17 years helping Australian businesses
choose better software
About Kantata
Kantata is the only resource management tool purpose-built for professional services orgs to forecast and schedule resources with ease.
Easy to set up, perfect for our unique work requirements. Its custom reporting made our lives easier.
It's very frustrating when you need to allocated in the same amount of time per user across a long period. You have to go in individually to each week to add that time.
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Filter reviews (618)
Great Project Management Tool
Comments: We've been using MavenLink for over a year now and we are constantly learning new and better ways to utilise all the tools it has to offer. We use it as our core method of communication with our clients, it helps to have all the information in one place. The Time tracking tool is easy to use and we are hoping to take full advantage of the Resource Allocation and Gantt chart in the near future
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.
Kantata is a great way to handle project/task management for your business.
Comments: A great way to monitor and build your project management, tasks. Simply and easy to use application.
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: Taskworld and ClickUp
Reasons for Choosing Kantata: Cost is acceptable, support is great.
Switched From: Microsoft Project
Reasons for Switching to Kantata: Could not find all the features required as found in Kantana
Disappointed
Comments: Not great.
Pros:
Very robust. And I like that time tracking is integrated into the software.
Cons:
For the price, and for what we THOUGHT we could do, very disappointed with the tool to date. Good chance we're moving away from Mavenlink before the next renewal.
Kantata Response
4 years ago
We are sorry about your disappointing experience and appreciate your feedback. Our CSC is working with your team to help provide more support and training to help with your utilization/capacity hardship that you are facing. We hope that this will help resolve and make things better. We always strive to do better moving forward. Please feel free to reach out to us directly if there's anything else that we can assist you with. You can reach your CSC here at 800- 860-9544 or our support team at [email protected]. Thank you. Tiffany Nguyen Senior Manager, Customer Advocacy
Kantata e is great!
Pros:
Customization and the integration with Jira
Cons:
Some features could get and improvement to make ir easier to user
Great company and product - still room to grow but on the right track!
Comments: The product has brought our processes to the next level and the overall experience has been positive.
Pros:
Resource planning was made 1000% better by using the Mavenlink product. It is an intuitive modern UI that is feature rich across the board.
Cons:
There are some gaps in the product and areas where I wish it had been more configurable. For instance, invoicing could use more flexibility in terms of how you build out an invoice (and how you display things on the invoice). Also, time tracking is easy but notes aren't required nor is there a config to make them required which has been a big pain for us.
Alternatives Considered: ERP Cloud
Reasons for Choosing Kantata: OpenAir is a horribly overly complex product with a very clunky resource planning module. In addition, NetSuite is now owed by Oracle and their responsiveness in terms of improved product features has come to a halt. Mavenlink's product is a breath of fresh air after OpenAir.
Switched From: NetSuite OpenAir
Reasons for Switching to Kantata: Because of it's ease of use and company culture.
Outstanding solution for our entire workforce
Comments: The overall experience from the get go was very positive, as we started the onboarding process and conducted internal training where I was able to get a lot of great feedback from my coworkers about how they find the ease of use and how they like the online product training catalog that is available.
Pros:
I am able to view tasks for current projects, track upcoming projects, add notes and tag team members easily in a very organized way that allows me to save time and resources on a regular basis. My coworkers who I interface with closely have had a similar positive experience and I cannot recommend it enough.
Cons:
The ability to customize what is viewable and editable in the main menu ( such as projects, tasks, insights) based on user permissions would make it easier tailor the overall product experience to our teams needs.
Alternatives Considered: Basecamp
Reasons for Switching to Kantata: Mavenlink stood out based on how robust and intuitive it is and how its able to track project activities seamlessly without having to switch between different menus, product views and dashboards within the solution.
Getting better
Comments: Nice tool with powerful reporting that needs significant improvement on usability.
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: Zoho Projects, Microsoft Project, Adobe Workfront and Smartsheet
Reasons for Choosing Kantata: Integration to NetSuite
Switched From: Adobe Workfront
Reasons for Switching to Kantata: Integration to NetSuite. Easy to use time entry. budget and profitability reporting.
Mavenlink is a useful tool
Comments: Good
Pros:
Customization of task lists, project fields, etc.
Cons:
Gantt Schedule (hard to display), Reporting (albeit powerful, application for creating reports is not user-friendly in the slightest)
Alternatives Considered: Asana
Reasons for Choosing Kantata: More functionality
Switched From: WorkflowMax
Reasons for Switching to Kantata: Program/portfolio management capabilities. Scalability
Overall good with a few weak areas.
Comments: We were able to provide better forecasting and manage budgets against timelines. All time entry is much better managed in a central location. We can also easily track which resources are available or not.
Pros:
- Time Entry - Management of individual projects - Integrations w/ Jira - Forecasting/Planning - Happy to have approvals, but they could be more flexible. - Managing budgets against project timelines.
