Item: Planview Hub
Rating: 10
Author: Lien Bäcker

Overall Satisfaction with Planview Hub

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Planview TaskTop Hub plays an important role to archieve a seamless exchange between different endtools in our processes requirement management and quality assurrance. With Planview TaskTop Hub, we've implemented the integration between two different Jama Connect instances, Jama Connect and Jira. The coming use case will be the integration between Jama Connect and a modeling tool.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Data mapping through a end-tool neutral model
Flexible and diverse possibilities for data transformation
Easy to start a new integration
Having competent consultants (such as Andreas P) and technical support engineers (such as Christoph T)
Powerful feature - extension

Cons

Being dependent to availability and quality of REST API provided by Endtools
Diagram in Enterprise Architect (EA) being synced as Base64 image. But Base64 Image can not be displayed in Jira. The concept of Integration EA-> Jama -> Jira won't be able to work fully
License model, in certain extent, is an obstacle for customers to expand their integration concept
Planview TaskTop Hub does not have functionality to delete a synced item. It can only create and edit items

Return on Investment

Limiting human errors by manual data transferring and data duplicating
Teams could work with their favorite tool
However, it requires additional administrative effort as well as a well defined process

Usability

A great integration tool, which comes with a wide range of supported end tools. Planview TaskTop Hub works with an integration concept that maximizes the scalability and flexibility of integrations across more than just two tools. For example, from our experience, we started with the integration between Jama Connect and Jira. We were able to extend our integration concept to a new tool, Pro Cloud Server, by ourselves. The element was synced within 10 minutes.

Alternatives Considered

We’ve evaluated other integration tools—OpsHub, Jama Connect Interchange, and Symphony from agosense—and selected Planview TaskTop Hub because of its ease of use, scalability, and flexibility for managing and extending the integration concepts with new tools.

Key Insights

Do you think Planview Hub delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Planview Hub's feature set?

Yes

Did Planview Hub live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Planview Hub go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Planview Hub again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Jama Connect, Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect, PLANTA, Atlassian Jira

Likelihood to Recommend

Planview TaskTop Hub is very well suited to implement the integrations to synchronise data such as requirement, task, bugs. We have very good experience with the integration between Jama and Jira as well as between two Jama instances. In the context test management, related to Test steps in a test case, it's quite complicated. Test Case synchronization between two Jama instances works with Steps. But we aren't able to implement the synchronisation of Test Cases including Steps to such Plugin of Jira like Xephyr.

Planview Hub Feature Ratings

Using Planview Hub

Users and Roles

180 - System/ Requirement Engineers, Product Managers, Technical Product owners, Developers, Project managers, Testers

Support Headcount Required

3 - Applications consultant, IT experts

Business Processes Supported

Synchronisation from requirements between requirements management tool and task management tool
Synchronisation from Bugs between documentation tool and work management tool
Synchronisation from model based requirements between modelling tool and requirements management tool

Innovative Uses

Minimizing the silo effects through seamless, nearly real-time data exchange.
Employees could stay with the tools which support best their works.
Certain work concepts could be quickly implemented without tool-restrictions.

Future Planned Uses

Exploring potential provided by Enterprise Data Stream Add-on
Exploring potential coming with Gateway Add-on

Likelihood to Renew

Planview TaskTop Hub supports our use cases. I think its continuous development goes in the right direction.

Evaluating Planview Hub and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Scalability
Integration with Other Systems
Ease of Use

Using the Model-concept, Planview TaskTop Hub is able to simplify the possibility to create and manage the integrations between different tools. Scalability was the most important factor in our decision to select Planview TaskTop Hub.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I think we would go the same way.

Planview Hub Implementation

Implementation Rating

We had a very good collaboration with the enabling team from Tasktop in 2018. The enablement program was adequately structured, starting with building an integration concept based on use cases of the synchronized data. The training provided a good foundation for us to operate and maintain the tool. The tool administration and architecture were straightforward.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Yes - - Concepting with a clear specification containing Requirements and Test Cases
- Proof of Concept (POC)
- Evaluation
- Training
- Rollout#
- Review and continuous lessons learned process

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - Implementing an integration tool requires a certain standardization in how data is handled in an end tool. The change management was supported by a working group involving team leaders, tool, and process experts. Sometimes compromises had to be made, and discussions took time. However, we achieved a good result: people work in different tools following standardized workflows, so that most of the time, the synchronizations were done without issues.

