Planview Portfolios vs Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect comparison

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Planview Logo
633 views|335 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
Sparx Systems Logo
7,678 views|5,731 comparisons
87% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Planview Portfolios and Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Architecture Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The biggest impact has been getting all these global groups into one space so we can even have intelligent conversations about what are we trying to accomplish. Before, it was just different regions doing whatever. Now, we're all talking the same language, and that's good.""The solution view into resource capacity and availability helps us to manage work.""Our reporting is much better. There is much more visibility on projects, schedules, tasks, and in our milestones. Now, we have a consistent way of reporting out to the committees and getting all of our schedules and milestones.""It gives us the vast ability to churn out-of-the-box reports and have an overview about approach rates and resource utilization.""Enterprise One has enabled us to eliminate Excel. We don't track financials anymore in an Excel format, which the company was doing before. Even now, being a new portfolio manager four months in, I'm able to just pick up my project. I'm able to see where I am right now. That improvised it to be more automated. The only missing part is the integration between tools. I'm not able to see my full schedule, but I know what are my important milestones are like watching the financials and all that stuff.""The data is the most valuable because the reporting that we provide out of Planview is priceless when compared to any other tool. The reporting has a variety of reports. It has the capabilities of Power BI. It gives us all these dashboards that we can show to our executive leadership, and they have been very well-received.""Our transparency is increasing a lot. It is helping us to get people together. There are no dark rooms anymore. In some areas or concepts, we want to add more light to every single concept. That's the big impact that the tool is having. It allows conversations between people.""Its view into resource capacity and availability absolutely help us manage work. We can't plan out projects for delivery until we know if we have resources available to deliver them. That's been really critical. We look at our projects and see what availability of resources we have. That helps us to determine when we can start new work."

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"Customizable and tailored to the environment. Several template frameworks are provided.""Sparx technical support is good.""Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect was easy to set up and it took just twenty minutes.""There are a lot of features in Enterprise Architect. It allows us to take on a lot of tasks.""It's easy to search within the solution.""I have found the Meta Model tuning feature useful as it provides me with an overview of all my work needs.""The profiles and ready-made templates are an extremely helpful feature. This is one of the biggest features that I find very useful in Sparx.""Ability to keep inventory of reusable blocks, and use in different diagrams with views of various templates."

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Cons
"Its reporting needs to be improved. My main complaint when it comes to Planview is that it is good to maintain all the data but to actually use the information that is in it, you actually have to use a different tool. We use Power BI. So, we pull all the information, and then we use a Power BI dashboard to stage or look at the information.""It is a bit of a rigid system.""Configuring the UI in the content management system is too elaborate and too time-consuming.""When it comes to reporting there are some challenges with integration.""We don't use the Progression feature. We will use it at some point in time. Until then, we want to have a way to set time to help decide what's in the past, present, and future. It is one of the things we've been discussing with Planview.""Being the IT development manager who implements the upgrades for Planview, I would love to see more thorough testing of expenditures and more thorough testing in general. When we do an upgrade, we have to do quite a bit of testing because we can affect the bottom line.""Recently, we have gotten on a newer version. We're currently on version 15. Some of the things that we've been running into roadblocks on, it looks like the solutions will be coming out in versions 17 or 18. So, we have to upgrade before somethings can get completed.""When I started working with Planview, I didn't know anything about project or resource management. I had to learn everything: the admin side, then the user side of it. Probably, in the beginning, I would implement in the blueprint or workshops more demos. A live demo of how the system works because we would like a little deeper dive in how the application works for us to understand what we need to provide, what we are doing, what we will be doing. Because in the beginning, it was so overwhelming, and we didn't know anything about the tool."

