Mavenlink

Mavenlink gives me a real-time view of project burn rates, utilization (billable vs. non-billable), and makes the life of a project manager so much easier. Being able to quickly look over all projects to check the burn rates (if it's green then it's good; if it's red then it's bad) saves me so much time.

Like any software there is some give and take. The only thing I would like added is the ability to make overall project budgets and resource allocations repeat each month like my tasks do. However, the entire task repeater part that we use was an integration that we negotiated to have built for us when we originally contracted with Mavenlink.

The product is very user friendly and the resource management part of Mavenlink is miles ahead of the competition. Like any platform, there are other areas of the system that could use more configurability and features, but the product is solid and useful in a fast-paced business. Mavenlink's API is also robust and

Mavenlink's API is also pretty good so we've been able to build some of the features we needed.

There are some features desperately needed in the platform. The good news is that the company does listen to feedback and we've given a ton of it. Some of the features we've asked for have already been incorporated into the product. Here are just a few that are needed but I don't think added yet:

- Time approvals is very difficult when you are a Pm working across multiple projects. The recommended workflow by Mavenlink was to run a report and validate info there first and then go do approvals, but even that is clunky. They could do a number of things to make this better in the product.
- We always require notes on timesheets but the application doesn't allow you to make this required. It's a headache and seems like a simple configuration.
- Expenses are a two step process and needs to be consolidated to one or made more intuitive to the users.
- Invoices are configurable but not configurable enough at all... at least not without paying Mavenlink for customizations.
- You can't apply a partial payment or a pre-payment to a project.
- Mavenlink recently added a resource management tool for selecting the most available/skilled resource for a resource request but it doesn't take into consideration skill level... instead it treats the skill as a boolean.

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.

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

A large component of Mavenlink for Project Management surrounds resource allocation and time tracking. We have been able to transition utilizing the two features above relatively seamlessly.

There is a very steep learning curve with this software. A lot of the workflows and insights are not necessarily user friendly or have a low barrier to entry. There will need to be a LOT of time dedicated by the end users (in my case the PM's) in order to get the system running correctly and accurately.

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.

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.