I was asked by a delegate at an open Practical Project management seminar for a recommendation for a cloud-based project management software solution. I see lots of adverts and get lots of emails. I store them but do not have reason to try them out. Evaluating even a small proportion would be a time-consuming task that fits neither what I want to be doing, nor what I have the skills to do well.
But in offering a list for evaluation, I had a chance to collate the websites I was aware of, and thought I would share it.
This list is not comprehensive and neither do I endorse any of the products. Each will have its strengths and weaknesses – it will be good at some things and poor at others. The websites are presented in alphabetical order, so please don’t think that position in the list means anything other than a convention in the sequencing of phono-glyphs.
It excludes any that are dedicated to IT, sytsems or Agile-style projects (as I don’t have much experience in that area and my contact does property projevcts). It includes some collaboration and time management solutions that many of my readers would not consider true project management software.
As always, decide your requirements, shortlist against these, and then try a few out.
Please do give USER experiences of any of these in the comments and note that I will remove any comments that look defamatory or have an undeclared interest.
Paid with free trial
- http://www.activecollab.com/
- http://www.centraldesktop.com/
- http://cloudplanner.com/
- http://www.comindwork.com/
- http://deskaway.com/
- http://www.fengoffice.com
- http://www.5pmweb.com/
- http://www.goalkeeper.rs/
- http://goplanapp.com/
- http://www.huddle.com/
- http://lighthouseapp.com/
- http://www.myintervals.com/
- http://www.projectplace.com/
- https://www.smartsheet.com/
- http://www.teamworkpm.net/
- http://37signals.com/ (basecamp and family)
- http://www.wrike.com/
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Free/Free with Premium options
- http://www.actionmethod.com/
(more of a task management tool) - http://www.project-open.com/index.html
- http://www.projectpier.org/
- http://teambox.com/
- https://trello.com/ (an online Kanban board - reviewed here)
- http://www.zoho.com/projects/
- http://www.es-software.net
(ClockIT is mainly a staff scheduling tool – thank you Michele Alise) - http://www.clockingit.com/
(Completely free – see comments from Michele below)
Downloadable Freeware/Shareware with evaluation
This does not have the cloud advantages of easy sharing and no hassles with installation/configuration (which is an issue for many of the PMs I work with who are blocked from installing solutions on work PCs by their IT departments)
- http://timios.net/Gantt/more.html
(Freeware Gantt Chart drawing tool – thank you Richard Sylvester) - http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/
(Open source project planing/management software)
Thanks for the list Mike. I tried Central Desktop and Ace Project, neither of which made sense to me – going to check out some of these others. I’m currently using Clocking IT, which is totally free with unlimited projects. I’ve been pretty happy with it so far, however, there are no instructions, so one has to sort of dig in
But you can’t beat it for the price!
Thank you Michelle. Since your comment, I have added the link to my list.
Actually Mike, the software I mentioned is Clocking IT, not Clock It, two entirely different programs with a similar name. Here’s the link http://www.clockingit.com/. Let me know what you think.
Michele – again, thank you. Looking through the website, this does look rather good and, as you say, it is free and unlimited. Anyone for whom the feature set looks about right would be crazy not to evaluate it.
Hi,
Unleash is an integrated solution for managing projects, collaborative Gantt scheduling, real-time reporting, bug tracking / QA, document management etc. The tool is fast, easy and builds on principles of team empowerment, increased communication, transparency, and collaboration.
Thanks & Regards
http://www.unleashpm.com