Project Managers-tell us about your tools!
by RachelThe project managers at Adaptive Path have been doing some thinking about the tools we use to track budgets and schedules.
We currently use a web app called Harvest to track our hours, Basecamp for sharing deliverables and communicating with teams, and several custom Excel spreadsheets to do just about everything else.
These have worked pretty well for us thus far, but we’re looking for ways to improve our toolset.
So project managers – and I know you’re out there – tell us: what tools do you use for budget and schedule tracking, resource allocation and forecasting?
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May 23rd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
In my case of work, I use Microsoft Project and Excel quite extensively. MS Project to track schedule, resource, etc. Excel is somewhat our unofficial to-do list. I would prefer we move to Basecamp, then I can cut down list and items to review each week.
May 24th, 2008 at 3:41 am
We use activeCollab for basic project communication - it works very well for us because we can not just brand it but make a custom interface for it, as well as having our data on our own server. As for time tracking, we didn’t have much need for it. However, We’ll be using aC for that as well, at least for now.
May 24th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Basecamp, Freshbooks, Quickbooks, and an accountant.
We are just learning how to put this combination of project management/billing web applications and desktop accounting software together to best serve our clients we and now we don’t know how we ever did with out them.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:55 am
This is a timely post. I’ve worked at three places with a variety of tools the most effective seems to have been a similar combo to what you outlined with the addition of MS Project for the overall plan. Personally I’ve always wanted at tool that can do it all, however is this the holygrail? The two I researched and liked were AtTask and Creative Manager Pro. Hope these names help in your search.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:07 am
We use our own internal system for time tracking (called PUNCH). It’s a great system for tracking work hours. We use BaseCamp to collaborate with clients and MS Project for project plans.
Rachel, how good is your experience with harvest?
May 24th, 2008 at 10:54 am
We use Merlin (OS X only), svn for versioning system of documents and Billings (OS X only) for time tracking and billing.
I’m testing now Basecamp for a personal project to see if it fits my needs (free one-project account).
May 24th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
If you’re on a Mac, for pure project management, I’d recommend Merlin (ugly icon but great app). OmniPlan would be nice too if it supported multiple projects, but it doesn’t so it’s pretty much useless…
On the time tracking/accounting side, unfortunately I’m still stuck with QuickBook (PC version). I utterly hate this program but there’s just no viable alternative I know of that does everything…
Excel? That sounds painful…
On the basecamp side of things, a more full feature/integrated solution you might like:
http://www.joyent.com/connector
May 24th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Sharepoint custom lists — they are the primitive sharable database you’ve always wanted. Anything you can track in a spreadsheet you can track, better, in a SP list. You can manage the data in MS-Access if that’s convenient (it is for me), and generally the integration with Office is strong.
Google Sites may be a good competitor, I’m going to try them out; they have a “list” feature that may compare. Structured data — where you control the structure — is key. File-sharing and calendaring and threaded discussions are nice too, but nothing beats a genuine database, that is customizable and has easy out-of-the-box sharing.
May 25th, 2008 at 1:44 am
I use basecamp and backpack mostly. We have a horrid tool called Daptive (formerly eProject) that is used by project managers in my company, but it has a poor interface and the worst performance of any tool I’ve used. Stay away from it.
When we’re working on sprints (agile dev), we also have Trac — http://trac.edgewall.org. It’s useful to manage projects and track time on a ticket-basis, which works well with dev tasks, but I don’t feel it’s the best tool for designers.
This week I came across a new service called http://www.rescuetime.com - I’m very impressed with how it’s tracking things so far. If time tracking is important to what you are doing, it may be a good thing to try (though Basecamp has also recently implemented a new function that can help people track what’s going on, it’s not as passive as Rescuetime and you can’t quantify time spent).
May 25th, 2008 at 6:26 am
We actually use JobPro, great tools, lets you do anything…
http://www.jobprocentral.com/
May 25th, 2008 at 11:26 am
I am a freelancer - and I work alone. But still I use these tools to keep on track.
Project Management - ProjectPeir (activeCollab clone)
Time Tracker - Tiker(My own custom tool)
GTD Todo List - Nexty
May 25th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Hi Rachel, You should consider Project123 as they offer all the features which you mentioned (plus more if you’re willing to upgrade). Budgeting is right on and with the Timesheeting module, you can track staff budgets as well.