Cons:
- Invoicing - Reporting - Happy to have approvals, but they could be more flexible. - Granularity of permissions
MavenLink for the Win
Comments: We really love MavenLink and especially love working with a company who is constantly evolving and taking their clients feedback and evolving.
Pros:
We needed a unified system that did: task tracking, budget tracking, project schedules, time entry and resource management. MavenLink nails it in those arenas! Finally we have a tool that doesn't require another 15 tools!
Cons:
There are a lot of features and options for how to do things, and not enough "how to" videos that their competitors have.
Powerful software with built in training
Comments: My company uses Kantata for time entry, revenue & cost tracking, and invoicing projects. In my role, specifically, I handle onboarding new employees, managing weekly time entry reports, time adjustments, project setup, PO allocations, and invoicing. I previously used Sage 100 to invoice and have found Kantata to be leagues ahead of that software.
Pros:
The features I like most about Kantata are the appearance of the interface, the built in training that's available, & how quickly modified information is updated for reporting and invoicing.
Cons:
When first introduced to Kantata, I was unfamiliar with the process flow and quickly became confused by the different levels (Opportunity, engagement, scope, element, etc.). There is a bit of a learning curve, but after spending some time using the tool, the process began to make sense to me.
Software well tailored for our business needs
Comments: Overall, the experience is become better and better. I'd say the UI still has some usability issues.
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.
Needs Improvements But Works Well for Viewing Burn Rates
Comments: In the beginning, Kantata really helped us have a better view of project health, but as we have grown and clearly defined processes, etc. Kantata has not grown with us. It looks and feels dated.
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.
Excellent User Interface
Pros:
Project task management is a huge improvement over our legacy product. The user interface and the various task types have made this my go-to tool, no longer needing MS Project on the side to replicate our task tracking efforts. I like that Mavenlink has included issues into their task types, not just tasks and milestones. Best of all is the user interface to make changes in the GANTT view and for contributors to self-assign a task and log time to it. As a PM, I am spending far less time making in task management activities, instead able to monitor what others have permission to do on their own.
Cons:
Still waiting for the golden feature of copy/paste similar tasks to save me even more time.
Alternatives Considered: NetSuite OpenAir
Switched From: NetSuite
Mavenlink is a Great Project Management Tool
Comments: Mavenlink has allowed us to track everything coming in and out of our department on a daily, monthly and yearly basis. This has shown the demand for our services and how well we manage our time with this demands. We are also able to easily invite those outside of our department to join in and collaborate, which has simplified our daily request process. Everything can be found in one place.
Pros:
Mavenlink allows for our team to easily collaborate on projects from beginning to end. We can cater our tasks to our specific needs and show the progress along the way for everyone to see. The updates that are sent via email keep me on track with the numerous projects I have at hand. The time tracking integration is beneficial to us when we are working with outside clients. This function is simple to use!
Cons:
I find it difficult to access archived projects when I need to refer back to them. It appears that you need to know the exact title of the project in order to search it. Even though the time tracking function is simple to use, I do wish I could pause my time on one project without tracking it and move to another project where I start tracking time as well. I feel that I have to submit small increments of time often because I cannot do this.
A Robust Must-Try for Service-Based Orgs!
Comments: ML has helped my organization to clearly define accountability and responsibilities. Additionally, it allows for project profitability to be easily found without having to compile data from multiple sources.
Pros:
I believe that the best part of Mavenlink is that it's an all-in-one program. One could use this for the day-to-day management of their projects without having to use outside programs. It combines project management, resource management, budget management, estimating, time-tracking, reporting and so much more.
Cons:
I think the learning curve can be pretty steep. I attribute this lack of intuition to the robust nature of the service, but it could do with a revamp of the UI/UX. I also dislike the format of the resource management. There are currently two ways to manage resources: Master Planning and Resource Planner. The two work together but are also very separate features. The entire reource management system could use an overhaul to reduce confusion and to make resource changes easier.
Mavenlink for small business!
Pros:
Coming from a large tech company, we built most of our project applications in house. After starting with a small business back in November, I spent my first couple of weeks finding the right tool to fit the projects that we manage. Most of the tools we found had something we liked and a lot that was overkill for a small company like us. Mavenlink has several product offerings that cater to different-sized businesses. For example, a lot of other products have an 'enterprise edition' that is expensive for only 3-5 users and is overkill (employee timesheets, etc), however, if we were to downgrade to their lower edition we would lose project essential tools like time-tracking and budget management. Mavenlink's 'professional' offering has everything we need aside from an appointment calendar. However it does integrate with my Google calendar! As a small company, we are able to assign out tasks and see where the project stands at every moment with budget tracking, time tracking, and current priority. Their chat support is also very helpful.
