Guest Post by Maggie Sawyer
The importance of being structured when running a business cannot be stressed on enough. It is a crucial aspect of every business, regardless of its industry.
If you were to skip organization you would immediately be faced with a host of challenges. The market offers you numerous tools that will help you manage your business and get it organized, but the element that still remains unresolved is figuring out which is the best tool for your business? As we progress through this article you’ll see how you can bring management to WordPress.
First, let’s have a look at why project management turns out to be such an important aspect of your business of WordPress. Further, we’ll have a look at certain plugins that you may consider for your WordPress.
Why project management?
The simple answer to that question is that Project Management will help your business get organized. It helps build a structure and helps in the segmentation of projects and tasks associated with those projects. This helps you keep a tab on whether or not each of your project is on track or not.
A good project management system will help you in being connected with those parties that are outside of your internal team, such as the contractors and your clients. Along with this, you will be able to keep an eye on the deadlines and allows the team members to coordinate in a way that is much more efficient. When you maintain a good system in place you can be sure that each member of the team is aware of the task that is entrusted to them and their specific set of goals. And rather than spending hours going through email after email looking for a particular set of data, you can just refer old conversations.
Now, with all this in place, the efficiency of the organization boosts up. This directly leads to time saving. All the time and energy that would have been laid to waste can now be applied to something more constructive.
Picking the perfect project management system
When going for a project management system you need to be clear about what you need from it, that is, what are your requirements from the system? You need to be aware about the features that you certainly require for your business and which are the ones that can be dropped.
Making a list always helps. At the same time, you can yourself questions such as:
Is there a need for a front end for a front end solution that will be accessible to the clients or something that will be available at the back end?
Do you need indicators to track your progress? If yes then which one? There are quite a few options to pick from, such as conversation tracking, calendar, milestones and to-do list.
Along with this, would you require the time tracking ability?
Do you wish to accommodate contractors with your internal team?
There are quite a few plugins and tools in the market. Some are free while some are premium. All of them are more than up to in accomplishing the task you have in mind. Here’s a guide to some of the very best project management plugins.
WP Project Manager
Here’s presenting you with a fully loaded project manager that has been specifically designed to be used with WordPress. This means that you’re dealing with only those tools that you’ll be required to have for running the website properly. It’s end to end business.
Talking about the primary features, we have the ability to create new projects, send messages about the projects, assign users to the project, add comments regarding a project or a task and attach files to messages. It even provides you with the ability to come up with a to-do list, here you can add as many numbers of tasks as you’d like. It comes along with a visual progress bar, comments and status of completion so that you can keep up with all the activities. Another good feature is that you may come up with your own milestones that are to be achieved, what this does is it improves overall project management.
In addition to this, a premium feature of WP Project Manager is also available. The premium version boasts of quite a few additional features, calendar with drag-and-drop functionality, assigned tasks, archived projects etc. just to name a few.
SP Project & Document Manager
SP Project and Document Manager is one of the most efficient project manager you’ll come across. It is remarkable how it simplifies management of documents and files. These files and documents may come from varied multimedia types. This tool turns out to be resourceful for a wide variety of organizations as it helps the user in management of accounts, distribution, clients, individual documents etc.
A premium version of this plugin that has a host of attractive feature has been made available. It has features such as responsive layout, custom email notifications, custom fields, thumbnails, file collaboration and versioning. One may as well add other features as per their requirements such as a standalone dashboard for customers, downloadable zip archives dropbox integration etc.
Orbis
A project management system that guarantees to give your WordPress dashboard a makeover and turn it into a full-fledged management, this plugin lives up to its words. It has all the features that you would see in a project management system, but alongside that, it allows you to curtail certain features in such a way that they suit your business specifications.
Another distinguishing feature that it offers is that it comes loaded with front-end themes. These themes allow you to provide front-end access to the project management tools swiftly and effortlessly. And since Orbis is fairly extendable, you have the option of changing the themes as per your liking. All these features make sure that Orbis doesn’t just talk the talk, but rather walk’s the walk as well.
WordPress Task Management
This is a premium plugin that might catch your fancy. With its regular license available for $17 and an extended license coming for $85, this is a very robust project management system. Operation straight out of the back end of your WordPress site, this plugin is both simple and straightforward. What this plugin does is, it lets your team keep a track of the activities as they relate to your present projects. You may go ahead and link these activities to the entire organization or to individuals. This helps the organization as now each member is aware of what is expected of them.
Moving on, this plugin will also let you integrate with user roles, come up with reports, track status of activities, as well as let you make comments on individual tasks which will help in better collaboration.
BP GTM System
Right up there with the top most management plugins are BP GTM System. A short form for BussyPress Group Tasks Management System, this plugin will hand you control over development. This is done by adding of tasks and subtasks to the dashboard. Also, you have the option of syncing these tasks with specific projects, tags and categories.
Tasks can be come up with by making use of TinyMCE. Further, these tasks can be given a status of pending or completed. You are provided with quite a few filters to sort these tasks, alter the people who are assigned to each task and the projects these tasks are assigned to.
Project Panorama
This is a plugin that gives the user ease of use and also, it is quite simplified at its core. This is one of the most robust plugins you’ll come across on the internet. The features that it provides you with are meant to simplify and to bring the project and user management on the same page.
It offers you a ton of features. Some of the fresh features comprise of the project cloning tool. As the name suggests, it helps you in coming up with new projects without making you go through the hectic setup steps. Once those are side stepped, the automatic progress calculation helps you get a crystal clear image of the project, task or phase completion. This plugin aims at using visual communication to make project management easier, and that is what helps this plugin stand out. There is no limit to the project phases that you can make, similarly there’s no limit to the tasks. This makes communication with the team much easier, and helps the project stand in as detailed a manner as you’d like.
Collabpress
Another option that will add both project and task management to your dashboard is CollabPress. This free plugin helps you come up with limitless number of projects and related tasks and it also aids you in assigning them to the users.
Another feature that helps in streamlining the business is that the team members have the ability of adding comments on the task. This makes sure that everyone is on the same page, and also saves the crucial time that is wasted in going through mail after mail looking up a certain answer. Inclusive of BuddyPress group integration, email notifications, file uploads, task due dates, front end short code, calendar view and an activity log, this is a great little management plugin.
Conclusion
Here we have just come up with a quick list to run by you. These projects will certainly help make your business more organized and well planned.
Project management tools are the tools that are made to make the user’s life a bit more comfortable. It is a great help in streamlining the organization. It makes sure that everyone is aware of what is expected of them and everyone works as a unit towards achievement of the business’ goals.
Author BIO:
Maggie Sawyer is a highly professional and an experienced web developer for PSD to WordPress development. She provides PSD to WordPress Expert with 100% client satisfaction guarantee.
