On Internet Business

Which is the best online project management software?

Posted by Michael under Business Growth, Social Media

There are dozens of project management offerings, some of which are not actually project management at all. Basecamp which is probably the most widely known solution should not strictly be regarded as a project management too – rather it is a communication tool and a definite upgrade to using emails. However, it has its limitations: it cannot measure the work load for the whole team nor for each member individually, or can it evaluate the realism of set deadlines. Instead it simply helps exchange information inside a team and/or with clients.

So what are the strengths and weaknesses of the major alternatives:

Huddle

Pros:
RSS Feeds
File upload/management/inline editing (with lock feature)
Writeboards
Task deadline dates
Telephone conferencing

Cons:
No milestone tasks
No reports
No time-tracking
No task reordering
Doesn’t look great if printed

Teamwork Project Manager

Pros:
Relatively inexpensive
Task due dates pinned to calendar
Data is backed up by Teamwork but also customer-driven backups (at cost)
At risk issue tracker

Cons:
Still seems to have a few bugs such as saved items not showing up on refresh
May be better for larger projects, as the price for small teams is a little expensive

Smartsheet

Pros:
Gives a change history for all changes
Supports drag and drop for custom ordering
Supports hierarchical grouping

Cons:
Slow in comparison to other systems
No filtering so you can’t ‘show’ completed tasks or over-budget tasks in list format

Easy Projects

Pros:
Great interface and good ‘getting started’ popup
Excellent range of reporting tools

Cons:
The registration required to get started takes forever and all fields must be filled in before registration can be processed
No risk tracker

Central Desktop

Pros:
Makes collaboration very easy even for new users
Extremely easy to set up and operate

Cons:
Little value in depth management such as Gantt charts and resource management options
Skimpy budgeting elements

Wrike

Pros:
Email integration into projects
Excellent collaboration tools
Hierarchy functionality
Excellent automatic task management reminders

Cons:
No risk management system
Finance functionality is very low

Clarizen

Pros:
Easy to use
Good hierarchical task structure.
Good progress tracking
Risk manager

Cons:
A web based system can be difficult for new users to learn
No ‘one click’ report button
May be more suitable for larger companies than small

So, after assessing all these project management software systems, my favourite is Teamwork Project Manager due to its balance between functionality and a clear and easy-to use-interface.

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