Top 11 Project Management Tools For Your Company!

Introduction

Nowadays we can see a growing need for means to aid people during their work, means like project management tools. In today’s world a successful individual has to stay focused for 24 hours a day, there is no telling where or when his or her presence will be crucial. Whether we are self-employed, work for a corporation or in a small, family business, individually or in a group, the tasks ahead are piling up because with the rapid development in technology came higher demands in our workplaces. Effective time management became the key factor to organize our work. Fortunately, the technology provides certain means that are helpful in overcoming the obstacles – internet accessibility, social media, data clouds, smartphones and online collaboration tools are just some of them. In this article I am going to focus on the latter – the most frequently used collaboration tools.

What are the online collaboration tools?

In short, they are the answer to the demand of the workforce – the number of people working from home has grown by 103% since 2005 according to globalworkplaceanalytics.com. Such people, when working to a common purpose, create a virtual team – despite being apart they can communicate and have an access to each other’s work thanks to the online collaboration tools. The popularity of such software has been galloping for the past 10 or 15 years. Now there are dozens and dozens of these applications, they have various functions and may provide different services.  Of course, some are definitely better-developed and easier to use than others. Among them are: Asana, Basecamp, Glip, Google Drive, Liquidplanner, Sharepoint, Slack, Sococo, Teamwork Projects, Trello and Wrike. It is hard to determine which company offers the  best time tracking app but the reviews below may help.

Asana is a web-based tool designed for a collaboration of small to mid-sized teams. Among some well-known organizations that use it, Uber is probably the most popular. It integrates with quite a lot of different sites including Dropbox, Google Drive and Slack. I have mentioned small teams because it is completely free of charge up to 15 members, its premium version costs 10$ per user to upgrade. Asana has time tracking applications for both IOS and Android. The webpage is really nice to the eye, colorful and vivid, though the number of features may prove to be a little bit overwhelming for the beginner.

Basecamp, or to be more precise, Basecamp 3 (its latest version), just as Asana, is best for small to mid-sized companies. However, it is not free to use, but the price is relatively low – 29$/month for internal teams and 79$/month for use with clients. Both versions come with 100GB of file storage. It is one of the most popular tools (with more than 7000 companies signing every week!) thanks to its simplicity. Contrary to Asana, Basecamp is clear, simple, well-organized and even people who are not very familiar with the technology will find basecamp time tracking accessible.

 

Glip has been designed to reduce the time spent in our inbox. It comes in three versions – free, basic (5$ per person/month per person) and pro (10$ per person/month). All of them offer unlimited posts, storage, video chat (500, 1000 and 3000 minutes depending on the version), unlimited integrations and guest users. Waged versions also offer a 24/7 support. Glip is recognized for its simple structure, as it does not require a lot of effort to be effectively exploited. It is recommended for the people who find it difficult to organize their inbox but it lacks many features provided by more sophisticated communication tools.

Everyone knows Google, its mail is used by hundreds of millions and probably most of them had a chance to use Google Drive (for example, when sending a bigger attachment). It can be compared to Microsoft Office but with an online access for a number of people – which means that everyone can work on the project simultaneously. First 15GB of space are free and more space can be added started from 1.99$/month for 100GB. Google Drive is very well-developed (this is Google, after all) tool. It is self-explanatory and fast, providing access to our files from all sorts of devices. However, it has two huge shortcomings – safety and privacy. There were plenty of situations, when somebody had got his Google account hacked and the consequences were tragic. What is more, by accepting their privacy policy, we are giving them the access to all our data. Therefore it is recommended not to keep your most confidential files on Google Drive and, of course, to be very careful with your password.

Liquidplanner has been designed for mid to large-scale companies. It handles large and complex projects well; therefore it costs more than tools appropriate for smaller groups. It comes in three versions – standard (29$ per user/month), professional (39$ per user/month) and enterprise (the costs are personally negotiated). A minimum number of 10 users is required to purchase it. It has a huge asset – there is a free 30-day trial so everyone is able to check it out and decide whether it suits their company. They also have discounts for teachers and non-profit organizations. Liquidplanner automatically prioritizes our goals basing on to-do lists and time that we have to finish them.  It is more expensive and definitely more complicated than most of the tools described here but it is destined for huge companies, so in their environment this should not be a problem.