Cons:
The fact that you cannot pay month-to-month and have to commit to a year is a bit disheartening for a small company, but we spent lots of time trying it out to make sure it's what we wanted and it has been great so far. I was also disappointed/ confused on the way their users work. You pay for a set amount of users, however, you can add outside users to individual projects as a part of the company and they have access to track time, etc. When we asked support about this they seemed very confused and told us we'd have to pay for more users so we stopped doing that. However, I don't think we'd actually be charged if we did it that way since those 'users' on individual projects don't show up under the user management section.
One of the weaker project management tools out there. I wouldn't recommend this product.
Comments: The ability to see my project list at a glance, although this product is plagued with poor support and ultra slow development.
Pros:
The UI is simple to use most of the time. It's easy to see your projects listed out, even though the organization tools are pretty weak.
Cons:
The software is slow. Updates happen at a snails pace. Our team worked directly with the development team at Mavenlink and their process is just plain slow. The program is bogged down and sluggish. It lacks sub-tasks beyond 5 layers, the estimating feature is a joke and they only just recently implemented a basic WYSIWYG in the activity section. You also can't undo activity unless you go back to the feed. Talk to PMs who actually use this product!
Kantata Response
7 years ago
Thank you for your insight and feedback regarding your experience. We have forwarded your feedback to our product team and will continue to strive to do better. Your CSM has reached out out to you to learn more and continue to advocate on your behalf, regarding these product enhancements and all your concerns. We look forward to continue to working closely with you regarding your experience. Have a nice day and happy holidays.
Abruptly changed pricing.
Comments: Long story short, I had been paying a certain amount for 6+ years, they kicked my credit card, made me reenter the info and told me that plan wasn't available anymore (no prior notice). Then I was faced with the decision to upgrade to a plan that was 6x more than my original plan! I talked to 2 reps and they both told me "we don't offer that plan anymore". All of this happened in the middle of the week while I am trying to deal with my clients. Anyway, I began using zoho projects which I like much more, it has an app and it integrates with a lot of other zoho products. I would highly recommend since the pricing is similar. I left Mavenlink mainly because of the inconvenience, but ZoHo truly provides the same service plus more!
Pros:
The workspace was professional, branding gave the sense of personalization. The file space seemed to be unlimited at the time.
Cons:
They don't have an app, the mobile equivalent site is not as user friendly as an app would be. Some of the screens are not responsive on a desktop.
Great for project management, not great to interface to any other system.
Pros:
This system does it's main job well, which is to manage projects.
Cons:
Attempting to interface this system into any other system is extremely difficult. Mavenlink staff don't seem to have a lot of experience with interfacing their system. We eventually had to come up with our own solution that relied only on a simple data download. Their pricing model is such that you end up paying a lot of money for relatively little value add i.e. in the area of time keeping. A more extensive licensing fee is charged for people to approve time. Mavenlink would be well served to change their model to charge less for the functions that are not their core competency and more for project management functionality, which is.
Mavenlink makes time tracking and resource planning easy
Pros:
Ease of use, allocating shared resources, identifying resource gaps and planning for new projects, time sheet approvals of direct reports
Cons:
Nothing to speak of in particular, its been a good tool and great improvement for me over the last few years from other tools I have used previously
Mavenlink Recomendation
Comments:
- As a normal technical practitioner, it helps to collate my time against , multiple projects and documents entries at a day-by-day level.
-Planning for resource and to help manage expectations can be done in marveling as it provides a detailed analytics report with strong filter capabilities.
Pros:
- Mavenlink works fantastically in the background to give the whole organization a seamless front end view that allows for efficient project management, time tracking, managing client billing to technical teams receiving their tasks & tickets. - The functionality works well for all different roles in the business and provides a top-level view.
Cons:
- Around the end of the month when the majority of the organization is completing scheduling for the next calendar month, reaction time on the site tends to be lower than usual. It still works well but just the speed can be slowing down especially when you need to schedule time for multiple different projects and tasks.
Kantana
Comments: My overall experience has been pleasant using Kantana. I continue to use their product today.
Pros:
The features I like and use the most on Kantana are the project planning features. It is reliable and well put together.
Cons:
I don't think there is anything about Kantana that I don't like. It is put together well and reliable.
Great time tracking but has many bugs
Pros:
Great to track / approve timesheets and allocate resources in your plan
Cons:
Bugs stands forever and it’s not easy to use and navigate for first time users.
Upped Our Utilization!
Comments: We took on Mavenlink when we needed a 50,000 foot view of our department's capacity. The levels of organization that Mavenlink has brought our team's creatives have gone way beyond our expectations. People know exactly what they need to be working on when they come in in the morning. Plus, it allows us to monitor our team's capacity so we know when we need to add more than one creative to a job or even gives us backup when we need to prove why we need to hire more staff.
Pros:
I love the way Mavenlink automates communication as the project moves on down through the workflow. By using dependency arrows on the gantt chart, our creatives are automatically notified when their tasks are ready to start. It's pretty slick!
Cons:
How unforgiving the gantt chart is. I realize it's web-based in a browser, but it really needs an "undo" button.