Sunday, January 03, 2010

EPM Live review


In my first PMO plug-in review I checked out pmPoint by Brightworks. Today I was able to take EPM Live for a test drive.

PMI awarded EPM Live their project of the year award in 2006 and 2007.


What we are looking for:
1. ~4 templates for 4 different types of projects (SDLC, smaller software projects, clinical trials, R&D projects)


2. Pull information from the templates into a dashboard for organization and executives review


3. Must be able to view and pull data from Microsoft Project documents within SharePoint


EPM Live was built on the familiar SharePoint features, the EPM Live solution delivers an integrated framework of Feature Rich Web Parts, Microsoft Office Add-ins, Pre-Built SharePoint Applications, Industry Best Practices SharePoint Templates, all of which are designed to work together to help the end user work smarter and more effectively.


You can start your free trail at:


I entered my information, to start my free trial, then it is a bit of phone tag with an EPM Live rep to set up a phone conference with a shared desktop demo. 

After the demo then you can make the decision if you just want to test it yourself on a trial site that is refreshed nightly (pmPoint trial site refreshes every 30 days) or pay for a couple of users for a couple of months (no refreshing of the site). I went the free route knowing that if I spent a couple of hours building up a site that the next morning it would be gone (keep this in mind if you are planning on showing anyone your hard work).  If you are planning on buying the application they also offer a hosted service to use their product on their server or you can install it on your own server.


Once logged in you enter the Project Center there is a drop-down to create a new project. Enter in a project name, select one of their 9 templates (they probably have more on their normal version; one of the templates is a PMBOK one) and enter the website name. Then it takes you to another screen to enter in some more project information to add data to help you select different types of projects within the overall PMO view.




 



Each template has its own dashboard view of a project. If you don’t like what is in it you can edit it (turn things on/off; add any other normal SharePoint bits and pieces). The above template has a lot of the items one would need for a normal project (risks, issues, status, documents ….); if you have a software development project you may want a different template with bugs listed on the main view.


Within most templates there is a task tab that is your timeline. You can upload your standard Project timeline in. You can use their Planner to update tasks, enter tasks (change column widths, change views, create views) or open with Project if you like. There are views built in or build your own (tasks for the next 7 days, just your tasks …). Using Project with it is seamless (edit, save and you are ready to roll).

Also, if you have a task that needs to occur across multiple projects you can share a resource.

Within each project there are Reports (issues, risks, budget, resources …). I really like the way their reports are set up, because I can select the report I want to view instead of the having the screen covered in 20 different metrics (If I like to look at two or three reports to see how things are going I can). Also, the reports use SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) so you can select the data set you want to see. It was nice to see this because we are already using SSRS within my organization to look at clinical data (quick and easy to get to the information you want to obtain). Some of the reports include graphs and charts and others are just columns of data.




  


Now if we take a step back … once we have multiple projects under the PMO, the PMO site has all the normal dashboard views one would want including views for team members on multiple projects so they can see their tasks across multiple projects.


Pros to the product:
1. If you use SharePoint already you have the skills to use EPM Live (if you like email alerts or any other normal SharePoint features it is there)

2. Edit your Project timelines within SharePoint or within Project (seamlessly)

3. Tasks have predecessor numbers within timelines; just like we are use to

4. Customizable; if you have SharePoint skills you can fix things to your liking

5. No clunky feel to it, I do not feel that a +500 task project would be to much info for this application

6. One task across multiple projects

7. Easy to use and read reports

8. Reports for the individuals within your organization

9. They also offer a timesheet application if you need to track that for billing issues

10. If your organization lives and breathes the PMBOK their project template includes suggested templates to use to capture project info (their document library includes documents in folders with the 5 process groups).

11. Monitor your resources across multiple projects

Cons:
1. It may take a bit more customization (with EPM Live support) to get the reports customized for your needs and reporting info to your dashboards.

2. It may take a bit of training of PMs (and monitoring) to get them up to speed.

3. Cost. If you are a large company the cost will be a drop in the bucket of your IS yearly costs. If you are a small company it may be to costly of an application.


Overall, EPM Live looks to be a very robust application. I’m sure it would take a few months to get it up and running with the right templates for your organizational needs, followed by several more months of moving existing data sets into the new system. If money was no object, I would choose EPM Live.

Links on other reviews:




8 comments:

  1. Hi Ryan:
    This is a fantastic overview of EPM Live. I've recently started working with it and even without SharePoint experience I have found it easy to navigate for the most common tasks.

    You are right in saying that it can take time to get fully up to speed - but how often are you an expert the first time you see an app?

    Thanks for the comprehensive review!
    Carol Glover

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carol,
    Thanks for the comment! Glad to hear you are using SharePoint! After a couple of months you may find out that SharePoint, just the way it is, will fit your needs. Out of the box it is a super program.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi,

    Thanks for the overview. On the backend do you need just sharepoint or sharepoint and project server?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Elyse,
    If you want EPM Live onsite then yes you need SharePoint on the backend. Or you can let EPM Live host the whole thing and run off their servers (I'm not sure what their disaster recovery plan is, or if you want to store documents on their servers...). As for the need for Project Server, I'm not 100% certain, but I don't think you need the Server part. Just plan old Project to use as an editor and SharePoint will do the rest to rip the data from it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. EPM Live does not require you to have Microsoft Project Server. But it does integrate seamlessly with Project Server if you need some of its more advance features (Master Schedules, Resource Calendars, Advance Reporting Capabilities and more). One of the powerful things about EPM Live is organizations with different levels of requirements can all leverage the same toolset and have all the data rollup in a single portfolio. An example could be: Teams, Departments and Enterprises can simply start with a SharePoint Project Workspace using the EPM Live's SharePoint Work Planner, grow to a collection of Project Workspaces (Workgroups)using Microsoft Project Desktop and then grow into Project Server without ever changing their toolset or their processes on how they use the solution.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for this review - very informative.

    It seems there are really two alternatives in this SharePoint-based PM solution space - pmPoint and EPM Live. Since you've reviewed both of them independently, it would be awesome if you could provide a comparison review between the two, i.e. comparing functionality, ease of use, cost and overall pros and cons. Is that an impossible dream?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Excellent post.I want to thank you for this informative read, I really appreciate sharing this great post. Keep up your work..
    Flats and Bunglows in pune

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for sharing... It really helped..


    Indian classifieds

    ReplyDelete

Your comment will be reviewed to determine if it is appropriate. If you are adding links to your products, your comment will not be posted.