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Zoho Projects Social collaborative project management platform
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Zoho Projects is a feature-‐rich and easy-‐to-‐use cloud-‐based collaborative project management platform for small to medium-‐sized businesses as well as teams and departments in larger companies. Its flexible pricing model and add-‐ons give businesses the freedom they need to quickly scale up or down paying for the features they need when they need them.
1 Methodology
Methodology
This review is based upon information provided by the vendor and gathered through independent research. The vendor provided detailed product specifications and marketing materials, as well as an in-‐depth product demonstration. Further research was conducted surrounding business needs, market competition and software functionality.
2 Methodology
Contents Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 1
Product overview ................................................................................................................................... 3
Business needs ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Customers .............................................................................................................................................. 5
Competition ........................................................................................................................................... 6
Differentiators ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Pricing .................................................................................................................................................... 8
Product features .................................................................................................................................. 10
Projects ............................................................................................................................................ 10
Tasks ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Documents ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Calendars ......................................................................................................................................... 15
Bug Tracker ...................................................................................................................................... 16
Forum .............................................................................................................................................. 19
Pages ................................................................................................................................................ 20
Chat .................................................................................................................................................. 20
Timesheets and reporting ................................................................................................................ 20
Specifications ....................................................................................................................................... 22
Recommendations ............................................................................................................................... 23
3 Product overview
Product overview Flexible, mobile working is transforming the workplace; 63 percent of managers linked a growth in revenue directly to flexible working practices, according to a recent survey of 2,500 senior managers conducted by Regus.
However, many companies still struggle to harness the power of anytime, anywhere working. It’s not a cure-‐all; it’s a strategy that requires the right project management and collaboration tools to make it work for your business.
Zoho Projects speaks directly to the project management and collaboration needs of small and medium-‐sized businesses (SMBs) as well as teams and departments in larger organisations who want to operate a social and flexible, but ordered, work environment.
The software fills the gap in the market between consumer-‐focused collaboration tools and enterprise-‐level project management platforms. It combines powerful time-‐tracking, reporting and project management capabilities with user-‐friendly collaboration tools, such as wikis, forums and instant messaging (IM), to provide the best of both worlds and make your team more effective:
• Project management and reporting made easy. Zoho Projects gives managers the tools they need, such as reports, document management, timesheets, billing and the ability to follow individual users and projects, to keep their teams running efficiently and to keep projects on time and on target.
• Effortless collaboration. Forums, instant messaging (IM) and project wikis put all the relevant information at your workforce’s fingertips and let your teams discuss tasks and solve problems together with ease.
• High functionality and ease of use. Zoho Projects pairs high levels of functionality with an intuitive user interface. The feed provides users with a simple, visual way to communicate and keep on top of recent developments and Gantt charts offer a quick overview of projects and the progress of particular users.
• Work on the go. Zoho Projects’ iOS and Android mobile apps enable collaboration on mobile devices, making it easy for staff to collaborate and communicate wherever they are.
Ultimately, Zoho Projects provides the right mix of control and freedom for successful project management and easy collaboration for SMBs. And, with a flexible pay-‐as-‐you-‐go pricing structure, there’s a pricing plan for everyone.
4 Business needs
Zoho Projects helps companies improve collaboration and project management
Business needs With employees working out of office, on the move and across different time zones it is now more important than ever that SMBs have the right tools to drive and monitor productivity and allow employees to collaborate effectively wherever they are.
Zoho provides a wide range of award-‐winning cloud-‐based applications that help streamline the processes of SMBs, and Zoho Projects is no different.
While other productivity software often tends to focus heavily on either collaboration or project management, Zoho Projects addresses both needs and provides all the tools a business needs in one place.
Feeds let you keep up-‐to-‐date with recent developments and easily communicate with colleagues, integrated reporting tools allow insights from key project metrics to quickly be put into action, integrated time tracking and billing allows more accurate invoicing and better planning and collaboration tools encourage discussion and sharing whether in or out of the office.
Zoho Projects iOS and Android mobile apps take this further, letting users continue working on the move.
Zoho Projects also helps to keep your business transparent to your clients. Setting a project’s access to public means that any user with access to the portal can follow its progress and the native reporting tools provides regular email reports for managers and clients informed.
Zoho Projects offers an affordable, highly functional and user-‐friendly project management and collaboration tool for SMBs.
5 Customers
“Zoho Projects is built with the needs and aims of SMBs in mind.”
Customers Zoho Projects is a business-‐class collaboration and project management tool: it is built with the needs and aims of SMBs in mind and it provides a considerable amount of functionality for a reasonable cost.
As a result, the software is applicable to a wide range of business verticals, with Zoho Projects’ customers involved in software development and IT, marketing and advertising, real estate and construction.
In addition, being cloud-‐based software, Zoho Projects requires no costly on-‐premise hardware so it’s ready to go when you need it and is highly scalable. While most of Zoho Projects’ customers operate between three and 30 users, several customers have hundreds of active users active.
Zoho Projects provides a cost-‐efficient and flexible suite of tools for SMBs, whatever the industry.
