

Role Permissions

Task Management Features

Actual versus Remaining Efforts Completion Reporting


Recurring Tasks

Billable & Non Billable Work Items

Task Feedback

Templates

Project Percentage Completion Reporting

Progress Report via Emails ‐

ProjectMail™

Reportable & Non Reportable Work Items

Team Collaboration Features


Email Traceability

Contacts & Email Addresses

Discussions

Document Sharing

Inter‐Project Shortcuts

Notes

Project Templates

Multi‐Project Management

Realtime Chat

Real Time Team Updates

Delta Change Updates: Instant, Aggregated & In‐

Context

Email Discussion Generated from Work Item


As shown, Clarizen has complete end‐to‐end functionality to manage a project from start to finish. The extent of features offered within the software allows organizations to track of expenses, manage issues, track resolutions, create and track milestones and monitor budget dependencies to keep projects on time.

Clarizen’s in‐depth project management functionality can be applied to every phase of a project. The project management process contains five elements: the initiating, planning, executing process, controlling and the closing processes. The spectrum of features contained within the application makes it easy for organizations to execute their projects.

Issue Management Features

Request Management

Bug Tracking

Issue Tracking

Risk Analysis

Idea Management

Budget Management Features

Billable and Non Billable Work Items

Budgeting

Cost and Revenue Rates

Fixed Price Rates

Job Role and Related Rates

Expected and Actual Revenue

Budgeted and Actual Costs

Financial Indicators

Expenses

Multi‐currency

Reports and Dashboards

Advanced Reports Editor

Built In, Best Practices Reports

Dashboard Filtering

Email Reports & Notification

Excel Reports

Home Page Dashboard

Change History

Burndown Chart

Time Tracking


Calendars

Reportable & Non Reportable Work Items

Timesheet Approvals

Timesheet Reporting

Time Tracking

Stopwatch

Personal Calendars

Customizations

Custom Fields

Business Rules

InterAct – Email automation and

commands


Organizations with basic project management experience can take advantage of the application as it provides an easy user interface for organizations that may not be familiar with formalized project management methods. This framework instantly establishes a formalized process for organizations to follow once they have defined their deliverables. The software uses familiar windows paradigms, which should translate to less training and easier user adoption with the enterprise.

Clarizen software includes pre‐defined project templates that can be used to kick‐start common projects, or organizations can create their own templates for future use. A convenient feature is the milestone creation template. For each milestone, a project plan can be created and then incorporated into the overall project. Milestones in Clarizen are a bit unique, in that they are not just a point in time, but they are actually associated with a number of tasks and subtasks. As tasks are completed, managers get a visual representation of each milestone, illustrating how close it is to completion. These milestones can exist separately and can be easily updated by email. Clarizen’s collaborative platforms allow companies to create and build their projects from the bottom up. A bottom up approach allows project resources to allot their time to specific tasks and schedule oneself according to project priorities, rather than having a PM define each individual task and function. The application allows the PM to see all updates, progress, edits and changes to moving dates and targets through the collaborative project dashboard interface in real time. For larger organizations with formalized project management offices (PMO), certified project managers will feel comfortable in a platform that contains advanced project management functionality including Gantt charts, risk analysis of a project, resource scheduling and a range of collaboration tools that permit dispersed and disconnected employees and contractors to communicate throughout the project. The flexibility of calculating and rating project risk is often a function used by larger organizations as part of their project portfolio strategy.


The project roadmaps feature, coupled with the customizable project dashboard, allow all project stakeholders to see the status of the project and the completion progress of each task as well as the overall project completion rate. The dashboards can also be defined to identify potential scheduling and resource conflicts.

Larger organizations can use Clarizen to track their portfolio of projects over their many divisions. Accountabilities are defined and can be tracked if they go awry by the Project Manager and the necessary adjustments can be made accordingly. Project Managers can schedule the amount of time each resource is available for the project and designate the correct time for that one engagement, while balancing employees’ time across other corporate initiatives.

As many Project Managers know, communication and people management are important skills for successful projects. Clarizen integrates convenient features such as calendaring, resource scheduling, the ability to email a user or group directly from Clarizen, , integrated timesheet reporting and approval processes, document sharing, inter project shortcuts, and request and issue management, all of which facilitate and streamline the collaboration collaborative elements of a project.

Clarizen allows project managers to track expenses by time and materials, or based on configurable hourly rates, and easily associate these costs with the appropriate project. Non‐billable hours can also be tracked, so project managers can get a true picture of the actual time required for a project, and the true cost to the organization. The Clarizen reports and dashboards are fully customizable by user and offer user‐configurable workflows and approval processes so that the key stakeholders can be notified of any status project status changes – which occur in real‐time. The depth of the dashboards can also track a change history to individual tasks or milestones within the entire lifecycle of the project.


Larger organizations that use Clarizen project management software have found diverse uses for some of the features within the software. An example of this is bug tracking, which many customers use for internal application development. Other organizations use Clarizen to handle issue and resolution management for helpdesk and support activities. The capacity to access, metatag, store, retrieve and consume data from one system that can be associated with a specific project, can greatly simplify customer service and make an organization more efficient.

