PM Software with emphasis on task-tracking

June 3, 2008 9:50 AM

Suggestions on task-tracking/project management software for small teams with multiple projects? The primary requirement is that a superuser can assign tasks and receive status and percent-completed updates.

A friend of mine who owns a small business says task management is his biggest nightmare. He has employees, contractors, and vendors across the country. He has a hard time of keeping up with his team members' responsibilities and actions. With some good task-management processes he said his business will be a thousand times more efficient.

Ideally, tasks can be assigned and reassigned to people. A GANTT chart would be nice but is not essential. My friend would like a dashboard view of what people have (left) to do, and what's been done.

These people are non-techies if that matters. They build expensive widgets, each widget is its own project.

An iPhone-optimized interface would be great since the owners use them. Free is nice but he's willing to pay. I also have the option to host any software on a LAMP server.

Google yields nozbe, basecamp, zoho, etc. I'd love to hear suggestions and experiences.

sorry if this has been beaten to death on ask already but I'm more interested in the group task-management views, none of the earlier posts highlight that

posted by neilkod to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I'm a HUGE fan of AtTask.

http://www.attask.com/

And it works on iPhones.
I have 6 years of PM experience, and have managed several teams of PMs. By far AtTask has been the best PM software I've used to date. I have implemented it at two seperate companies I've worked at.

Here's a direct link to the overview/demo. Check it out - it's about 5 minutes long.

I am in no way affiliated with them, just a huge fan. It does EVERYTHING you are asking for.
posted by xotis at 10:21 AM on June 3

I'm a big fan of Basecamp. it's easy to use, will give you those dashboard reports by project, lets you collaborate on documents online, everything's web based so it's v convenient if your team's not all in the same physical location. Also you can assign people to specific projects and not others so they'll only be able to access what they're involved with, if that matters to you. there's also Highrise from the same 37 signals company but I haven't used that as much. Still, Basecamp - pretty great IMHO.

I can't speak to how it works on an iPhone, however, but assuming web browsing is similar it ought to be OK..?
posted by citron at 10:27 AM on June 3

Keep in mind that "percent-completed updates" will require the workers to update the task manager at the desired frequency. This may be a management problem orthogonal to any software choice.
posted by rhizome at 10:30 AM on June 3

I should have elaborated a bit more. I've also used Basecamp, dotProject, MS Project Server, a home-brewed solution at one job, and a simple customized shared excel spreadsheet.

The problems I had with them all is that they were either waaay too basic for what I needed, or way too complex.

Basecamp is AWESOME for what it is, a simple task tracking tool for various projects. The problems I had with it were that you couldn't track percentage complete, set priority, do reporting, associate tasks to a GANTT chart, or anything cool like that. However, as a basic task/PM tool, Basecamp can not be beat for it's ease of use and simplicity. I'm definately pro-Basecamp, when the situation calls for it. From what you've described, I think it wont be robust enough for you. The good news is, it's free to try out (if I recall correctly).

MS Project Server is the exact opposite. It's extremely feature rich, but it's also way too advanced and cumbersome for many people. I've never had any success in getting people to regularly update it. I'm a big fan of using it to create my own personal project plans, and GANTT charts, but that's about it. (One of the cool things about AtTask is that I can import an MS Project plan into it.)

So for what you've described above, AtTask is the perfect middle ground. I know I sound like the biggest fanboy ever of it... I am just a biiig PM nerd, that's all. :)

(again, I am not affiliated with them in any way. I actually work for a major retailer that has a big red circular logo.)
posted by xotis at 1:17 PM on June 3

Your advice sounds on target...
posted by bz at 2:40 PM on June 4

Check out Intervals, which meets all of your requirements above. Intervals was built around time tracking and task management practices for a web development firm. Check it out.
posted by johnjreeve at 2:21 PM on June 9