Microsoft Project - Review 2022

Choosing to use Microsoft Project as your team'due south defended project management app makes sense only when a number of stars marshal. First, you really must have a certified projection manager on board to bulldoze the software. 2d, time has to be on your side and your certified project director tin can't be rushed to learn to utilise the tool. Tertiary, your team should already be a Microsoft firm, or it should be willing to become one. Fourth, the number of projects your team manages and their level of complication should exist quite high. If your organization meets these criteria, Microsoft Projection may prove to be an invaluable tool. If not, you're better served by another option, and there are many.

If you've read this far and realized that Microsoft Project isn't correct for your team, I recommend iii other options. For small businesses, Zoho Projects and Teamwork Projects are the PCMag Editors' Choices. Both are reasonably priced and very piece of cake to learn to use, even if you're not a project management master nonetheless. The other tool that earns the Editors' Choice is LiquidPlanner, a loftier-end tool that'south platonic for larger teams managing not but projects but also people and other resources.

A Few Caveats

Microsoft Project takes a long time to learn to use and even longer to primary. I am writing this review from the betoken of view of someone who has not mastered it (non fifty-fifty close) simply who has experimented with it for some weeks and asked questions of Microsoft representatives to learn more. My point of view includes comparing testing with dozens of other project management apps, from lightweight ones designed for minor businesses to enterprise-grade options.

Because Microsoft Project is something of a bear, I would recommend complementing my article with user reviews by people who have worked with the tool extensively and tin provide unlike insights into how it holds up in the long term.

Pricing and Plans

There are two ways to purchase Microsoft Project. Yous tin add information technology to an Office 365 subscription or you lot tin can buy a standalone version for on-premises deployment. The options get disruptive, so let me go through them piece by piece.

Role add-on. When you add Microsoft Project to an Office subscription, you get the cloud-based version of the app. There are three pricing levels for this type of purchase: Project Online Professional, Premium, and Essentials.

Project Online Professional costs $30 per person per month. With this level of service, each person gets to use the Microsoft Project desktop app on up to v computers for projection management just, non portfolio management. Fifty-fifty though it'southward a desktop app, it notwithstanding runs in the cloud (i.eastward., it requires an internet connection to apply). Access via web browsers is likewise included.

Project Online Premium costs $55 per person per month. It offers everything in the Professional person account, plus portfolio management tools. It comes with advanced analytics and resource direction features that you don't make it the Professional person account.

The third level, Essentials, is non a tier of service and so much as a role type you can choose for squad members who have fairly express responsibilities in the app. It costs $7 per person per calendar month. Yous accept to have a Professional or Premium membership first to employ the Essential option. Essential users tin only access Microsoft Project via a spider web browser or mobile device. They can just update task statuses, work with timesheets, share documents, and communicate with colleagues. They don't get desktop apps or other functionality.

Standalone on-premises deployment. If you don't want to use the cloud-hosted version of Microsoft Project, you tin can host it locally, and there are iii options for how to do it.

I is Project Standard, which costs $589.99 charged as a one-fourth dimension flat fee. With this version, y'all get one piece of software installed locally on one reckoner, and only ane person tin use it. Information technology's old-school software in the sense that information technology doesn't accept any collaboration features. You get projection direction tools, simply null for resource management.

The next choice is Projection Professional for $1,159.99. Each license is good for only 1 computer. It has everything in Project Standard, plus the power to collaborate via Skype for Business, resource-direction tools, timesheets, and the option to sync with Projection Online and Project Server.

Project Server, the last option, is a version of Microsoft Project that enterprises can go with SharePoint 2022. I could become into detail almost how to become SharePoint 2022 and the three tiers of enterprise service for Role involved, only I'll assume that if this option is of interest to you lot, you already have a support person at Microsoft you can ask for more data.

Comparison Prices

If nosotros use the $30 or $55 per person per calendar month price for Project Online Professional person as our base for comparing, which are the tiers of service I imagine are in your wheelhouse if you're reading this article, then Microsoft'southward prices are on the high terminate for small to medium businesses.

