The capabilities offered by these cloud based project management platforms varies considerably. Some (Intervals and ProWorkFlow) are aimed at smaller organisations, while others (Clarizen and OpenAir) are well established in larger organisations. There is also some targeting of users with Clarizen aimed at IT, and marketing projects. There are of course other offerings, but these represent ten of the most widely used.
Clarizen – provides online project management tools for project managers working in IT, professional services and marketing. It supports an Excel add-in so that real-time Clarizen data can be processed in Excel. It also supports mobile apps and integration with Salesforce
Genius Project – supports basic and complex project management as a cloud service or hosted on-premise. Delivers scheduling and reporting capability with very sophisticated online Gantt charting. Supports the whole work breakdown structure including dependencies, baselines, critical path and integrated resource planning. Also provides a portfolio management module to manage the project pipeline.
Intervals by Pelago is a hosted service for small to medium size businesses working in PR or IT. It specifically supports workflow management, time tracking and customer invoicing. A one project free subscription is offered.
Mavenlink supports collaboration, task and time tracking, budget management and invoicing. Mobile web based applications are available and integration with Google Apps.
Milestone Planner provides a very visual interface for project management tasks with good support for collaboration. Several versions available, with a free Guest subscription.
OpenAir Project Management by Netsuite is one of several offerings in the OpenAir suite. Provides ‘what if’ scenario planning to optimise price, margin, billing rates etc.
ProWorkFlow is aimed at small to medium size businesses and supports the functionality most users will need and provides some extensions for less ordinary needs.
Psoda provide several modules for professionals to manage projects, requirements, testing and product development. The Program and Project Management module supports portfolio management, dependency matrix analysis, expense management, change requests and many other project management tasks.
WorkZone sits between simple collaboration platforms such as Basecamp and complex, high-end tools such as Microsoft Project. A project dashboard provides a summary of project status, and more complex issues such as task dependencies are supported.
Zoho Projects is strong on collaboration with support for wiki, forums and chat. The usual project management tasks of tracking, planning and reporting are well supported. It also integrates with Google Apps.