Implementation Issues

It took time to standardize how the synchronized data is handled in an end tool, which is a part of an integration
It took time and effort to have an adequate integration concept, which sustains for more than one projects

Planview Hub Training

Training Types Used

Online Training
In-Person Training

In-Person Training

We've received a good, in-deep training from Christoph T. during the implementation phase.

Online Training

The integration documentation was sufficient.

Configuring Planview Hub

Product Configurability

It is just right for this type of product. For certain use cases, new features could help in the future.

Configuration Lessons

- A well-discussed and adequate integration concept could help to ease the configuration.
- Sometimes a compromise on the workflow on the end tool must be made to compensate the tool-weakness or limitations of REST API.

UI Customization

No - there is no facility to customize the interface

Extensibility and Customization

Some - we have added small pieces of custom code - Some extensions for data transformation

Planview Hub Support

Support Rating

I was considering giving a rating between 9 and 10. Overall, the support has been very good so far. However, I have noticed that the members of the support team have varying levels of know-how about Planview TaskTop Hub. When a ticket about a complex technical issue reaches a member such as Christoph T., Sr. Customer Engineer, the analysis is done thoroughly, and a sustainable solution is provided. With other members of the support team, the experience might be different.

Planview Hub Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Premium Support

If one day I need to purchase premium support for Planview TaskTop Hub to ensure the integrations work, it would be time to evaluate other integration tools to replace it. The reason is that an integration tool plays a support role; it must be robust and easy to use. If this is not the case, the integration tool has not fulfilled its role.

Bug Resolution

Yes - The analyse and bug-escalation were done. And we've seen the reported bugs being fixed.

Exceptional Examples of Planview Hub Support

We were running an update on an end tool within the integrations. Prior to the update, the Planview TaskTop Hub Support team was informed. When a blocking issue within Planview TaskTop Hub occurred, I submitted a ticket. The support team provided a solution for the Planview TaskTop Hub in the form of an extension, which resolved the blocking issue within an hour during a call. I hope Planview can maintain this level of support for Planview TaskTop Hub in the future.

Using Planview Hub

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using	None

Easy Tasks

Having Model as a central element of any integration
Possibility to transform the data
Possibility to extending the transformation through extension

Difficult Tasks

Terminating the synchronisation within an existing integration once the synced content was no longer active.
Synchronisation of such a structure in treeform could be easier sometimes, it would be great.

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Planview Hub Reliability

Scalability

We don't need to deploy Planview TaskTop Hub in other units but we could extend the integration to cover the new data, new data type and new projects.

Reliability and Availability

We're hosting Planview TaskTop Hub by ourselves. The availability was good until now. A part of that, we have a strict plan for the quality control on any update of both Hub and End tools to avoid as much as possibily any disruptions.

Performance

Planview TaskTop Hub does generate traffic for some end tools. It is still in an acceptable range. For certain kind of retry to resolve issue in synchronizing relationships, an additional manual attention was required.

Integrating Planview Hub

Ease of Integration

If a concept was cleared, a data model was set up, you could get an integration running within 10 minutes.

Systems Integrated With

Jama Connect
Jira
Pro Cloud Server

Integration deep: Structure, artifact contents and traceability
The difficult part is to build up an integration concept based on the usage of the data and involving workflow on the synced data.

Types of Integration

API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Javascript widgets

Integration Lessons Learned

- Understanding the data structure and data usage - Having a well defined integration concept - Understanding the functionality and limitation of the end tools within the integration.

Upgrading Planview Hub

Upgrade Process

Yes - Until now, it works as wanted. Once a year we update our Planview TaskTop Hub. Any update for on premise Planview TaskTop Hub in our organisation comes with a strict quality evaluation of functions in a new release to minize any unexpected impacts of a new release. We haven't got any experience if the update in the cloud.

Upgrade Benefits

Sufficient support for the new releases of end tools
Some new features such as synchronisation of diagram from Enterprise Architect (through Pro Cloud Server) with Jama item

Anticipated Benefits from Future Upgrades

Bug fixes within context Pro Cloud Server Synchronization and Container mirroring