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The 2013 task management tools market

stoweboyd — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:36:34 +0000

The task-management market is growing, in part because users need to coordinate with teams via mobile. In this case, heavier-weight solutions like Yammer, IBM Connections, Podio, and other work media collaboration platforms don’t always suffice. But the demand for digital to-do lists that can be shared across project teams is increasing, and there are a range of products to fill the void. For example, team-task-management tools like Do, Trello, and Asana are taking the lead. There are also a host of immature products such as those from Producteev and Astrid that could grow into something substantial. In 2013, expect to see more innovation and new entrants into this crowded and hot marketplace.

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Social project firm Wrike makes fresh push into Europe, Russia and Brazil

David Meyer — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:00:20 +0000

The cloud-based project management service Wrike is now available in five new languages, namely Italian, German, French, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese.

It’s a useful move for what is essentially an enterprise collaboration suite, particularly for one that boasts multinationals such as Adobe and Deloitte among its customers. In fact, it’s quite surprising that the firm got this far without branching out linguistically.

“We’re an international company with customers in 55 countries, CEO Andrew Filev told me. “The customer base has always been pretty diverse, but customers have been forcing themselves to use the English version.”

“Users can contribute translations, so there are definitely more languages coming – we have a Ukrainian translation too.”

Wrike has actually been undergoing some useful development recently. This year it introduced Google Docs-style collaborative editing, revamped its mobile apps from scratch (hello, push notifications) and, as of a few weeks ago, brought in Dropbox integration.

Despite the existence of more general enterprise collaboration toolsets such as Yammer, and despite more direct rivals such as Asana gaining traction, Filev says Wrike’s growth remains in the triple digits each year. He wouldn’t go into details about the firm’s total customer numbers, but he did say that almost 3,000 organizations are now paying for the service.

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Workers to pollsters: Widespread remote work is imminent

Jessica Stillman — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:03:19 +0000

Surveys repeatedly show that workers are keen on telecommuting, so much so that they’d be willing to take a pay cut for the right to work remotely. Unsurprisingly, a new one from project management solution Wrike confirms this. The poll of more than 1,000 employees found nearly 80 percent would sacrifice employer-provided free meals to telecommute, 54 percent would give up their employer-paid cell phone plans and 31 percent would trade paid vacation for the ability to work remotely.

All of which, you could say, is yet another firm kick landed on an already very dead horse, but the other survey findings were more surprising. While telecommuting is often presented as a good idea whose time has not yet come due to entrenched institutional skepticism, Wrike’s findings suggest we may soon be turning a corner on a future where remote work is far less fringe, even for those in the least hip organizations.

Already, 83 percent of respondents reported spending at least a few hours each week working outside the office. This probably amounts to a bit of checking work email and the like out of hours, but many were extremely hopeful about the expansion of virtual work at their companies. When asked if their offices might go fully virtual in the future, 65 percent of respondents said yes, though they differed on exactly how long the shift would take:

25 percent expected their office to go fully virtual within a year or two (or their office was already virtual)
About another quarter (24 percent) expected the shift to take three to five years
While 16 percent thought it would take five years or more

Despite this disagreement about the exact time frame, the over-arching message of the survey seems clear. Workers are expecting a virtual workplace, and expecting it soon. Management will have to take heed, won’t it?

How long do you think before your organization goes fully virtual?

Image courtesy of Flickr user renaissancechambara.

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25 Apps for the Virtual Worker’s Toolkit

Aliza Sherman — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:02:07 +0000

Working remotely means not having the easy access to the machines and systems you used to when you were cubicle-bound. That means no no bottomless supply closet, no access to conference rooms or presentation tools like projectors, fewer face-to-face meetings. As you work increasingly in the cloud, what are the basic tools you need — and where do you get them?

Here is a list of five basic categories of tools all remote workers should have at the ready, and a variety of options to consider for each category.

Document Collaboration and Workspaces

There is a bit of a blur between virtual workspace and project management tools. These tools emphasize collaboration:

1. ideapi. Recently reviewed by Simon, this is a simple online tool for creating documents and collaborating on discrete sections of the documents.

2. Glasscubes. I’ve been using virtual workspace Glasscubes for a while now. Here’s my latest post taking a fresh look at the app.

3. Binfire. A free solution that lets you “manage projects by adding members, creating tasks and milestones, and assigning responsibility.” Here’s what else Amber has to say about Binfire.

4. Hyperoffice. A collaborative suite bundling email and communication, project management, database management and group meetings. Reviewed here by Amber.

Project/Task/People Management

Some of these tools also offer collaboration features, but they are more focused on managing tasks and people and getting things done efficiently.

