Seeking task/project management software organized by client.
December 15, 2016 12:53 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for task/project management software for a very small consulting company with specific needs but am encountering solutions that are far more feature-heavy than we need and are missing elements we're considering "must-haves". Hoping for some options, either specifically meeting these needs or that can be re-purposed to fit.
I work for a very small (<5 person, non-creative) consulting company. We break down our activities into tasks/deliverables that vary by client. Most of the tasks are assigned to a single person but some require inputs from 2-3 people, though they're generally not collaborative. Currently we don't manage traditional "projects" but we may move into larger ones with multiple milestones and deliverables in the future.
So far I've looked at Trello, dapulse, Wrike, Insightly, and Taskworld. I've used Workflowy, Smartsheets, and Basecamp in the past but I don't think they are a good fit, though I might just be looking at them wrong. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the options (and endless demos and testing) out there. Most of them are feature-heavy in ways that we don't/won't need and are missing features I'm specifically hoping to have - again, though, I might not be seeing ways to use them to fit what I want. The last similar question I could find was from 2013 and a lot of new options have come on the market since.
Problems we're trying to solve:
- All staff want to add tasks as they come up in client meetings or emails to be able to show follow-through via progress reports.
- Owner wants to see real-time status for all clients.
- Some staff have better organizational skills than others and some are more visibly accountable than others.
- Owner would like to be able to track sales tasks but a true CRM is well above our needs.
Must-haves:
- Top-level identifier should be client name, with tasks underneath. I know I can re-purpose some existing PM software (by naming projects as clients instead) so I'm open to that as well.
- Ability to assign tasks to one or more people.
- Some form of progress tracking, either by color, percent, or "kanban" style.
- Reporting to give to clients directly to show work in progress, completed, and to-do, as well as the progress status mentioned above.
- Higher-level reporting to give the owner of the company an at-a-glance status update on employee work.
- Subtasks for smaller "projects" that have multiple steps (i.e., "write procedure, get sign-off on procedure, add procedure to existing documentation, update revision history").
Would like to have:
- Place to document all client contact information including head office details and specific contact names/numbers/emails, ideally not taking up space as a "task".
- Phone app (Android for sure, iPhone also if possible).
Don't need or have elsewhere:
- Time tracking
- File storage
- Email correspondence storage
- Communication/collaboration workspaces
Any advice would be much appreciated!
I work for a very small (<5 person, non-creative) consulting company. We break down our activities into tasks/deliverables that vary by client. Most of the tasks are assigned to a single person but some require inputs from 2-3 people, though they're generally not collaborative. Currently we don't manage traditional "projects" but we may move into larger ones with multiple milestones and deliverables in the future.
So far I've looked at Trello, dapulse, Wrike, Insightly, and Taskworld. I've used Workflowy, Smartsheets, and Basecamp in the past but I don't think they are a good fit, though I might just be looking at them wrong. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the options (and endless demos and testing) out there. Most of them are feature-heavy in ways that we don't/won't need and are missing features I'm specifically hoping to have - again, though, I might not be seeing ways to use them to fit what I want. The last similar question I could find was from 2013 and a lot of new options have come on the market since.
Problems we're trying to solve:
- All staff want to add tasks as they come up in client meetings or emails to be able to show follow-through via progress reports.
- Owner wants to see real-time status for all clients.
- Some staff have better organizational skills than others and some are more visibly accountable than others.
- Owner would like to be able to track sales tasks but a true CRM is well above our needs.
Must-haves:
- Top-level identifier should be client name, with tasks underneath. I know I can re-purpose some existing PM software (by naming projects as clients instead) so I'm open to that as well.
- Ability to assign tasks to one or more people.
- Some form of progress tracking, either by color, percent, or "kanban" style.
- Reporting to give to clients directly to show work in progress, completed, and to-do, as well as the progress status mentioned above.
- Higher-level reporting to give the owner of the company an at-a-glance status update on employee work.
- Subtasks for smaller "projects" that have multiple steps (i.e., "write procedure, get sign-off on procedure, add procedure to existing documentation, update revision history").
Would like to have:
- Place to document all client contact information including head office details and specific contact names/numbers/emails, ideally not taking up space as a "task".
- Phone app (Android for sure, iPhone also if possible).
Don't need or have elsewhere:
- Time tracking
- File storage
- Email correspondence storage
- Communication/collaboration workspaces
Any advice would be much appreciated!
We are still looking for the perfect software right now as well and it is not easy for sure!! I looked at some of the products you tried and I have used some of those as well. The one product that comes to mind that you might want to look at would be Pipedrive. Seems like it hit hit on a few points you mentioned. Good luck! https://www.pipedrive.com/en/features/pipeline-management
posted by CFMartin at 1:31 PM on December 15, 2016
posted by CFMartin at 1:31 PM on December 15, 2016
+1 on using JIRA and Confluence together - Confluence for docs and contact information; JIRA for task management.
