"We're the leader in a space of one," chuckles ClearTrial's Andrew Grygiel, marketing VP, explaining the company's long-standing aversion to the label "clinical trial management system" for its operations resource planning software. Version 4 of the SaaS offering, like its predecessors, provides forecasting and tracking capabilities for clinical project operations and their finances, taking it outside the CTMS category.
The version 4 upgrade announced today, however, ratchets up users' ability to align the solution's benchmarks with peculiarities of process at their individual companies. V4's Task Manager lets users override the system's standard components, providing the means to incorporate company-established algorithms. Task Manager lets users add and edit tasks and then assign resources to them, too, to better merge the solution's work breakdown structure with company-unique practices.
The feature is of greatest interest to those who want to go beyond the system's clinical trial project benchmarking core to engage in second guessing, says Gartner research VP Steven Lefebure. That core "transcends organizations," he says, and the knowledge in the product is its "fundamental value proposition."
For example, the software can aid clinical ops managers who are building project budgets that include trial sites in countries they've never modeled before. That system knowledge, coupled with SaaS infrastructure minimization at the client end, makes the solution appropriate for small and mid-size companies. Its new override feature and existing financial capabilities make it a fit for mid-size and big pharma companies managing product portfolios.
- here's the ClearTrial release