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Project management software works wonders when managing multiple projects, as it can help you keep track of tasks without letting anything slip through the cracks. Today we will review GanttPro, PM software that caters mainly to the needs of small teams and organizations. To help determine if it can fit your development team’s needs, we will break down GanttPro in terms of its setup, interface, task tracking, features, weaknesses, and pricing.
What is GanttPro Project Management Software?
Before we dive into GanttPro’s in-depth review, let us take a minute to discuss its background. The project management software got its start in 2015, and it is currently used by over 700,000 project managers across the globe. As you can tell by its name, it relies heavily on Gantt charts, which are graphs that put all of a project’s tasks on a timeline for two primary reasons:
- To demonstrate how all of the tasks contribute to the final result.
- To showcase any potential obstacles to achieving that final result.
Breaking them down further, Gantt charts help users and project managers see the following:
- What tasks need to be completed and when.
- The estimated completion time for each task.
- A chronological order of tasks, so they get completed in a specific order.
- The team members responsible for completing each task.
Could you manage a project without the help of Gantt charts? Sure, but if you use basic collaboration tools or work-management apps like Airtable or Trello, managing multiple, complex projects could be challenging due to their limited feature sets. You could fail to pinpoint potential roadblocks, and some tasks may not get completed in time due to confusion between team members. That is why using Gantt charts and PM software like GanttPro is recommended, as it can give you a comprehensive view of timelines, tasks, and resources to help you manage more effectively.
Will GanttPro suffice for every type of team? It largely depends on the size of your development team, as it is geared towards small development teams seeking project management software with all of the essential features minus extras like invoicing or reports. But as you are about to see, if you can do without those perks, GanttPro is a solid PM platform.
Read: Project Management Software for Developers
GanttPro Review
Where does GanttPro shine and fall short? How much does it cost? Below you will find our breakdown.
GanttPro’s Setup
It does not take much to get up and running with GanttPro, which is a definite plus for teams seeking PM software without a steep learning curve. You can create an account with ease, set up a new project, and start tinkering with the PM software’s various features in a matter of minutes.
Once you log in to your account, you will be asked to create a project. You can take the quick path and select a template or create a project from scratch. The former may be your best bet since GanttPro offers templates for several types of businesses, including construction, web design, and more.
After deciding on a template or custom creation, you will see your new project via the Gantt chart view. You can start editing the chart to add details or tweaks as needed. If confused, you can view the recommended tutorials along the way. These tutorials are beneficial at showing you how GanttPro’s different features work and explaining various project management concepts to help your team improve.
Besides the initial setup, GanttPro makes it quite simple to add team members to your project. You can send email invites through the app and designate permissions once they accept. And if you need to share a project’s status with outsiders without revealing every detail, you can do so through filtered views, public URLs, and view-only access.
Read: Best Project Management Software for Game Developers
GanttPro’s Interface
You can describe GanttPro’s interface as smooth and modern. After a day of toying around with it, you should feel comfortable navigating the interface, as it does not come with too many complex surprises.
GanttPro’s Task Tracking
Why should you use PM software like GanttPro to manage projects instead of a more basic tool? Because it allows you to track projects’ progress fully, so you do not miss your deadlines. You can do this simply by creating a project and giving it a start and end date and description. Or you can take the more complex route by adding in tasks, subtasks, milestones, and other details to ensure you cover your bases. How detailed can you get with tracking tasks in GanttPro? So detailed that you can add the following to each task:
- Assignee
- Attachments
- Comments
- Custom fields
- Dependencies
- Description
- Duration
- End date
- Estimation
- Priority level
- Progress
- Start date
- Status
- Time
- Time log
- Type
You can track tasks by default with Gantt charts, or you can switch to a Kanban board view for a different perspective that uses vertical columns and cards.
What are GanttPro’s Features?
GanttPro offers more than just Gantt charts and Kanban boards to help track your tasks and manage projects. A nice extra in the Gantt view is the critical path feature. It highlights crucial tasks in red that must be completed before the project can proceed. In doing so, the critical path feature lets project managers instantly see what they must prioritize without having to overthink things.
You can use the mini dashboard if you want to see a quick overview of all of your projects at once. A time tracking feature tracks automatically with a timer or allows for manual entries. Speaking of time, GanttPro can ensure you do not overburden anyone’s workload too. The workload management view shows how much work is delegated amongst team members.
If they become overloaded at a particular time, their numbers will turn red to alert the project manager of the issue.
Besides workload management, GanttPro also offers resource management and project portfolio management. And should you make an error with a project that you want to reverse, a saved history feature lets you revert to a previous state with ease.
What are GanttPro’s Weaknesses?
As mentioned, GanttPro offers essential features that most small development teams seek, but it is missing perks that you may find in other project management software. This could be seen as a weakness to some, so here are some missing features or weaknesses worth mentioning:
Limited integrations – If you want to integrate with third-party apps through GanttPro, you will be limited to basics like Zapier, Google Drive, Slack, etc.
Lack of billing and invoicing – While some PM software lets you connect to accounting software, GanttPro is missing such integration.
Reporting – If you want in-depth reports for your projects, you will not find them here.
Collaboration – Besides basic comments and mentions, you will not find a full suite of collaborative features with GanttPro.
Zero proofing – Teams that work with visual assets will miss out on proofing workflow or proofing tools should they make GanttPro their PM software of choice.
What is GanttPro’s Pricing?
Unfortunately, GanttPro does not offer a free plan that comes with its most basic features.
Instead, there are three pricing plans with GanttPro:
- Individual – $15 per user, per month – Intended for personal productivity and not team use.
- Team – $8.90 per user, per month – The most popular offering for businesses, which offers unlimited functionality.
- Enterprise – Contact GanttPro for pricing – Offers priority support, enterprise onboarding assistance, and advanced management and security.
