It’s not an easy task to choose the ideal solution for remote project management from the myriad of tools available in the digital market. Here, we present four top software options for comprehensive project management along with the four most used and recommended task and activity management applications. We explain their differences and key features to help you make an informed decision tailored to your company’s needs for successful project execution and telecommuting efficiency.
Remote Project Management Tools
It is a fact that teleworking is the preferred modality in many companies, so it is necessary to have the most effective tools, especially when it comes to the success of projects that promote the growth of the company’s business.
Before choosing the ideal tool for your company, it is important to understand and recognise that integrated project management tools and focused task management tools are two different types of solutions, and that together, they enhance the efficiency and work performance of staff to achieve the success of any project, task or objective.
Integrated project management software
These are very useful and necessary tools for remote project management, as they have collaborative functionalities that help companies, especially managers and decision-makers, to manage the work from start to finish.
These solutions allow you to plan, execute, monitor, report, measure performance and recognise the profitability of your projects, your services and your customer base. They allow you to develop and monitor projects from anywhere and at any time, as they usually store the data, recorded or acquired, in the cloud and organise them in specific dashboards, making them quickly understandable and accessible. Here are the best solutions for the comprehensive management of remote projects:
Project management
Project Management is project management software that tracks time spent on each project or client, costs, and margins. It features a unique conditional rules system that automatically detects the project being worked on and accurately records time, ensuring 100% objective data without errors or omissions.
With Project Management, real-time calculation of project costs, total billable hours, identification of potential deviations, and margin calculations are possible. It allows project breakdown into tasks and sub-tasks, monitoring through a summary panel that provides all information on total hours logged per project and percentage of activity dedication.
Project Management enables comprehensive project tracking and identification of project and client portfolio profitability. It includes a comprehensive help center to facilitate navigation within its web environment and offers a 15-day free trial.
Wrike
Wrike is agile and highly configurable project management software known for its customizable workflows, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, forms, dashboards, and reporting capabilities. It facilitates task organization, file sharing, and project progress tracking from the platform.
Its interface features three panels that form the basis of task and sub-task organization within a project. However, the three-panel view may complicate user navigation.
Wrike also allows adding comments to sections, videos, or documents and creating custom fields to export relevant data for your company.
Clarizen
Clarizen is a project management tool that meets professional needs for planning, execution, resource and activity control, scheduling, document management, communications, and reporting. It includes features that facilitate portfolio activity organization, aligning projects with business objectives.
It offers a team panel where each member can view their participation, tasks, schedules, budgets, comments, and shared documents. The highly configurable workflow automation provides real-time information on all resources, schedules, and available tasks for project stakeholders.
Celoxis
Celoxis is an online project manager that covers time tracking, portfolio management, and collaborative work, managing schedules, resources, budgets, approvals, risks, issues, change requests, and other project development elements.
Its intuitive, colorful, graphical interface navigates through different panels for real-time project tracking and resource availability and usage.
Administrators can customize fields to determine key reports and include formula fields, easily identifying all financial KPIs such as NPV.
Task Management Applications
Task management applications are collaborative tools that, unlike comprehensive project management solutions, focus on individual activities to achieve project goals, organizing and monitoring their progress to stay within project schedules. Here are the four most recommended and widely used by professionals:
Trello
Trello is a comprehensive, intuitive, and useful tool for all types of projects, widely used among task management applications.
It allows managing tasks and activities by person and group, assigning them through dynamic boards with drag-and-drop functionality. It also allows modifying and scheduling dates and delivery times.
Its main panel has three default columns: “To Do”, “In Progress”, “Done”. These columns can be customized.
Asana
Another widely used tool for task management, Asana enables organizing and executing daily activities.
With Asana, tasks can be organized by tags, include due dates, and attach necessary files.
It features an integrated communication system independent of external tools, allowing task management and internal communication service within the same tool for team members.
Evernote
Evernote features an interface that mimics a notebook, organizing daily tasks linked to a project, making it a useful tool for copywriting professionals as a note base.
It allows creating task lists, projects, and organizing any activity. However, many paid features are available in other free applications.
Remember The Milk
As the oldest task management application, Remember The Milk is one of the easiest to use. It allows creating task or activity lists and organizing them by priority, marking completed tasks. It also enables sharing task lists with team members and creating sub-tasks when necessary.
Now that you understand the difference between project and task management solutions for remote work, you can evaluate which one best suits your company’s needs to promote project success during telecommuting.
If you’re looking for solutions to optimize remote work management in your company, we invite you to read our post “Essential Telecommuting Tools for Your Business” and if you want to increase productivity in your company, we recommend “Best Productivity Software for Businesses”.
