Project Management Software (how to choose the best one)

Project Management Software

If you’re considering an investment in project management software, you’ll need to find the best fit for your team and the software you already have. On this page I’ll share some of my favorite tools, and explain important considerations you need to make before investing.

Choosing the Best Project Management Software for You

If you’ve been browsing online and reading reviews, then you likely keep hearing about some of the most popular project management software options, and I may share some that you’ve already heard about on this page.

But what’s most important is to understand the features that can actually drive improved collaboration, productivity, and push your projects across the finish line more effectively than others.

On this page I’ll share my picks for the best project management software options, I’ll discuss my experience using some of the most popular products on the market, and help you to come up with selection criteria which will guide you to the best choice for you, your company, and the team who will be utilizing the software you invest in.

Clarity of purpose, ease of use, and quick adoption are (in my experience) some of the most important factors to consider when choosing a software solution for project management. But security, how well your project management app integrates with other software you have and like using, and the track-record of the company all matter as well.

If you’re having trouble deciding which product or license is right for you, I hope that the comparisons offered on this page (and in all of the in-depth articles I share on this page) will help guide you to the best choice.

I typically encourage readers to start by listing the essential software apps and digital tools that you’re already using (and want to keep using), including how much you pay for them. This will help you to rule-out options that don’t integrate well with your preferred apps and tools.

Next, determine your budget before you get started. While most project management software licenses pay for themselves quickly, it’s good to be able to rule out products and services that are beyond your reach, narrowing the list to those that you can afford.

Finally, don’t be afraid to take advantage of the terrific free trials offered by many of the companies that sell project management software licenses. I advise you to put together a team of trusted team members, and get them to demo each software option you’re considering for the duration of a free trial. This will allow you to get feedback from valued team members and ensure you invest in something they like and will actually use. It also will help create a small unit of product ambassadors that will help drive adoption of the option they choose across your broader team.

Short on time? I recommend either Monday.com or a ClickUp for most companies looking for the best project management software. I’ve used both products myself to manage projects across my distributed team located around the world, and can vouch for their effectiveness and power to help great teams communicate better and get tasks across the finish line more efficiently.

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My Favorite Project Management Software Solutions

I’ll get into detail on the features and selling points of each of these options (and many others you may not have heard of) below. But if you’re just looking for a simple recommendation of a few of the project management apps I’ve used in my professional experience both as a marketing manager and as an entrepreneur managing a distributed global team, then these are the three products I recommend first:

What I Use

I currently manage a team of more than 15 talented people distributed across the globe. I have freelancers on my team working in Canada, Australia, Kenya, Australia, the USA, the Philippines, and the UK. ClickUp keeps projects on-track and provides me an easy top-level view of progress on all initiatives.

Best Overall

My favorite project management software, Monday.com is perfect for large or rapidly growing businesses who want an enterprise-quality solution for their team. With options that will work for almost any business, Monday is a great choice as long as it’s within your budget.

Best Price

When I worked as a manager in the marketing department of an international travel company, we used the free version of Trello to manage our team’s project workflow on a virtual Kanban Board. I found it to be an excellent free solution that improved our team’s output, and if you are looking for a place to start, Trello could be a good option.

Project Management Tools I Recommend

Here’s a more complete list of my favorite project management software tools (what I’m recommending right now):

BEST OVERALL – Monday.com
WHAT I USE – ClickUP
BEST PRICE – Trello
HIGHEST RATED – Asana
BEST USER EXPERIENCE – AirTable
BEST FOR ENTERPRISE – Wrike
BEST FOR LARGE TEAMS – Basecamp
BEST FOR MICROSOFT SUITE USERS – Microsoft Planner
BEST FOR STARTUPS – SmartSuite

To read more detailed thoughts about the features, pricing, and functionality of each of these project management apps, keep scrolling.

Monday.com

Monday.com is a web-based project management and team collaboration tool. It enables users to manage their projects and tasks online, in one place. Monday.com offers a variety of features, including task lists, file sharing, messaging, and reporting tools.

