Summary:
The Summer 2025 release of Certinia PS & CS Cloud delivers meaningful innovations that:
- Improve project transparency and risk management
- Enable smarter, more accurate services estimation
- Offer greater flexibility in commercial engagement
- Set the stage for intelligent, skills-based resourcing
By embedding intelligence across the project lifecycle, Certinia continues to empower services teams to deliver with precision, predictability, and performance.
Staying ahead means constantly refining how we manage projects, resources, and financials in the ever-evolving professional services landscape. The Summer 2025 release of Certinia PS & CS Cloud introduces game-changing enhancements that empower teams to deliver smarter, faster, and more confidently. The recent preview webinar spotlighted three core innovations designed to elevate every service lifecycle stage—from planning to execution.
Here’s a closer look at what’s new and what it means for you.
Smarter Risk Management with R.A.I.D. Tracker Enhancements
Understanding and mitigating project risk has always been central to delivering successful outcomes. The Summer release significantly expands the R.A.I.D. Tracker, transforming it into a centralized intelligence hub for managing:
- Risks – Potential events that could negatively impact a project.
- Assumptions – Conditions accepted as true for planning purposes.
- Issues – Current obstacles affecting progress.
- Dependencies – Tasks or events that impact others.
Example Scenario: For a timesheet implementation project, the RAID tracker could identify that “consultants may not adopt the new timesheet system due to lack of training” (Risk), while also noting that “team leads are expected to approve timesheets within two days” (Assumption).
What’s New:
- Dedicated Tracker Objects: Each category—risk, Assumption, Issue, Dependency—has its own object, enabling deeper tracking and analysis.
- View Switcher: Users can seamlessly toggle between each tracker category for a streamlined experience.
- Project Workspace Integration: Gain RAID visibility across all active projects or drill into specific engagements.
Impact: Project managers now have a more structured and proactive way to track key elements, reducing surprises and improving decision-making throughout the project lifecycle.
“PSA upgrades are a great opportunity for clients to add a suite of new and exciting features each release. The PSA Summer 2025 release is no different, which offers new enhancements to the R.A.I.D. Tracker that significantly expand its capabilities for risk identification and mitigation. With dedicated objects for risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies, clients can better monitor and manage project health by drilling down on potential challenges. Better visibility and transparency enables proactive problem-solving and informed data driven decision making, which are key to keeping projects on track and successful.” — Erik Jorgensen, Project Manager at VFP
More Accurate Estimating with Dated Rate Cards
Estimating multi-phase or long-term projects just got significantly easier with the introduction of Dated Rate Cards in the Services Estimator.
The Challenge: Historically, rate changes over time (e.g., due to cost-of-living increases or contractual updates) required users to split role requests across multiple date ranges, adding complexity and room for error.
The Solution: You can now include all costs and bill rate variations within a single role request with dated rate cards. Whether a consultant’s rate changes mid-project or in multiple phases, the estimator calculates each rate appropriately within one record.
Example Use Case:
A consultant working from May to November experiences rate changes in August and October. Instead of creating three separate records, one dated role request handles everything, reducing duplication and increasing accuracy.
Key Benefits:
- Simplified data entry
- Improved financial clarity in monthly rollups
- Streamlined resource planning and approvals
“This is a great enhancement which simplifies both the tool and data management for users and reduces the possibility of data errors from multiple rate changes . As we all know, rates for team-members can change regularly, especially across long projects and this new features alleviates both the overhead and complexity of managing multiple records.” — Erik Jorgensen, Project Manager at VFP
Introducing Pricing Modifiers for Flexible Commercial Models
Flexibility is key in today’s service engagements. The new Pricing Modifiers feature allows teams to easily apply additional charges or discounts after an estimate has been generated, whether for performance incentives, risk contingencies, or commercial negotiations.
How It Works:
- Add a percentage-based or flat amount modifier to an overall estimate or specific line item.
- Specify conditions, such as “10% uplift if Phase 1 completes early” or “£5,000 discount for a preferred client rate.”
Benefits:
- Supports real-world commercial flexibility
- Adds transparency to estimate adjustments
- Automatically reflects changes in billing schedules and margin calculations.
This feature aligns with dynamic pricing models and clarifies for delivery and finance teams.
Sneak Peek: Resource Match Quality Enhancements
While not part of the immediate release, the webinar offered an exciting preview of upcoming Resource Match Quality improvements.
What’s Coming:
- Mandatory Skills on Requests: Ensures requests include defined skill tags, making staffing more accurate.
- Match Quality Scoring: A future enhancement will allow resourcing teams to see how well a candidate matches a role, based on skills and availability.
These changes aim to reduce time-to-staff and increase project success rates through smarter, data-driven resource allocation.
