Best Project Scheduling Software
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PRODUCTS
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BUYER'S GUIDE
Buyer's Guide
By Pragya Singh, Technical Writer and Market Analyst at SelectHub
Juggling multiple initiatives and executing critical tasks makes hitting deadlines with accuracy a near impossible task without help. Project management paired with project scheduling software offers the tools to streamline complex workflows and simplify mammoth projects.
Project scheduling software tracks progress and identifies potential concerns around task dependencies, deadlines and responsibilities. This guide will discuss benefits, features and comparison strategies to simplify your software selection process.
Executive Summary
- Project scheduling software creates roadmaps with details like multiple tasks and tentative completion times.
- These solutions specify who’ll perform the work — employees, contractors or freelancers — and their availability.
- Project management scheduling software gives you a pulse on task progress, reducing the need for manual updates.
- Project scheduling tools consolidate all data in one collaborative workspace for easy accessibility.
What Is Project Scheduling Software?
Project scheduling software is a platform that takes control of team availability, schedules all work and assigns resources to the right tasks to keep initiatives on track.
It consolidates all relevant data in one place and prioritizes critical tasks while highlighting potential bottlenecks and dependencies. It provides project clarity and transparency, which is difficult to achieve otherwise.
Successful project management scheduling software:
- Provides an overview of task progress through multiple visualization options.
- Customizes and automates workflows.
- Tracks, controls and schedules initiatives accurately.
- Juggles multiple variables to handle concerns or issues.
- Maintains standards while completing jobs and addressing critical task dependencies.
Primary Benefits
Implementing project scheduling software can benefit your business in the following ways.
Stay on Schedule
It’s hard to juggle and track multiple jobs as projects progress. You need to organize your team according to the project schedule. Scheduling tools provide access to lists, charts and graphs to manage projects.
Employees can access project tabs to view tasks and associated goals. They also provide insights into overall project goals.
Delegate Tasks
Initiatives make up multiple tasks that need attention, and a project’s efficiency relies on a manager’s ability to delegate. Scheduling systems simplify task distribution to qualified employees.
You can register teams in the application while providing updates, answering questions and assigning tasks.
Foster Collaboration
Project scheduling tools offer avenues for unhindered team collaboration. Employees can share documents, exchange comments on posted items, complete tasks and ask questions.
You can track department-wise projects while knowing how efficiently your teams work together using collaboration modules.
Monitor Progress
Scheduling solutions simplify tracking project progress. You can do away with elaborate team update meetings while saving valuable time and resources.
Software processes customizable reports that detail current project statuses.
Improve Client Communication
Scheduling applications improve client communication by providing access to project progress and updates. Clients can ask and answer questions directly, provide edits and review project progress.
Project scheduling software boosts team communication, encourages collaboration, delegates tasks and helps teams stay on track.
Key Features & Functionality
Scheduling and Time Management | These systems manage employee work schedules while registering time spent on each task. They provide details on tasks and who has room for more. Using this information, you can allocate resources better, optimize workflows, and track goals and budgets. |
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Resource Allocation | Project scheduling software judiciously allocates resources ensuring that qualified people work on critical tasks. Resource management keeps projects on track while simplifying progress sharing with external collaborators and stakeholders. |
Documentation | The best project scheduling tools organize all crucial documentation in one place while recording requirements and specifications. They personalize views as per requirements without interfering with individual choices. |
Reporting | Sophisticated systems track projects through automated reporting modules. They monitor project status, variance and tasks. You can customize or filter reports to get the desired data while sharing them with teams or stakeholders. |
Team Management | Scheduling programs provide insights on when team members are underutilized, overburdened or ahead of schedule while delegating assignments. Teams can log progress while sharing real-time updates to keep everyone in the loop. |
Software Comparison Strategy
Selecting an application that fits your needs is a time-consuming process. Start by carefully assessing your unique requirements. Analyze each vendor to determine the best choice for your business.
It is judicious to move beyond industry-wide similarities and concentrate on addressing your individual needs.
Create a shortlist of potential vendors by researching what’s on the market, scheduling demos, utilizing free trials and reading reviews.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
Implementing project scheduling tools that automate workflows and provide value is a long-term investment. Your system of choice should fall within your budget without experiencing costly downtime.
At the same time, opting for a cheap system to save some bucks can land you in hot water. You may have to compromise heavily on customizations and additional features that your organization requires.