The software is designed for businesses of all sizes and can be used by teams of all sizes. It is easy to use and has a simple interface that allows users to quickly get up and running.

Monday.com offers additional features such as project templates, custom fields, automation tools, and integrations with over 100 other apps and services.

BEST OVERALL

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

The most popular pricing option from Monday.com is their standard plan, which costs $10 per seat each month. With access to 250 automation and integrations a month, this plan is one of the most practical choices for businesses looking for a project management software / workflow tool.

Apart from the standard plan, you have a few other options:

Individual: Free forever and allows you to experience the basic features of Monday.
Basic: $8 per seat per month allows access to priority support and unlimited items.
Pro: $16 per seat per month and upgrades your automation and integration capacity to 25,000 actions monthly.
Enterprise: Advanced pricing options are available on inquiry. This plan unlocks many enterprise-level features, such as analytics and premium automation.

Features You'll Love

What sets Monday apart from its competitors is that it seamlessly fits project management and CRM capabilities. With the ability to manage deadlines and customer relationships, Monday.com can help you improve your organization.

Monday focuses on processes rather than tasks, which allows a larger clarity over the whole workflow. This platform allows you to easily adjust processes and tasks to quickly and efficiently accommodate changing needs.

Who I Recommend Monday.com For

Monday would be a fantastic option for teams who need a simplified project management tool. It is easy to use, allows users to manage processes and tasks in one place, and has features that make collaboration between team members easier.

Any user who would benefit from a CRM tool may find that this is the best project management solution as it allows users to manage tasks and customer relationships simultaneously.

What integrations are available with Monday.com?

Thanks to Monday.com’s integration capabilities, users can connect it with various popular apps and services, including Slack, Google Suite, Salesforce, Mailchimp, Zoom, Excel, Microsoft Teams, and many more.

What information security does Monday.com offer?

With secure data storage and the potential to upgrade to full HIPAA and GDPR compliance on the enterprise plan, Monday.com ensures that customers’ data is safe and secure. Furthermore, they provide two-factor authentication to protect users’ accounts, encrypt all stored data on their servers, and perform regular testing to detect potential vulnerabilities.

What templates are available to help me get started?

Create your templates using boards, or choose from the dozens of pre-built templates available on Monday.com. These range from product development, customer support, software development, marketing and sales plans, agile project management, and more – so whatever you need, there’s a template!

Why doesn't Monday.com offer Gantt charts?

As an alternative to Gantt charts, Monday.com offers a timeline view, which gives a graphical representation of tasks, projects, and resources. Using different layouts can help you keep track of varying types of workflow and project progress at a glance.

ClickUp

ClickUp is a web-based project management and team collaboration tool that enables users to manage their projects and tasks online in one place. It offers a variety of features, including task lists, file sharing, Gantt charts, and more.

The platform aims to help teams and individuals stay organized and on track with their projects. The platform also offers integrations with popular tools like Slack, Google Calendar, Dropbox, Asana, Trello, Wunderlist, Zapier, Jira, and more.

I find it easy to use, with features that help me manage projects efficiently.

WHAT I’M USING

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

The best deal out of Clickups pricing plans is the Business plan. As the third pricing option, you get all of the benefits of the unlimited plan, with extra features that can help your business.

Each member’s business plan costs $19 each month and unlocks advanced automation, single sign-on, advanced time tracking, and workload management. This plan provides great value, but if you don’t know if it’s the right fit, you have the following alternatives to choose from:

Free Forever: With 100MB of storage, unlimited tasks, and a bunch of other great features, the free forever plan is a great way to try out what Clickup has on offer without committing financially.
Unlimited: For $9 a month for each user and including unlimited storage and tasks, you get the best opportunity to branch out where you apply Clickup in your business.
Business Plus: One step up from the business plan, you get access to custom role creation and a huge upgrade to your team’s sharing ability. All these features cost $19 a month for each user.
Enterprise: At the top of the pricing tiers, you have the option to upgrade to advanced permissions, enterprise API, advanced compliance, and managed services. Pricing requires contacting the Clickup sales team to provide a custom deal.