6 Competition
Competition Zoho Projects locates itself in between consumer-‐focused collaboration tools and large-‐scale enterprise project management platforms, such as Microsoft Project, so its closest competitors are Basecamp, Trello and Asana.
Zoho Projects distinguishes itself from its rivals by providing a feature-‐rich one-‐stop shop for both effective project management and collaboration, rather than giving priority to just one aspect.
While Basecamp, for instance, owns a large part of this market, it does not include time tracking, reporting or bug tracking, which Zoho Projects includes in its paid plans. Nor does Basecamp include sophisticated project management features like dependencies and multiple owners per task.
Zoho Projects also benefits from integration with several other Zoho products, including Zoho Reports and Zoho Invoice, and other cloud-‐based services, such as Google Apps, Dropbox and SkyDrive. This integration helps to streamline your business operations and keep all of your data and documents in one place for easy reference.
7 Differentiators
Reporting Timesheets Bug tracking Document management Integration User friendly Mobile support
Differentiators Zoho Projects has been developed to give teams the ability to collaborate effortlessly whilst also giving managers the functionality to manage, track and review projects and users in order to drive productivity.
Several features in particular demonstrate this:
• Reporting. With integrated graphic reporting, keeping track of individual projects, tasks and users and reviewing key project metrics is easy. You can also export and print reports and schedule reports to be emailed to you and other users to keep everyone in the loop.
• Timesheets and billing. Time tracking not only helps you to invoice more accurately, it also helps you to more effectively gauge the duration of future projects and tasks, allowing you to monitor your progress and better organise your time.
• Bug tracking. Errors, issues and bugs are part of any project. Zoho Projects’ bug tracking software gives you complete visibility of unresolved issues with views filtered by severity, category and due date and the ability to create workflows and business rules to deal with errors and bugs.
• Document management. Zoho Projects not only lets you create documents, spreadsheets and presentations with its bespoke editor, it also allows you to keep all of your files – documents, spreadsheets, images, reports, etc – in one place and record the version number. No more trawling through lengthy email threads or asking colleagues for the latest version of a file. Sharing is easy with Zoho Projects.
• Integration. Zoho Projects integrates with a number of other Zoho products as well as several cloud services, such as SkyDrive and Dropbox.
• User-‐friendly. Zoho Projects combines feature-‐rich software with an easy-‐to-‐use interface, and the website has a forum where customers can share tips and tricks with other users.
• Mobile. The iPhone and Android mobile Zoho Projects app enables anytime, anywhere working for your business.
8 Pricing
Pricing Zoho Projects offers a flexible pay-‐as-‐you-‐go pricing structure with three levels, along with a free plan for small teams who wish to trial the software. Both yearly and monthly plans are available, with the yearly plans providing unlimited projects and users across all three plans (usually only available in Enterprise) and savings of up to 35 percent. Add-‐ons are also available for an extra cost.
Yearly plans
9 Pricing
Monthly plans
Additional options
Zoho Projects also provides added storage space at an additional cost for the paid plans. 5GB cost $8 per month.
10 Product features
Product features
Projects Feature and benefits
Screenshot
Creating a new project involves an easy three-‐step process, and project templates let you quickly configure and create repeated projects.
Project access let’s you make projects available only to project users, or public if you want to share it with everyone who has access to the portal, including clients.
11 Product features
You can then add users (both company and client-‐side) and assign roles. There are five user roles, each with its own permissions and capabilities: Super admin, Joint admin, Manager, Employee, and Contractor. This means that everyone knows their responsibilities and can only control what they need to.
Once you’ve created a project you can view and sort it, along with any others you’ve created, in the projects view, giving a visual overview of active projects.
Users can also create a workspace portal to more clearly group projects.
Tasks Feature and benefits
Screenshot
12 Product features
Once you’ve created your project you can easily add milestones, task lists and tasks.
With tasks you can have multiple users responsible, set different priority levels and can set the task to recur.
13 Product features
You can then create sub tasks and add associated documents or forum discussion to inform your team.
To keep track of your projects and tasks you can track duration, priority and percentage completion of the task. This can be seen in a Gantt chart…
…or a Kanban view.
14 Product features
Zoho Projects also lets you add followers to a project or task. This is for those who are not working on the task but want to be kept informed, like managers. Similarly, you can follow individual users to see what progress they are making.
When you start following an individual or task you will receive notifications and updates will appear on your personal feed. This feature really helps managers stay informed and in control, no longer needing to chase things up.
Documents Feature and benefits
Screenshot
15 Product features
Documents can be uploaded from your own computer, Zoho Docs and several cloud services, including Dropbox and Google Drive.
You can also create and edit documents, presentations and spreadsheets within Zoho Projects using the software’s bespoke editor.
Once created and saved the document can be discussed, reviewed and edited and the version number can easily be altered to keep track of the most recent document.
Calendars Feature and benefits
Screenshot
16 Product features
Access control allows administrators and managers to view and edit employees’ calendars, keeping them informed of upcoming meetings and deadlines.
Users can create tasks, milestones and meetings straight from the calendar. You can then set reminders and attach relevant documents to these events, making preparation for meetings much simpler.
