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Project Management Software Buyer’s Guide

Project Management Software

Project Management Software Buyer’s Guide

Introduction

Finding the right project management software for your organization can be a daunting task. There are a multitude of vendors with hundreds of software to chose from. To make matters worse almost all their marketing material sounds the same. This buyer’s guide is designed to help you find the solution that is right for your organization.
Here are some key issues that you should consider while deciding the right project management solution for your organization.

On Demand (Hosted) Deployment Vs On Site Deployment

Project management software can broadly be categorized into two groups, On Demand Hosted model and On Site model. In a hosted model the software resides on the vendors hardware at a remote location, while in the On Site model the software resides on a server located on the customers LAN. To decide which model suits your organization the best, you should ask yourself the following questions:

  • What is the size of your organization?
  • How many users do you want to support?
  • How often do people use project management software?
  • Does your organization have the technical ability to manage a local server?
  • How much control do u want to have over your data?

If your organization is small, probably less than 25 people; and if you have limited ability to manage your own server, then a hosted solution will work best for you. The downside of this model is that you are not in charge of your data, someone else is. You are also limited by your broadband connection, meaning if your connection goes down for some reason your access to your project management software will get cut off. Of course on the positive side, someone else will be managing your software and will take care of regular backups and other house keeping. All hosted solutions will charge u a monthly fees, while most server solutions are based on a flat fee for a perpetual license. So while the upfront cost is higher for a server based solutions, it might be much cheaper in the long run. A hosted solution is usually pretty cheap to setup and has low monthly fees, but if u use the solution for a longer period of time, the monthly fees can really add up to become large numbers.

Functionality

Based on their functionality project management software can be classified into 3 categories, the low-end products, the mid-range products and the high-end products. Low-end products typically have very limited functionality and are ideally suited for smaller organizations with limited needs. Organizations with 2 to 25 people fall in this category. Such organizations typically have a limited budget. Most products in this category are hosted solutions with prices starting as low as $10 per user per month.

Mid-range products typically have much higher level functionality and are ideally suited for organizations with 25 to 500 people. Such solutions can typically cost around $10,000 to $25,000. Mid-range solutions can be both hosted as well as server based.
High-end products are designed for large organizations with more than 500 people. Such organizations typically have very sophisticated needs and require software with which is usually server based and maintained by in house IT people. Such sophisticated software typically costs around $100,000 or more and requires long deployment, training and maintenance cycles.
Therefore a prospective buyer should first try to identify which category they fall into before deciding on a solution that is ideally suited for them.

ValleySpeak Project Server is a mid-range solution that is branded for each customer, and can be customized to fit each client’s exact requirements. ValleySpeak Project Server has a robust feature set that will satisfy demanding project managers, yet it is easy enough for a basic team member to use. ValleySpeak Project Server offers a Workgroup Edition as well, which is rich in feature set, yet very affordable. If you are considering a low end product, but need robust features, check out the ValleySpeak Project Server Workgroup Edition.

Complete Microsoft Project Integration

Microsoft Project is the most popular project management client. It is therefore imperative that any kind of centralized project management solution work seamlessly with Microsoft Project. There are many vendors who have an import/export relationship with Microsoft Project. This usually means that they allow the user to import/export selected fields. This is done either by using comma separated variables (CSV) format or by mapping fields. Both of which are still a disconnected model and will become extremely cumbersome to maintain in the long run. Complete integration means that the server solution uses the Microsoft Project database schema. Without doing so, claims of Microsoft Project integration are usually “half truths”. While import/export is better than having a proprietary format, Complete integration is a vastly superior model. Such integration does not require the user to keep track of dependencies and ensures that all Microsoft Project data is present in the database.
ValleySpeak Project Server uses the Microsoft Project database schema which means that data is always saved in Microsoft Project’s native format.

Import/Export of Data

How easily does the product allow you to import and export data. Many products will allow import of data but not export. Others allow only limited import of data in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) format. The ability to import export data in the Microsoft Project format is a very important criteria since Microsoft Project is the most prevalent form of project management software used by small and medium businesses and indeed quite a few large businesses. The ability to export allows the user the flexibility to take projects off line and work on them in a disconnected mode when required. This happens typically when a project manager is traveling and might want to take their project with them. They should then be able to resubmit the project to the server in a quick and easy way that ensures that no data is lost.

With ValleySpeak Project Server taking a project off line is as simple as saving it locally. It is equally easy to resubmit a project back to the server by simply by saving it remotely.

Maintainability

The primary advantage of hosted project management solutions is that they do not require any maintenance on part of th user, the vendor takes case of it. However for server solutions, maintainability is a huge criteria. Secure remote administration is another features that enhances maintainability.

ValleySpeak Project Server can be securely managed from a remote location using any browser.

Access Control

In any kind of a project the flow of data needs to be controlled by different people. It is there a requirement that a good project management solution have different levels of access for different types of users. For example, project managers should have more control over project data than team members, executives should be able to see details of projects they are not part of. This requires a multi-role and multi-level permissions set up. Multi-role means that a user can be a Team Member in one project and a Project Manager in another. Multi-level means that within a project some users have more power than others and the Project Manager gets to set permissions and access levels. So if u have certain documents that are sensitive the Project Manager can make them read only to the project team, or make them visible to certain people only.

ValleySpeak Project Server’s permissions can be quite granular. Most of our competitors cannot offer these levels of security.

Security

Your project management platform is the central to all your business activities, its security is paramount to the success of your projects. While this is not much of a concern for hosted solutions, for server based solutions it is important that the server be easy to defend against viruses and other network borne threats.

ValleySpeak Project Server is a stable and secure environment built around Linux. This means it does not share any DNA with Microsoft Windows environment, making it immune to viruses and other security risks prevalent in the Windows world. To find out more about security features in ValleySpeak Project Server please visit
ValleySpeak Project Server Security Whitepaper.

Issue Tracking/Discussion Forums/Applications

Many products in the mid-range offer a dozen or so canned reports. Reporting is another long-term feature that you will utilize more and more as you become more familiar with a solution. So, make sure that there is more than what you require now, as your needs will likely grow. ValleySpeak Project Server offers over 50 canned reports and 100s of permutations of reports using filters. You can even create customized reports ready to be run at a moment’s notice.

Conclusion

Knowing your organizations requirement and then mapping those requirements to the features available from different vendors is the way to finding the right project management solution for you.