Features You'll Love

Standing out against competitors is very important for project management software, and Clickup has features that make it a great choice. Clickup is unique because it offers complete flexibility to match any size or type of task.

Businesses of any size have the potential to benefit from Clickup, as the platform aims to scale with the needs of growing teams. It offers a variety of features that make managing projects easier and more efficient.

With a focus on ease of use and scalability, Clickup offers features such as task creation and tracking, Gantt charts for visualizing progress and dependencies, team collaboration, custom dashboards for monitoring performance, and more.

Who I Recommend ClickUp For (and why I use it)

Clickup is an excellent choice for teams of any size, from small businesses to large enterprises. I use it because it allows me to assign tasks and track project progress quickly. It is easy to use and has various features that make managing projects more efficient.

I recommend Clickup for teams that need a powerful yet intuitive project management tool. It’s great for managing projects of any size and complexity and is easy to use. The features make it easy to collaborate and monitor progress while being very reasonably priced.

If you’re looking for a powerful yet intuitive project management tool, I highly recommend Clickup as an excellent choice. It provides features for any size team and is easy to use unless you need to undertake more complex tasks.

Can Clickup be used for team meetings?

While hosting the team meeting can’t be done in Clickup, you can easily integrate your calendar with the program to manage the meeting. You will have the option to create a team space to assign tasks before and after the meeting.

How to search for items within your Clickup workspace?

All users in a workspace can search for items, but only those with permissions can access what they find. You can use keyboard shortcuts or access the command center to enter the keyword you want and search your workspace.

How to change your layout in Clickup?

If you aren’t a fan of the layout in your Clickup workspace, changing it is very simple and only affects you. You can do this by clicking the settings cog and then clicking on layout size & style. Select whichever layout you prefer and then click done.

How to filter the emails you receive from Clickup?

Once you have a Clickup account, it may not be clear how to unsubscribe from their marketing emails. However, all you need to do is visit the communication preferences page, deselect the email categories you don’t want to receive then click ‘update preferences.

Trello

Trello is a project management tool that helps you organize your projects into boards, lists, and cards. It’s simple to use and makes collaboration easy.

You can create boards for work, home, or any other project you’re working on. Each board has lists, which are customizable and can be customized to fit any project. You can also create cards within these lists to represent tasks yet to be submitted.

Trello allows you to assign tasks to team members and track their progress. You can also comment on cards, leave notes, upload attachments, and more.

BEST PRICE

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

Trello has a pricing structure that allows for huge growth potential. There are four main pricing tiers, with the enterprise tier’s pricing decreasing in cost as more users join your team.

The premium plan is the most popular choice, with a monthly price tag of $12.50 per user if billed monthly. Premium is the most popular choice, as you can access unlimited workspace commands, different project views, and priority support.

If the premium plan doesn’t sound like a good fit, you can choose between the following:

Free: With 10 boards per workspace, unlimited cards, 10 MB/file of storage, and access from both the web and app versions, this plan gives you a great way to test what Trello can offer.
Standard: At $6 per user each month, this plan becomes the first paid option but allows unlimited boards, an advanced checklist, and file storage.
Enterprise: The enterprise plan will cost $21 per user monthly for projects requiring much more hands-on management. Your business can cut costs with more users added to the plan, with a maximum number of 5000 users.

Features You'll Love

What makes Trello a great project management software option for all businesses is the affordability of the program despite the huge variety of features. From priority support to custom automation and unlimited workspace commands, Trello offers a lot for small businesses on all plans.

Trello also allows users to break down their projects into more manageable tasks with the integration of checklists, labels, and due dates. Trello makes it easier to keep track of progress and measure your goals.

