XL-EasyGantt

A very useful free project scheduling and gantt chart product that runs within Excel.
We give it a cool category rating of 4.5/5

XL-EasyGantt by www.xleasygantt.com is by far the best free Microsoft Excel based project project scheduling and gantt chart tool that we have come across. Its strength lies in that there is no installation required and the schedule created by XL-EasyGantt is very easy to distribute.

It has a very user friendly design, easy to use and comes with useful common functions that allows a PM to create a project schedule quickly and easily. The Gantt Charts are plotted in real time as you enter the start and end dates of the project tasks using a date-picker.

Though already very easy to use, there is also help pages available by clicking on the help button.

It also allows you to track your non-working days and you can even download the holiday calender from www.xleasygantt.com website.

It is one of the tool that has caught much attention and has gained a lot of popularity in the short few months since its first release.

The current version is version 3. Follow the link to download.http://www.xleasygantt.com/default.asp

Project Management is described in the PMBOk as: "Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements."

For a Project Manager to function effectively, he needs a good set of tools to assist him with his tasks of planning, managing and control to ensure a successful delivery meeting his time, cost and quality targets. Here we explore the tools that can help a PM to do his job effectively.

Zoho Projects

Zoho Project is an online project management services provided by Zoho.com.
It is based on subscription model, but provides 1 project free with unlimited users.

Zoho Projects helps to make project collaboration between team members easy by allowing Internet access to the project database that and comes with handy features that include:

Tasks, Document Sharing, Forums, Milestones, Calendar and Time Tracking.

Online demo is available at http://projects.zoho.com/jsp/home.jsp

We give it a rating of 3.5/ 5

PM MindMap

http://www.xleasygantt.com/pmmindmap/index.asp

If you are working towards getting your PMP credential or if you are already a PMP looking for a quick reference for the PMBOK processes and knowledge areas, the PM MindMap is an Excellence tool that you will find most useful.

With all the processes and knowledge areas, inputs, tools & techniques and outputs of each process clearly listed in the mindmaps, all you need to do is just click and navigate through the mindmaps to get a quick reference or revision.

jxProject

http://www.jxproject.com

Rating 3.5/5

jxProject is a Java application that comes with an adverstisement supported free version and a commercial version. It is a simple project / gantt chart tool. This software requires the latest JRE from Sun Microsystems.

Main features include:

• Supported task link types: Finish to Start, Finish to Finish, Start to Finish, Start to Start,
• Resource User with positive/negative lag.
• Arbitrary constraints: Start After, Finish After, Start Before, Finish Before.
• Full Undo/Redo and Cut/Copy/Paste functionality.
• Full time resource leveling with user ability to enable/disable.
• A resource optimizer which automatically identifies gaps in resource schedules and moves tasks into those gaps.
• Tasks may be of fixed work, fixed duration, or fixed span. Task schedule driver is clearly indicated in the table.
• Familiar hierarchical parent/child task structure: summary task/task
  No limit to the number of links per task.
• Resource Assignments: Any combination from none, one, multiple or partial resources.
  Clear and traceable circular constraint violation messages allows user to locate dependency problems.
• Drag and Drop to move/copy tasks in the table/chart.
• Drag and Drop resources onto assigned tasks. [Multiple resources to multiple tasks in a single operation]
• Fully supports shift work scheduling such as first, second, third and/or swing shifts. Four day, ten hour days 4x10s.
• Resources inherit schedules from their parent calendars, overriding of parent schedules is fully supported.
• Each calendar has a timezone which is used consistently throughout all scheduling calculations.
• Supports scheduling of work time, time off, or paid time off.
• The user can define Full Time Equivalent (FTE) work hours for display/edit of actual work of resources.

BlueDoc - Document Management System

http://www.blueproject.ro/bluedoc

Rating 3.5/5

BlueDoc is a multiple users document management system. It access by user group controls for saving and accessing documents. Comes with it is a graphical tool to chart document workflow between users.

