Cool Online Project Management Webapps VII

I have writeen some (positive) lines about Basecamp. However I found this website http://www.whybasecampsux.org/ and I think it's fare to share it with you. If you are considering Basecamp as an online project management solution for you or your company perhaps you should visit it because as any other webapp Basecamp has its own issues. You can find there a big list of alternatives to Basecamp. You can also read my posts about some of them.

Cool Online Project Management Webapps VI

TaskBin is a simple yet powerful task management webapp that can be useful for teams that rely on to do lists to get things done. I got this e-mail from Preetu Gupta from Mangospring.com about TaskBin.com:

"Hi Sergio ,I just wanted to drive your kind attention to TaskBin.com a Group Tasks Management Tool for managing team and group To Do List.Being a startup venture we are typically small teams( at times spread across locations). We work closely and have numerous tasks going back and forth often over IM or email. Complex project management tools are fine but often do not help maintain a light weight queue of day to day tasks. We came up with TaskBin trying to address some of these pain areas. We make tall claims of being different and one of our kind, allowing users to work in a group setting. In TaskBin, all your tasks are visible to others and can be shared. Other members can add new tasks or edit tasks already there. It, avoids the hassle of dates and has simple priorities like Now, Today, Tomorrow, Sometime This Week, and Sometime Soon. ".

I gave TaskBin.com a try and I found it surprisingly simple and useful. It needs some work though and I would perhaps integrate it with OpenID if I was developing it. After all one standalone app can benefit from OpenID because, as I've said before, entry costs for new users are smaller (don't need to create a new username and password for every site). I invite you to give it a try!

If you want read more about Online Project Management Webapps check out my previous posts about it.

Cool Online Project Management Webapps V

Lighthouse from Artifact Software is not just another online project management webapp. Actually Ligthhouse is a specific breed of online project management tools called Software Development Management (SDM) tools. They claim to be the first of that breed!

One can read the at Artifact Software's website that "Lighthouse is the industry's first Software Development Management (SDM) system, fusing together all of the tools used in software development projects. Lighthouse includes everything needed to manage, monitor and measure requirements, tasks, defects, costs, schedules, change requests, documents, notifications, and much more.".

Lighthouse has a big list of features such as: Notifications, Bug Tracking, Change Requests Dashboards, Document Management, IDE Integration*, Issue Tracking, Requirements Resource Management, Task Management, Test Management, Timesheets, User Roles & Security, Custom APIs*, Custom Branding, Custom Dashboards*, Custom Fields*, Custom Labels*, Custom Methodology (including Agile & RUP), Custom Reports, Integrated Project Management*. The asterisk "*" means coming soon!

Going a little deeper about the Integrated Project Management (IPM) feature I read that it will let you create project plans using either Lighthouse (Premimum) or Microsoft Project. This sounds interesting because there are a lot of Microsoft Project users out there. This IPM feature will also allow you to "Easily create tasks, dependencies, and schedules. Monitor with GANTT charts or advanced reporting, and quickly identify schedule and cost variances.". Sounds great doesn't it? I'll be waiting for all these coming features!

I found Lighthouse from Artifact Software when I was looking for more info about Lighthouse from Active Reload. These two webapps have the same name and play in the same field and I think that's a little bit odd... Don't you think? I don't know who came up with the name first but one of them or both should change! My next post will be about Ligthhouse from Active Reload!

Cool Online Project Management Webapps IV

I would like to talk about another online project management webapp: wrike! This one was suggested by a reader of this blog after my first post about this topic. After that I made two more posts. You can read them here: second post and third post or you can just check the content under the label project_management.

So what do I have to say about Wrike? It offers really nice features such as creating tasks through e-mail, useful gantt charts and reporting (mainly task related reports/lists)! For me it lacks a basic feature such as time tracking between others. They don't support OpenID. To wrap up I think Wrike is interesting if you want to manage tasks by e-mail (send an e-mail that creates a task) and so far as I know they are the only ones offering that feature. It's not enough to make me switch from Basecamp.

Cool Online Project Management Webapps III

I finally made up my mind about the online project management webapp I should use to support some of my projects. The decision wasn't easy but at the end it was not so hard at all. One of my prerequisites was the time tracking feature: GoPlan doesn't have it yet, Zoho Projects has it, online Collab doesn't have it yet (offline version has) and Basecamp is the best at it. Although Basecamp is more expensive than Zoho Projects after trying both I chose Basecamp because I'm almost sure my users will prefer the look and feel of Basecamp. If you're looking for something really cheap then you should go for Zoho Projects or Collab.

Cool Online Project Management Webapps II

Found another interesting Project Management Webapp. It's called Collab and it's the hosted version of the open source collaboration tool Active Collab. This webapp looks great, it's very simple to use and it's really really cheap ($10/month for the richest plan)! It would suit my basic needs if it had a time tracking feature. I sent them an e-mail asking if they are considering it.

They state at their website they are the cost-effective alternative do GoPlan or Basecamp:
"Collab provides a hosted version of the popular activeCollab open source collaboration tool. All you pay is a small monthly fee for hosting and we set up a fresh install of activeCollab complete with plenty of storage space, FTP access, and a customizable URL. If you've looked at other services such as GoPlan and Basecamp, Collab is a cost-effective alternative.".


Meanwhile I found this interesting post: Basecamp, activeCollab, and Goplan compared. This comparison isn't up to date because activeCollab is now also available as a hosted webapp as I mentioned above.

Cool Online Project Management Webapps

I found these cool project management webapps: Basecamp, Goplan and Zoho Projects. They aren't Microsoft Project but I think they are ok for someone doing basic project management.

Basecamp is the most popular of the three and it's probably the best choice, although not the cheapest. Goplan is a Basecamp clone and I say it because it also lookd great and I guess the features are very similar but I'm guessing because their website isn't very clear about features. Zoho projects is perhaps the most basic project management tool one can use but it's cheap and integrates with Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show.

I haven't decided which one I will use for managing my personal projects but it will be a tough call.