Who I Recommend Trello For

Whilst it’s possible to be used for larger projects, Trello is more suited as a tool for smaller businesses or any project involving a concentrated number of teams. Things can get a bit complicated as projects grow larger, and those with bigger projects will benefit more from the advanced features of the premium plan, or may be better served by choosing a different project management software platform altogether.

Department heads who need to switch between multiple boards to check the project status across multiple teams quickly should take advantage of Trello’s “board switcher” feature, which allows you to switch between boards in one click.

My best recommendation is to use the free version of Trello for small teams within larger departments to make those teams collaborate and communicate more efficiently while staying on task. It’s how I used Trello within the marketing department of a large international travel company. Our SEO and content team used Trello boards to assign, manage, and track projects to get more done. It worked great.

How to add team members to a board?

Even if you add a board within a team, all members will not automatically be included on the board, which means you will need to add them manually. Team pages make it easy for all members to see what boards are being used and what they need to catch up on. You can also change settings to allow members to add themselves to the board of their choice.

How can you communicate with a Trello board?

While you can comment directly, you can also send an email to a unique address associated with the board of your choice. This will forward any email to all members of the board, which makes for a very handy and direct line of communication. Understanding how to comment on a card can allow you to communicate easily with your team. All comments are visible to everyone and can be easily searched for, thanks to Trello’s search functionality.

What are the best ways to get started?

Consulting the helpful guide on Trello’s website that develops best practices can help you get started with the platform. They discuss setting up boards, understanding the workflow, and using labels, checklists, and other features that make Trello a great project management tool. Getting familiar with the various functions of Trello and how they work together will help you get the most out of it. There are also plenty of tutorials available online that can help you learn more about the platform quickly.

Can Trello be used for individuals?

Thanks to the incredible flexibility of Trello, a wide variety of businesses benefit from the plans. Having the business plan as your go-to pricing option still allows you to take advantage of the unlimited boards and advanced functions, even if it’s only you on the team. It’s also a great option for keeping track of personal goals, tasks, or progress toward a task, as it allows you to customize your board with labels, checklists, and due dates. This makes it much easier to keep on top of your projects while having easy access to everything you need.

Asana

Asana is one of the most reputable tools for project management and collaboration. It helps teams track their progress, keep conversations in one place, and ensure that tasks get completed on time.

The platform offers drag-and-drop features to build project timelines, assign tasks to team members, set due dates and deadlines, add comments or attachments, and much more. It also allows users to create customized boards, lists, and calendar views for better visibility and organization. Additionally, it includes features like file sharing, time tracking, templates, task automation, project-level reporting, and analytics to make managing projects more efficient.

HIGHEST RATED

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

Asana is very concise with its plans and has three primary options you can choose from. The most popular option is the premium plan, which costs $13.49 a month for each user and allows you to use timelines, the new workflow builder, and also access private projects.

Here are the other two pricing options you can choose from:

Basic: As an entirely free plan, there are no monthly costs to use Asana, but you are limited to 15 team members in a project and 100MB of storage per file. Apart from storage and team size constraints, the basic plan unlocks plenty of handy tools for your business.
Business: On the advanced plan, you will be spending $30.49 a month per user, with the ability to access advanced integrations and portfolios for your projects. This is a fantastic option if you want additional customization options or goals.

Features You'll Love

What makes Asana unique as a platform is its ability to equally focus on managing projects whilst also managing teams with the same detail. Advanced customization options allow clear visibility over tasks and also offer accountability for everyone on the team.

In addition, Asana offers a range of great features, including project-level reporting, custom project templates, timeline builder, and task automation. All of these help teams better collaborate on their projects and get the job done faster.

Who I Recommend Asana For

Asana is definitely suited to medium-large-sized businesses with various tasks at once – it’s especially great for companies with multiple teams and projects that need to be monitored.

It can also be suited for smaller businesses, depending on the number of people working within the team ithand what kind of project needs to be managed.

Does Asana offer bookmarks for projects?

