Teamwork

Avantages

Whiteboards are great but even the developers of TeamWork Projects (formerly TeamworkPM) were tired of trying to make them do the work of a real project management system. That's how I came across TeamWork Projects 8 years ago -- tossing aside the whiteboards and comparing online project management applications. TeamWork ultimately rose to the top because it either includes features I felt were must-haves or they had those features on the roadmap to deal with in the near future.

TeamWork has task-level time-tracking and incorporates a desktop timer that I use on both my Windows and Linux versions computers.

TeamWork was one of the few online project management applications that incorporated a file manager early on AND had the foresight to include it in the permissions system (important so all stakeholders have access to the files they need). I've used it for mock-ups, contract change-orders, and project photos.

There is a project notebook system that is far superior to a so-called project wiki found in other project managers. I use it to keep notes, format them to look like real documents (not just a bunch of text notes), and export out in a format that is useful to project owners and clients.

This was important enough that it would have been a dealbreaker if it wasn't included: the means to allow stakeholders (especially clients) to log in to see progress on their projects, participate in project-specific discussions, and access project-related files.

Inconvénients

TeamWork's free tier is less generous than some of the other highly rated project management apps.

Keeping up with the times, they've lately added a Kanban view (but it costs extra). But why the boards view is an add-on instead of integrated into the main projects beats me and makes me call this a welcome feature that is also a CON.

Although TeamView has native integrations for GMail, HubSpot, and Harvest, I think it relies too much on its (well-developed and well-documented API) for integrations with the majority of the world of business applications. Of course, there are hundreds of Zapier workarounds. Still, I think TeamWork is strong enough to have better integration and less cobbled recipes.

Avantages

We've been using Teamwork as our project management tool for years.

For my client's needs, it's a pretty great PM tool. It's easy for us to add new projects, create a Logins notebook and then add any tasks that need to be completed, assign to the person that needs to do it and attach any details such as date due and how long they have to complete it.

I'm also able to add "saved" tasks lists so I don't need to re-enter my recurring tasks every time.

It's easy to add and remove team members as well as clients. Lately they've updated the Dashboard when you first login so it has this cool tab called "My Work" that shows me what's due on my list only (not the entire teams) and what's coming up (and also what's overdue if I didn't complete something). This is a quick way for me to see what's on my plate.

I love the fact that it archives projects, we refer to old projects frequenlty as the client needs additional work or an updated design, etc... and the new file sharing options are super helpful so we don't need to export a client file anymore and send it via e-mail, we can just send them the link.

It also has a great file version feature, so we can see previous iterations and keep them all together

Inconvénients

The interface is now cluttered and clunky. It's not as sleek and clean as say Basecamp in its simplicity. I don't ever use any of the reporting features because they just don't make any sense and in my opinion are not easy to implement. It could be I need to take some of their training or something, but haven't had the time.

I wish it was a bit easier to create a project template and then update it. Because I have to hunt it down and remember where it is, my templates aren't updated as frequently as I would like. I also wish it provided more user guidance on setting up what I consider advanced features such as Gnatt charts and the new Kanban board interface.

Avantages

The UI is very intuitive and clear.
Actions around tasks have short paths to complete and work well.
The features for tasking are useful and easy to work with.
The knowledge base covers almost every topic and support is responsive, friendly and helpful.

Inconvénients

The reporting tools are basically non-existent and any historical evaluation of data almost impossible.
Teamwork does not distinguish or allow to filter for late tasks historically, which means once a task/milestone is completed it becomes impossible to tell if that task was late or on time.
This makes tracking efficiency and employee performance impossible as we do not know if tasks are on time in general and where the bottleneck lie.

Similarly not being able to construct dashboards and manipulate data around time, late tasks, etc. for teams rather than projects hampers decision-making.

Compared to something like Celoxis or even Jira which for example allows to compare any data with custom scripts etc, Teamwork feels incredibly inflexible and dated to have to export excel sheets to manipulate and evaluate data.

Our account managers are not able to find out if they are doing good or not on a specific account as data can not really be filtered and displayed that way either.

Avantages

We love that our team tasks can have dependencies. Task 2 can not be started before task 1 if you choose to set up tasks with them dependent on others. We all get several hundred emails each week. The dependent task feature has reduced our need to email each other by 20%.

Inconvénients

The set up instructions say how to use features but don't tell the reader why they would be helpful to use. We've been using the software for more than 6 months and we can't find a reason to use a handful of the features they highlight the most. When we've contacted support they were able to tell us how to use the features, but like the instructions they could not tell us what we might use them for.

Avantages

Teamwork.com has far more features than previous project management software we have tried. The GANTT chart function is superb and we have also been able to maintain easily searchable research archives for several ongoing project. Teamwork also allows us to invite partners from outside our team to view projects which had been an issue with previous softwares we tried.

Inconvénients

Setting up and inviting new users to collaborate on projects has proved to be a little confusing at times but once they are set up everything works smoothly.