Most Popular Project Scheduling Software
The SelectHub analyst team regularly curates a list of popular solutions to help you filter through them.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a cloud-based work management system that offers task management, team collaboration and documentation. It handles dependencies, manages project schedules and prioritizes tasks through Gantt charts.
You can cascade urgent task views while sorting by assignees, due dates, names and priority.
ClickUp leverages automation to minimize manual workflows.
Wrike
Wrike is an easy-to-use platform that plans and schedules tasks using Kanban boards, Gantt charts and other views. It offers time tracking, task lists, subtasks, reporting tools and a calendar.
Its web-based scheduling manages projects on-the-go while providing accessibility across devices.
Wrike offers customizable workflows, an intuitive interface and user-friendly reporting modules.
Teamwork
Teamwork is a cloud-hosted system that offers time tracking, Gantt charts, milestones, workload management and a task manager. It integrates with other Teamwork modules like CRM, Chat, Spaces and Desk.
It optimizes file management through permission-based access. It displays project health through dashboards and board views.
Teamwork schedules and tracks projects while offering multiple views.
Questions To Ask
Use the following questions to prompt internal discussions about maximizing efficiency:
- What project scheduling challenges do I face currently?
- How many projects do I manage, and are they on schedule?
- What are my current and future requirements?
- How many employees will use the program?
- What is my budget?
Once you are clear about organizational requirements, you can ask vendors the questions below:
- How will the software solve my scheduling problems?
- Is it intuitive and scalable?
- Does it involve a learning curve?
- What are your pricing packages?
- What training and software support plans do you offer?
In Conclusion
Projects have to follow rigid schedules to succeed. Scheduling tools ensure that initiatives are on track.
The best way forward is to shortlist systems from the list above. After that, you can evaluate the tools and select the one that fulfills all your requirements.
Product Comparisons
Additional Resources
Products found for Project Scheduling Software
Wrike
Wrike is a cloud-based software that helps users manage distributed projects and promotes team collaboration. With this program, teams can align priorities and speed up execution to boost business results.With a strong focus on equipping teams to succeed, this vendor provides a robust suite of features that cater to marketing, creative, product development, business operations and professional services teams. It’s equipped with enterprise-level security and is designed to scale at a team and organizational level.
Asana
Asana is a cloud-based marketing solution that helps teams of all sizes manage and organize projects while increasing communication and collaboration. It helps teams stay aligned to goals, locate risks and hit project deadlines. It offers marketing, HR, engineering and design on a unified dashboard. It simplifies work, automates processes and assists with developing efficient strategies and plan of action. Other workflow interactions include Agile, Scrum, task management and more.
Jira
Jira is a development, collaboration and an issue tracking software suite that helps organizations manage their project workflows. It helps agile teams track, plan and release projects and supports kanban, scrum or hybrid workflows. Managers can plan and prioritize their team’s assignments in a visible environment that tracks performance as progress is made. It is supported by over 3,000 modules that can be customized for enhanced user experience. It can be accessed via internet-connected mobile devices and helps manage projects on-the-go. It seamlessly integrates with options like Bamboo while remaining scalable for operations of any size.
monday.com
Monday.com uses a visual, collaborative approach to help teams manage a range of marketing tasks. As a cloud-based platform, it syncs all information on a single, accessible dashboard and eliminates manual entry errors. This enables team members to make important decisions together, keep track of details and deliver projects on time.Organizations can customize it for the management of projects, tasks, people, ad campaigns, bug tracking, CRM, customer projects and more. Monitor project statuses off-site using mobile devices. It integrates with Microsoft Teams, Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud and more.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is an enterprise-level SaaS management application that helps teams collaborate, plan projects and manage tasks. It can handle complex projects, workflows and reporting needs. It also supports construction planning by bringing diverse skill sets and stakeholders together while providing complete project visibility to coordinate in real time. Seamless sharing capabilities remove team and data silos while giving stakeholders insight into project details. With a user-friendly interface, it provides an intuitive environment where managers and team members can maintain consistency while accelerating execution.
Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is an organization focused management solution that is suitable for businesses of all sizes. It organizes and monitors projects, including daily tasks and long-term goals. It provides a balance between usability and complexity with cloud-based and on-premise deployment strategies.
OpenAir
NetSuite OpenAir enables users to manage time, resources and projects. It contains graphical visualizations of metrics like profit margins, helps users develop customized analytical reports using drag-and-drop tools and manages time-off requests. Its resource allocation and management modules let users plan projects. It is available as an on-premise or on the cloud strategy.