TeamGantt is a good place to starting time for comparison. It offers service ranging from a Gratis business relationship to an Avant-garde membership that costs $14.95 per person per month. It'due south a web-based tool that includes collaboration and is much easier to learn to use than Project.

A comparable plan with Zoho Projects costs a flat rate of $50 per month, regardless of how many people use it. Teamwork Projects offers a similar flat monthly rate ($69 per month for every bit many team members equally you lot demand), equally does Proofhub ($150 per month).

If nosotros turn to more loftier-cease tools, LiquidPlanner starts at $599.40 per year for a small business business relationship of up to five people. That price is based on a rate of $9.99 per person per calendar month, but this item plan is merely sold in a five-seat pack. LiquidPlanner'due south nearly popular plan, Professional, is better for medium to large businesses. It works out to exist $45 per person per month, with a ten person minimum. Like Microsoft Project, LiquidPlanner takes fourth dimension to primary in role because it offers so many tools for both project management and resources management.

Other project management platforms that are suitable for larger organizations include Clarizen (from $45 per person per calendar month), Celoxis ($25 per person per month; 5-person minimum), and Workfront (virtually $30, depending on setup).

Getting Started

I tin't stress enough the fact that Microsoft Projection is meant to be used past experienced, or more precisely trained, projection managers. It's not designed for learning on the fly. It doesn't come with clear tutorials for getting started. It assumes familiarity with both large concepts and fine details of project management. If you're thinking you lot might utilise this software only you (or the lead person who will be using the app) don't know what a burndown report is, I would seriously advise you to consider a different tool.

The app itself looks a lot like Excel. Information technology has the same familiar tabbed ribbon interface seen in other Microsoft Office apps. The spreadsheet portion of the app holds all the data related to tasks or resources. To the correct of the cells is a Gantt chart reflecting the schedule every bit you build it.

Microsoft Projection supports all the typical things you'd want to practise in a project direction app. For every chore, yous tin can enter a lot of detail, such every bit a description, notes, first appointment, job duration, and so forth. Recurring events are supported, as are dependencies, custom fields, and baselines for tracking bodily progress versus planned progress.

The bars in the Gantt chart are interactive, so as you adjust them, the information in the cells updates as well. When a task is in progress, you lot tin can indicate the percentage that it's done past sliding a smaller line inside its associated spanner bar toward the correct.

In addition to having a Gantt chart view, Microsoft Project offers agenda and diagram views likewise. The calendar view is self-explanatory, while the diagram view is similar to the Gantt view, just it contains additional details most the chore. If you follow a timeline better when in that location'south some sense of a narrative behind it, the diagram view could be useful.

As mentioned, the first fourth dimension you utilize the app, there isn't much coaching on how to get started. Some apps provide interactive on-screen tutorials. Others start y'all out in a sample projection. Nevertheless others point you early to a aqueduct of help videos for getting started. Microsoft Project has none of that. In fact, the little that Project does provide may only add to your confusion, such equally this little nugget of data that I saw on day one:

"To exist articulate, Projection Online is NOT a web-based version of Project Professional. Project Online is an entirely separate service that offers full portfolio and project management tools on the web. It includes Project Web App, and tin, depending on your subscription, also include Project Online Desktop Client, which is a subscription version of Projection Professional person."

Even after having gone through all the pricing and plan options in detail, those words withal make my head spin.

Features and Details

Microsoft Projection is powerful when it comes to the more detailed aspects of projection management, such as resource management, reports, and timesheets. Powerful doesn't hateful like shooting fish in a barrel or elementary, of course.

In Microsoft Project, with the tiers of service that include resources management, you can manage piece of work (which includes both generic people and specific people, also equally other "piece of work" related resources), materials, and costs. You can do a lot with these elements if you accept the time and the inclination.

For instance, you can add detail to materials resources, such as a unit of measure, and if you want to get actually detailed, yous can enter costs for materials. What if the costs of a textile changes over time? In Microsoft Project, an additional detail console allows you to rails and account for changes in cost over time.