5. Huddle. Many moons ago, we reviewed Huddle, and the team collaboration space is still going strong.

6. Cohuman. Delegate, assign and prioritize tasks with others for free. It even integrates into Google Apps. Simon published a screencast about this app.

7. Teamly. A collaboration tool with an emphasis on priorities, as Thursday explained in her initial review.

8. ProjectTurf. A collaboration app for running a project including briefs and time cards. Thursday reviewed it here.

9. Zcope. Simon felt this combined project management and collaboration tool had a lot of potential. It has slightly more advanced project management features than many of its competitors.

10. Mavenlink. This SaaS app neatly integrates project management, collaboration and invoicing. I reviewed it recently.

11. Microproject. Simple, online project management for the smaller team. Here’s our review.

12. Wrike. We’ve covered Wrike several times, including most recently when the company added mobile apps to its project management and collaboration solution.

Desktop Sharing/Presentation/Web Meeting Tools

GoToMeeting is one of the leaders in the desktop sharing/web meeting space (did you see the announcement of its Skype integration?), but there is an array of other useful remote presentation tools out there:

13. iMeet. Elegantly combines video and audio calls with document sharing. I reviewed it in March.

14. join.me. A no-registration, free screen sharing app that fills a gap now that DimDim is now defunct. We’ve praised it here on WWD before, including announcing its iPhone app.

15. yaM. An app to streamline the process of holding meetings including planning, scheduling and note taking. See our review.

16. Zipcast. Slideshare’s quick presentation tool adding video and chat to your slideshows for public (free) or private (fee) presentations. Mathew reviewed it here.

17. CrunchConnect. Charles recently reviewed this web conferencing solution with an emphasis on sales.

18. FuzeMeeting. A fee-based video conferencing solution with collaboration features.

19. Yugma. Free and fee-based Web video conferencing with desktop sharing.

20. Zoho Meeting. Free for one-to-one video call meetings, or starting at $12/month for up to five participants.

File Storage/Sharing/Syncing

Giving the entire virtual team access to files – especially big ones – without having to email them back and forth is critical for remote work processes.

21. Dropbox. Store and share files in the cloud securely, and get access to them from your mobile device. Ryan covered the latest version of Dropbox late last year.

22. Box.net. An enterprise-friendly file sharing and collaboration, reviewed most recently by us here.

23. SugarSync.We’ve written about this file sharing and backup solution before including most recently about new features for its iOS app.

Miscellaneous Useful Cloud-Based Tools

A couple of online tools that help you do things that previously required pricey desktop software.

24. Diagram.ly. Simon recently reviewed this easy-to-use site for creating flow charts and other diagrams.

25. Tom’s Planner. A Gantt chart-based planning tool, with easy drag-and-drop functionality; it’s now iPhone and iPad compatible.

What are some of your must-have tools for remote work?

Image courtesy stock.xchng user spekulator

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Project Management Tool Wrike Gets New Mobile Apps

Simon Mackie — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:00:20 +0000

Looking for a way to keep your team up-to-date with project data when they’re out of the office? Wrike, a well-designed project management tool that we’ve written about previously, now has companion mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and BlackBerry. The apps are free for Wrike users.

I’ve been testing the iPhone app and it works well. Rather than trying to cram an overwhelming amount of project information onto the device’s small display, the app’s home screen concentrates on providing the key information that you might need when you’re away from your desk. You can see at a glance which tasks are due today, this week and which tasks are overdue, and also track the progress of tasks created by you. Tapping a task allows you to edit it and mark it as complete.

You also add new tasks via the app, together with descriptions, due dates and other critical information. While I doubt that I’d want to add a bunch of tasks though this interface — it feels much clumsier than using the website — it’s certainly good enough for those times when I’m away from my desk and need to add a task to the system before I forget.

The app doesn’t include some of the fancier project management and social features from the website, such as Activity Streams and reporting, preferring to provide only the functionality that you’re likely to need while on the go, including a search feature. It can be used in both portrait or landscape modes, although I think the layout works better in portrait orientation.

The iOS app is available for download form the App Store and works on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with iOS version 3.1.2 and higher.

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Project Management App Wrike Gets Social

Simon Mackie — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:00:22 +0000

Wrike, an online project management and collaboration tool that we’ve covered previously, has received an update that aims to marry its project management functionality, like Gantt charts and report generation, with the real-time updates and ease-of-use of social networking tools.

