Project Management Software: The Ins & Outs
In today's blog, we discuss what you need to be considering when looking to move forward with project management software!
Project management includes the methods and solutions required to deliver your projects successfully and on time. In general, a project is comprised of business stakeholders, objectives, the resources required, and management processes and solutions you need to make the project a success. For a business looking to grow and automate processes, project management is key to this success. Project management includes the technology, methodology, and resources that enable project completion. In the last decade alone, the innovation around technology and project management combined has become extremely sophisticated.
Project management software is a range of solutions that allow business stakeholders and their employees to carefully track the progress of complex projects from their conception to completion. In 2019, there is no shortage of project management solutions on the market. These range from simple online solutions with basic functionality, all the way to highly complex solutions that allow the user to carefully manage every aspect of the project management venture.
These solutions are designed to track the development of projects that take days, weeks, months or even years to complete. They provide business stakeholders and other team members access to one unified solution to all the relevant information.
What is the best deployment methods for project management software?
With the significant growth of the internet, more web-based software companies are cleverly designing and offering low-cost solutions based entirely in the cloud. The three cloud-based delivery methods are SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. All three methods allow users to leverage powerful business technology solutions without an upfront investment in on-premise hardware, which reduces the cost significantly. SaaS is the most popular method used today.
SaaS providers use the internet to deliver software to the end-user. Usage is generally subscription-based, with a monthly or annual fee. SaaS users typically undertake costly or lengthy upgrades to the solutions. Since they are cloud-based, upgrades are typically managed by the solution provider.
In a nutshell, when evaluating a project management solution, you should first narrow it down to SaaS-based solutions if you want to save time and costs.
What functionality should a good Project Management solution include?
Project management - this enables project managers and team members to collaborate on projects, maintain real-time and accurate project status at all times. This allows managers to proactively identify and resolve potential issues with each engagement.
Resource management - this allows you to ensure that the right resources are working on the right projects, based on real-time project timelines as the project evolves.
Time and expense tracking - quick and easy time entry allow your team to update their efforts spent on projects and other tasks accurately and efficiently. In a billable services organization, expense management is critical.
Billing and invoicing - your project management solution should already be tracking your time, customer rates and expenses. With integrated invoicing, you can now simply email your customers when you are ready.
Gantt Charts - this allows you to map task dependencies, manage the critical path, allocate resources, assign necessary time-frames, and monitor progress and milestones in interactive, real-time Gantt charts.
CRM - your business can track and manage the entire sales pipeline and customer relationship, analyze sales performance across the organization and keep everything needed for a single client account on a single platform.
Customizable Dashboards - easy to customize dashboards will keep you informed about what’s really going on with your projects in real-time. Set your dashboard as your home page and you can see and prove your team’s value and contribution in seconds.
Integrations - ability to integrate with accounting software and CRM systems will help you further automate your business processes.
The objective of a good project management solution is to increase company visibility and efficiency by making the entire project life-cycle visible to all stakeholders. In turn, this will save a business substantial time and money. Generally, each employee is given their own unique login, allowing them to log their time, expenses, report progress and monitor the progress of others (depending on their level of granted access).
The world's most intuitive PSA solution is here...
CrossConcept Continuum goes beyond traditional PSA solutions available today by incorporating cutting-edge UI technology making the solution more user-friendly, resulting in fewer clicks within the solution and time spent logging data.
CrossConcept Continuum has been built from the ground up to integrate with all major accounting systems to seamlessly synchronize projects and accounting within one unified system.
Our innovative PSA solution allows organizations to maximize profitability by integrating connecting projects and financial accounting, enabling you to manage all stages of your project from conception to completion and deliver on your promises.
Our solution is a simple, yet powerful PSA solution built with the end-user in mind - fast, flexible, powerful and user-friendly! We are offering all new clients a free 2-week trial with no contract obligations. This is a great opportunity for any business to try out the solution and decide if PSA software is for you!
To book a free 15-minute consultation, email: marketing@crossconceptinc.com or call: 1-888-528-3898 x110.