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Zoho Projects

Right from 2006, Zoho Projects has been a major contributor to every project management need. Automating workflows, allocating tasks, recording time logs, relaying project updates, effective team collaboration, gathering analytica...Read more about Zoho Projects

Planview AdaptiveWork

Planview Clarizen is an award-winning enterprise work management solution for project portfolio management (PPM) and professional services delivery teams. The solution enables PMOs, EPMOs, PSOs, and ESOs to gain real-time visibil...Read more about Planview AdaptiveWork

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InEight

InEight provides field-tested project management software for the owners, contractors, engineers and architects who are building the world around us. Over 400,000 users and more than 850 customers worldwide rely on InEight for rea...Read more about InEight

Replicon

Replicon's advanced timesheet functionality lets businesses track valuable information including check-ins/outs, task progress, and billable/non-billable hours. The invoice module allows users to build custom invoices, examine pay...Read more about Replicon

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Deltek Maconomy

Maconomy by industry leader Deltek is a complete, fully integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) accounting system designed for professional service companies both small and large. Maconomy streamlines business operations, el...Read more about Deltek Maconomy

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Kantata

The Kantata Professional Services Cloud is purpose-built to help organizations with 50 to 5000+ employees unify resource management, project management, financial management, business intelligence and team collaboration all in one...Read more about Kantata

4.2 (607 reviews)

4 recommendations

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Visual Planning

Visual Planning is a hybrid resource management and scheduling platform that helps businesses to manage their assets and day-to-day operations. The solution can be deployed on-premise or hosted in the cloud. Visual Planning o...Read more about Visual Planning

4.6 (38 reviews)

1 recommendations

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Wrike

Wrike is a cloud-based project management platform for teams of 20+ that is suitable for both large enterprises and SMBs. It supports remote work for various teams. This solution comes with Gantt charts, calendars, workload view f...Read more about Wrike

4.3 (2590 reviews)

33 recommendations

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LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is a transformative project management solution for teams that want to plan, predict, and perform beyond expectations. It was designed to align your people, projects, and priorities to ensure the right people are wo...Read more about LiquidPlanner

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Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a work execution platform and collaboration tool with a familiar spreadsheet-like interface that helps teams plan, track, and manage projects in real-time. Smartsheet features include a range of project management to...Read more about Smartsheet

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Workzone

Workzone is a project management solution that offers document management, project collaboration, customizable reporting, resource and task management and time tracking. The software is cloud-based and offers automated emailed rep...Read more about Workzone

4.8 (205 reviews)

6 recommendations

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Asana

Asana is a comprehensive project management tool that offers a range of technical features to streamline workflows and enhance collaboration within teams. With its user-friendly interface and robust capabilities, Asana provides or...Read more about Asana

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InLoox

InLoox is the modern project and portfolio management platform that enables teams and departments throughout the company to reliably plan, monitor and evaluate their projects - convenient, simple and integrated into the Microsoft...Read more about InLoox

Celoxis

Celoxis is a Enterprise online project management solution for midsize to large businesses to help them plan and manage complex and diverse project portfolios. The collective suite includes modules for resource management, budgeti...Read more about Celoxis

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ProofHub

ProofHub is a cloud-based solution for teams in numerous industries. The solution provides applications for project management, project collaboration, resource management, task management, plus more. Key features include discussi...Read more about ProofHub

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ProjectManager.com

ProjectManager is an innovative project management software solution designed to help you navigate your project with ease. Say goodbye to roadblocks with features like: project planning, budgeting, time tracking, task and documen...Read more about ProjectManager.com

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RoboHead

RoboHead manages projects from start to finish with customizable project request forms, time tracking, resource management, online proofing/editing and approvals, client surveys, creative portfolios, asset management, and robust r...Read more about RoboHead

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Resource Guru

Resource Guru is a resource scheduling tool that helps busy teams keep projects on track. It offers a fast, flexible way to schedule people and assign work for any type of project, at companies big and small. Project managers and...Read more about Resource Guru

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ProWorkflow

Founded in 2002 and acquired by ProActive Software Ltd in 2003, ProWorkflow is a cloud-based project management and time tracking software that caters to companies of all sizes. ProWorkflow includes all the features of a trad...Read more about ProWorkflow

