Tuesday 6/9 News Roundup

Straight from our RSS reader to yours, news from around the online project management vendor world:

• 5pm updated their API (re-wrote it, to be exact) and added a new filter to their “Timeline” view.
• CentralDesktop shares some Tweeters they like to follow, and partners with Akamai for a bit of a speed boost.
• LiquidPlanner launches a new blog series called Project Management in the Wild, this week highlighting FullSlate.
• ProjectInsight has a free webinar coming on 6/29 for Resource Management in a Tough Economy. And they picked up a SaaS award to boot!
• MyIntervals talks about “creating design boundaries” in a nice help post.
• Back on the awards front, Intuit’s Quickbase tool snares a CNET Webware 100 award for web productivity. Congrats!
• Wrike wants you to become a true fan, so they launched their Facebook fan page. May the nudges flow freely.
• 37Signals improved the Basecamp API, and put out a full API developers list for handy reference.

That’s it for today. Good luck with your projects!

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Thursday 6/4 News Roundup

Straight from the feed reader, happenings among online project management vendors:

37 Signals looks back at the default styles originally set up in Basecamp. They also have a great roundup of recent listings posted to their job board, and mention a profile in Forbes.

CentralDesktop introduces their new Shared Folders feature. They are also making an appearance at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston later this month (so stop on by!).

DeskAway does a walkthrough on how to set up “silent projects.“

AceProject team reviews an eBook – Getting Started in Project Management.

Intervals blog compares PM tools via a bicycle vs. car metaphor.

Tuesday News Roundup

Starting this week, we’ll be using this space to post roundups of news from among the online project management vendors listed on the site. Every Tuesday and Thursday, expect a short post catching you up on what’s new. If all goes well, we hope to post a “firehose” RSS feed so you can subscribe directly to the whole load of vendor feeds.

So, to kick things off with news and updates from the past few days:

Smartsheet ads some new features to make your sales pipeline reporting “pop”.

Projjex rolls out a new update with 11 enhancements for professional services firms.

Intuit drives out another update to Quickbase on June 7, including new formula rules. They also coin the term “Quickbasing” which is my new favorite word.

Comindwork posted a handy how-to on personalizing your login screen with company content.

In the spirit of #FollowFriday on Twitter, CentralDesktop breaks down some of their favorite tweeting entrepreneurs.

Understanding Online Project Management Pricing

Aren’t all things online supposed to be free? While many things are, when it comes to online project management tools you will find tremendous variations in pricing plans, with packages tailored for project teams of all sizes and a healthy dose of free applications tossed in to boot. If you’re new to pricing in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) world, take a look at our introduction to pricing as part of our Buyer’s Guide to Online Project Management Tools.

An excerpt:

Vendor pricing plans vary substantially on which they stress and the amount of each they provide at each price point. Which matters most to you is really a function of your individual or organizational needs. Are you a one-person creative shop with many small client-facing projects active at any given time? Then look for plans which allow for large numbers of active projects (and high storage ceilings, if you are a creative shop), even if the number of users is low. By contrast, are you selecting an online project management tool for a large team which manages a single conference once per year, and you prefer to treat all aspects of that event as a single project? Then focus on plans with high user limits and don’t worry as much about the limits on number of projects.

We’ve also compiled basic price/package breakdowns for the top 30+ vendors in the field, which should be ready as a handy chart for public consumption in the coming weeks. Subscribe to our RSS feed to get alerted when it’s available!

What problem is the vendor trying to solve?

The general catagory of project management tools contains a huge variety of applications, from those focusing on time tracking to workflow management to file and document collaboration. In the end, many vendors offer similar features, but layered on top of very different applications – understanding that base the vendor started from, be it a spreadsheet, Microsoft Project, or online content management, is key to selecting the right kind of online project management tool to meet your team’s needs and current skill set.

For a quick primer, take a look at the next installment of our Buyer’s Guide to Online Project Management Tools, called Understand the Roots: What Problem Did the Vendor Try to Solve? An excerpt:

Taking a look at vendors who use spreadsheets as a root: Oh, Excel, how we love and loathe you. Probably the most extensively used application for project management today. Vendors such as Smartsheet count on the broad familiarity with spreadsheets, wrap them in powerful collaboration tools and useful templates, and deliver a useful project management experience with a minimal learning curve. The focus may not be on deep file and document sharing, time tracking, or on delivering a set of professional client-facing project portals (though often some bit of those features are included). But for smaller teams looking to to quickly and dramatically improve on their current ad-hoc use of Excel for project management, these kinds of solutions may be the ideal fit.

