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Team Solutions #2: collaborative webspace for project management
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 30, 2011 at 09:21 AM
Moving on altogether from desktop office tools, there is at the moment an endless offering of online integrated collaboration suites, most providing file sharing, conversations, task management and similar tools to support project implementation among teams.
Last spring I did a concise market research within the context of two projects my team is supporting. Hereby the main commercial offerings I tried, in alphabetical order: Deskaway, Glasscubes, Huddle, Manymoon, Onehub, ProjectPlace, Teambox, Teamwork (http://www.twproject.com/), Teamwork PM (http://www.teamworkpm.net), Thymer, Wizehive. I only provide the links that are not so obvious, for the rest adding .com should work.
I would note that though no holy grail was found, certain aspects did stand out in order to help us make a decision, at least within our specific context. Before sharing some of my conclusions, I’d be interested in reading others’ experience on the issue.
Incidentally, Teambox new version (4) is now in beta; you can get early access via this link http://v4.teambox.com/?s=1PHN (and actually help me get earlier access by using it :-)
Also, it is worth noting the big money being put behind some of those solutions, older and new. Manymoon has been acquired by Saleforce, SAP has its own product called Streamworks (focused more on the decision making process) and, more recently, VMware has joined with Socialcast and announced Strides (strides.do) also in beta, focused on management of collaborative tasks.
Posted by Ken
Oct 31, 2011 at 03:36 PM
Alexander,
I spent some time two years ago looking at a number of collaborative work environments, including many of the ones that you mentioned. Unfortunately, I did not find any that really inspired me in light of how I work. One, however, that did catch my eye was Smartsheet: http://www.smartsheet.com/ . I am a “spreadsheet guy”, and I liked how they developed their service around it. They used to offer a free account, but now they are charging for all of their plans. Nonetheless, its an interesting tool. Have a look.
—Ken
Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 1, 2011 at 12:55 PM
Great list, Alexander - thanks! I’ll look into some of those. Something we’re experimenting with currently - with pretty good results - is a service called soonr.com, which synchronises files across multiple computers based on “Teams” and “Projects”. Teams = users, who can be assigned to Projects. Files (including folders) can then be uploaded/downloaded to the soonr.com website, and synchronised across using soonr-dedicated Windows File Manager/Mac Finder folders.
So far, so boring. More interesting are (a) the full-text search facility, which supports MS Office documents, PDFs - but not, weirdly enough, HTML files - and (b) the built-in editor under iOS, which allows you to rough-edit Word/Excel/PowerPoint files on an iPhone or iPad.
As a file management system, it’s actually pretty powerful. But what won me over was the local synchronisation - I have no wish to confine my valuable data to some entity’s web servers. I want them right here, on my own premises!
Oh, and they’ve got another sensible arrangement: you can have a certain number of “Members” (i.e. fully authorised/paid-for team members) plus a certain number of “Connections” (= outsiders with temporary access to a specific project/projects). Great for giving clients/suppliers temporary access to specific files.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 1, 2011 at 01:55 PM
For those who like spreadsheets/spreadsheet-like organisational methods, it’s worth taking a look at Simple Groupware (which has a built-in Simple Spreadsheet) or at the latest beta of Feng Office.
I like spreadsheets, provided they support folding and competent text handling. My favourite spreadsheet-a-like prog is TreeSheets (which is good at both of those things, although it took all us enthusiastic users some time to persuade the developer to include the folding feature!).
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 5, 2011 at 05:54 PM
I should add to the list Asana http://asana.com/ , mentioned in its own thread here http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3349/0/asana-is-out—free-collaborative-task-manager