Now that you’re here, you’re probably wondering what you can do better in scheduling your team. You’ve noticed that too much time is slipping through your fingers, projects are sometimes delayed, and employees feel like chaos. Don’t worry, problems like these are part of every organization. Fortunately, there are several ways to solve them. One of them is project scheduling software or project management scheduling software – really interesting project scheduling tool.
From this article you will learn:
Project manager’s recommendations from software development companies
Urged project schedule management tools and their key features
What to look for when choosing project schedule and resource management software
What are project planning, project management, project scheduling, and project tracking and how do they differ
Why project scheduling software, which means project scheduling tool is so important for managers
A small introduction before we will talk about important things in using project scheduling tool. Project scheduling software, resource scheduling software, employee management software, project management scheduling tool, or schedule management software – these terms mean the same. And the main goal of each is the same. Generally speaking, without talking about many other features and functional differences, they help with scheduling, allocating resources (employees), and wide-ranging project planning.
50% of organizations mostly or always baseline their project schedules. Whether you’re a novice project manager or you have schedule management at your fingertips, you’ll need a system to help you pull all your processes together. It’s not that you wouldn’t be able to do it differently – many companies try to manage their work by scheduling it on a whiteboard or in Excel.
The problem is that such a strategy only works up to a certain point. And that moment comes very quickly for any company that is hungry for development and has ambitions to grow. For modern software development companies, the question “is it worth using schedule management software” no longer exists. Instead, they ask themselves “which schedule management to choose”. And here it is worth noting a few criteria.
1. Intuitive interface of project scheduling tools – most likely reason why the project scheduling tool is rejected is just UX and usability. So, it’s absolutely clear, before you buy – try it, let’s try people who will use it. The tool is supposed to make your job easier, not more complicated, so make sure you are comfortable navigating the panel.
2. Time tracking / Time management – effective project management is impossible when you don’t know what your team is working on and how much time it takes. Project scheduling tools can really help.
[Source: Screen from the resource management and project scheduling software]
3. Leave management / Absence Management / Team availability – employees are entitled to holidays and days off, but their absence affects the entire workflow and works planning. A good project scheduling tool will give you full insight into your team’s availability.
4. Custom reporting – every company has different priorities and different metrics will be important to them. Project scheduling software must generate the reports you need for you.
5. Scheduling in real-time – one of the most crucial things in work planning is an immediate update. Schedule changes that are made only after some time will create unnecessary chaos, so your tool must update them right away, so it is worth interesting project schedules tools.
6. Workload management – For the schedule to work you need to know who has time to take care of a particular task. The ideal tool will show you the capacity of your employees.
Well, we’ve already told you why you need project management software, known as project scheduling tools and what to look for when choosing the one and only.
Now it’s time for a few examples.
“Resource planning software developed by software house for their own needs, therefore, best suits the needs of the industry.” – one of really interesting project scheduling tools.
Teamdeck is resource and project scheduling software with time tracking and availability management features
Price (standard package): $3.60 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Custom organization working time and availability.
Ability to assign custom fields to people and projects ie job titles, skills, technologies, etc.
Transparent view of work schedule and availability for different departments, and positions using the calendar view
Custom tags
Excel-like custom reporting
Automatic bank holidays for multiple localisations
Available in mobile version
Data security system
Integration with other systems like Google Calendar, Slack, Podio, SageHR, Zapier, and REST API
Cons
The mobile app to track hours does not allow to see only the active projects
No dependencies for booking
No desktop start-stop time-tracker (only in the mobile app)
“nTask is one of project scheduling tools designed as a collaboration tool for businesses that is a full project management solution.” – G2
Price (standard package): $3 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Easy and intuitive interface
Task management
Project management
Risk management
Tracciamento del tempo
Timesheet management
Meeting management
Kanban boards
Gantt charts
Cons:
Lack of customization
Lack of reporting
“Resource Guru is specifically designed to reduce excessive workloads, improve team morale, lower employee churn, and help you do your best work.”
Project calendars help to identify and visualize tasks throughout the project.