Asana gives you full control to add projects to favorites, people, and tags. This can be helpful if you want to stay organized and find specific projects quickly. The left panel in your Asana dashboard neatly displays all favorites for easy access. You can reorder your favorites and add/remove items as needed.

What type of permissions do other users have?

Depending on which of the two main types of profiles the other users are, the admin can allocate certain permissions to help keep things secure. There are limited access members and workspace members. Workspace members have full access and permission to view and edit tasks, projects, and conversations. Limited access members have access to fewer features and are limited to access that is set to them by the admin of the Asana workspace.

Can projects be set in advance?

With Asana’s handy scheduling tool, you can easily create a project the same as you would normally and then set it to be launched at a later date. Having everything ready is a great way to stay organized and ensure that your project is launched on time. Once you have set the launch date, Asana generates a timeline for the project so you can track its progress until it is ready to go live. You can also assign tasks to team members in advance and generate notifications when they need to be completed.

How to set up a private task and verify the privacy?

Above the banner for the project, you will be able to clearly see the current privacy settings for your project. If you have set it as private, the icon will state that only you or any other team members that are enabled can see the task. If the task hasn’t been added to a project, you can easily do so below in the task details. If your task is not private yet, you can easily set this in the top right-hand corner of the task details page by clicking ‘make private.

Airtable

Project management software, AirTable, is an excellent way to organize and manage projects. It allows users to create relationships between tables and track all data in one place.

With an intuitive interface and powerful search functions, managing large-scale projects has never been easier. AirTable also comes with various pre-built templates that make setting up your project a breeze. With AirTable, users can easily create tasks with deadlines, assign roles to team members, and track progress quickly and efficiently. The software also includes task delegation features to ensure everyone is on the same page.

BEST USER EXPERIENCE

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

Included in AirTable’s pricing plans are four different options that can help you find the best match for your needs. The most popular option is the pro plan, which costs $24 a month per user and 20GB of attachments, and 50,000 records per base.

This is a very popular choice for most businesses as you gain access to different views and also a 1-year revision that you can use to improve your operations over time.

Alternatively, AirTable also offers the following plans:

Free: With the free plan, you get unlimited bases, and up to 5 editors or creators can join your team. You also get 1200 records per base and 2GB of attachments for each. This plan provides you with a lot of great features for your team at no charge.
Plus: With the ability to use 3 extensions on your plan, the plus tier costs $12 a month for each user and upgrades your total bases to 5000. This plan also allows automatic table syncing and custom-branded forms, which make it a professional upgrade from the free tier.
Enterprise: On top of the pro plan is the enterprise tier which requires a quote for pricing depending on your operations and team size. With direct integration with salesforce and Jira, your business will have the best chance of succeeding on the enterprise plan.

Features You'll Love

AirTable’s project management software has a focus on seamlessly integrating your data and workflows, making it an incredibly attractive choice for many businesses. With data being at the core of AirTable, its features are designed to make the most of it.

One of these features is collapsible columns – which helps you avoid cluttering up your view with unnecessary fields and data. Another great feature is custom forms that help you collect information from customers or team members without requiring them to use AirTable.

Who I Recommend Airtable For

AirTable is the perfect project management choice for any business that wants to create its own custom, powerful workflows. Using the tools and features of AirTable, users can create custom fields, automate tasks and even build their own apps.

Full control makes this tool best suited for businesses that know what they want in their project management system. Whether you’re managing a small team or running a large business, AirTable can help you stay organized and productive with personalized tools.

What customization features are available?

Although the current version is in beta, AirTable allows you to create custom interfaces that give you full control over how your team views information. AirTable also offers extensions and AirTable API, which gives you access to a wide range of customization options.

What offline support does Airtable offer?

Unfortunately, there is no way to access Airtable while offline. Instead, Airtable gives you a few other options to get what you need. Exporting data is possible as a CSV file which can then be accessed offline. Alternatively, users can also manage an API integration that regularly fetches and backs up their data for offline access.

What does Airtable offer to manage large groups of teams?

