Kantata Reviews

Pros

The best feature of Kantata is that is provides a combination of Professional Services Automation (the ability to track time, assignments, tasks, project margins, etc.) along with an end-customer collaboration capability to jointly track project task progress, shared documents, and shared task progress.

Cons

The more challenging part of Kantata is the custom reporting aspects. During implementation, we have several custom reports built by the Kantata team. These are working acceptably, but if you want to modify or change those reports it takes a pretty high level of knowledge and experience.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Pros

There is a lot to like about the product. Easy task management with lots of capabilities, time and expense tracking that is simple. Extended resource management options for minute details or broad allocations and a really engaged Customer Success team.

Cons

Not a lot to write here. I think the only issue is that it is hard to use at a hourly scale where you need to set time deadlines in the day.

Pros

Super easy to setup and get started. Works well.

Cons

Sometimes froze. Seems to have some software limitations, but I can move past that.

Pros

We like the ability to share a work space with clients

Cons

It is cumbersome and tough to get reporting out of. Also just the general space used for reporting leads to scroll bars inside of scroll bars.

Pros

Customization and the integration with Jira

Cons

Some features could get and improvement to make ir easier to user

Pros

Resource managementRelease processTime tracking

Cons

Project management features could be improved

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Pros

It has made it easier for me to assign tasks to each of my colleagues to ultimately bring them together in a single project and be able to make better decisions based on real graphs and thus reduce the final delivery time of each project. I can develop multiple projects at the same time, managing to advance faster in each one without confusion.

Cons

I only ask kantata to improve customer service in terms of response time not being so long since sometimes they are responses that take a week to give a solution, it is the only bad thing I see in kantata

Pros

It has been a good ally to improve project delivery times, by being able to divide the tasks into different groups and having the follow-up of each one makes time work and gather all the final information already finished. Since I used kantata I manage my way of working better with improved administration with my colleagues and thus we all work more organized and fix in real time what needs to be changed with the monitoring of the progress that is updated

Cons

There is nothing to change or to say that I dislike it, personally the entire system has always worked well for me.

Pros

Ease of use and implementation. Knowledgebase is extensive.

Cons

Some basic features lack customisation and could use with better enhancements.

Pros

User friendly and insights configuration

Cons

Reports not able to update in real time. Takes 30-40min to refresh data

Pros

It has multiple ways to use for project management, task scheduling and follow-up, many other things unlike available applications.

Cons

For me it is doing the job required and I have never faced an issue with the system at all. Maybe it could require some work on the interface on the mobile.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Kantata

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Pros

I love that it has given our agency a central place to track all projects/tasks as well as time/budgtes.

Cons

You have to constantlty seek out information that pertains to you. Email is outdated in the digital world so this being the primary means of notification is not helpful for us. Things like push notifications and in application notifications are a simple feature that would be massively helpful fo the user.

Also, the mobile version of this project is basically unuseable, it seems like as a whole this software is very slow to update and integrate new features that are requested by its users.

Pros

Robust reporting, integration to NetSuite, hierarchical team management, Activity feed

Cons

Ease of use needs significant improvement. Needs user configurable workflows and fields. User roles and security have no flexibility. Interface and reporting designed by someone who never has to use the application to run their day.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Kantata

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Kantata

Pros

I really like the ability to unify all phases of a project from planning and time tracking to team collaboration and finances in one tool is extremely valuable.

Cons

What I might like less about the platform is if at some point I find its learning curve relatively a bit complicated especially for new users who may not be familiar with integrated project management systems.

Pros

The clear and intuitive project and task trackers.

Cons

The amount of billable vs non-billable hours is not clearly defined.

Pros

It's great to have a single tool to manage projects, time and expenses, also it gives you a great visibility or resource utilization. Also it gives you a great overall analysis on all of your projects

Cons

I takes time to configure Kantata to your business needsrequires some training due to configuration complexityvisibility of uploaded files against a single project is not great

Pros

When I integrated it to my business, it was easy. It is also easy to use. The features that I find most impactful are the resource management, resource planning and forecasting. With the forecast feature, I can plan for the next month's possible performance as well as even the following year. Using the full suite of forecasting tools to maximize is my secret for future-readiness. I just like to manage and plan effectively that's why I use this software.

Cons

I liked the software but I think it can be improved with the color scheme. Maybe try to develop a dark mode or something. I mostly work at night and I prefer to see a contrast in when I'm on screen. I do that in some of my apps.

Pros

Kantata's intuitive and user-friendly layout, which makes it simple for anyone to get started with the application, is one of its most notable features.

Cons

Additionally, users can customise Kantata in a number of ways to suit their unique requirements and work processes.