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"The user interface is not so good. It's not easy for someone to use it at first. The product takes some getting used to.""The elements of the modeling sets can have better customization and visual representation. It would be great to have a mobile version.""The UI is a little bit outdated. It should be more fresh and clean.""The automatic creation of reports based on the model elements could be improved.""The Business Process Modeling or BPM feature can be improved to make it more interactive and user friendly because it is a tool for technical people. My current use is only for business process modeling notation and putting in the icons etc. You need to take them in as a class, which makes things very complex. Because of this complexity, it is not an easy-to-handle solution. Enterprise Architect is not very good for mockups. We cannot create user screens and other similar kinds of stuff, which is bad. For these things, we prefer to use Axure RP and other similar solutions. They should either remove this feature from this product or provide some kind of connectivity with Axure RP so that people can do better mockups of screens and import them. They need to augment and strengthen the BPM feature, which is the main feature. They need to put in some elements like artificial intelligence and augmented reality. They should look into such features because these things are coming up.""If you just want to create some diagrams with shapes and arrows, then use Visio.""Sparx can be a bit slow. If you are trying to design software architecture, sometimes we run into issues and need to refresh.""The documentation could be better. Where I work, we speak French and we don't speak English, so we don't have anything in French. It's perfect in English, but we need something in French."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The licensing part is a bit costly in comparison with the other available PPM tools."
  • "We are on the Flex licenses."
  • "We have unlimited licenses for all of our functionalities. Since we went global, we went with that model."
  • "The cost of other pieces and integrating them in needs improvement."
  • "We have portfolio managers, resource managers, project managers, and time reporting licenses. These are the licenses that we have."
  • "I don't think we have necessarily purchased everything that I would have liked to have seen."
  • "We have several hundred licenses. It costs us several hundred thousand dollars a year."
  • "We overbought our licenses. We looked at our needs three to four years down the road and tried based our contract on that. However, we were over aggressive. We use about a third of the licenses that we have. We're looking to adjust the makeup so we can start utilizing the amount of money that we are spending. Right now, we're overspending, and my organization is not seeing the value in Planview because we are paying so much for licenses that we're not using."
  • More Planview Portfolios Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The Corporate Edition, or one of the bundles, is the way to go."
  • "Use floating licenses strategically."
  • "The pricing for ultimate version is steeply high."
  • "Licenses are pretty low cost compared to, for example, ARIS."
  • "It’s the best deal in town, by far."
  • "Pricing and licensing is very attractive, simple, and straightforward."
  • "Pricing and licensing are suitable even for small companies."
  • "In terms of cost, Sparx EA is probably one of the cheapest tools I have ever used."
  • More Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Planview Management integrates seamlessly with other tools and systems used within the organization, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, customer relationship management (CRM)… more »
    Top Answer:Planview Portfolios is not too expensive. You get what you paid for.
    Top Answer:Enhancements are needed in: Advanced reporting and analytics: While Planview Management provides robust reporting and analytics capabilities, further enhancements could include more advanced data… more »
    Top Answer:The stability has been good and satisfactory. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
    Top Answer:It's reasonably priced for large organizations, though it may be perceived as expensive for individual users.
    Top Answer:In general, we now have a problem with Sparx Enterprise Architect because many analysts think it's too complicated to use in a giant environment. So, two years ago, it was used very, very often, and… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    633
    Comparisons
    335
    Reviews
    3
    Average Words per Review
    547
    Rating
    8.0
    Views
    7,678
    Comparisons
    5,731
    Reviews
    8
    Average Words per Review
    513
    Rating
    6.9
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Planview Enterprise One, Troux
    Learn More
    Sparx Systems
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    Overview

    Planview Portfolios enables enterprises to accelerate strategic execution by integrating business and technology planning, optimizing all resources, and delivering breakthrough products, services, and customer experiences to achieve maximum business performance.

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is an enterprise solution that helps streamline, accelerate, and integrate software, system, and business development. With this intuitive modeling and design solution, enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, enable collaboration, support their teams and colleagues, and manage complex projects. Software architects, business analysts, project managers, developers, support staff, and testers can unite under a single repository. Through numerous view points and potential sub-systems, users are offered a unified view in a complex environment.

    With Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, users are also offered a shared model option which can be accessed quickly and securely by in-office and remote team members through the Enterprise Architect’s Pro Cloud Server. Building a coherent, verifiable model can be done by connecting and integrating a variety of behavioral and structural information in visual form. As a result, Enterprise Architect offers high performance, flexibility, and the ability to model, manage, and trace every stage of the business development and modeling process.

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect Features

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect assists in creating a unified and accessible vision in business development by offering a flexible platform with a unique set of rich features. These features include:

    • Test and debug - Streamline software development and visualize software with the simulation process. Users can test and confirm correct behavior, set and oversee test points, and debug and examine software.
    • Track tasks - Track, prioritize, and assign individual and group tasks to assist in the model’s development. Users can visually monitor their progress through the Gantt chart.
    • Open standards - Users can visualize and analyze running software with integrated custom tools. They can also run advanced simulations, team-based repositories, testing tools, and version control. In addition, the solution supports enterprise architecture frameworks such as UPDM and TOGAF.
    • Simulation - Create and debug embedded solutions by simulating behaviors and state models. Users can specify events, triggers, constraints, and more. Users can also specify extensive and complex structural systems and create custom domain-specific solutions.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect merges high-end tools, online availability, a dedication to open standards, and accessible pricing so enterprises can stay in control of their workplaces, whether remote or in-office. Users particularly like the architectural frameworks and the scalability.

    Marc L., a principal architecture enterprise solution adviser at Cronomagic Canada, notes, "The product offers very good support for all mainstream modeling notations and architectural frameworks."

    An enterprise architect at a manufacturing company writes, "Scalable solution for modeling, project sharing, and collaboration. Support for it is good."

    Sample Customers
    UPS, NatWest, Ingram Micro, Canadian Tire, Viessmann, Volvo, NASCO, UNESCO
    OmniLink
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Insurance Company23%
    Financial Services Firm22%
    Pharma/Biotech Company8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Government16%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization14%
    Government11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business5%
    Midsize Enterprise3%
    Large Enterprise92%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise62%
    Buyer's Guide
    Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Planview Portfolios is ranked 12th in Enterprise Architecture Management with 63 reviews while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is ranked 2nd in Enterprise Architecture Management with 97 reviews. Planview Portfolios is rated 8.0, while Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Planview Portfolios writes "Helps prioritize projects, share the big picture with management, and has a great planning capacity". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect writes "Easy to set up and had no issues with stability, but it's not a very friendly tool, and its database modeling and entity-relationship modeling functions need improvement". Planview Portfolios is most compared with Broadcom Clarity , Planview PPM Pro, LeanIX, SAP Portfolio and Project Management and Wrike, whereas Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is most compared with Visual Paradigm, Visio, No Magic MagicDraw, Lucidchart and LeanIX. See our Planview Portfolios vs. Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect report.

    See our list of best Enterprise Architecture Management vendors.

    We monitor all Enterprise Architecture Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.