GoPlan 2.0

GoPlan is an online project management and team collaboration platform that has been recently released. Before we start discussing given solution I would like to emphasize that it strongly differs from everything we reviewed before. In fact it’s an application that is really funny. You can hardly find a serious company that might use this service, but small groups of developers, designers and young people may consider it as a perfect tool to use on a daily basis. There are just the things you need, nothing else – as simple as possible.

Despite its simplicity it has some really nice features to be mentioned:

• Customizable interface (you can change the themes and your company’s logo)
• Pretty nice calendar that syncs with your external calendar applications like iCal and devices like the iPhone
• Tickets feature (familiar to software developers and customer support companies): make it easy to track issues on a given project. Goplan integrates a fully featured issue tracking solution
• Documents Tab: maintaining a repository of assets for each of your projects. The image gallery makes it easy for designers to have an overview of their concepts.

As I emphasized before this application should be compared to the other ones we discussed. I decided to write a small review about it just because I found given tool very simple, nice and funny. It’s a really joy to use it.

Let’s look at the screenshots made from the user account.

Here is the Dashboard:

The Calendar:

And the Tasks:

Please visit the official web site if you would like to “play” with it and check if it’s convenient for you.

Action Method Online

Action Method Online is a new innovational online project management tool that has nothing common with its counterparts. AMO (Action Method Online) has absolutely unique approach to the project management and team collaboration. In comparison with the other solutions its users do not share whole projects with each other. AMO developers believe that everyone organizes their projects differently, and it’s most productive only to share the relevant parts of projects.

The whole approach is based on the Action Steps – tasks to be completed. Given solution provides everything you need to work efficiently and collaboratively, without spending a lot of time on details that do not apply to you. Everyone is accountable just for their own Action Steps.

Another really nice feature of AMO is its speed. While using it I personally even forgot that it’s a web-based tool. So should be considered as an important advantage.

Before we discuss in details what the components of this tool are, let’s check the screenshots in order to review its extremely cool design.

The Action Steps Page:

The Discussions Page:

And The Project View Page:

Really nice interface, isn’t it? I would suggest you to visit the official website’s tour page in order to learn more the solution and sign up for a FREE account.

Now let’s describe in detail each section of the user account in order to better understand features and capabilities of AMO.

Action Steps: You have your own Action Steps, and you can delegate Action Steps to anyone with an email address. When they receive it, they assign it to a project within their own system. You are notified when they complete the step (and can Nag them if they don’t!)

References: The notes, files, and links that inform a project. You can share a Reference with anyone with an email address, and they will be able to access and edit that Reference.

Discussions: You can start a Discussion with anyone – they can reply, and if you are a Premium Plan subscriber, they can even upload files to your Discussion for free. It’s an easy way to work together and communicate within AMO.

Events: The deadlines that you’re working toward. When you invite Collaborators to an Event, you can view their Action Steps for that Event, as well as your own. So you know what everyone needs to accomplish before a certain date.

Activity Feed: See what others are working on. When someone “shares” a project with you, you can go to Activity Feed and view ALL their project activity – Action Steps they create, Discussions they join, everything they do within that project.

Project View: An at-a-glance view of your projects, or others’ projects. If someone chooses to “share” with you, you can see every item that currently lives within their project (all their Action Steps, References, etc).

In addition to that there is a mobile version of Action Method for iPhone.

Teamspace

Teamspace is a multifunctional collaboration system for every kind of working group. Being one of the first tools of this kind (founded in 2001) Teamspace has enjoyed considerable success across a wide range of various countries and industries. Most likely the main reason for that was a great functionality and company’s ability to customize their solution to meet the unique demands of each client. Here are some of Teamspace’s clients: BMW, BBC World Service, New York Stock Exchange, Daimler, Philips Lighting Inc., Institute of Risk Management, and etc.

Teamspace provide three different versions of their solution, so the customers have what to choose from: Online Service, Enterprise Server (providing the opportunity to uniquely adapt the tool to meet your needs), and Enterprise Portal (has to be hosted on an own web server. This server can either be provided by the client himself, his provider or through Teamspace).

As regards the interface this solution has quite a good looking and understandable one. Unfortunately it’s not as customizable as it might be (comparing to the other solutions), still it’s pretty decent. Here is the way Team Administration Page looks:

Calendar Tab:

And Discussions Section:

Unfortunately there is no nice tour to watch, so I would recommend you to create a new test team at one. This will help you to check all the features in action. Please visit this page to do so.

While talking about the main characteristic features of the given tool, here are the ones that should be mentioned:

• Enterprise Portal version
• SMS Module ffers an easy way to send Short Messages to your team member all over the world
• Brainstorming and idea evaluation: the feature that gives you an excellent tool to facilitate a delayed brainstorming
• Microsoft Outlook® or Lotus Notes® synchronization
• Notice board and Bulletin: these features represent an informal communication platform for all team members. It works just as a physical notice board functions in an office: Notes can be attached, removed or changed by any member
• Myteams tool: the tool used to connect to more than one team without entering your access data each time

Here you can find a more detailed list of Teamspace’s features.