Price (standard package): $4.16 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Resource availability
Team collaboration
User-friendly interface
Availability panel and resource capacity planning option
Management of scheduling conflicts
Reporting and forecasting
Leave management system features
Project and resources scheduling
Conference room booking system
Equipment tracking
Integration with Slack, Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar
Data security system
Cons:
No ability to sort resources by experience level
No “undo” function in the booking section
No ability to copy resource tasks
No ability to search for bookings by keywords
“Add your projects and team and you’re ready to go! Click and drag anywhere on the schedule to start assigning tasks.”
Float also helps with project tasks and set task dependencies.
Price (standard package): $ 10 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Flexible and easy-to-use resource management panel
Easy navigation and filtering
The visual, drag-and-drop interface of resource scheduling
Time-tracking pre-filled with ongoing tasks
Planning multiple projects
Reporting and forecasting
Integration with Jira, Teamwork, Asana, Trello
Cons:
Uncomfortable project timeline navigation.
Some integrations don’t work as expected.
Time-consuming updating of employee list.
Any user can add and change data that causes clutter.
“Purpose-built technology for clarity, control, and confidence.”
Mavenlink is also in our project scheduling tools comparison that helps finish the project successfully
Price (standard package): Individual pricing
Pros:
Advanced resource management panel
Business intelligence features
Real-time project metrics
Ability to assign roles and different permissions
Data protection
Resourcing integrated with project and resource planning
Additional client services like advisory, guidance, coaching, and customer success program.
Product training and 24/7 support
Integration with Slack, Jira, GSuite, Oracle
Cons:
No free trial
Complicated creation of custom reports
Advanced features only for Premier and Enterprise packages
Too many email notifications
Many ways to get exactly the same effect which unnecessarily complicates the system
“Customize Wrike to best suit your organization. From custom dashboards and workflows to team-specific automation to streamline processes.”
Task management with Wrike is a project scheduling software.
Price (standard package): $ 9.80 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Free version with basic features
Interactive Gantt charts
High customization of the system.
Dedicated groups of functionalities.
Kanban boards
Advanced analytics
Scheduling, project management, time tracking, and document uploading in one tool
Data security system
Cons:
Complicated to use
No possibility of offline project management
High hardware requirements make it inconvenient to use on older computers
The most advanced features are in the premium package, which is expensive
“Align global teams, build and scale business-driven solutions, and enable IT to manage risk and maintain compliance on the platform for dynamic work.”
Gantt charts are helpful to develop the project schedule and visualize task dependencies
Price (standard package): $24.80 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Dedicated to creative and marketing teams’ content management
A user-friendly interface allocates resources, tracks progress or time
Project workflow automation
Advanced management dashboard
Team collaboration
Convenient communication and data exchange with other team members
Intelligent project workflow management
Data security system
Data synchronization
Schedule management
Multi-project planning
Cons:
High price
Basic package for up to 25 employees
Some features are missing or unavailable
The tool is heavy and sometimes it is lagging
Unreadable task panel for some users
“Unite your projects, resources, and financials in one AI-native platform.”
To effectively manage a project scheduling process Forecast is irreplaceable for many managers
Price (standard package): $30 / team member / monthly
Pros:
Automation and AI-based functionality
Easy to use
Project planning, tracking, and project scheduling software
Advanced leave management system
Monitor costs and profits for each project
Extensive customization options
Auto-scheduling based on employee availability
Integration with Asana, BambooHR, Azure
Reporting and forecasting
Cons:
High price
Lacks some useful functionality
Too many project visualizations make data unreadable
Scheduling is very strict and not ideal for agile companies
The tool is aesthetically pleasing but not very intuitive
In the digital world, data security is everything, especially when you work with so much confidential information. The ideal project management scheduling software should guarantee the security of your databases. In addition, it must comply with GDPR – the European data protection law in force since 2018. It contains very strict regulations regarding the collection, processing, and use of such information, so the right system takes it into account.
Why would need software that you don’t know how to use? Even the most revolutionary functionality will be trouble, not help if you cannot use its potential. A good project schedule planner takes care of its customers not only when it comes to persuading them to buy it, but also throughout the entire cooperation process – good project scheduling tools are impotant. Make sure that the business partner you choose provides you with a proper onboarding process so that you can take advantage of the full range of capabilities you are paying for.