A good document process management tool and allows fast and easy full-text search of Word, PDF, PowerPoint and other document formats.

Click here to view other features http://www.blueproject.ro/bluedoc/features.

A good tool, however, we feel that the fee by per user could be a little high and if we are not wrong, it is lacking of the web interface to allow access through web broswer which would definitely make the tool very much more elegant.

WorkTime

http://www.nestersoft.com/worktime/index.shtml

A simple program that can be handy if your project is very much PC based and deskbound. Especially for tracking of time spent by programmers.

From the developer's site:
WorkTime is a versatile and easy to use utility that tracks the time spent working with the PC. WorkTime gathers statistics about projects you work on, applications you use, documents you work with, web-sites you visit and time spent for every of these activities.

Concept Draw Project 3

http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/project/ap-gantt-charts.php

Concept Draw is a beautifully designed project management application that can run both on the Windows and Mac platform and make use of Microsoft Project XML for data interchange between Concept Draw and Microsoft Project. The user interface is intuitive and very appealing.

The latest UI features include Smart Multi Selection, Task Link with Drag and Drop, Colour and Filtering, Information Sorting, Filter Toolset, Network Diagram and Critical Path Management.
(read more at http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/project/whats_new.php)

The application is designed to allow for easy management of multiple projects with the Multi Project Workspace. Advance Editing and Powerful Reporting System makes it a good project worth looking at. (read more at http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/products/project/overview.php)

We give it a colourful rating of 4/5.

AccuPlan

It seems that the developer has discontinued the software. However, you can still download a copy from

http://download.cnet.com/AccuPlan/3000-2076_4-10338223.html

Accuplan is a straight forward project planner that provides standard features like tasks, resources, budgets and timelines. It also allows you to view graphs, calendars, WBS view and reports.

It is a commercial product but quite affordable. However, as a commercial project, probably Accuplan should include more unique features to make it stand out from the rest.

We rate it 3.5/5

Accuplan is quite easy to learn and it is useful for experienced and new project managers.
Some features:

• Share project data among all stakeholders on any network.
• Build your project in Gantt view or as a spread sheet like grid.
• Free WBS (Work breakdown structure) view lets you visually create Task Hierarchies
• New Free integration with Ms Outlook mail and Reminder/Calendar
• Visually track of budgets and costs.
• Drag and drop to easily create task dependencies in any direction
• Automatically reschedule dependent tasks.
• See on-screen constraints, milestones, and deadlines that give a clear picture at a glance.
• Automatically calculate task and project durations based on number and availability of associated resources.
• Automatically adjust to skip holidays, weekends, and other downtime.
• View graphs of your resource allocations to identify under- and over-allocations.
• Resolve allocation conflicts with a "Resource Gantt View."
• Get up to speed fast with an intuitive interface that makes Accu Plan quick and easy to learn.
• Exchange data with other Windows applications.
• Import schedule data generated by other project management software, including MS Project.
• Print out presentation-quality reports to any Widows-supported printer or plotter.
• Output to a large selection of formats, including XML, Excel, MS Access, MS. Word, and HTML.

You can read more of the feature comparison at their web site:
http://download.cnet.com/AccuPlan/3000-2076_4-10338223.html

Basecamp

Basecamp (http://www.basecamphq.com/tour) comes with some common but really useful features like Colors & Logos, Dashboard, To-dos, Files, Messages, Milestones, Time tracking, Overview and Comments. It is simple yet addresses the collaboration needs of many projects.

Thus we are giving it a rating of 4.5/5.0 for the hosted application category.

Basecamp is a hosted project collaboration platform with different pricing packages that cater to different organisation needs. The tools that it provides help to solve communication problems by allowing the project teams to work effectively through the web. One thing that we really like is the simple and clean user interface that we believe users would be able to use fairly easily without much help.

If you are looking for a web collaboration projection management software and do not wish to spend too much time in maintaining a system, Basecamp is a product that we think is suitable.