*Sourced from independent G2 reviews.
1. Introduction
Arrow is one of a trio of solutions along with Kilent & Mission Control that sit as lower priced PSA alternatives to FinancialForce & Kimble. All three cover large amounts of functionality in their solutions but perhaps not at the depth of the bigger players.
Read on to see our side by side comparison between the Cloud Coach Enterprise tier and Arrow PSA.
Starter
Arrow
Enterprise
Ultimate
2. Plays Nice With Salesforce
Cloud Coach
Cloud Coach is built 100% natively on the Salesforce platform and offers seamless connection to Salesforce Sales and Service Clouds, meaning you can:
- Links to accounts, opportunities & cases
- Ability to add custom fields
- Configure your page layouts & displays
- Create your own custom reports and dashboards
- Implement point and click custom Workflows & Approvals
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Importantly with Cloud Coach your data is stored and managed 100% on Salesforce, so you don’t need to worry about data security issues.
Arrow
Arrow is also built natively on the Salesforce platform, so you get access to all the same capabilities as described to the left with Cloud Coach, including:
- Links to accounts, opportunities & cases
- Ability to add custom fields
- Configure your page layouts & displays
- Create your own custom reports and dashboards
- Implement point and click custom Workflows & Approvals
Cloud Coach 1 v 1 Arrow
Plays Nice With Salesforce - Opinion
Result: Tie
If you want a solution that works seamlessly on Salesforce, there’s not a lot to separate between these two solutions.
3. Project Management
Cloud Coach
Cloud Coach has a strong set of feature support for project management including:
- Waterfall Projects
- Agile (Kanban) Projects
- Water-Scrum-Fall
- Project Templates
- Project Health Views
Arrow
Arrow has a broad (but not advanced) set of project management feature support that includes:
- Gantt Views
- Board Views
- Project Templates
- Health
Cloud Coach 2 v 1 Arrow
Project Management - Opinion
Result: Cloud Coach
There’s much more project management capability available to your team with Cloud Coach than with Arrow, so if that’s the focus of your search, you should engage with Cloud Coach.
4. Resource Management
Cloud Coach
Managing people, resources and skills is key to the success of any organization, and a key piece of functionality in any professional services automation (PSA) solution, here Cloud Coach has extensive capabilities including:
- Capacity Planning
- Project Assignments by Work Type / Skill
- Soft & Hard bookings
- PTO & Out of Office Handling
Arrow
Arrow as you would expect from a vendor in the PSA space has resource management built into its solution including support for:
- Capacity Planning
- Project Assignments
- Resource Leveling
Cloud Coach 3 v 1 Arrow
Resource Management - Opinion
Result: Cloud Coach
With multiple resource management processes supported, Cloud Coach has greater abilities for managing large teams, but that doesn’t mean Arrow couldn’t work for you if you’re just a small team.
5. Time Tracking
Cloud Coach
Tracking time is probably one of your team’s least favorite parts of their workday, but it’s important for your business to track performance against KPIs, here Cloud Coach has support for:
- Multiple ways for users to enter time
- Estimated vs Actuals
- Track time on any Salesforce record
- Time entry and timesheet approval
Arrow
Arrow comes with inbuilt time tracking including many of the same capabilities of Cloud Coach including:
- Log time on Multiple Projects
- Billable / Non Billable
- Timesheet approval
Cloud Coach 4 v 2 Arrow
Time Tracking - Opinion
Result: Tie
Both solutions have time tracking capabilities, although they differ a little in their approach, so it’s worth taking a detailed look at both solutions to see which one best matches your needs.
6. Financials
Cloud Coach
Tracking financial metrics are key to profitable professional services teams and here Cloud Coach has capability in abundance including:
- Invoicing
- Revenue Recognition
- Resource Utilization
- Project Profitability
- Multi Currency Support
Arrow
Arrow list a large number of financial capabilities including:
- Invoicing
- Expenses
- Rate Cards
- Multi Currency Support
Cloud Coach 5 v 3 Arrow
Financials - Opinion
Result: Tie
While the two solutions both broadly support the same project financial functionality, both do it in different ways, so talk to each vendor about how they meet your requirements.
7. Meetings & Documents
Cloud Coach
Managing documents and meetings are integral to any successful onboarding project, Cloud Coach excels in this space with:
- Meeting agenda templates
- Coaching notes
- Meeting automation
- File storage against on projects
Arrow
Managing documents and meetings are integral to any successful onboarding project, Arrow provides:Â
- File storage against on projects
Cloud Coach 6 v 3 Arrow
Meeting & Documents - Opinion
Result: Cloud Coach
For any project, you are likely to have any number of meetings, from kick-off meetings, to client updates, and testing reviews. Cloud Coach’s meeting module gives it the clear edge here.
8. Reporting & Dashboards
Cloud Coach
As a Salesforce partner Cloud Coach get to leverage all the great reporting and dashboarding capabilities of Salesforce including:
- Out of the box reports & dashboards
- Reports available in real time
- Reports available on any device
- Customize reports to your needs
- Tableau CRM Analytics
Arrow
As a Salesforce partner Arrow also get to leverage all the great reporting and dashboarding capabilities of Salesforce including:
- Out of the box reports & dashboards
- Reports available in real time
- Reports available on any device
- Customize reports to your needs
Cloud Coach 7 v 4 Arrow
Reporting & Dashboards - Opinion
Result: Tie
When it comes to the core underlying reporting technology, there’s not a lot to separate between these two solutions, however due to its more extensive overall functionality / capabilities you will have more data to report on and act on, with Cloud Coach.
9. Implementation & Tailoring
Cloud Coach
Implementing a PSA solution in your business is something that you’re going to want to do by engaging a professional consulting team. Cloud Coach or one of its certified partners can help with this.
Arrow
Unlike Cloud Coach, Arrow is also typically a self implementation or you can call on one of the vendor’s partners for implementation assistance.
Cloud Coach 8 v 4 Arrow
Implementation & Tailoring - Opinion
Result: Cloud Coach
If you’re looking for a self implementation solution, then Arrow is your winner here, however it should be disconcerting that two solutions that supposedly have similar features sets have such vastly different implementation/support/development strategies. This should serve as an indication to better understand the flexibility and scalability of each and a fair warning to not evaluate solutions just on a list of features.
10. Overall Opinion
It’s difficult to compare Arrow side by side with Cloud Coach, as Arrow is perhaps a more natural competitor to Cloud Coach Starter & Team tiers than our Enterprise tier, however as Arrow pitches itself as a full fledged PSA we have compared it here to Cloud Coach Enterprise tier, where it comes up a little short.
For smaller teams with simpler needs and smaller budgets, Arrow may on occasions be a solid alternative to Cloud Coach, FinancialForce and Kimble, however for mid to large sized teams and organizations Cloud Coach has the clear benefit of both more capabilities along with additional product tiers that you can move up to seamlessly as your needs evolve.
11. Other AppEx Apps to Consider
Learn about similar solutions to Arrow and discover more about the capabilities and benefits of the Salesforce platform for PSA, Onboarding & Project Management for your business.
Information contained herein is based on the companies’ posted Salesforce AppExchange listings and other publicly available websites as of the date of this publication.