It’s only natural that your business will grow...and project scheduling software shouldn’t slow this process down. Or at least that’s certainly one of your business goals. The question is whether the project schedule planner you choose will be able to keep up with you. When choosing the ideal tool, think ahead, not only about your current needs but also about what you will need in the future.
Make sure the software will meet your current and upcoming requirements. It is also very important to check how the pricing of the service will change – it may turn out that some tool will be the best solution for a small company, while completely unprofitable for a medium or large software house. Take into account the direction of development of your organization to make your choice the most optimal one.
Imagine a small company in which everyone works from the office full-time and which handles a maximum of 3 projects simultaneously. Now imagine a second company, a multinational corporation that employs people all over the world. Most of them work remotely in different time zones. Some have full-time jobs, some work part-time, and some are freelancers. Up to several dozen projects are handled simultaneously.
As you can probably imagine, the workflow of these two companies will be completely different, but that doesn’t at all mean they have to use different project scheduling tools. The ideal project management scheduling software is flexible enough to adapt to each company’s expectations.
Pay attention to whether the software allows you to easily add, delete and edit data, make custom settings, enable and disable the time-tracker as needed, add data about each employee and personalize availability, for example, if someone is working part-time or on holiday. The system should also allow you to give individual roles and permissions to individual employees, for example, who can accept leave requests, assign tasks to individuals, set milestones, accept schedules, etc.
You can’t improve your work without data on what works and what doesn’t, which is why one of the key functionalities of project scheduling software is reporting. Make sure that the system generates basic reports providing you with the most essential data and that the reports can be customized according to your individual needs.
Yes, we know, that the long list of integrations on the system page is always impressive. However, when choosing software don’t just look at the number of custom logos, but also how quickly the tool can introduce new integrations.
Ok, let’s say at this point the software has integrations with all the major applications you use, but what when a new one comes on the market? Will the tool be able to implement the new integration in a few days, weeks, or months? Speed and agility of integration are very important criteria when choosing a system.
Every company will be trying to convince you that their solution is the best and will turn your thinking about work planning upside down. The truth is, however, that until you test it yourself – you won’t know for sure. Companies confident in the quality of their service will not be afraid to offer you a free trial period.
They don’t want you to buy their product blind, they just say “See, this is our system, check if it works for you and if it does – we invite you to cooperate.” A free trial period is the most effective way to verify if a solution suits you, so don’t hesitate to use it and look for companies that offer it.
Digging through the Internet in search of information on schedule management and project schedulig tools, you have surely come across terms such as project planning, project tracking, and project management. They all seem similar, appear in the same context – software house optimization, and bring similar benefits to your company. We know, it is easy to get lost in it, so before we go further we will shed some light on this confusing terminology.
Maybe you don’t know yet, but project scheduling, and resource management, are the pieces of the project management life cycle or – to say it is much easier to adopt – project management process. But before more about that, let’s begin with fundamentals. How do project managers understand project management and why they use project scheduling tools?
Paraphrasing the Project Management Institute (PMI) definition, project management is about using (specific) knowledge, competencies, skills, devices, tools, methods, techniques, and whatever it takes to deliver “value to people”. Leaving aside the ambiguity of the phrase “value to people”, one can say that project management is about using one’s resources (both tangible and intangible) to create and implement something – let’s say – useful (not necessarily to everyone).
As we see, the above-mentioned understanding is pretty large. From the PMI perspective a result of project management – it seems to – can aby anything. Anything which is useful for people. Of course, to make it more complicated, we could ask whether at least two people who have created something (tangible or intangible) and have a use for it are project managers, and their work is a project? Or, how many of them must have benefited from a given creation for it to be called a project?
Skipping questions like those, need to be said that the definition above doesn’t say anything about absolutely fundamental. It could be said, the fundamentals of any project, include planning and scheduling. And the fundamentals that differ between project management and management. We can’t also forget about task management.
Project management is the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge, and experience to achieve specific project objectives according to the project acceptance criteria within agreed parameters. Project management has final deliverables that are constrained to a finite timescale and budget. Project scheduling software can be helpful with it.