A differentiator in this category is the project baseline capabilities. This feature allows you to compare a snapshot of your initial project plan, and then identify divergence. It may be measured by tasks, milestones and/or timelines and compared with the original project plan. If adjustments are necessary, you can drag and drop the object and quickly readjust the timelines to accommodate delays or unforeseen project hiccups.


Technical Specifications

Quick Glance Specifications

Web browser optimization: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer OS required: N/A due to SaaS model browser based delivery DB required: N/A due to SaaS model browser based delivery

API’s provided: Yes Security practices include: Business continuity, Redundancy It is not uncommon for an organization to have several technologies for different applications. For Project Management software Clarizen is capable of integrating with common Cloud based solutions to simplify an organization’s IT strategy. Clarizen has developed integrations to Salesforce.com, Intacct, MS Excel, MS Project, Zendesk, GoogleDocs, iCal, MS Outlook and Lotus Notes. Organizations that already use Microsoft can leverage their existing data through Outlook, Project and Excel and directly load their data through CSV files directly into the application. Users can create projects and issues from within Salesforce.com without leaving their CRM application. The Clarizen Today project window allows users to access and view work items, while a double click opens the Clarizen application directly to the project. By linking the Salesforce.com account with Clarizen allows organizations to offer real‐time project status updates when both the CRM and PM applications are combined. The combination of features available from both applications can easily satisfy many small and medium business requirements. The seamless integration between Intacct and Clarizen facilitates a full project‐to‐cash billing cycle. This ensures that all project related work is properly captured and revenue can be tracked efficiently, which provides a true project cost and full visibility. Once a Clarizen widget is created from Zendesk, users can automatically create Issues within Clarizen directly from their Zendesk account. The GoogleApps integration extends the existing collaborative project management application and adds greater functionality. The GoogleDocs document management makes it easy to collaborate on projects by using real‐time updates through Clarizen. All document types can be searched and shared using the Clarizen global functionality from within the Google account. This functionality can be administrated down to individual user permissions to edit the documents for Clarizen project functions. iCal will provide visibility for work items directly in Outlook or similar calendar. It offers views of tasks, milestones and projects and enables individuals and work teams to subscribe to specific calendar feeds and share their calendars for project resource scheduling. By following the built‐in wizard, users can link to Outlook to leverage its calendar sharing capabilities. The SaaS design of the application allows organizations to get up and running without much set‐up and data preparation. Thanks to the SaaS architecture, the responsiveness of the application reacts as if it were an on‐premise system.


Conclusion

Clarizen is one of the few applications designed specifically for a SaaS delivery model. Many of Clarizen’s competitors offer hybrid or offline versions that need to be regularly updated or are adopted from offline tools. The SaaS architecture facilitates consistently fast response times, requires little IT intervention, and ensures users always have the latest functionality.

The differentiators of Clarizen include:

• Usability: Clarizen has a clean, intuitive graphic interface and common sense approach to project management that works for experienced PMs as well as the rest of their organizations.

• Flexibility: Clarizen dashboards, reports and business rules are highly customizable, allowing organization to tailor the system to meet their specific requirements.

• Real‐time visibility: Managers can see what their teams are working on, and have a clear view of a project from minute to minute. This gives organizations a unique ability to act on real data, making adjustments as needed to ensure projects come in on time and within budget. ,

• Built‐in collaboration: Clarizen works the way teams want to work today – leveraging email, chat, attachments, and other Web 2.0 capabilities that can help organizations get work done more quickly.

One Solution: Clarizen’s broad functionality might help your organization simplify – consolidating multiple tools into one environment, at a very competitive price.

WHAT’S MISSING:

We believe Clarizen can continue to invest in third‐party integrations (and the company indicates this is happening) that will make it even more relevant as an enterprise‐level solution. Though fairly obvious, if your organization is remote and doesn’t have easy or regular access to the internet, a SaaS‐based solution will not be optimal for you.


About GetApp.com

http://www.getapp.com

GetApp.com is a business software app store for buyers of enterprise applications. It offers a simple way for buyers to compare and evaluate applications and a low cost channel for providers to be found online. Software buyers come to GetApp.com for the convenience of researching enterprise applications in one place. Application providers come to GetApp.com to reach out to a worldwide audience of active buyers, receive qualified traffic to their website and sales leads relevant to their target markets. GetApp.com also operates AppDoubler, a software partner network dedicated to Cloud applications, where vendors offer affiliate opportunities to re‐selling partners. Please visit www.getapp.com and www.appdoubler.com for more information.

About Eval‐Source

http://www.eval‐source.com

Eval‐Source is a consulting firm that provides enterprise software selection and strategic consulting services that help organizations to achieve success in their IT initiatives. Our Tru‐Eval selection system allows organizations to avoid IT failure, receive more ROI in technology spend, reduce project life‐cycle lengths and provide accurate results in order to make the best decision for their company. Our strategic consulting practice encompasses cloud computing services, cloud evaluation services and business process optimization. Whether you have an existing system that is not performing up to par or need advice on a cloud computing strategy and technology direction, Eval‐source can provide the necessary guidance for your IT initiatives. Our leading‐edge selection and business process optimization services and consulting services make your life easier when it comes to acquiring enterprise software and achieving greater technological success, realizing ROI and lowering IT failure rates all from impartial third party analysts.

clarizen analyst-review-october-2011

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