With work resources, I mentioned yous tin can rail specific people or generalized people. Depending on the work you lot're tracking, you may need to assign general man resources, such as a "front-finish developer" or "QA tester," rather than a specific person. It all depends on what you're managing and how.

Reports are highly customizable, although, like the rest of the app, information technology takes time to learn how to use them. Some of the more than rudimentary features are neat and surprisingly simple to use, however. You lot can generate a report past navigating to the written report department and selecting what data yous want to announced in different modules on the page. Using a field selection box on the right, you can make the topmost chemical element the project, and beneath it you might add a table showing how much of each stage of the project is already complete, and so forth.

All the elements you add to the report are stylized, and they don't automatically adjust to accommodate ane some other. For example, if text from i chemical element runs long, it can crash into another. Other minor visual elements oft need finessing, too. Yous tin can end up wasting a lot of time resizing boxes and nudging elements left and right to make information technology wait decent, which probably isn't what you're getting paid to practice. That'south a designer's task, really.

That said, styling the reports in this style has a purpose. In one case you finish with all the adjustments, the final product looks set to export to a presentation directly (in PowerPoint, no doubt), so you can go from generating reports to sharing them without many boosted steps.

Within the timesheets section, for those versions of the app that include information technology, you lot tin have team members make full out weekly time sheets for whatsoever duration you lot need, such as weekly or monthly. Team members tin report not simply fourth dimension spent on tasks related to projects, just they can as well indicate what time of piece of work it was, such every bit inquiry and development or fulfillment. Some other option lets people add together time to their fourth dimension sheets for tasks aren't specifically related to a project. For example, if Julia drives to meet with a client, the team might want to record that fourth dimension and bill for it, even though the travel doesn't appear as a task on a project.

Room for Improvement

I've already alluded to the fact that Microsoft Projection could offer more assistance in helping people get started with it and learn to use information technology.

Additionally, Projection is weak when it comes to in-app communication. The problem is that Microsoft is a kingdom, and within its realm it already has plenty of tools for communicating. You can fire off an email with Outlook, or schedule a meeting in Calendar, or pop into Microsoft Teams for chat, or Yammer for conversations, or Skype for video calls, and and so forth. But sometimes, when you're working on a projection, y'all merely want to @ message someone or ping them in a chat and inquire a question without breaking the context of your work by navigating to another app. Seeing as these tools already exist, why indistinguishable them in Projection? (Some might refer to Microsoft equally having an "ecosystem" rather than kingdom. An ecosystem can't assist but be what it is, but a kingdom chooses its boundaries.)

Indeed, traveling around the kingdom bellyaching me to no end while I was testing Microsoft Project. A desire to share information might result in the app whisking me away to Outlook. A need to update something almost a meeting scheduled in my projection could leave my computer loading a new tab for Calendar without my consent. Many times, I wanted the ability to adjust all the details related to my project from within the project management app, non somewhere else.

While Microsoft has enough of its own apps that work with Projection, many organizations rely on tools that come from somewhere else, Salesforce being a prime case. Projection does not integrate with many other tools. It's not supported by Zapier either, which is an online tool that tin sometimes connect apps and services that don't natively talk to one some other. If y'all're hoping to loop your projection management application into other online services that your team already uses, whether Slack or Trello or Salesforce, then Microsoft Projection is non a good tool to cull.

A Powerful Tool Within Its Realm

While powerful and thorough in many respects, Microsoft Project fits only very specific companies. More and more, this is the example with many Microsoft apps. Your squad needs to already be invested in Microsoft products for Projection to make sense. It as well works best for medium to large organizations, but not minor ones. Plus, you need a qualified and experienced project manager on the team to exist the person driving the app.

If Microsoft Projection isn't an ideal candidate for your project management needs, I suggest small outfits look into Zoho Projects and Teamwork Projects, whereas larger organizations managing many more projects and resources take a dive into LiquidPlanner. All 3 earned the PCMag Editors' Choice.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/software/19060/microsoft-project

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