A Fully Integrated Solution Software with Great Features

Deltek Vision has a database where I can put all my information for each assignment / project. Deltek for me is a fully integrated service product that can provide Managers, Heads and other office staff detailed information about the financial status of any department or segment in real time.

Pros

Deltek Vision has easy to use tools that allow all the operators from high level Managers to back office staff members the ability to view and understand where the companys resources and project budgets stand at any given time. Deltek Vision allows a lot of customization and flexibility that can be very helpful for any individual in his company. One amazing feature is that Deltek Vision provides extensive functions of project management all in one single program like expense reports, budget planning, time sheets, auditing etc. Managing work utilization is very useful for me because a lot of my team members are spread in distinct locations throughout the country who are working on the same project.

Cons

A major flaw of Deltek is that the system's outlook is very outdated. I personally felt that Deltek Vision was lacking in the expense report department. Reports are very hard to export. Even so, when I export the reports to excel, the formatting is completely undesirable, and I must spend a few minutes to format them.

Great tools for Project Managers

I believe this program is a significant upgrade over my firm's previous time tracking program. We should see the benefits within several months.

Pros

This is the second iteration of Deltek that I have used and there have been great additions since the last version I used. There are so many great tools for project management and tracking performance metrics. I particularly like the ability to schedule your work and availability -- this is great for work sharing with different offices/teams.

Cons

There is a bit of a learning curve to get yourself up to speed using all of the programs capabilities, but there are good resources and tutorials available to make sure you are getting the most out of the product. If you are only using it for timesheet purposes, I am not sure it is worth the extra cost.

Vision to Vantagepoint

We were using Excel for timesheets so having time and expense in one place and tying into our business process is wonderful. We also have the ability to get nice reports.

Pros

The software helps streamline some of our processes.

Cons

Not easy to navigate through CRM but here to learn.

Comprehensive software solution, but plan on building your processes around it

I've been the Vision champion in our organization since 2008 when we began to use it. Vision has been steadily improving over the past 10 years and also been getting left behind in innovation. Over our time with Vision we've evaluated other software at a few points and have not found a single solution that can provide a similar integrated experienced. The power of Vision and the reporting is built on Microsoft's SQL engine, but it does require users to be invested in learning it's use to get the most out of it. Without proper time devotion, training, and some trial and error it does leave users frustrated. Along with the power of the product comes a lot of over-complication and reported amounts that often aren't as expected or isn't fully explained or clear on where the data is coming from and what it means. This is probably the primary problem with Vision in my eyes - data labeled in one area of the program isn't the same as data reported under the same or very similar label in another part of the program. The end user experiences and ease of use is greatly lacking, but should be vastly improved as Vision is (finally) becoming modern and migrating from a .NET platform to a HTML/web-based platform. This upgrade shows promise of having better end user use and intuitiveness. We are hopeful that Vision will continue to be a tool for our company for many more years.

Pros

Powerful reporting and a mostly, all-in-one solution for managing our firm and projects

Cons

Usability. The lack of a user to be able to sit down with the product and pull the data they want without significant training. Data reported is calculated differently in part of the software - revenue in one area is actual billed amount while revenue in another is hours worked times billing rates.

Performance

Unfortunately, our reporting issues over shadow everything else.

Pros

In general, it meets our needs but it does seem that we are always being asked for customizations by our users that is not presently available.

Cons

Reporting performance is awful! We have had a consultant come out at least twice for an overall health check and recommendations and in my opinion we did not get a lot of value from this. It takes a ridiculously long time to run many of our reports and it's a constant source of pain for both the users and those of use who support the product. We have worked through all the troubleshooting steps that have been recommended and it's still an issue. It seems that anyone I talk to from larger firms all have the same issue. It feels as though Deltek works well for small-medium size firms but not larger global ones.