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Teamwork.com

Teamwork.com is the only platform with best-in-class client operations combined with easy-to-use project management that teams love. Deliver work on time and on budget, eliminate client chaos, and understand profitability in one p...Read more about Teamwork.com

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Buyers Guide

Last Updated: March 16, 2023

Whether or not a project is successful largely depends on how well the project is planned. In fact, in a recent analysis of project management (PM) software buyers who contacted Software Advice in the past year, 66% requested systems with project scheduling and resource management capabilities.*

We've created this guide to help buyers better understand project planning solutions and how they factor into the larger PM software market.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What is project planning software?

Project planning software is a specialized tool that helps project managers and stakeholders map out and visualize a project plan, helping to optimize resource allocation across a complex project and/or multiple projects. The project planning management tool helps plan the sequence of activities and tasks required to complete a project and identify the best project team based on availability and skills set.

This high-level "roadmapping" process helps managers:

  • Identify key resources

  • Pinpoint project tasks’ dependencies and constraints

  • Determine essential project milestones

  • Set baselines for the project’s scope, budget, and timeline (the three benchmarks used to determine project success)

Businesses can purchase stand-alone project planning/project scheduling software or invest in an integrated PM suite. A comprehensive project management software solution typically contains project planning capabilities in addition to other core PM functionality, such as:

Among the best project planning tools are Gantt charts, which are used to visualize a project's schedule and determine the critical path. These digital charts are vastly less labor-intensive to update than Gantt charts created using manual methods.

Now let's get into more detail on planning tool features.

Common features of project planning software

The following are some common capabilities of project planning tools:

Gantt charts

Used to determine the critical path of tasks, identify task dependencies, and potential risk areas. They can also help track performance and progress on tasks once projects are underway. Represented as cascading bar charts across a timeline or calendar (see screenshot below table for an example).

Resource scheduling

Provides project managers increased visibility into team availability and skill set. Managers can schedule resources to tasks and projects or create a “placeholder resource” for roles they know they’ll need but haven’t been able to schedule yet.

Project timeline planning

Visualize the full project timeline based on task durations and dependencies.  Project managers can create a project schedule, manage employee scheduling, and track project status (see screenshot below table for an example).

Risk identification

Allows project managers to track and manage potential risk areas, such as dependent tasks (e.g., if task B can only start once task A is complete, these tasks would be flagged).

Automatic alerts

Provides PMs and their team the ability to schedule in-app or email alerts. These can be used to notify the team about upcoming task due dates or to alert an employee assigned to a dependent task that the preceding work item is nearing completion.

Collaboration tools

Helps facilitate team collaboration among users via in-app comments, in-task chat streams, or discussion forums. For example, users can comment and add status updates directly to tasks or flagged risk items or loop in a team member on a question posted to a project discussion board (see screenshot below table for an example).

Zoho-Projects-software-Gantt-chart

Gantt chart in Zoho Projects (Source)

Project-time-planning-in-Microsoft-Project

Project timeline planning in Microsoft Project (Source)

Basecamp-project-team-collaboration

Project collaboration in Basecamp (Source)

Benefits of project planning software

There are many benefits of using project planning software as opposed to manual methods. These benefits include:

  • Increased visibility: View, track, and manage individual and team workloads, their skill sets, and current and future availability. This benefit is best realized when using a comprehensive PM suite with both project planning and resource management capabilities.

  • Improved communication and collaboration: Project planning tools act as a shared hub where managers, team members, and stakeholders can store all project-related communication. This provides a permanent record for important decisions and project changes.

  • Early risk detection: Using visual planning tools, such as Gantt charts and timelines, project managers and stakeholders can plan risk management strategies ahead of time and mitigate any potential obstacles.

  • Maintain historical archives: The information in project plans and status reports can influence future business decisions. Managers and stakeholders using planning software can look back on previous projects to see why decisions were made and to compare timeline and budgetary measures.

*Analysis was performed on software buyer calls asking about project management software from March 10, 2020 through March 9, 2021.

Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations. They have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.