Web-Enable Microsoft Project with New Version of Clarizen's PM Software
Last month we featured online project management software from LiquidPlanner, but if that wasn't for you then you may be interested in an alternative SaaS from a company called Clarizen. The Clarizen project management software came out of stealth mode last year and has now just launched a new version with additional features. The latest version, Clarizen v 2.0, will be demoed at tomorrow's "Under the Radar Conference," an event held on Microsoft's campus whose current theme is "The Business of Web Apps: Where the Web Goes to Work."
It seems a little odd for a direct competitor to Microsoft Project software to be featured at a Microsoft-sponsored conference, but the Clarizen product has a lot to offer current users of Project as well as those who would prefer an online tool. In a way, Clarizen web-enables Microsoft Project by allowing for the import of Project files into the online software. Microsoft Office users will also benefit from the program's new "Export to Excel" feature.
Exporting to Excel
The latest version, Clarizen v2.0, is a major upgrade with many more features and enhancements, including the following:
- Budget Planning: A brand-new budget planning feature is included with this release, allowing you to keep track of Actual vs. Planned budgets as part of the overall work plan.
- Export to Excel: This feature allows you to generate custom reports and export that data to Excel worksheets. The feature is available on the Current Project, Projects, Tasks, and Resource Usage Views.
- "What's New": In version 2.0, new, unread items display in bold text and a "new" icon indicator highlights them in the dashboard's "What's New" panel
- Improved UI: the new version received a facelift and now has a much more user-friendly design than before.
- Duration: You can now enter different time scales for the duration of a project - anything from hours, to days, weeks, or months.
- Usability Enhancements: Enhancements have been made across the entire application, bringing changes like right-click menus, interactive tooltips, optimized screen lengths, extended session time outs and more.
- Modular Projects: You can now move sub-projects from one parent to another or convert a parent project to a sub-project of another project altogether.
- New Views: A new "View" drop-down lets you quickly switch between Budget and Basic views within a project with even more to come soon.
Clarizen Screenshot
In addition to these new features, Clarizen's project management software also offers tools like online collaboration with team members, wiki-like notes and discussion boards, alerting features, and an on-demand, scalable SaaS platform. There's also Clarizen's ProjectMail feature, which lets team members email in updates on their progress as well as receive status reports, tasks and updates from the system itself.
The only drawback for some may be the price. There is no "freemium" model going on here. Instead, the Clarizen software will be available for $50 per user per month, with prepay discounts available. That's double what LiquidPlanner will be charging when they leave beta, and although Clarizen may arguably be the more robust option, the price seems a bit too high for small teams. However experienced PM's who have been waiting for a feature rich web alternative to Microsoft Office will likely find that Clarizen has most of the features they need.
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Such tools are still too complicated. Something more simple like http://www.statuswiz.com works for most projects. Products can be complex but project management does not need to be....
Posted by: Rohan | March 19, 2008 3:23 PM
I've read that the main benefit of SaaS is that it's cheap and lets reduce costs. I really feel it using Wrike for project management. I'm paying about $4 per user per month and I'm very happy with the tool. Clarizen doesn't look like a cost effective solution to me. I bet it won't be cheaper than MS Project itself. $50 per month per user - this is too much for a Web-based service.
Posted by: Lorna Black | March 20, 2008 8:36 AM
I'm thinking it's because this product utilizes MS products.
I'm betting MS is probably going to try purchasing them.
Posted by: Quikboy | March 20, 2008 1:06 PM
We are using Microsoft Project for project and job planning. However, we've been using a web-based time tracking application called Office Timesheets for the most critical piece, project tracking. Office Timesheets integrates well with Microsoft Project, importing the project plan's task assignments and putting them on the employee's timesheet. Our employees then track time spent on their assigned tasks, managers review and approve the employee's timesheet, and the hours go back to the Microsoft Project plan, updating it with actual data. The Office Timesheets product works flawlessly, and we are starting to use it for a lot more than just tracking hours against Microsoft Project plans. We currently have about 50 users and will be putting another 100 employees online with it next month.
I highly recommend this product and the company gives away the first 10 licenses! Check it out at http://www.officetimesheets.com. We've tried a lot of different tools that work with Microsoft Project, and this is only one we've found to work in a real world environment.
JA
Posted by: James Aauric | April 16, 2008 12:00 PM