Airtable has a great system called ‘user groups, which allows you to manage who gets to view the workspaces and bases you create. This gives a lot more flexibility to add teams and cuts time when creating custom workflows.

How does deactivating a user affect workspaces if they are the owner?

If there are other collaborators in a project, the owner of the workspace can’t be deactivated. This prevents data from being lost when someone is forced to leave or if they just leave without warning. In the case that no other collaborators were present, the workspace will no longer be accessible.

Wrike

In today’s fast-paced, constantly-connected world, it can be hard to find time for everything. Wrike is a time management and project management software that helps you get organized and stay on top of your work.

It allows you to manage tasks, projects, and deadlines from one central location, making it easier to keep track of what needs to be done and when. You can collaborate with other team members on projects, share files and documents, and communicate through the app’s built-in messaging system. Wrike is available as a web or mobile app, so you can access it wherever you are.

BEST FOR ENTERPRISE

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

Wrike offers four main pricing options that give you access to different levels of features. The most popular plan from Wrike is the business plan. This option unlocks the full range of customization options, including full integrations and a variety of resource management tools.

The business plan costs each user $24.80 a month and provides fantastic value for the price. The alternative options may be a better fit, making Wrike an incredibly flexible software.

Free: The free version of Wrike still gives users a great range of tools, but the limitations come in regard to how many active tasks you have available.
Team: With unlimited tasks, projects, and sub-tasks, the team plan costs each user $9.80 a month. The automation, analytics, and custom workflows that are unlocked with this plan make it a great choice for teams that don’t need the extra features of the business plan.
Enterprise: If the business plan doesn’t fit your needs, the enterprise-level plan gives you secure sign-on, increased security, and also advanced admin permissions to help keep your business’s information secure. This plan requires you to contact sales for a price.

Features You'll Love

The best features of Wrike come from the fact that it doesn’t limit its features to project management and also includes a wide variety of tools to help your business.

From marketing to creative development, the tools that Wrike gives you allow you to combine all your projects into one platform.

Who I Recommend Wrike For

With full control to manage marketing, collaboration, and task tracking, Wrike is an amazing choice for any business that needs to manage tasks between different teams.

The flexible pricing options make it perfect for small business owners and startups who don’t have the budget for more expensive tools. It allows users to grow their projects as they need it, with the assurance that there is always a plan to fit.

In any industry that manages information and wants clear overviews of collaboration projects, Wrike becomes a very important tool. The ability to quickly provide updates to everyone in the project helps keep everyone on task and stops potential problems from arising later on.

What are reporting features available from Wrike?

Wrike gives its users a comprehensive guide to developing a report for any project. The report feature gives you insights into who is working on what, when tasks are due, and even the progress that has been made on a task.

What support does Wrike offer for remote collaboration?

The tools that are available at Wrike allow for easy collaboration between team members. The built-in messaging system, file-sharing capabilities, and project management tools all help to keep everyone on the same page.

How can Wrike's project management framework help?

Wrike offers a few different project management frameworks that make it easy to organize tasks and keep track of progress. Each framework can be adjusted and customized to fit your project’s needs, allowing you to quickly set up and manage projects.

How does Wrike take advantage of agile project management?

Sprints, which are short development cycles. Each sprint is given a set of tasks and goals that are to be achieved during the cycle. This process allows for quick updates, feedback, and iterations, making for agile project management. By using sprints, teams can stay agile and ensure that each project runs smoothly and efficiently.

Basecamp

In order to be truly creative, you need to let go of your judgments and preconceptions and simply allow yourself to explore all the possibilities. This can be difficult for some people, who are used to analyzing and judging everything they do. But if you can learn to separate creation from evaluation, you’ll be able to come up with more ideas and judge them later.

This is the underlying philosophy behind Basecamp, a project management tool that helps you plan and organize projects without getting bogged down in complexity. Basecamp keeps things simple by breaking projects down into basic tasks that can be easily tracked and managed. This makes it easier to focus on what’s important: completing your goals.