Schedule tracking, resource allocation and forecasting is all pretty standard and whats even better is that you don’t have to keep switching back and forth between programs. The file upload is great too, which allows you to attach files to projects…eliminating emails.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Thanks for these recommendations. Keep ‘em coming!
May 26th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Pricing: custom numbers.app worksheet
Project Plans: OmniPlan
Job Tracking, Resources, new biz pipeline, deliverables sharing: custom-built web app (we like basecamp, but we homebrewed so it could start at the sales phase and go all the way through to our portfolio and website post-mortem)
We use trac (http://trac.edgewall.org/) and mingle (http://studios.thoughtworks.com/mingle-project-intelligence) for agile dev, ticketing, version control, etc. Neither is perfect but they are both pretty solid and awesome.
We don’t track hours, we track allocations and weeks, so it’s pretty much manual - end of the job you actualize on a number-of-weeks bases, since everyone lies on timesheets anyway.
May 27th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I’m a big fan of Jot.com, though it was bought by Google recently and became Google Sites. I don’t think they have the project management and bug tracking functionality that jot.com had (yet) but i hope they have it soon!
May 27th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Uzi- We like Harvest so far. We’re trying to figure out how to get the information that people put into Harvest into our custom Excel spreadsheets.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Central Desktop is the best thing I’ve seen, and trust me, I’ve looked at a lot. Makes Basecamp look like a kindergarten level toy.
I’m not affiliated with the company - just a huge fan. The UI is a little dry, but advanced functionality wins out in the end for me.
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Used Harvest, but have found that TSheets has more bells and whistles to help me track my time easier.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Ironically enough, I checked out another company (http://www.activecollab.com/) that had recently started a year or two ago - and they’ve has completely redone their web site and product UI and it’s just…beautiful. They take 37 Signals out into a back alley and give them a well deserved punch…
There’s also individual product solutions like Scalix (http://www.scalix.com/) that does email across enterprises (no more Mac/PC Outlook related battles). I do think shared groupware workspaces like ActiveCollab are the wave of the future - at least in enlightened companies.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Thanks for this; we are looking for new tools. To help out, I created a summary list of the tools mentioned so far. I though other readers might like it too:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/default.aspx MS Project
http://office.microsoft.com/sharepoint/ MS Sharepoint - is an integrated suite of server capabilities
http://quickbooks.intuit.com QuickBooks The Easiest Accounting Software to Help Your Business Succeed
http://trac.edgewall.org Trac - The Trac Project
http://www.activecollab.com/ activeCollab is a project management and collaboration tool that you can
http://www.attask.com/ @task is project management software that helps companies get work done. With
http://www.backpackit.com/ Backpack is Basecamp for your life.
http://www.basecamphq.com/ Basecamp Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration.
http://www.billings2.com/ Billings streamline quoting, time-tracking and invoicing.
http://www.centraldesktop.com/ Central Desktop provides simple project collaboration tools for business
http://www.creativemanagerpro.com/ Creative Manager Pro. - Ad Agency Software and Project Management
http://www.formassembly.com/time-tracker Time Tracker (?)
http://www.freshbooks.com/ Freshbooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you
http://www.getharvest.com/ Harvest Track time, log expenses, invoice clients, keep track of account
http://www.jobprocentral.com/ JobPro Central’s Business Management Software will organize any company
http://www.jot.com/ Jot.com You’ll love the new Google Sites
http://www.joyent.com/connector Joyent Connector is our collection of easy-to-use Web-based
http://www.merlin2.net Merlin 2 - Home Merlin 2 - The project management software for Apple Mac OS X.
http://www.novamind.com/merlin Merlin Project Manager for MacOS X Merlin Project Management Software
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniplan OmniPlan Project management made painless
http://www.project123.com Project123 is an online project management solution for business managers,
http://www.projectpier.org ProjectPier is a Free, Open-Source, self-hosted PHP application for managing
http://www.rescuetime.com RescueTime is time management software that helps individuals and businesses
http://www.tsheets.com TSheets - Track time from any computer or cell phone.
cheers,
-Bryan
June 7th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Thats a great list, Bryan. I’ll just add:
http://goplan.info
We built goplan for ourselves about 2 years ago and last year we officially launched it as a product, that much like Basecamp you can have a paid subscription to (there’s a free plan as well, obviously). It’s good to have an idea of what people are looking for too, because we’re building Goplan’s next major iteration and input like this is always welcome.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
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June 27th, 2008 at 7:12 am
We use OnStage Team Collaboration. The free version is fantastic!