JIRA has some quirks - it was written as a bug-tracking software, so everything is an Issue (what we use a 'roll-up tasks'. Issues can have sub-tasks, and can be assigned to "Epics (clients? Projects? you pick).
It took me a while, but I've come around - what I like most is the flexibility and ability to link things across projects (which *could* happen!).
posted by dbmcd at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2016
JIRA has some quirks - it was written as a bug-tracking software, so everything is an Issue (what we use a 'roll-up tasks'. Issues can have sub-tasks, and can be assigned to "Epics (clients? Projects? you pick).
It took me a while, but I've come around - what I like most is the flexibility and ability to link things across projects (which *could* happen!).
posted by dbmcd at 2:29 PM on December 15, 2016
I hate JIRA, but I agree that it's basically the closest thing to what you're looking for.
posted by General Malaise at 2:55 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by General Malaise at 2:55 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]
I haven't tried it, but https://taiga.io looks nice and is billing itself as a lightweight alternative to jira
posted by askmehow at 5:48 PM on December 15, 2016
posted by askmehow at 5:48 PM on December 15, 2016
My exposure to Jira and Confluence was astonishingly negative. Nothing was intuitive and everything was a hassle to use, and the standards for using it were all over the place. To be fair, it may well have been an abysmally horrible implementation and the tools may be just fine. Same company also used Basecamp, not very well.
posted by Altomentis at 10:26 PM on December 15, 2016
posted by Altomentis at 10:26 PM on December 15, 2016
Best answer: Personally, I've used Teamwork.
- Top-level identifier should be client name, with tasks underneath.
You'd need to name projects as clients here, I believe.
- Ability to assign tasks to one or more people.
Yup. Any number of people can be assigned to a task. Or no one. Or everyone.
- Some form of progress tracking, either by color, percent, or "kanban" style.
I don't think it's automatic, but you can update it manually to reflect percent done.
- Reporting to give to clients directly to show work in progress, completed, and to-do, as well as the progress status mentioned above.
Not 100% sure it does this, but you can give the client access to see it (and tweak their permissions so that they can't do anything but see).
- Higher-level reporting to give the owner of the company an at-a-glance status update on employee work.
You can have the owner get the daily report mails.
- Subtasks for smaller "projects" that have multiple steps (i.e., "write procedure, get sign-off on procedure, add procedure to existing documentation, update revision history").
Subtasks work quite well in TW.
- Place to document all client contact information including head office details and specific contact names/numbers/emails, ideally not taking up space as a "task".
Yup, you can set up a "company" that people work for and store that info there. At worst, a Message can be placed in the project with that info.
- Phone app (Android for sure, iPhone also if possible).
Yup! I can't speak to the actual Android app, but I once spent more than 90m stuck at the passport office and was making great use of the iPhone app to get info to email clients with.
Note that this is specifically for Teamwork Projects. I've also used Teamwork Desk and cannot recommend it very highly at all. But I did really like the project management side of it.
posted by juliebug at 1:20 AM on December 16, 2016
- Top-level identifier should be client name, with tasks underneath.
You'd need to name projects as clients here, I believe.
- Ability to assign tasks to one or more people.
Yup. Any number of people can be assigned to a task. Or no one. Or everyone.
- Some form of progress tracking, either by color, percent, or "kanban" style.
I don't think it's automatic, but you can update it manually to reflect percent done.
- Reporting to give to clients directly to show work in progress, completed, and to-do, as well as the progress status mentioned above.
Not 100% sure it does this, but you can give the client access to see it (and tweak their permissions so that they can't do anything but see).
- Higher-level reporting to give the owner of the company an at-a-glance status update on employee work.
You can have the owner get the daily report mails.
- Subtasks for smaller "projects" that have multiple steps (i.e., "write procedure, get sign-off on procedure, add procedure to existing documentation, update revision history").
Subtasks work quite well in TW.
- Place to document all client contact information including head office details and specific contact names/numbers/emails, ideally not taking up space as a "task".
Yup, you can set up a "company" that people work for and store that info there. At worst, a Message can be placed in the project with that info.
- Phone app (Android for sure, iPhone also if possible).
Yup! I can't speak to the actual Android app, but I once spent more than 90m stuck at the passport office and was making great use of the iPhone app to get info to email clients with.
Note that this is specifically for Teamwork Projects. I've also used Teamwork Desk and cannot recommend it very highly at all. But I did really like the project management side of it.
posted by juliebug at 1:20 AM on December 16, 2016
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone, I'll look into your suggestions and report back!
posted by mireille at 8:28 AM on December 16, 2016
posted by mireille at 8:28 AM on December 16, 2016
Response by poster: Looks like Teamwork Projects is as close to ideal as I can get - thank you!
posted by mireille at 9:14 AM on December 23, 2016
posted by mireille at 9:14 AM on December 23, 2016
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posted by Fidel Cashflow at 1:09 PM on December 15, 2016