Pros

The best thing about Kantata is the ability to see project burn rates at a glance. The time-tracking system is a huge part of that being accurate as well. There are multiple options for our team to track their time so that we can see project burn rates.

Cons

There are several things that haven't been improved at all in the 6+ years that we've used this software. For example, basic things like not being able to customize your task statuses (or at least new options being added), being able to mark a task as complete even when none of the checklist items have been checked off, and not getting a notification when a due date is coming up to remind a team member of a deadline before it is missed, etc. The mobile version is pretty much useless which is sad now that the working world is mostly remote.

Pros

- Integrations and API - An excellent Salesforce bridge is available and can be fully customised (if you know Java!). You also get other connectors for Jira, Slack, and an API that allows you to do virtually anything.

- Integrated GoodData reporting - If you are technical enough you can improve your workflows by adding custom fields and creating custom metrics. I used this solution to monitor the performances of the entire Professional Services team at Emarsys.

- The software itself is essentially like Microsoft Project but online and with conversations & invoices generation - you can manage anything from a very small and basic project to a massive 2 years project thanks to the versatile task management interface. GANTT charts are available and, of course, if you know how to use GoodData you can dig even further into the project reports.

- Resourcing wise it has a Master Planning tool which looks a bit like Resource Guru but completely integrated with the software, so you are really buying the full package with Mavenlink.

Cons

I believe the biggest flaw in Mavenlink is the absence of a "real" administrator. Essentially, you can be an admin but if a project is set to "Invitation only" you cannot join it unless someone invites you.

So being a Mavenlink admin is not like being a Jira admin where you can do anything you want, you are more of a "open projects administrator".

The workaround is to have an integration user creating the projects and a good integration with your CRM that allows you to update fields that would be otherwise not accessible.
Mind that you can still remove the integration user from the project, and at that point the only way to re-enter the project is to ask the project lead to invite you.
This should clear any security concerns, if your projects require extreme privacy.

Pros

- So many options and ways to customise each feature
- Time tracking tool is very easy to use, our team prefers it over what we have had in the past
- Custom reporting, especially weekly project reports, have upped our client communication game. Our Clients appreciate the extra level of transparency and it has helped us prevent a lot of surprises when the invoice is sent out.
- Resource Allocation and Gantt chart really help when it comes to Project Planning.

Cons

- It's really difficult to see WHO is responsible for a task if multiple people are assigned to it. This is a problem when you are looking at a project and want to see who is responsible for what from 30,000 feet. Instead, you need to go to that specific task and read through the comments to see where it stands. There are a few workarounds for it, but then all involved extra work and monitoring to make sure everyone using the system is doing so correctly.
- There doesn't seem to be a way to edit a comment once you post it
- You can't customise the status options for the different tasks, so something is either in progress, not started, needs information, or completed. It doesn't really let you customise it to follow your workflows.

Pros

Flexible, provides the ability to set up multiple templates for different types of projects, supports T&M and Fixed Fee contract types, integrates to SalesForce, provides multiple views toward project status, continually adding new features and capabilities

Cons

Gantt charts are still in need of a lot of work and help. Still buggy, no user-defined view preferences can be saved.

Pros

- Time tracking integration. Don't have to use a third party tool.
- Smart project task management.
- Easy to track if "to do" is a "task" or an "issue" (very helpful for website projects where you have a TON of issues to deal with).
- Easy to move tasks around and see the overall items you're working on.
- Google docs integration.
- You can track conversations all in one feed-- on more email.
- You can respond via email.

Cons

- So many features. I don't use all of them.
- They add on cool features... but want you to pay for them.
- Expensive -- but worth it when you're managing a team and don't want to login to a ton of applications.
- No dropbox integration.
- Takes awhile to get used too.
- You can't rename the issue or task items. For example, sometimes I want to change the status title from "needs info" to "client review" -- and I can't edit the status (I could do this in Wrike).

Pros

I like that my staffing projections are easy to access, view and share across digital teams.

Cons

Forecasting hours by the week/month needs to be automated - this is too manual and time consuming at the time. Need to be able to drag and drop hours, or somehow more speedily be able to populate staff allocations. Also finance reporting / utilization reporting is incredibly difficult of not impossible due to my current access level. I have to rely on the finance and resourcing department for all reporting - this is not sustainable for project management.

Pros

Great master planning for resources and allocations.

Cons

Two biggest pet peeves are the following:
1. It's irritating that you must delete a recreate a time entry if you enter it on the wrong day of the week on the Timesheets view. Should be able to just change the date of the entry. Other similar software allows this.
2. On Master Planning, I want to see how many hours are represented in the allocation every week not just how many hours by percentage across the span of weeks the allocation runs. This make it hard to determine quickly how many hours the resource has for each allocation for that week.