Here are 3 project management aspects that don’t appear in the PMI’s definition. The first one is “project acceptance criteria”, the second – is time, and the third one – is budget.
Let’s use collaboration with a client as an example. As we know, projects are commissioned, internally or externally – by someone from your company or from outside, by a client. She/He makes a business order. She/he has expectations related to products and how they will help it help she/he current business or the new one. And – what’s the most important – she/he didn’t get an unlimited amount of time in life and Warren Buffet’s wallet.
Or, on another hand, he would like to get the result of his order fast and cheap. Saying directly – the quality of the products, the time she/he finally got it, and – the most important – the cost determines business decisions of potential and current clients. If the client’s acceptance criteria don’t meet with the results of work, here it starts another, much worse problem...
As the APM suggests, the difference between just ‘management’ and project management is about the time when the project is ready to implement or already implemented. While management is an ongoing process, project management has its final result provided in a finite time span. In this place we have a few comments because we ain’t sure does the “finite time span” it’s the greatest way to divide project management and just management.
For example, let’s use the marketing department or just a PPC specialist. Both are responsible for lead generation activities – that’s the project goal, gathering leads. The goal includes campaign optimizations, landing page optimizations, content creation, etc – that are the tasks. It has its budget dedicated to it. If the number of leads gathered each month is not enough, the business starts to have a big problem. From this point, if the project manager in the person of a PPC specialist doesn’t achieve the goal within the expected time and budget, the project fails. Thus, as we see, sometimes it’s not about the time span, but the budget – because that last one is the stronger aspect of a project that decides its profitability of it. Project scheduling tool can be really helpful.
Having this comment in mind, let’s go with a few other lessons.
So, project management is – as the APM suggests – an application of methods and processes. On the internet, anyone will find the project management process broken down into phases. Sometimes it’s 3 phases, sometimes 4, 5, 6, or even 7. We use the most popular one that contains 5 phases.
Initiation & conception
Project planning
Launch & execution
Monitoring & control
Project closure
From a narrower perspective, project management is responsible for HOW to achieve the individual project objectives with all the details. It is the execution part of managing work and is aimed at getting the team to achieve the goals. Is about leading a project from start to finish, taking into account all the individual stages, all the tasks within the framework of a defined budget, and quality objectives. It is responsible for how the scope will be delivered. Elements of project management, among others, include:
creation and development of the project concept,
managing the work of the entire team,
deciding on the process and methods of project realization,
task lists preparation and its prioritization,
task assignment and task deadlines,
quality control and problem-solving,
budget management,
customer satisfaction control,
evaluation of the effectiveness of the work performed.
Now it’s for terminological issues because project planning, project scheduling, and sometimes even project tracking are interchangeable treated terms.
As the graphic below suggests, project scheduling is the one of pieces of the project management life cycle. It is one of the groups of tasks that belong to the project planning phase and execution as well.
Cutting-edge project scheduling software participates in almost every stage of the project management life cycle
Project planning is the part of the project management process that answers the question WHAT IS TO BE DONE in a project. It describes the vision and the key steps required to complete the project. Its purpose is to define the activities and methodology that will allow your team to meet its objectives. It is a horizontal view of a project that is not yet very detailed. The planning phase consists of elements such as:
description of project sponsors, stakeholders, and clients,
description of project scope, budget, and deadline,
identification of project elements necessary to achieve the objectives,
identification of potential challenges and threats,
presenting the project plan to investors, clients, or other stakeholders.
The goal of project planning is to prepare a formal, approved document that is used to guide both project execution and control. Thus the goal of the project schedule – according to the PMIs PMBOK Guide, is to show “the planned dates for performing activities and the planned dates for meeting milestones”. As we read on the Project Cubicle website:
project schedules show the activities, durations, dependencies, milestones, start and finish dates, calendars, and the critical path in a diagram.
Project scheduling (or resource scheduling or schedule management) is a procedure for assigning tasks and allocating resources so that the project can be completed within a specified time and budget.