The calendar can be filtered to show particular users or events.
Bug Tracker Feature and benefits
Screenshots
17 Product features
You can add a bug or incident, give it a title, classify it, note its severity and assign it to a user. Whilst this is a tool of most use to developers, the name of the tab can be changed and the software can be used for error or ticket reporting .
You can also set statuses and create workflows to make dealing with bugs and errors more efficient.
Users can capture bugs and incidents with a public web form.
18 Product features
You can also create business rules for bugs and incidents, so they are seen and dealt with by the relevant users.
Setting up notifications keeps only the relevant users up-‐to-‐date with what’s happening.
19 Product features
Bugs and incidents can also be exported.
Forum Feature and benefits
Screenshot
Working like a normal forum, you can create a post and add attachments, which your team can review and reply to.
Replies can either be posted within Zoho Projects or via email, meaning those without a Zoho Projects account can participate.
20 Product features
Pages Feature and benefits
Screenshot
Zoho Projects also lets you create pages for your projects. These pages act as wikis for your team.
Chat Feature and benefits
Screenshot
Users can set up a chat room, selecting a topic and adding other users to participate. Chat groups can be created for easy collaboration amongst teams.
Timesheets and reporting Feature and benefits
Screenshot
21 Product features
Time can be logged into timesheets, which can then be viewed in list or calendar view. Managers can see graphic reports of timesheets and create invoices from the timesheets.
Zoho Projects lets you enter a timesheet for your whole team for a whole week, rather than logging time for each day and each user.
If you’re unsure how long a task might last, you can just start a timer for that particular task.
22 Specifications
Specifications
Web browser requirements
-‐ Compatible with all modern browsers
Database requirements
-‐ Zoho Projects is an entirely cloud-‐hosted product. It is not available for hosting on client servers
Mobile capabilities
-‐ Zoho Projects has Apple iOS and Google Android mobile apps.
APIs and integration
-‐ Integrates with other Zoho products and with cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Apps.
Security and availability
-‐ Physical security: 7x24x365 security, video monitoring, biometric access and bullet-‐resistant walls.
-‐ Network security: encryption with 128/256-‐bit SSL, intrusion detection/prevention and virus scanning.
-‐ Redundancy and business continuity: distributed grid architecture, power redundancy, internet redundancy, redundant network, devices, redundant, cooling and temperature control, geo mirroring, fire prevention, data protection and back up.
-‐ Zoho is also US/EU Safe Harbour compliant.
Free Trial
-‐ Unlimited free trial available. Only one project and 10 MB of storage is allowed.
23 Recommendations
Recommendations Zoho Projects neatly fills a gap in the market between expensive enterprise project management suites and consumer collaboration tools. It provides the best of both worlds, with powerful reporting and project management capabilities and easy-‐to-‐use collaboration tools, such as wikis, forums and IM, to keep you and your team at the top of your game. It would be an ideal upgrade for those businesses currently using Basecamp who are looking for a little bit more functionality.
Several features in particular make Zoho Projects stand out in its market:
• Functionality and usability. Zoho Projects combines ease of use with high levels of functionality, meaning companies can see results from day one.
• Integrated reporting. Zoho Projects’ reporting tools let managers effectively monitor and quickly act upon key project metrics and individual users’ progress, helping to drive productivity. Reports can also be regularly emailed to the relevant clients, helping to keep your business transparent and preventing unnecessary chasing of work.
• Integrated time tracking. Integrated timesheets and billing help users to monitor productivity, quote more precisely for clients, create accurate invoices and better organise future tasks.
• Integrated bug tracking. Zoho Projects’ bug tracking software gives you the ability to develop workflows and business rules to assign responsibilities and quickly resolve bugs and errors so the rest of the team can concentrate on the main task at hand.
• Designed to scale. Being cloud-‐based software, Zoho Projects is easily scalable and inexpensive to set up. In addition, the monthly or yearly pay-‐as-‐you-‐go payment plans and add-‐on features give SMBs the freedom to chop and change what they use when they need to.
Zoho Projects is ideally placed to serve the project management, reporting and collaboration needs of SMBs that want high functionality and user-‐friendly features at an affordable price. Ultimately, Zoho Projects lets you and your team get to work.
24 About Zoho
About Zoho Zoho.com offers a comprehensive suite of award-‐winning online business, productivity & collaboration applications. Customers use Zoho Applications to run their business processes, manage their information and be more productive while at the office or on the go, without having to worry about expensive or outdated hardware or software.
To date, Zoho.com has launched 25+ online applications — from CRM to Mail, Office Suite, Project Management, Invoicing, Web conferencing and more. Zoho has received numerous awards, including an InfoWorld 2009 "Product of the Year" award, a 2008 PC World "25 Most Innovative Products Award" and a 2007 TechCrunch "Best Enterprise Start-‐up."
Zoho.com is a division of Zoho Corporation, a privately-‐held and profitable company. With offices in CA, Austin, Chennai, Yokohama and Beijing, Zoho Corporation serves the technology needs of more than 6 million customers worldwide.