The redesigned — and much more user-friendly — interface takes its cues from social networking tools like Facebook, aggregating relevant data from various projects into a single customizable dashboard-like workspace. It makes it easy to get an at-a-glance overview of the activity in all the projects that the user is involved in, and to see which tasks are coming up and overdue. The dashboard is composed of various widgets, which can be repositioned, added and removed as required; users can even build their own widgets if they wish.

There are activity streams and microblogging to help keep the whole team abreast of what everyone’s doing. Wrike features a team-wide general activity stream, as well as a dedicated activity stream for each project and task, providing a means to get an overview of the team’s collaboration on each particular item. There’s also a new “follow” feature (inspired by Twitter) that lets users monitor a particular task or project.

Even though there’s a bunch of new social features, the app is still a very capable online project management tool with powerful reporting and charting functionality:

One innovative feature is the “backlog,” which is a place to store tasks that don’t have strict deadlines, but will still need to be done sometime in the future. When the team has time and resources, backlogged tasks can be prioritized, scheduled and assigned to a person or a group.

While I wouldn’t describe it as a full-fledged corporate social tool, the new Wrike is certainly much more intuitive than the previous iteration, which should make it easier to pick up for new users. One thing I did like (and I hope that more web apps offer this in future) is the “Previous version” link for users who were more comfortable with the old version and would like to go back to it.

Wrike costs $9.95 per user per month for Collaborator accounts, and $19.95 per user per month for Manager accounts. A 15-day free trial is available.

Let us know what you think of the new social Wrike in the comments

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Protect Your Company's Collaborative Spaces

Aliza Sherman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:00:41 +0000

Consider the following scenario: An employee leaves your company or a virtual team member moves on, and the circumstances have been less than ideal. What do you do to make sure that you keep your company’s (and your clients’) confidential information safe, when someone who is no longer on your team might still have the passwords to the apps you use?

When it comes to collaborative tools such as project management apps, you can usually apply different levels of access to each team member. Still, have you figured out what to do when someone from the team departs?

You have a few options:

Delete their account. But what happens if that account contains data that applies to work you’re still doing, or time reporting you are still running?
Make the account inactive. But does this mean the account still counts against your user quotas, or will it give you an open space to add a new member without increasing your service level?
Change the username and password. But is this really a secure option?

My company’s virtual team (over a dozen people) are using 5pm, so I contacted the company to see what they recommend doing in the situation of a team member leaving and what their service supports. They acknowledged that workers leaving a company is an interesting issue and recommended changing the login email address used on the account and the password. While they suggested using a fake email, I’m thinking using an alternative email address to which you have access would be a better solution.

5pm’s programmers are able to restore data if you accidentally delete something you didn’t intend to remove, but they also pointed to the “Backup” feature that allows you to pull your data from the cloud onto a computer before you make any changes if personnel has changed. The company is considering an “active/inactive” flag for users, but also said that since their plans are based on the number of users, they were concerned that people might turn this feature on and off to get around upgrading to a premium level.

Curious to see how other project management tools handled the issue of security when a team member departs, I approached Wrike and LiquidPlanner with my scenario as well.

The folks at Wrike suggested that the best way to protect against potential sabotage is to deal first with the issue on the HR and legal side, rather than relying on your cloud vendor. While I agree with this in theory, most startups don’t have an HR department or a legal team to enforce issues, and much of what happens with team members happens swiftly and potentially irreparably in a bad situation. Contracts can’t keep disgruntled individuals from commiting sabotage. Wrike has a “merge” feature so you can actually merge the data of one user into the account of another. The account can be kept active with a changed username and password, or removed after merging data to downgrade an account if money is an issue. The Wrike folks also say they have multiple levels of backups and a friendly, helpful customer service team at the ready to assist in a crisis situation to help retrieve lost data or protect an account. They may, however, require a fee to cover the time of their programmers.

LiquidPlanner lets you immediately “disconnect” a user from the collaborative workspace if they leave the team, so a former employee can no longer log in to view or modify the team’s project information. This feature makes their account inactive. This disconnection feature eliminates the need to change a login and password as a stop gap measure. The workspace remains secure. The inactive user’s projects and tasks will remain accessible and intact so the rest of the team can access all the data related to their account. Inactive users do not count against the user quota for a LiquidPlanner account. If you disconnect a user from a workspace at any time and then they return to the team, you can simply invite the same person back into the space by “reconnecting” them.

Before you run into a crisis situation with your project management system, here are a few things to look into today:

Check to see if the apps you use have a way to back up your data.
See what the company recommends in terms of security actions to take if a team member leaves abruptly.
Check if there are fees for restoring data via the company’s main backup system.
Write out your internal plan for keeping your company’s project management space secure.

What is your plan for keeping your collaborative spaces secure?

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