Is your project software too simple or too complex?
You have an awful lot of choice when it comes to your project management tools.
However, some may be too simple for your needs.
Even though Trello, Asana, and Notion are very popular, they may not give you all the features that you're looking for.
But on the other side of the spectrum, something like Microsoft Project may be too advanced.
And let's be honest, your parents probably used MS Project, maybe even one of your grandparents.
So in today's video, we're taking a look at GanttPRO, which is maybe the ideal middle ground.
It gives you more features than Trello and Asana yet is not as complex and much easier to use than MS Project.
Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.
I'm going to assume that you're somewhat familiar with what a Gantt chart is.
A Gantt chart gives us a view of our projects, our costs, and our time commitment here on a timeline view.
However, don't let the name GanttPRO fool you because GanttPRO is so much more than just this view and just looking at your projects and all of your tasks here.
Why a Gantt Chart view is so important
First, let's answer the question: why is a Gantt chart view so important?
You may recognize with some of the other tools that you use, that they will have a timeline view or some type of Gantt chart view, but it's usually an afterthought.
They started to build their project management system, and then they've got requests to give them a Gantt chart view.
However, you probably are not seeing as many details as we see here.
The fantastic thing about a Gantt chart is that you can see the dependencies in terms of what has to happen first before something else can happen.
And then on top of that is allocating all of your resources.
In most cases, those resources are human-based—who is working on this project?
Do they have enough time to commit to it?
And if everything goes as planned, when should this project be due?
The great thing is that it's very, very visual.
Here we can see in this case, if I drag over to the right-hand side, we can see that this project should be finished by October 20th.
If everything goes as planned as we've estimated here, we can finish up near the end of October.
However, as things change and as certain things are either delayed, or maybe if certain things finish earlier than others, then this due date is going to be dynamic, and that it's going to adjust forward.
So you can see these things in real-time, and every member of your team can update their status and see what is going on.
Different views of your project and resources
However, if you don't need a view like this, or don't want to see this view at all times, GanttPRO has you covered.
There is a board view, so if you are more familiar with a kanban style of working with your projects, the idea of dragging things over into a done column is available.
For example, if I want to open up this target markets task, I can open up and see all of the details within.
Here I can change the status of it.
I can add a description, add attachments, and even add dependencies here at this level, not always needing to view that Gantt chart view.
In addition to our board view, we can also see what the workload is for our staff members.
You don't know how many times someone has asked me, "Scott, how can I allocate resources appropriately within Trello?"
Well, here within GanttPRO, allocation and workload, including cost and time allocated, are built right in.
Here we can see how many hours everyone is scheduled or projected to work on this particular project.
The bonus is that we get to see when someone is over-allocated.
For example, here I can see that Ralph has a few hours over top of what he's actually available on those days.
I can either have a discussion with him and say, "Are you willing to work some overtime, or do we need to spread this out?
Or maybe can we assign some of these tasks to someone else on the team?"
In fact, it's perhaps the resource management and the people management which is such a great bonus here within GanttPRO.
Reports and budgeting in GanttPRO
For example, I'm gonna come over to the left-hand side of my screen and select reports.
Under reports, one of my favorites is called budget analysis because with any project that you're involved with, you're dealing not only with time but also cost.
I'm gonna minimize some of the other projects that I've been assigned to and take a look at our product launch.
This is what we were just looking at previously.
The great thing here is that I can see that it's going to take my team a total of 200 hours to complete this entire project.
I can also see that because of this and the different rates of each of my staff members, it's going to cost us just a little over $10,000.
However, up to this point in time, it has actually cost us $3,000 based on how much time and effort everyone has put in so far.
So with just a few clicks, I can see our resource management.
I can see if we're within budget, and I can appropriately and accurately tell my clients or tell my management team how much this project is going to cost.
In addition, if I return to my product launch screen, I can click on the people tab and actually see each member who is a part of this project.
In turn, I can adjust the cost per hour for each of my resources.
This is where that costing and budgeting information is coming from.
Now as someone who is responsible
Viewing bottlenecks and critical paths
for the outcome of a project, you wanna be able to quickly and easily see what is overdue and where you need to focus more of your team's attention.
GanttPRO makes it very easy for us to do so.
Here in the top left-hand corner, we can quickly and easily see which are the overdue tasks in this particular project.
You can see that immediately this required materials task is highlighted as being overdue.
So again, I may wanna have a conversation with my team members and investigate as to what is going on here.
GanttPRO also makes it easy for us to identify what is the critical path, meaning what is going to prevent us from moving forward.
In this case, I can see that this features and functions area of the project is currently our critical path.
Meaning that if something is delayed here, it is going to back up the rest of our entire project.
Share project status with public URL
Another great feature here within GanttPRO is the ability to share your project with others.
What I mean is sharing with those who are not directly involved with producing the project.
Obviously, all of the team members that you see here have access to GanttPRO and they're updating things along the way as they progress along their project.
But what about upper management or perhaps what about a client who would also like to have some insight as to what's going on here?
You may be hesitant to give them access because you don't want them to start adding notes or to adjusting certain columns or other attributes within the project.
But what GanttPRO allows us to do is to create a public URL.
So within this dialogue, I have the choice to either share without a filter or use the current filter that we're viewing this project with at this time.
I'm just gonna call this one, maybe project updates, something along those lines.
I can either create a snapshot in time, or I can give them a public URL, so as things change, maybe between the time when I send them the link and when they receive it, they can see those updates as well.
All I need to do is select this button, and as you can see down below, it's added to my list of other public URLs.
Now, at any time I can either delete or just turn off one of these URLs in case of privacy, in case I don't want to make them available to those who I've sent it to.
But in this case, all I need to do is copy this to my clipboard and then paste it within an incognito window, just so you can see what another individual will actually view here within GanttPRO.
It'll take just a few seconds to load the project depending on the complexity and the size, but here you can see now they can view the project and see the details as well.
People who now have access to this public URL can see the entire project, including the GanttPRO view and other details listed here.
However, it is a true read-only view.
You can confidently share your project with others outside of the given project team and know that they will only have a read-only view and can see those details
Importing data from Excel or MS Project
but without the ability to change them.
Best of all, if you're already using Excel, MS Project, or JIRA to manage your projects, you can quickly and easily import your project directly into GanttPRO.
And if you use something else such as Trello or Asana, you can export that information into a CSV file and then easily convert it into a GanttPRO project.
So if you're needing a project management system with advanced features yet still keeps things simple, be sure to check out GanttPRO.
You can start absolutely free using the link down below.
If you have any follow-up questions, be sure to let me know in the comments.
Remember, being productive does not need to be difficult.
In fact, it's very simple.
