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Issue 2012 July > Business Matters

Simplify Your Workflow with a PMS

Written by | Monday, 02 July 2012 05:15 | Published in 2012 July
As web developers our projects are complex and Project Management Systems (PMS) are essential to our success. A great PMS has many benefits but if you're using one that is under powered or isn't a good fit you can really be hindering your team's productivity and workflow. Modern PMS' offer more complete business solutions bundling CRM, invoicing, time tracking and more. Below we will explore some of today's best PMS' so you can determine which would be the best fit for your organization.
Simplify Your Workflow with a PMS sxc.hu

Popular PMS’

ActiveCollab

License: Commercial
Type: Web Based Self Hosted
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: $249 / $499 One time fee – you own it

ActiveCollab recently released a new version and with it a host of new features making it a much more full featured suite including source control integration (SVN, GIT, HG), invoicing, quoting, payment processing, project budget tracking and time and expense tracking. Version 3 also brought a quick, sleek and easy to use AJAX style interface making it very fast to use. It is has a solid project management core and a vibrant 3rd party community which have created over 100 helpful add-ons. Some of the downfalls of ActiveCollab are that it lacks any CRM capabilities and the newly introduced quoting and invoicing system is very basic.

Basecamp

License: Commercial
Type: SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Starting at $20 per month

Basecamp is one of the most popular PMS’ and features a one page project layout making all aspects of a project accessible from a single page. It has quick and easy to use interface and has some nice features like drag and drop and email feedback. Basecamp has a solid project management core but lacks any extras. It does however have a rich API which many other applications have integrations with to fill the gap including many from their parent company.

Zoho

License: Commercial
Type: SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Starting at $20 per month

Zoho is a software suite which has many applications within its suite some of which include Zoho CRM, Zoho Project, Zoho Time Tracking, Zoho Bug Tracker, Zoho Invoice, and many more. Each application is a separate entity and each has an associated cost with it. The applications do share data in between each other but each application has a separate interface instead of combining all parts into one. The project management system provides all the basics needed but not much in terms of extra features that would make it stand out. The interface is not AJAX style which can slow you down.

Mavenlink

License: Commercial
Type: SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Starting at Free / Starting at $29 per month

Mavenlink is full featured project management system with integrations to Quickbooks and Google Apps. It’s extras include invoicing, time tracking, $0.50 flat online payments, budget and expense tracking, change orders, mobile access and more. They don’t currently have any CRM capabilities however there website claims that one will be available in 2012.

Others Worth Mentioning

Insightly

License: Commercial
Type: SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Starting at Free / Starting at $29 per month
Notes: Runs on Google Apps

vTiger

License: Open Source
Type: Web Based Self Hosted / SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Free / $12 per user per month
Notes: Joomla! Integrations

Project Fork

License: Open Source
Type: Web Based Self Hosted
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Free + starting at $5 for add-ons
Notes: Joomla! Native

Feng Office (formerly OpenGoo)

License: Open Source
Type: Web Based Self Hosted / SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Free / Starting at $20 per month

Other Options:

For large companies the use of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is common. ERP systems are used to manage the entire business including full accounting, human resources, inventory, project management, ecommerce, CRM and more depending on your vertical. What’s great about ERP systems is the business analytics and reporting they give you from all data being in one spot. What’s not so great is the need to customize the system to your business and the terrible user interfaces. The two ERP’s most suitable for web developers are OpenERP and NetSuite.

OpenERP

License: Open Source
Type: Web Based Self Hosted / SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: Yes
Price: Free / Starting at 39€ per month

NetSuite

License: Commercial
Type: SaaS
3rd Party Add-ons: No
Price: Starting at around $300 per month

There are many options available when it comes to project management. It is important to find a tool that is a good fit.

What tools have worked well for your business?

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Tagged under Business Matters
Gabe Wahhab

Gabe Wahhab

Hi, I’m Gabe, an entrepreneur and owner of Savvy Panda a Joomla Web Design & Inbound Marketing firm in Milwaukee, WI. I also own jInbound and Master Inbound. I am the editor of the Business Matters section of the Joomla! Community Magazine and am a Co-Founder of Joomla! Day Midwest and the Milwaukee Joomla! Users Group.