BEST FOR LARGE TEAMS

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

Basecamp’s pricing is very simple and only includes one price of $11 per user each month. This is a fantastic platform, as you don’t have to worry about selecting the right plan for your team.

Within the paid plan, you get full access to all of Basecamp’s features, and you can also get started with a free trial.

Features You'll Love

Basecamp is well-known for the simple-to-use design that makes it an easy program for any sized business to start using.

You don’t have to worry about creating complicated Gantt charts or managing multiple calendars. Its project management tools are easy to use and manage, so you can focus on important things like completing projects and growing your business.

Who I Recommend Basecamp For

Basecamp is the perfect choice for smaller businesses that want a nice and easy way to organize their data and projects. The pricing is reasonable and simple in structure, so you won’t have to worry about figuring out which plan fits your budget the best.

Overall, Basecamp is an excellent tool for teams of any small to medium-sized businesses who want a straightforward project management system with plenty of features that are easy to use.

What permissions can you set in Basecamp?

Basecamp allows you to securely control your projects and what people are allowed to do. You can assign permissions, such as who is able to create tasks, comment on tasks, or upload files. Setting a team member as an admin is the easiest to allow creative control.

What is a unique communication feature of Basecamp?

Users can easily set announcements that appear at the top of the page for all team members in your project. This allows users to quickly share important news, updates, or tasks that need attention. It is an excellent way to keep everyone up to date without sending out individual messages.

What project tracking does Basecamp offer?

Basecamp has a handy tool that allows you to set a time for a project. Adding time can be done in the to-do section of the time tab within your project. Having a clear timeline makes it easier to keep everyone on the same page and gives an accurate measure of progress.

How does Basecamp's milestone system work?

Milestones become the basis of a lot of task structuring in Basecamp. Milestones are essentially checkpoints that you use to measure progress and keep everything in order. When setting up a milestone, it can have specific tasks assigned to it, which will become visible when the milestone is marked as complete. This system helps make sure that nothing falls through the cracks and makes planning much easier.

Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is a cloud-based task management tool that helps teams collaborate and get things done. It offers a visual way to organize tasks and projects, share files, chat with team members, and track progress.

Teams of all sizes can benefit from its features, which include Gantt charts and timelines to visualize tasks, color-coded labels for easy identification, task lists and board views to keep track of progress, and powerful search tools to quickly find information. Planner can be used across projects or teams. Create a plan with multiple buckets that are linked by dependencies or due dates so that everyone knows what needs to be done in what order.

BEST FOR MS 365 USERS

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

Planner is a product that is included in the Microsoft 365 suite. The pricing allows you to access all of Microsoft’s premium applications and increases your integrations and security as you upgrade the plan you use.

The most popular plan is the Microsoft 365 Business Standard plan, which costs $12.50 a month for each user and is billed annually. This plan gives you access to desktop versions of the program, which makes it a very practical choice for businesses who want offline access to planners.

The alternative pricing plans are as follows:

Microsoft 365 Apps for Business: As the cheapest pricing tier that still allows you to access Microsoft Planner, the apps for business plan costs each user $8.25 a month, billed annually.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium: As a big upgrade from the standard business plan, the premium tier costs $22 a month and ensures maximum security for remote work and device management.

Features You'll Love

The most significant factor that makes Microsoft planner a great choice for your business is the direct integration with all the other apps included in your pricing plan. Connecting Planner to Outlook, for example, will allow you to see your task list directly inside the calendar.

Planner also has a great search function, which means you can quickly find any information related to a particular project or task. Businesses familiar with Microsoft products will find that this program is very easy to use and great for team collaboration.

Who I Recommend Microsoft Planner For

Businesses that find the rest of the Microsoft 365 suite appealing will be able to make the most out of Microsoft Planner. It is ideal for teams with many tasks requiring an efficient way to track progress and organize projects.

Microsoft Planner is perfect for companies in competitive industries or those with tight deadlines. The Office 365 suite also offers additional benefits beyond task management, so this could be a great option if you are looking for a suite to manage your business.