Trello
Trello is a cloud-based visual collaboration solution that can be used by organizations of any size to plan tasks and projects. It helps users define projects, requirements and workflows to ensure they are completed in a planned and sequential manner. It organizes projects into boards and provides a peek into ongoing projects and tasks. It helps administrators delegate tasks, set deadlines and define workflows while supporting a range of project types. Specific team use cases include marketing, engineering, product management, support, design and sales. It is also useful for remote teams and startups.
Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects is a cloud-based solution that lets teams effectively plan and execute projects of any size and duration. It handles tasks, enhances collaboration, provides business intelligence for reporting and supports time tracking and issue management. Businesses can extend it using numerous integrations and customizations to align it with their requirements. It is usable by teams of smaller than five people up to teams with thousands of users. Zoho provides robust data security and is compliant with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework. It also supports 17 different languages.
Mavenlink
Mavenlink is a comprehensive, cloud-based software that enables services businesses to manage and execute projects at each stage of the lifecycle. By uniting project and resource management, team collaboration, accounting, and business intelligence, it enables organizations to streamline planning and delivery. Includes the option to purchase expert services that cater to companies in the professional services space. When choosing the primary package, businesses work with a team comprised of a manager, a business consultant, a BI consultant, a technical consultant and a training expert.
Clarizen
Clarizen is a project management and professional services software that manages projects and simple updates with up-to-the-minute status using smartphones anytime, anywhere. It automatically shares project-related information with key stakeholders and updates any changes made across teams. It includes proprietary analytics and management tools for live insights about departments, projects and businesses. It manages individual and team projects with collaborative tools for project managers, and coaching for groups.
TeamWave
TeamWave is a cloud-based integrated solution that helps its users with essential business processes like collaboration, contact management, marketing automation, sales and time tracking. Its robust functions include numerous modules for companies to effectively deliver projects, meet sales targets and support their customers. It offers businesses visibility into sales deals at different stages, sales pipelines and date filtering capabilities. Users can forecast sales with a timeline view that arranges ongoing deals alongside closed deals. Some of its other inclusions help prepare tasks, manage priorities and add comments, notes and attachments to tasks. Its time tracking module monitors time spent on projects, non-billable and billable hours. It also offers email integrations with MailChimp, Gmail and Microsoft.
Bitrix24
Bitrix24 facilitates the execution of the customer journey. It supplies organizations with tools for marketing, sales and customer service activities such as lead generation, marketing automation, campaign management and call center support.It comes with a free edition for companies with less advanced needs or a smaller budget. Deployment is available in the cloud and on-premise. It’s suitable for smaller businesses as well as enterprises with up to 50,000 employees.
SharePoint
SharePoint by Microsoft offers collaboration and content management system (CMS) capabilities like reporting and analytics, digital and document asset management, contract management and website content management. Businesses can prepare, review and manage various types of content in a central location. It lets users manage multiple files and documents throughout their publishing cycle. Organizations can leverage its scorecards and dashboards to prepare content reports to pinpoint publishing and content requirements. It provides robust capabilities to manage published and unpublished content on websites. It offers content support for internal intranet sites and external sites and can be deployed both on-premises and hosted on the cloud.
Pivotal Tracker
Pivotal Tracker is a cloud-hosted project planning solution that facilitates real-time communication and collaboration within cross-functional agile teams. Businesses can keep a tab on progress throughout a project’s lifecycle. It helps teams delegate and prioritize tasks, list actionable components and set deadlines. Project status, conversations and workflows are stored at a central location for easy accessibility and defining priorities. It computes the time required to complete a project or smaller tasks based on previous data. Managers can use this data to estimate delivery time for every project subject to workforce availability and other conditions. It offers an iteration module that helps prioritize project tasks and divide them into manageable subtasks. Project status, everyday tasks and resource availability are displayed on a shared calendar.
Basecamp
Basecamp is a cloud-based solution for team collaboration and management. It allows users to create to-dos, assign them to one or more people, add shared and searchable file attachments and more. It makes it easier to stay organized when there are multiple concurrent projects, each with its own team and needs. Streamline project communication by keeping specific teams together, with all project-related files in one location. It gives each project its own separate space, avoiding clutter and other confusion between projects.It is suitable for all sizes of teams like SMBs to groups in large companies. Subscriptions are scalable, with levels for different storage amounts and number of users. It also offers a free tier and application for iPad/iPhone and Android.