Introducing our Buyer’s Guide

We’ve just started updating our Buyer’s Guide to Online Project Management Tools, intended as a beginner’s guide of sorts to some of the unique things to consider when making the jump into this class of hosted applications. Stay tuned for additional updates, including notes on support models and mobile applications.

To get started, take a look at Going Online – The Basics.

More User Review Posts On Deck

We have about 25 online project management tools with their own user review posts up right now, with the following currently being worked on. So expect more tools to peruse and rate in the next couple of weeks!

On deck:

• ProjectInsight
• EasyProjects
• Project-Drive
• EnterPlicity
• Lighthouse
• Solve360
• Action Method
• WebAsyst
• 1st Manager
• Daptiv PPM
• Copper Project
• Clarizen
• Projecturf
• eStudio/Same-Page
• SmoothProjects
• Teamwork Live
• Intuit QuickBase
• TaskMate
• HyperOffice

We also recently added in a “featured” application section on the home page. To keep posted when the above reviews, and other updates, roll out, be sure to subscribe to our updates or Twitter feeds! (see top right of page for links)

30 Online Project Management Vendors Who Tweet

As we love us our Tweets, we thought it would be useful to share the list of online project management companies who have Twitter accounts. In some cases, these represent our best guesses as to how “official” they are, so use your own judgment.

Vendors – did we get it wrong, or miss you altogether? Let us know in the comments below.

Got Something to Say? Say it on OnlinePMTools!

As we build out this site, we’d like it to become as useful as possible to those in the market to buy online project management tools and services. To that end, we’re looking for guest posters who would like to get their name up in (admittedly low wattage, for now) lights in our Commentary site section. As we mention over on that page:

Looking to share something profound? Seeking a venue for getting your name in lights? We’re eagerly on the lookout for article submissions related – in some manner – to online project management tools, services, applications, trends, issues, and so on. We won’t accept product reviews (just put them in the respective user review post), generic copy/paste pieces from online article repositories, or incoherent or overly inflammatory rants. We likely will accept well written, on topic, original, and thoughtful articles of at least 600 words, in English. No monetary compensation provided, though if we ever do a t-shirt or laptop sticker, you’ll be first in line!

Each submission can include a short (one para) author bio with an active “follow” link to your blog or site.

If you’re interested, send us a note to get started.

We’re up and running with OnlinePMTools.com

Well, the dust is stil settling and the bugs no doubt lurking, as-yet-undiscovered. But the basic idea of OnlinePMTools.com is up and running! What is it, you ask?

OnlinePMTools.com is a user review site, and budding comprehensive* directory of online (aka web-based, browser-based, Saas) project management tools and vendors such as Basecamp, Wrike, ClientSpot, ProjectSpaces, and more. OnlinePMTools.com aims to inform and assist project managers and companies in their buying decisions. How?

• User Reviews - the key underpinning of the site, user reviews are where the real value is as they provide a unique glimpse into 3rd party, everyday user experiences with the products. Of course, we need everyone to add their own reviews of loved (or less than loved) online project management tools and services.
• Screenshots – most review posts contain at least some screenshots, taken from available online product tours and feature pages. Some are lacking, but we’re adding those in as we go.
• Pricing and Feature Info - For right now, just some teasers. Look forward to tagging of each tool based on key features for easy discoverability.
• Buyer’s Guide - also Coming Soon(tm), we’ll put some thoughts together to help prospective buyer’s better understand some of the terminology, license terms, and more.

So what should you do?

• Fill out a review
• Follow future reviews of your favorite tools (via a standard “subscribe to comments” experience, just scroll to the bottom of the review post)
• Suggest a tool for us to post (vendors and users alike, let us know!)
• Keep in touch via our RSS or follow us on Twitter.

Thanks, and enjoy the site!

*comprehensive is our goal, though we know we’re far from it right now. We do have about 25 vendor listings up at the moment, with another 6 or so on deck. More will be added as we discover them, but definitely help us along and suggest one!

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