Did you like this content? Please  and download the free ebook, "The Essential Guide to Inbound Marketing & SEO" for more great business tips!
 

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Comments (7)

  • avatar
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    Kelsi Medel
    2012-07-03 15:03:05

    A load of great information in this article Gabe! In my experience, I have found that sometimes the "all inclusive" programs don't really do everything exceptionally well. Depending on your company's needs, it's worth considering, say, finding the best time tracking tool (TSheets, Harvest, Paymo) and integrating it with the best PMS (ActiveCollab, Basecamp, Zoho). Furthermore, the right systems will also integrate with the best invoicing and payroll systems - you get the best of all worlds!!

    ReplyQuote
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    Peter
    2012-07-05 11:48:34

    Thanks for an excellent article and sharing the links to various tools. Just another couple of tools that I have experienced and I think are worthy of mention, both of which support a Google contextual gadget which adds a 'create task' button into your Gmail or Google Apps emails.

    1. Do (from the makers of Salesforce, is free to use. It's a simple tool that helps you to easily manage to-dos relating to any project. See here.

    2. Wrike - is a more detailed project management tool that again is fairly straightforward to use but provides more project management facilities. It is free for up to 5 users and unlimited collaborators. The paid version gives you access to a Gantt chart timeline and other pro level facilities.
    See here.

    Hope the above is useful

    ReplyQuote
  • avatar
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    Anibal Sanchez
    2012-07-05 12:32:44

    Hi Gabe,

    Great article! I'm not fully agree your picks, it seems to be biased to commercially and SaaS choices.

    Mi favourite is Redmine http://www.redmine.org. It's open-source and free, you can track several projects/accounts, and it has a powerful timesheet. The catch is Ruby on Rails.

    Multiple projects support
    Flexible role based access control
    Flexible issue tracking system
    Gantt chart and calendar
    News, documents & files management
    Feeds & email notifications
    Per project wiki
    Per project forums
    Time tracking
    Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users
    SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and Darcs)
    Issue creation via email
    Multiple LDAP authentication support
    User self-registration support
    Multilanguage support
    Multiple databases support

    I've recently integrated and published the Joomla authentication integration, to have single-sign-on (to empower our extension support area). http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/wiki/ Alternativecustom_authentication_HowTo

    In second place, Trac http://trac.edgewall.org/, but I'm not very fun of python.


    Kind Regards,
    Anibal Sanchez
    @anibal_sanchez

    ReplyQuote
  • avatar
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    Randy Dickey
    2012-07-05 13:54:35

    Good information and some nice products listed. I too have yet to find the 'all inclusive' program that does the right combination of subversion features for development, time tracking, project management and invoicing. My current mix is www.deskaway.com for project management and time tracking (has great set of features and aggressive price for a high number of projects and unlimited users, includes time per task and a handy timer), assembla for subversion on development projects, and whmcs for invoicing.

    ReplyQuote
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    Mark Law
    2012-07-06 05:26:06

    My favourites are:

    For time keeping, estimates, client contacts and invoices. www.freshbooks.com - strange that it is not mentioned, over a million people use it, mostly web people ;) - Well worth it

    For task management: www.do.com, free and very useful

    Gathering content from clients: www.gathercontent.com

    File sharing : DropBox

    Design / mockup presentation and feedback: www.influenceapp.com and Notable, they are great although a little pricey for freelancers

    Document sharing: Google Docs - a great place for project briefs and related project info, can be linked to do.com

    ReplyQuote
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    Sully Sullivan
    2012-07-16 12:21:28

    We wanted a system that was

    - Self-hosted
    - had Gantt charting
    - could do double-duty as a customer service system
    - and most importantly was Open Source and based on PHP

    We wound up with qdPM and we're very pleased with it. It's a system designed with web development in mind and met all our requirements. The only feature we notice missing is that it doesn't have time tracking software yet, but I think that's planned for their autumn release.

    ReplyQuote
  • avatar
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    tepalastroy
    2013-04-24 04:47:15

    useful website thanks

    ReplyQuote
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