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Top 10 Project Management Tools for Virtual Offices
By Admin | August 26, 2008 -->1,879 views
With the concepts of remote offices, telecommuting, and working from home, a.k.a Virtual Assistants gaining momentum, it is imperative that we come up with a governance model that best suits our needs to manage projects within the team, and with the clients.
If you are a part of a large organization (lets assume its an MNC) which approves telecommuting and the remote office framework, then there is nothing to worry. The office will take care of custom management tools and will inform you about it. This post is not for you
On the otherhand, if you are an independent virtual assistant then my guess is you will be relying on your mail threads to keep track of conversations and using spreadsheets to keep track of the project status. If you are a bit smarter, you will be using labels (as in Gmail) or folders (as in Yahoo and Hotmail) to sort mail threads for easy access. Mail attachments may be stored on your desktop. Again, if you are smart, you will share the documents rather than mail them.
Being a Virtual Assistant, means all of your work will be online. You may be handling more than one project for the same client, or you have more than one client at any given point of time. Perhaps you might be interested in some of the online project management tools. Most of these are free (with limited features for a single user), and comes at a reasonable price (if you want advanced features). The list below is my top 10 recommendations for online project management systems.
Top 10 Online Project Management Systems
Do check out the site to see the difference for free users and paid users
- ProjectInsight
They have all the “required” features for a Project Management System. Try their demo. This is a little more than basic, and little less than advanced. So if you are a Virtual Assistant with average working knowledge of how a project management system works , then chances are you might get to like this. Strangely though, I could not locate the pricing page. If you can locate it, please pass me the link. - AceProject
The best project management system I have encountered so far.
They have about 22 features out of which I rate the Discussion Forum , Task dependencies , and Multiple Project and Task management to be of the greatest value. They offer web-hosted and self-hosted option if you want it in your business’s intralink. You might be overwhelmed initially, but once you get to know it, things are a breeze. I would say this is a “complete” system for single and multiusers (eg:- Virtual Staffing Agencies) alike . - CoMindWork
I would say that this is the second best project management system on the web based on the features like project-specific Wiki and project-specific blog that are being offered. They allow integration with other PMS such as Basecamp and Salesforce, and also integrate with Gmail and OpenID. So with so many “dream features”, why I rate this as second best is because free users have only one project. ( I need atleast 5). Maybe paid service will suit your business needs - MyClientSpot
The Project Management system has been designed for freelance virtual assistants who operate independently. Short , small, and sweet. It is a very intuitive interface and upto 5 user sharing enables better interaction with team or client. If you handle 2 projects at a time (20MB space ), then this is certainly for you. Otherwise, you might want to go for the paid version. - BaseCamp
A very clean dashboard that gives Project overview of things, without any frills and fireworks. The tabbed interface places Messageboard , files area , Milestones and Todo lists are just a click away. Try the free account to get the feel of things. - VirtuaAssistantManager
The demo gives a fairly good idea about what to expect when you actually signup. The list is lined up according to existing clients, giving you a picture of project status regarding a specific client. This is a paid service starting from 39$ /month for 1 Virtual Assistant. Their clients inclue Pepsi, Time Warner ,and Comcast, among others. Personally, I think they are charging a premium. Certainly not fit for freelancers, unless you are minting money. - EasyProjects
This is especially good if you have a team, and want a single command center for all the client’s projects and also for in-house projects delegated to the team. The Employee Timesheet and Hierarchical Role Based Permissions are noteworthy features. Again, this is a paid service. (sorry, no freebies here ) - Project.net
This is a complete enterprise edition of project management . system. The demo gives an overview of features from the Project Manager’s point of view. However , it remains to be seen how this can be modified to suit a single user with multiple clients. They do offer customization of tabs and formfields. But you never know until you try. - IdidWork
I will not call this a project management tool, but if you are a part of a team that requires you to submit regular work updates as long emails or shared spreadsheets, you can make use of their Twitter like interface, to communicate your work status. Moreover all accumulated “status messages” can be emailed to the manager of the team. This also allows a performance overview over a period of time. Worth a try, though individual preferences might differ. - SmartSheet
If you are extremely comfortable with using spreadsheets, then this Project Management System is definitely for you. The concept of workspace is used to aggregate sheets for the same project and the likes of it. You can collaborate with clients and upload files for discussion. It does take a bit of time to get used to the system. This is free and they have the beta version underway.
Topics: Being Organised, Outsourcing- Best Practices, Resources, Working with VA |
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August 26th, 2008 at 5:30 am
Nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Thank you for the recommendation! Many companies who rely on telecommuter or outsourcing use AceProject because it makes it easy to manage the whole team, even if it is not all in the same location.
There is a free, full-featured version of AceProject available. It is limited to 5 users, 5 projects, 50 tasks and 25MB of file storage. You can create your account there: http://www.aceproject.com/server01/CreateAccount.asp?lang=EN
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:25 am
Welcome here Sue, Thanks for the appreciation
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 am
Hi Karine,
Thanks for the info, will surely look into this as our team grows.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:00 am
You can check DeskAway too!
January 20th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
The choice of software is rather random.
AceProject is a perfect example of an enterprise-oriented software coming from an old era. And their website reflects that.
I would include new products like 5pm (http://www.5pmweb.com).
And if you want to include some bigger corporate players - Zoho.
January 20th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Hi,
did you have a look on the project manegement and collaboration tool Planzone ? http://www.planzone.com. I was used to use it when I was working as a virtual assistant…
January 21st, 2009 at 4:07 am
Another great tool to check out is Intervals. It’s web-based and is ideal for tracking time across multiple tasks and projects.
January 21st, 2009 at 5:02 am
Http://www.pelotonics.com is integrated with Evernote and Google Docs. It’s great for unifying a team of workers around your projects. Here’s some use cases of the Evernote integration: http://www.pelotonics.com/evernote_usecases.html
January 21st, 2009 at 8:26 am
Hi!
Would like to invite you to a free plan of DeskAway
http://www.deskaway.com/live/account/signup.php
DeskAway is a subscription-based web-based social collaboration service that enables small businesses & teams to organize, manage & track their work online.
….looks like somebody mentioned us earlier:)
Regards
March 25th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
We use SantexQ as our online project management tool. We chose it mostly because it’s more affordable than most and gives you unlimited users and projects. it’s a simple tool but it gets the job done and has a nice interface to go with it.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
There are currently many Basecamp clones on the market, and most of them offer Basecamp import as well. The functionality, unfortunately, is still the same (e.g. did not improve) as Basecamp.
There are also other open source PM tools as well.
Check this article on what should a great project management tool look like.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
The problem with basecamp is cost, and the last time I checked it didn’t have gantt charts for project planning. A better alternative is ManagePro, based largely on Peter Drucker’s work on Management by Objectives. I encourage you to check it out.