This process consists in estimating the available capacity and additional resources needed at each stage of the project and planning at what time particular tasks and project phases must be completed to meet the declared deadline. Elements of schedule management are:
dividing the project into stages and defining milestones,
defining tasks within the project based on the scope,
determination of available resources and demand,
resource allocation,
estimating the time needed to perform particular tasks (project timelines) in order to meet the deadline.
In the end, we need to point out project tracking because this term also is considered as something similar to project scheduling.
Project tracking is the process of monitoring the progress of a project (it is a monitoring phase in the project management life cycle). Project tracking is connected to or even the same as task tracking – it’s focused on task progress which is of course element of the entire project.
This is not the same as employee time tracking, which is monitoring what tasks employees spend their working time on. When all the work is planned, objectives are set and resources are allocated, it is time to check whether the project execution is going as it should, the schedule is being implemented correctly, there are no unresolved problems and bottlenecks are not blocking the progress of work.
Project tracking is a very important process for project managers and clients because it allows them to check whether everything is going smoothly and whether the original plans are working or need to be modified, for example by expanding the team or adding new tasks.
A rigid division of the above-mentioned terms is very difficult, as they all interact with each other and are parts of project management. Sometimes a different person is assigned to each stage, sometimes the whole process rests on the shoulders of a project manager. The more complicated the project, the bigger the organization, the more elements will contribute to work optimization.
That is why modern software companies do not even start working on a project without proper tools. Of course, there are systems dedicated to individual stages, but it will be much easier for you to work using one software that will meet all your needs and help you create a project plan, set a schedule, manage resources, monitor work time, and progress, and assign tasks. Below we have some suggestions for you on effective tools for managing work in your organization.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
― Benjamin Franklin
Ok, you already know that you need a project scheduling tool and how to choose one... But are you aware of why you really need it? We know that everyone talks about how necessary it is, but what will it give you and how will it change your business for the better?
Chaos costs money. It’s no secret. In the chaos, you waste time trying to figure out what is going on and what needs to be done. And in a software house time is money…. a lot of it. After all, your services have a price for a reason. If you want to use your company’s money for something, it’s for development, innovation, and marketing, not wasting resources. Project scheduling tools can help.
This may seem trivial – after all, everyone working on a project knows what the goal is and what is needed, right? Well, not really. Often a seemingly simple task has many more parts than it appeared. And each of those components takes more time than it looks.
A well-prepared schedule always gives you a clear picture of what you need to do and when you need to do it to meet your goals. This ensures you don’t miss anything and avoids delays. This is why you should choose good project scheduling software.
Schedule management is very important from the perspective of teamwork because each team member knows what their responsibilities are and that the work of others depends on their work. This helps to build shared responsibility and solidarity among your employees, which has a positive impact on productivity.
Some projects start smoothly and require minimal resources needed, and then suddenly it turns out that this was just the tip of the iceberg, and each subsequent stage is more and more difficult. If you have prepared a project schedule, you have certainly anticipated this situation and secured the time of staff who can be deployed to support the project. If you haven’t, well, good luck.
You know that situation when you start working on a project and everything is perfect, you give 110% and the quality of workmanship is the highest possible? Unfortunately, the longer you work, the less time you have, and eventually it turns out that you won’t be able to finish the project while maintaining the initial level.
And even worse, you’ll have to significantly lower your standard quality to meet the deadline at all. Schedule management supported with at least good project scheduling software allows you to avoid this situation, plan your time carefully and maintain an even, high quality of work throughout the project.
The project schedule shows you clearly what has to happen and when. If specific tasks suddenly start slipping, it’s a signal to you that something is going on and you need to react. This allows you to solve problems at an early level and prevent bottlenecks before they affect the entire workflow. Without a schedule, you would probably notice a crisis when it was already really serious,
Do you need a help with finding the best project scheduling software?
“A goal without a plan is just a wish”
Improving time management is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions. Plans are an integral part of our lives. When we go on holiday, make dinner, want to get a promotion or a dream job, enter a competition, achieve anything. Since a plan is such an important part of our individual development, imagine an organization full of individuals, each with potential, competence, and a limited amount of working time.
Can you lead a company to success without schedule management and a good plan? Probably yes. But it’s just a bit like quitting your job and waiting to win the lottery. Is it worth believing in blind fate?
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