Project Insight
Project Insight is an enterprise web-based solution that serves as a centralized hub to delegate tasks, monitor productivity and collaborate at every stage of the project cycle. Users can formalize the process for internal project requests or submit project proposals to clients with customized forms.It emphasizes project prioritization, collaboration, resource allocation and management, reporting and scheduling to help managers with better decision making. It serves project-based industries like market research, networking hardware company, healthcare organization, heavy industry and more. It also provides a free edition with modules that can be added at an extra cost.
Dotloop
Dotloop is a software solution designed for real estate brokers, teams, agents and service providers. It operates on a cloud-based platform and provides a comprehensive suite of features, including transaction management, workflow tools, audit trails, digital signatures, document management and task templates.It also offers compliance, storage and form editing tools that streamline the process of creating new documents. Additionally, Dotloop provides detailed reporting capabilities, allowing users to monitor their business performance over time.
Hive
Hive is a cloud-based service that allows teams to schedule, execute, communicate, and track projects while predicting activities that may affect work. Access files, share and collaborate with team members with its thousands of external integrations. It sends out notifications in real time that alert users to team productivity. All project views reflect updates to ensure that all team members are always on the same page.It caters to teams of all sizes in industries like marketing, operations, education and more. It is available for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. It also provides a 14-day free trial without collecting credit card information, and pricing plans are measured per user, per month.
Teamwork
Teamwork is a visual solution that helps businesses plan, manage, collaborate and accomplish projects of any size. It allows teams to view the full scope of a single project or a portfolio of projects while monitoring individual project components. Capabilities range from Gantt charts and task management to team collaboration and dashboards. It is suitable for the needs of professional services, marketing, support and product teams. Data replication in real time provides continuous backups. It also comes equipped with robust security. Organizations can set complex passwords, and some plans support two-factor authentication and single sign-on (SSO).
Avaza
Avaza is a cloud-based resource management and collaboration solution that helps businesses accomplish their projects and tasks efficiently. It integrates resource and expense management, task tracking, online payments and time and expense management. Users can collaborate on projects with clients online and drag and drop files and tasks when required. Teams can initiate discussions, exchange emails and access crucial project updates and notifications from activity feeds. It monitors time and expense for every project and online payments via invoices. Detailed reports on metrics like financial transactions, status estimates, customer expenses and more provide insights to make crucial business decisions.
Daylite
Exclusively designed for Mac, iPhone and iPad, Daylite from Marketcircle is ideal for small businesses that need to track leads, projects, clients, contacts and tasks in a centralized platform. It helps nurture customer relationships with follow-up reminders and effective communication. Users can leverage it to prioritize opportunities, gain visibility into short- and long-term business goals, track potential sales and measure project progress by milestone. It integrates with Apple Mail, Contacts and Calendar.
GitLab
GitLab’s DevSecOps Platform is a collaborative software development interface and open source code repository. It provides a secure environment for companies and individuals to monitor, test and deploy their code, and develop and operate their software.
ProjectManager
ProjectManager is a cloud-based solution that combines planning, scheduling and tracking with collaboration tools for teams. Real-time updates are reflected in their dashboards, giving users a quick look at tasks, project status and more. Reports are easily generated, providing managers with insights on time, budget, and team workloads, among others. Timesheets are synchronized with tasks and workload features, allowing managers to quickly approve them.It provides free templates for IT, project planning and initiation. Available on Mac, Windows, Android and iOS, users can collaborate and see updates from anywhere. It serves industries like IT, healthcare, logistics and more. It also offers a 30-day trial and three paid plans afterward.
Airtable
Airtable is a cloud-based tool that combines a spreadsheet format and relational database structure for enhanced project control and organization. The system’s functionality extends beyond simple project management, allowing organizations to better execute a wide variety of initiatives. Its unique views can be embedded directly onto a website. Users can also create forms to insert into web pages, and responses are automatically uploaded.
Workfront
Workfront is a cloud-based online tool that helps connect teams, tasks and projects. Project managers can streamline requests, plan and prioritize projects, manage processes, digitally review assets and report work efforts. Real-time reporting is supported to optimize the working environment. Businesses get an end-to-end view of project activities to detect problems and trends. It supports methodologies like Waterfall or Agile, as well as a combination of the two. Users can assign tasks to teams with drag-and-drop features, shift assignments and organizational workflows through the visual interface.It supports teams in various industries like telecommunications, marketing agencies, real estate, corporations and more. The solution comes with three pricing levels: standard, select and premium.
