6 Reliable Virtual Project Management Softwares to Execute Your Team’s Biggest Goals
Since 2012, Hubstaff, a completely distributed company, has successfully operated a virtual team with the help of virtual project management tools. Under a remote staff, Hubstaff has attained a monthly recurring revenue of $135K (as of December 2016).
And we’ve been where you are now…
You’ve spent time searching for the right PM software for your remote team but you just can’t find something with all the features you need.
The challenges that remote teams like ours face aren’t related to working from different time zones. More often they’re associated with keeping tracking of work completed and work in progress. What the heck is the status of the thing?!
In this piece we’ll review some tried and true software you can use to keep track of projects within your virtual team. They often provide more than enough features for small- to medium-sized companies.
Virtual project management software
Description Pricing Free Trial
Asana Optimal for teams and $8.33/month/user Free Version companies of any size that regularly deal with multiple projects simultaneously
Basecamp 3 Straightforward and $99/month 30-day free user-friendly interface trial with the ability to create to-do lists in your calendar
Hubstaff Time tracking tool with $5/month/user 14-day free screenshots, proof of trial work, and productivity ratings.
Podio CRM project $9/month/user No management software that enables you to build your own workflows with custom tools.
Trello Collaboration tool that $9.99/month/user Free Version arranges your tasks into cards and boards, similar to post-it notes.
Wrike Designed for teams with $9.80/month/user Free version long-term projects that allows you to organize your projects with customization A closer look at the virtual project management softwares
Asana Asana is a task-based project management software to organize, track, distribute, collaborate and complete project goals. It brings efficiency to your team's workflows with workspaces along with the ability to replace email and simplify communication for project planning. Asana is aimed at freelancers and small to medium-size companies.
Accessing Team Conversations (source)
A Senior Community Manager at a small business had this to say about Asana: “I love that Asana allows my always on the go team to keep on top of projects, reassign tasks, add tasks, etc. - all in one easy place.”
The absence of a primary office where communication is made easy makes it tough to kickstart team collaboration in a virtual environment. With Asana, each project has its individual Conversation View where you can participate in group brainstorming and discussions.
In November 2016, the software launched Boards in Asana (Kanban Boards), delivering new ways to outline, prioritize, and follow your team's progress by organizing work in columns, similar to Trello's whiteboard and sticky notes layout in one central place.
Asana is accessible on the web, iOS devices, and Android. With collaboration and team conversations in one central place, Asana is the superlative virtual project management software to track projects from multiple angles, delivering more efficiency to your team.
Basecamp 3 Basecamp is a web-based project management software that enhances teams collaboration, file transfers, and includes a calendar feature for robust scheduling. With Basecamp Reports, virtual project managers can efficiently stay up-to-date on your team's progress such as overdue tasks, future due dates, new to-dos, and access to a team member's overall performance.
What’s new to-do and what’s to-done? (source)
A CEO of a small outsourcing business expressed these thoughts on Basecamp: “The software provides a discussion area to give your opinion on a project that helps keep all information together and streamline communication within Basecamp.”
Timezones can be a huge issue for remote teams and many people often find themselves playing catch up with their team’s project planning, to-dos, discussion boards, etc. Basecamp’s Hey! feature allows you to easily stay up-to-date on nearly every notification and latest team activities. Another innovative feature is the capability to forward emails into Basecamp so members of your team can view and comment before responding to the initial sender.
Basecamp 3 is an elite virtual project management software that allows remote teams to communicate and drive discussions, regardless of your location.
Hubstaff Hubstaff let’s you see what your team is working on, and how much they’re working. Time tracking by Hubstaff delivers refinable reporting with timesheet and invoice creation so you can stay on top of hours worked by your team in a single day or week.
Hubstaff: Your Team Dashboard (source)
A founder of a B2B company voiced his thoughts on the time tracking software: “Hubstaff is a great way to manage your virtual team to ensure their time is being spent actually working on your business.”
Hubstaff combines time tracking, employee monitoring, and automation to oversee precisely how your team is managing their time while working. For example, Hubstaff gives you the option to activate randomized screenshots while an employee is working to view the type of work your team is conducting.
Automatic payrolls in Hubstaff brings flexibility to your team using smart time tracking to ensure you only pay your team for time worked. Hubstaff supports payments, accounting, and invoicing tools such as PayPal, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, Payoneer, and Bitwage.
Hubstaff even integrates with several project management tools like Asana, Basecamp 3, Podio, Redbooth, Trello, and much more so you can also enjoy Hubstaff’s time tracking features, so you can operate your virtual team from one coherent platform.
Podio Podio is a workplace collaboration and project management tool with an App Marketplace to accommodate your team's precise needs. Each team member has their personal accounts, similar to a social network profile, along with workspaces for group collaboration and the ability to craft a collection of apps.
Welcome to the Podio App Market (source)
A Marketing Director of a small real estate company had this to say about Podio: “It’s very flexible in allowing you to customize the fields you need and in mapping different tables (apps) together via relationships.”
The Podio Apps Marketplace consists of 700 free apps to pick from along with the power to customize them to improve workflows. In the marketplace, apps are arranged by business types including Community Management, Event Management, Human Resources, IT Management, Marketing, and much more.
Podio organizes all aspects of your team’s work into one platform with open and private workspaces. Lastly, Podio eliminates tedious tasks by delivering an activity stream in each workspace.
Enhance the way your team collaborates with Podio’s powerful customizable apps and features.
Trello Trello collaboration and project management tool that uses kanban-style management. Tasks and projects are organized into customizable cards and boards to drive team collaboration and project planning.
Stay Sane And Empower Your Team (source)
A CTO of a Legal Service industry mentioned this about the software: “Trello takes the kanban concept - cards to visually represent work - and turns it into an incredibly flexible and powerful platform for collaborating on work of any type.”
Trello boards include lists to keep cards harmonized in their multiple phases of progress. efficient project planning. Team members can add cards, move cards, leave comments inside cards, edit cards, and more. Trello infuses project planning, collaboration, file sharing, and task management into cards by letting you craft detailed card descriptions that includes Markdown formatting to construct lists, links, and much more.
Other card features include comments and an activity stream for authoritative collaboration along with adding board members, labels for filtering, checklists, due dates, and attachments for task management.
Trello’s flexibility generates informative collaboration, paving a clear path for virtual team growth.
Wrike Wrike is an online project management software designed for virtual teams for practical collaboration. The software uses real-time reporting and analytics to help your team focus on what’s most important.
Wrike’s Gantt chart benefits (source)
A VP of marketing for a medium-size company stated these thoughts about Wrike: “Our small marketing team of five benefit from the collaboration features and useful for team organization.
Wrike’s Gantt chart rejuvenates your team’s project plan by delivering real-time updates. The Gantt chart transforms to-do lists, task management, notes, and the rest of your team’s data into clear-cut visuals.
With members of your virtual team scattered throughout various time zones, Wrike keeps your distributed team in sync with shared workspaces, file sharing, live Activity Stream, milestones, and much more.
In addition to Gantt chart, Wrike supplies other visuals to view your work with options like detailed task lists, spreadsheets, or a workload breakdown chart.
Wrike is available from any web browser and is free to download on iOS and Android devices, making it easy to collaborate with your virtual team.
Which virtual project management software fits your team best?
Project management is an essential ingredient for team success, and even more critical for distributed teams. Thankfully there’s a selection of project management tools that empowers collaboration, project planning, task management, time and expense tracking, file sharing and much more for your team.
Is there a project management tool not included in this list that works well with your team? We’d be more than happy to hear from you in the comments below.