Teamwork PM

Teamwork Project Manager is a web-based easy-to-use project management, collaboration, and task management solution developed to help users work faster and be more productive. Given tool probably represents one of the best attempts to combine nice functionality and usability. There are a lot of different pricing plans with the opportunity to create a “forever FREE” account, so you will be able to choose the option that suits you the most.

It should be mentioned that Teamwork PM is designed for any person, company or group of people who have multiple projects on the go. It is really perfect for any type of organisation, group, team or individual. Teamwork PM is an ideal solution to create an environment where both management and employees can easily keep up to date with the project’s progress.

It has a really attractive and customizable design that ensures pleasant working process. Here are some of the screenshots taken from the TPM user account.

The Dashboard Page:

The Project Overview Page:

The Tasks Page:

And The Milestones Page:

Unfortunately there is no video tour, so it will probably be better to create a FREE account and check TPM in action at one. However if you don’t want to create account, you can take a tour (screenshots with features description) here.

As for the main features of this software the following ones should be emphasized:

• Resources tab in each project allows users to embed 3rd party applications, links and web pages in a popup window such as Google Documents, YouTube Videos, Standard Webpages, ProofHQ Proof tools and hundreds of over services we haven’t even thought of!
• It can be run the both on your own server and as a software-on-demand service
• Multilingual support (though there are just a couple of languages supported)
• PMBOK / PMP compliant Risk Register: a modern approved methodology for risk assessment in projects
• Business Card View of contacts
• Daily Overdue Items Report : daily email ensures you know when you are running late on certain tasks

Comparison table

Finally as we are done with the review I would like to present you a comparison table that can be very useful for you while choosing the right tool. Using this table it’s much easier to pay attention just to the features which are important to you. Remember that in this table just the main features were mentioned; moreover the features which are the same for all the tools are not included as well.

	Price ($)	Users per account	Forums	RSS Feed	Desktop App	Gantt Charts	Multilingual	Mobile Support	Online Chat	Hosting on own server
Easy Projects	11.25	1	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes
Comindwork	30.00	No limits	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes
AtTask	39.95	1	Yes	-	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-
Basecamp	24.00	No limits	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes	-	-
Daptiv PPM	50.00	1	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-	-	-	Yes
ZOHO Projects	12.00	No limits	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	-	-
ActiveCollab	249.00	No limits	Yes	Yes	-	-	-	Yes	-	Yes
5pm Web	18.00	No limits	-	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	-	-	-
Projecturf	29.99	No limits	-	Yes	-	Yes	-	-	-	-
Clarizen	21.95	1	Yes	-	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	Yes	-
ProjectOffice	4.99	1	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	-	-	Yes
GoPlan 2.0	12.00	No limits	Yes	Yes	-	-	-	-	-	-
Action Method	12.00	1	-	Yes	-	-	-	Yes	-	-
Teamspace	7.90	1	-	-	-	-	Yes	-	-	Yes
Teamwork PM	17.00	No limits	-	Yes	-	-	Yes	-	-	Yes

The bottom line

Summing up it will be rational to emphasize the main aspects you need to take into account while looking for an Online Project Management tool. Of course, you need to understand that these recommendations are relative enough, because everything depends on your needs, the way you run your business and the team you have. It’s impossible to find an absolute solution that would help in any situation; however there are some common notions you should remember if you are trying to find the most convenient solution.

• A decent online project management and collaboration application has to be flexible enough and can be used to manage different kinds of projects.
• Functionality: If you are not a manager who has to track a great deal of projects at once, there is no need to get a certain tool just because it possesses all the features you can imagine. It should be enough functional, but not excessive.
• Ease of Use: This is probably one of the most important points. The application you are going to choose has to be simple enough for you to understand. In any case you need to spend some time to learn the features of the tool, but you mustn’t spend days or even weeks on that (of course in case you don’t need all those functions).
• Help and support: Don’t forget to make sure that your project management services-to-be offer a prompt and qualitative customer support service (via phone, online chats, different online forms and email).

I hope you will find this review very useful and it will help you to choose the right solution.

Related posts:

1. Online Project Management Tools Part 1
2. Online Project Management Tools – Part 3
3. Online Project Management Tools Part 4
4. Back to Online Project Management Tools: Part 4
5. Back to Online Project Management Tools: Part 1

Tags: Action Method Online, Activity Feed, GoPlan 2.0, online project management comparison, project management comparison table, Project View, Teamspace, Teamwork PM, Teamwork Project Manager, The Action Steps Page, The Discussions Page