Do you anytime think you can run your projects management online ? Including Gantt, resources, risks, expenses, changes, documents and many more ? You may say : Yes, there are such tools but too expensive and hard to implement. Today I will describe easy, mature and complete online, hosted application which have these features. In addition it will be high responsive, ajax based site with Office 2007 like interface and ribbon style toolbars. It is a dream ? No, there are no tool that perfectly fits. However, there are good approximations, and the greater number of clients will allow them to develop in the right direction.
I will begin with interface, it is very interesting, not by its innovation but culture of work. I have seen many tabbed and grid based GUI implemented on HTML + JavaScript platform, they’re always were huge problem, like: slowness, unpredictability and inplace editing. During several days of working with this tool is not met with major problems in this field. Office like theme and layout make you feel that it is in a familiar environment. Huge amount of javascript libraries is good cached and loaded with lightness.
Let’s begin the main and the most important part – project management features. I am not a big fan of heavy project management methodologies rather a Agile one. At the same time does not condemn the existence of tools like Microsoft Project, which certainly have their place in the market, even though the project portfolio management, risks and the budget. Also I allow the use of this kind of solutions to run projects in the Agile / Scrum, I will also show this aspect in the context of reviewed product. Now I will divide ProjectManager into features, not all but most important to me, and make a short summary which will show the overall view.
Dashboards
We have several types of dashboards with easy and fast access thought tabbed interface. There is My Home where logged user can find tasks, messages, to-do lists and discussions. All Projects – this is summary of all our projects, great for portfolio managers, one glimpse and we know everything : status (traffic lights icons), timesheet, costs, efficiency and resources. Best dream of projects sponsor and manager – of course if we have the good data – it is not easy :) Finally selected project dashboard which summarized all date in context. All reports and charts are colorful and eye friendly.
Tasks
This view is a typical grid plus Gantt chart interface with task properties at the bottom. Grids are working very fast and easily reacts to changes. All needed keyboard shortcuts are on the board, save, cancel, paste, cut etc. Mouse actions are available too, like drag&drop, resize tasks on chart, tasks connecting. Notes and alerts complete the whole vision of this place.
Timesheet
This clever functionality is very easy and fast way to specify the scope of our hourly availability for the project. If we want we can go down to the level of individual tasks. Everything is correctly summed giving a global work week vision in context of our employees.
The rest
I have to highlight all features and the best place to do it. We can use: Dashboards, Tasks, Resources, Discusses, Timesheets, Expenses, Risks, Issues, Changes, Reports, Documents + Clients (simple address book) and Calendar.
Agaile manner?
There are ways to carry out the project on the principles of Agile and Scrum in this type of tool. We must handle user stories – as a task – but here we do not have the multiple task types (some kind of resolution will be custom fields). There are links between tasks, so we can use it as userstory and tasks connection. Missing versions and iterations management, we can use Gantt chart milestones but this is not a good way. We can find some reports which can simulates burndown charts but it is not so obvious. Remember also that a Gantt chart which is here a basement, reacts badly to the change, and change is the essence of Agile methodologies.
Summary
I am writing in superlatives but if we accept the way the application works and the manage projects, it really is a good solution. I have not tested group work and large amounts of data. If I must stick to something I would rather like more options such as adding task in a pop-up window and not a new line in the grid. From time to time it happened I had to wait longer for response from the server.
In summary, I recommend ProjectManager.com to all those who want to manage projects in this way. Certainly they project portfolio managers and board members.
Links
Project Manager Home
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