WorkflowMax
WorkFlowMax is a cloud-hosted job management solution designed for small to mid-sized service-based organizations. It offers capabilities like timesheets, job costing and quote creation to handle projects. It integrates with popular third-party document management modules to execute projects faster and payroll modules to simplify payroll. Employees can work within their timesheets using the timesheet functionality. It stores all cost-related information in one place and offers a sales dashboard that displays closed, hot or cold leads.
Zoho Sprints
Zoho Sprints is a cloud-based agile management tool to help agile teams plan, track and deliver projects seamlessly. It includes a drag-and-drop center that boosts planning by prioritizing tasks and setting reminders for each sprint. It allows users to create user stories, add estimation points, use timesheets to track work hours, leverage a personalized dashboard and schedule reviews and agile meetings. Different reports can be generated to monitor progress and identify bottlenecks such as burn-up and burn-down reports and velocity charts. Users can log in using a single password for all programs. It serves businesses of all sizes in industries like startups, IT, real estate, marketing and more. It offers a free plan that supports five users, five projects and 500 MB of storage space. Its professional plan provides a 15-day free trial, and subscriptions are available by month or year. Their pricing page provides a calculator to simplify subscriptions based on the number of users. It also offers a separate hybrid methodology plan for teams with varied approaches by combining classical and agile methods to create a flexible and collaborative approach to managing complex projects.
GreenRope
GreenRope, a cloud-based CRM software, consolidates and optimizes email marketing, social media, sales, event and project management simultaneously. It bridges the gap between sales and marketing to make data and processes easily accessible and transparent. Its all-in-one operations modules simplify business processes to deliver optimized omnichannel customer experiences.
ClickUp
ClickUp is a customizable online solution that helps businesses plan, organize and collaborate on project tasks. Users can assign comments and tasks to specific team members or groups of team members. It offers reminders, docs, calendars, goals, scheduling and an inbox. An activity stream displays tasks in real time in the order of their creation and completion. Businesses can configure team-specific notifications while viewing projects on an Agile dashboard. It sends alerts to relevant employees in a discussion thread while allowing them to edit and post comments.
Lucidchart
Lucidchart is a cloud-based collaborative planning program that breaks down information and processes into flowcharts. It offers various templates such as flow charts, floor plans and Venn diagrams for customization and implementation. These charts can manage workflow and provide insights for spotting inefficiencies within procedures. It provides a space to organize team members and track the progress of workplace ideas in one hub.
Todoist
Todoist is a cloud-based task management software used in personal and professional settings. It breaks down larger projects into lists of actionable items and individual tasks. With personalized boards and delegation of tasks, it provides a space to plan and track projects for multiple team members.
Toggl
Toggl is a project management and time tracking solution. It is cloud-based, with apps on desktop, iOS and Android. It allows for time logging, project creation and activity tracking. Projects can be tracked with an estimated completion time, giving insight into operations efficiency and deadlines. Worker productivity can be monitored through its timeline, which shows all sites and programs viewed for more than 10 seconds.Custom tags can help filter data, which can be displayed on the timeline, in dashboard visualizations or reports, which are exportable in a variety of formats. Unique permissions and billing rates allow for employees at different levels and different locations to track time. It offers scaled pricing.
Aha!
Aha! is a roadmapping tool that helps users organize documents and spreadsheets while boosting team collaboration. It helps share and create visual roadmaps, drive strategy and prioritize projects. Users can showcase their vision and track dependencies. Any number of teams can leverage workspaces that include services, business, product, project, IT and marketing.It offers 30 integrations and a robust API with tools in development, communication applications and file storage. Users can customize views, terminology and workflow to synchronize with the way users’ team works.
Podio
Podio by Citrix is an online collaboration solution that offers businesses a marketplace to customize apps according to requirements. The free pre-built applications help perform several functions, including issue management, task management, customer relationship management, project portfolio management and applicant tracking. Its apps feature social collaboration tools like video chat, internal messaging and file sharing across the system. Users can build additions without any technical skills and use them to manage unique workflows and multiple business processes. It is customizable, flexible and scales as an organization grows. Businesses can manage content, conversations with customers and create customer profiles by linking a contact with its digital footprint. A dashboard provides more information on a contact when required.
Miro
Miro is a visual collaboration platform designed to enhance creativity and innovation in teams of all sizes and types. This cloud-based tool functions in remote, hybrid, and in-office settings, enabling employees to work together across different formats, channels, tools, and time zones. The software is especially useful for marketing, product management, design, and engineering departments. For companies that need more customization, Miro also provides a developer platform that makes the interface adjustable to unique business requirements.
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