How to use Planner in Microsoft Teams?

Directly integrating Planner with Microsoft Teams means that you can easily access the planner details directly inside Teams. You can do this by adding a task from Planner to your team channel, which then allows you to receive task updates and notifications through Teams.

What flexibility does Microsoft Planner offer In terms of admin controls and security?

Inside Planner, you gain full control over who can access tasks and who can edit them. This is especially important for businesses that have confidential information or projects. Allocating admin rights will allow you to make sure that any sensitive information is kept safe and secure.

Can you add planner tasks to your Outlook calendar?

Direct integration with Outlook’s calendar tool makes keeping track of deadlines and tasks very simple. You can add planner tasks directly to your outlook calendar, allowing you to plan your day by seeing all of your tasks in one place.

How can Planner be accessed when you are offline?

Although Planner is a web-based application, it can still be accessed when you are offline. Updates won’t be synced across all devices, but it’s still possible to easily create tasks and access saved information.

SmartSuite

In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing world, having a reliable resource to help you manage your time and tasks is more important than ever. That’s where SmartSuite comes in. With its wide range of tools and features, SmartSuite can help you get more done in less time, with fewer distractions.

Whether you need to track your schedule and appointments, create to-do lists, or take notes and brainstorm ideas, SmartSuite has the right tool for the job. Because SmartSuite runs on your desktop or laptop computer, you always have access to your personal productivity assistant – even if you don’t have access to the internet.

BEST FOR STARTUPS

Pros

Cons

Pricing Info You'll Care About

SmartSuite’s professional plan is the most popular out of the four options and costs users $28 a month for each user. This plan is so popular because you get 10 times the amount of records as the previous plan whilst also doubling your storage.

Alternatively, you can choose from any of the following plans to suit your needs:

Free: SmartSuite’s free plan allows up to 3 users to access up to 1200 records per solution (5 solutions in the plan), with 100MB of storage included. This may be a good option for really small projects or if you are testing out the software and intend to increase your pricing tier down the track.
Team: The team plan costs $12 each month for each user and gives you access to up to 5000 records per solution. You also gain unlimited users and solutions in this plan, so you can share data with more people at a lower cost.
Enterprise: SmartSuite’s top-tier pricing will cost $41 for each user each month but allows for an incredible 200,000 records per solution and 500GB of storage. This plan keeps the door open if you intend to scale your business down the track.

Features You'll Love

SmartSuite links solutions without any need to sync tables or employ even more confusing methods to achieve a link. Having a solid link between databases in your workspace allows you to create powerful connections that help you get more done in a fraction of the time.

Who I Recommend SmartSuite For

SmartSuite is a great tool for small to large businesses, giving you a very organized and simple user interface. Any team that wants to minimize complexities around project management and task tracking will benefit from SmartSuite as it makes all these activities very easy. But in my view, I recommend SmartSuite to lean startups with smaller teams and tight budgets. I think that is who will benefit most from this project management software solution.

Is it easy to migrate to SmartSuite?

There are quite a few import tools available within SmartSuite and a helpful guide about what data is most important to be included during migration. This can help get your business up and running with SmartSuite in a short period of time and import any existing data.

How easy is it to organize information in SmartSuite?

Organizing your information is a very important factor in ensuring the success of your tasks and projects. SmartSuite makes it easy to organize information by allowing you to create custom tags, folders, searchable labels, and other methods of quickly finding information within the workspace.

Is SmartSuite secure?

SmartSuite is a completely secure platform for storing information, and they even have a recycle bin feature which allows you to access files you have deleted within the last 60 days. Any private information that is accidentally lost can be recovered easily without compromising security.

How easy is it to collaborate within SmartSuite?

As a main focus of the platform, the collaboration of SmartSuite has developed over time to become a very streamlined part of the program. Users can collaborate in real-time without any delay being caused to operations. This is a fantastic point to consider for businesses with remote workers.