2018…What a Year for Upland Project & IT Management

6 minute read

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As we say goodbye to 2018, and reflect on a year gone by, we wanted to reach out and say Thank You. We have made tremendous strides in the past 12 months, applying the core values of Upland Software, namely Customer Success, and Quality Driven R&D, to help drive Innovation and Transformation both within Upland and for our customers.

Turning our sights to 2019, we wanted one last look at the year that was. We would like to share this article with you, that summarizes perfectly the highlights of the year gone by.

Innovation Through Integration

We joined our colleagues in London, UK, for the first Customer Success Event that brings together PSA, PowerSteering, ComSci, RightAnswers and Qvidian.  Featuring thought-provoking presentations on what it takes to lead Digital Transformation for an organization, we also shared roadmap, and invited customers to share their use cases in how they apply PSA at their organization.

Upland PSA – PSA for the future

Knowledge Management Spotlight in PSAThe year started strong, when PSA announced Knowledge Management for PSA in March. This innovation was met with an overwhelmingly positive response; John Ragsdale Vice President of Research, Service Technology, TSIA, a long proponent of Knowledge for Professional Services Organizations, championed our announcement by joining us for a webinar Channel Your Inner Knowledge and Increase Project Profitability. He has since touted PSA as the only PSA on the market with Knowledge. In September, PSA was recognized by KM World magazine as one of the top Trend-Setting Products of 2018 for its Knowledge Enabled PSA.

This was followed closely with the announcement of Upland Analytics for PSA, our powerful new business intelligence capability that lets customers visualize their data – directly in PSA.

We went on to hold our most successful TSW event ever, receiving customers interested in learning about Knowledge and Proposal Automation, even hosting a webinar on the topic, sharing how Professional Organizations can leverage Proposal Automation to bring together Sales and Services for greater harmony, to deliver a greater customer engagement.

Closing on a high note, PSA received the distinction of being one of the Top 10 PSA Providers of 2018 from Insights Success magazine, all thanks to its recent innovations, notably Proposal Automation, Knowledge Management, native Analytics, and applications integrations. We also received a badge of honor from G2 Crowd with recognition as a High Performer in the PSA market.

 

RightAnswers, On the Knowledge Highway

Demonstrating a strong commitment to the best practices methodologies of Knowledge Management, RightAnswers has the unique disposition of being the first Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) v6 verified Knowledge Management software, having received the designation in 2017.

Customer development and training was a key focus this year for the RightAnswers team, we ran and successfully certified countless organizations and individuals through the following courses, KCS Practices V6 Workshop & Certification, KCS Coach Development Workshop, KCS Practices V6 Overview Workshop, and KCS Leadership V6 Overview Workshop.

We expanded our ecosystem with strategic partnerships aimed at bringing our KCS v6 verified knowledge capability to new heights. First we integrated Knowledge Management with the Cherwell Service Management Software, and making it available in the Cherwell mApp Exchange.  The second was a partnership with Konverso, to directly integrate with the KBot chatbot, providing more than 90,000 knowledge solutions to issues covering more than 600 software applications. The first of its kind, Kbot is one of the most extensive knowledge bases in the world.

And, not to disappoint, RightAnswers was honored with KM World’s “100 Companies That Matter in Knowledge Management” Distinction…for the Seventh Time!

PowerSteering, a Whole New PPM Experience

We kicked off 2018 with a customer webinar, featuring PolyOne, sharing how they use PowerSteering to align and track continuous improvement initiatives, both within their organization, also within their ecosystem of customers and suppliers.

Analytics Business Intelligence for PowerSteeringAnnounced early in the year, PowerSteering V18 featured a re-imagined user experience, with a modern layout, in keeping with the Upland One look and feel, and designed to provide a heightened user experience and greater productivity. Mid-way through the season, we also announced our new integration with Jira to bring Agile project data into PowerSteering to provide a holistic, single source portfolio view of project performance. And most recently, we launched Upland Analytics for PowerSteering, that enables native data visualization about portfolio performance, keeping teams on top of resource, program and financial KPIs.

We launched our inaugural Customer Exchange Forum, bringing together customers from across the globe, sharing their expertise and best practices with PowerSteeering. We held a total of three Forums throughout the year, gaining inspiration from customers like Highways England, Church Pension Group, Adient, Abbott and Ecolab, sharing their stories in Continuous Improvement, New Product Development, IT PPM, Enterprise PMO.

Our November webinar, co-hosted with Randy Clark, Director of Six Sigma at Upland Software and Joseph Paris, Jr, Co-Founder Xonitek talked about Getting Alignment Across Your Organization, The Building Blocks of Transformation, and was the most popular webinar not just of 2018, but of recent years.

ComSci by the Numbers

ComSci received massive recognition by being selected as the engine for the new Upland Analytics. This has been a fantastic way for ComSci to spread its roots as Analytics has been implemented across 4 products already, including PSA, PowerSteering, RightAnswers and Qvidian, and with more on the way. Already trusted by the major financial institutions around the world, the stability and performance are unequaled.

Additionally, ComSci received great customer honors through their Gartner Peer reviews:

 The best part of having ComSci as an ITFM vendor is their business process as a service…they have become an extension to our team. ~ Read the full review on Gartner Peer Insights.

ComSci went on later in the year to host Modernizing Your TBM Systems – What You Need To Know. With our partner Thavron Solutions. A hot topic with any organization that is looking to invest in or grow their ITFM or TBM practice.

Shining a light on Eclipse PPM

Eclipse PPM was once again a proud sponsor at HIMSS ’18, its presence as the #1 project and portfolio management solution for Healthcare IT remaining undisputed.

Another highlight from the Eclipse PPM team was the launch of the Customer Success Series. Providing a combination of platform training and best practices coaching, we armed our customers with the tools they need to substantiate and grow their PMO.

Leading the charge of our customer ambassadors, Janice Maxwell, [title] at Georgia State University proudly shared how she has used Eclipse PPM to build PMO leadership across her campus. You can find more reviews from our other customers on Peer Insights, the Gartner hosted review website, and hear what others have to say.

We were up and running within days after implementation. The online training, especially webinars have been useful in educating the entire user base. ~ Read the full review on Gartner Peer Insights

 

Thank you,  see you next year!

2018 was a year like no other for Upland, our customers have seen the difference, and have spoken, and all the progress we made has set the stage for a banner year ahead in 2019.

 

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