Just as Liquidplanner, SharePoint’s main targets are mid to large-sized companies. There are 3 plans to be bought for 5, 10 and 20$ per user/month. The last one includes an Office 365 as SharePoint is a part of Microsoft Office suite – destined for the companies that work on Windows. The Windows-based software, though it comes with a support and easy integration, may still be a disadvantage. It takes some time to adapt to and the price could be a bit lower.

Slack is a very well-developed and sophisticated chat (with many additional features) designed for companies of any size. Among tens of thousands of teams that use it there is one that has sent the Curiosity Rover to Mars. It is free to use, so anyone can give it a try and if you find it fitting your requirements and want more features, you can upgrade it to one of 3 plans – standard, plus and enterprise. (8, 15 and 32$ per user/month but the price is reduced if we decide to pay annually, also please mind that the enterprise version is currently in development and will be announced this year). Slack does not require any external application, though they provide a desktop one. It integrates with dozens of 3^rd party apps, has a solid security and privacy policy, does not use a lot of resources (like memory) and Slack’s time tracking app is really self-explanatory. Unfortunately it does not have any project management tools but overall it deserves a place on a podium when it comes to communication tools described here. If you are starting your own business, give it a try.

Sococo, as well as Slack, is a virtual team communicator for all company sizes. It is free for up to 4 users per room and for larger teams costs 15$ per user/month. Its most visible and original feature is the chat paired with virtual reality – all users are located in a virtual office space. The idea is great and definitely boosts our employees’ imagination but there are some minor inconsistencies that can disturb the joy of using Sococo. First of all, there is no spell checking and file sharing in chat windows, it consumes a lot of resources (older devices may not hold it) and the privacy policy has some holes in it. Sococo is a decent communication tool and definitely stands out from the rest with its innovative approach. However, it needs some polishing. As for now, it is quite far behind Slack.

Quite similar to Basecamp, Teamwork Projects is designed for task managements among all company sizes. You can try it for free or chose from 6 different plans with prices starting from 12$ and going up to 250$/month. Teamwork Projects is used by more than 370.000 companies worldwide, including EBay, Pepsi and even Disney. It has been trusted by so many probably thanks to its simple and user-friendly interface, working on this tool is as easy as ABC. However, if you want to use it to its full extent, you may require some training, as it has a wide variety of features. Some may complain about its security (no 2-step authentication). Also, there were some crashes reported on certain systems or browsers but the company assures that they are constantly working on solving this problem. Summing up, Teamwork Projects is a complex but logic communication tool and one of the best when it comes to managing tasks.

Trello is a tool created for collaborative conceptualization, where anyone can contribute to the work of the group and help with the completion of the project. Designed for small to mid-sized companies, it offers 3 plans, free, business (9.99$ per user/month) and enterprise (20.83$ per user/month), those are the costs of annual plans. In short, it is a to-do list service with additional time tracking, so we can use it on our own to neatly organize our schedule. Visualizers should fell in love with Trello. We can add photos, tables and schemes to enhance our board, giving it more graphical look. This is a very basic tool with a few features to it, but many can actually find it likable.

Do you know that you Trello offers a wide list of power-ups? TimeCamp is one of them. You can effectively measure time spent on tasks allocated to Trello cards with the TimeCamp + Trello Power-Up to increase your productivity

Designed for mid to large-sized companies, Wrike is best for longer term projects with task-splitting. It is free for up to five users and offers 4 plans – Professional (9.80$), Business, (24.80$) Enterprise (on a contact) and a special one for marketers (34.60$, all are for user/month but billed annually. It has a logical system which helps in finding and organizing our projects quickly. It also has a tutorial to ensure that users would not encounter any obstacles during work. Its biggest weaknesses are the mandatory Flash Player and no 2-factor authentications but overall it is solid software with some reliable features.

Summing up

While browsing the internet, we can probably find hundreds of online collaboration tools, every day new ones are being created – growing market demands it. I have tried to present and briefly describe some of the most popular among them. The truth is there will never be the only one, the greatest software of all to lead or be a part of a virtual team. Different people have different needs, as well as companies and businesses. Sometimes you may be in need of using more than one. That is why most of those tools have free trials, do not hesitate to try them out and you will surely find some that are best for your business.