1. PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Hands down, I love Viewpath the best. Wrike.com comes in a close second. Also, I have a wiki - pbwiki.com - now called PBworks.com
What I was looking for:
- Accessible online
- Under $20 p/m
- Gantt chart with dependencies
- Could get a project set up in minutes (without having to read instructions)
- Could assign other people to tasks (without them having to sign up for the software)
- Could prioritize tasks
- Could enter a time estimates for tasks
- Could download the info in XLS as well as PDF
- Unlimited projects & tasks
- Integrated calendar
What each one does:
- Viewpath does it all and more - it is FREE!!! And it has tons of video and text tutorials. The calendar is not as integrated as I would have liked, but after further research - I think its the best choice for me. I don't need to collaborate with others so much. I use it mostly for internal purposes.
- Wrike.com was cool - but not cool enough. It was 20-30 p/m. I could assign people tasks, but it forced them to become wrike members. The cool feature, and I were collaborating on a big unwieldy project, this would sway me - is the intelligent email. You put the project name in your email subject lines, cc wrike.com on all your emails about a given project and presto - it automatically assigns it to the right folder. That was AWESOME. But like I say, I don't really need to collaborate. And no integrated calendar that was a deal breaker for me.
- PBWiki.com - I use this to track tons of information. Its like an intranet. I keep the login information for the gazillion accounts I have (each one wants something different, no letters, only numbers, 4-6 letters, 6-8 letters - so having one password is out the window). I take notes on projects and clients and keep it all there. I also track tons of personal stuff, vet visits with my animals for instance, a travel budget for an upcoming trip. Whatever you need to track, you can search the whole site so even if the organizational vision gets lost, you can still track important information easily. And you can invite specific people to look at or even collaborate on certain parts of of the site and not others. It wouldn't replace viewpath or wrike. I use it along with either one. Personal accounts are free.
2. INVOICING, ESTIMATES AND TIME TRACKING
cashboard.com won me over... though I might be reconsidering... or trying to really learn how to use it! I used to use BlinkSale - they don't have enough of the features I want,ed it was too simple. I wanted it to:
- be accessible online
- create estimates
- create duplicate estimates
- track time against them
- turn them into invoices
- branded estimates and invoices
- a time tracking widget
- time sheets both daily and weekly
- ability to pull various reports
3. PERSONAL FINANCE TRACKING
What I wanted:
- accessible online
- under $20 p/m
- syncs with all accounts
- provides a snapshot of all your finances
- provides a snapshot of networth
- has investment tracking
- could pull various reports for tax prep
- creates a budget
- tracks the budget against reality
4. REMOTE BACKUP
Jungledisk is perfect, especially if you're on a mac. I set it up in less than 5 minutes (UNPRESIDENTED!!) You can use it to drag and drop files while you work, have it back you up automatically on the schedule of your choice, and also access all your files from ANYWHERE. Great for people who work at multiple locations. And its VERY reasonably priced - just $2 p/m and 15 cents p/gig - no minimums, no maximums.
5. ENEWS LETTER
My favorite is still Constant Contact. Best bang for your buck.
Carol,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking a look at Wrike! Just to let you know: we're working on a number of new important features, like resource allocation and recurring tasks. You're more than welcome to revisit us in a few months. By the way, when you create a task in Wrike via email and you don't want to send a Wrike invitation to the person who you create your task for, you can just put wrike@wrike.com in the BBC field of your message.