Overview: tools for project tracking | Crysberry Studio blog
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Overview: tools for project tracking

Crysberry, Management

9 October 2019

Managing a project is not simple. This process requires tracking lots of aspects of different stages. Lots of tools for project management exist. However, you may need to make a research on how to track software development to find the most appropriate application for your project. So, let us help you a bit and share our experience in dealing with the most popular tools.

Variety of tracking tools

Project management requires tracking down absent deliverables, analyzing data to predict when things will be done, and communicating information to stakeholders. How can you organize all those moving pieces into one coherent plan? The answer is simple: find a useful app for tracking.
The market offers a great variety of tools for project tracking. Take a look at the list of the most popular ones.

Zoho

A cloud-based online application, which helps to plan projects, collaborate with employees and clients, keep track of time, manage documents, and generate charts and reports. It allows users tracking progress, discuss ideas, communicate easily and stay updated.

Zoho project tracker

Asana 

This tool is more about to-do lists creation. People like numbered or bulleted lists, which are optimal ways to organize information. This approach can be considered as the most straightforward way to measure your productivity. You just need to take a look at a to-do list in the morning and then reference it when you leave. Each to-do list functions as its own project, with tasks listed underneath the project hierarchy. At the task level, you can create sub-tasks, define each task with a category tag for easy searching, and attach files.

Asana project tracker

ProWorkflow

This software enables users to manage tasks and projects, track time, organize contacts, and generate reports for their business. It also provides customers with free quality support through consultations and training that helps to get their businesses up and running.

ProWorkflow project tracker

Trello

This is a convenient drag-and-drop tool to manage workflow. Users can design boards as frameworks for any kind of process, and the software offers a great deal of functionality at the card level. If you need to start a new project, just create a new board and use sticky labels to organize tasks. If you often work with the same cast of characters, you can organize them into a team and invite them to a board with one click. It’s possible to create a board for each team or team member and divide the tasks into categories according to the level of completion. Trello is good for small companies, projects or tasks.

Trello project tracker

Jira

Jira is one of the most popular tools among Project Managers. It provides Kanban, Scrum, and Agile planning boards. It also allows integration with other Atlassian products like Confluence. This creates powerful reporting tools and dashboards to give teams a comprehensive view of project progress. Great opportunities for customization is what makes this tool so popular. It’s also possible to block out dependencies and work passes from one team member to another without manual editing. You can automate workflows with quick app integration, and pull in data or see your projects through the lens of over 900 possible integrated apps.

Jira project tracker

Read also: The Process of Mobile App Development Explained

Jira vs. Trello project trackers

We have shown you some examples of tracking tools. At Crysberry, we usually use Jira and Trello tools for project tracking. Therefore, we can compare them using the hands-on experience.

Let’s compare these tools:

  • Trello is an electronic version of a whiteboard. While Jira is a more complex solution with intuitive design and functionality. It offers a ‘board’ style of Trello, which can be customized to your preferred project management process (whether it’s Kanban, Scrum or waterfall).
  • Jira tool can be as simple or as complex as needed. It allows changing its functionality by using addons. Setting up automate recurring tasks, transforming Jira into a CRM? There are apps for that. In general, this means that Jira can be customized according to the specific requirements of any project and any team. Trello doesn’t support such opportunities.
  • The ability to report on progress, performance and a number of other metrics are essential. Trello doesn’t offer options to create at least a somehow useful report. At the same time, Jira includes multiple standard reports (project progress, versions, epics, sprints, issues, etc). Additionally, it allows creating custom analytics as well.
  • To manage several projects, you need to evaluate the resources available. Jira can offer you a resource and workload planning functionality, which is lacking from Trello.
  • Your team growth, so that, Jira can grow with it. It has an implementation and subscription specifics based on that.
  • Jira is a part of the huge Atlassian suite of applications. Atlassian’s investment in R&D and continuous innovation creates regular Jira update to respond to the requirements of the market.
  • Trello is exclusively cloud-based. While Jira can be installed on your server or in the cloud. The first Jira option provides you with full control of the application, access to all Atlassian add-ons, the ability to scale above 2000 users and to customize the application according to your requirements.

To sum up, Trello is a good option for teams looking for tools to manage projects in a simple and visually appealing way. But for those who are seeking for highly configurable workflows and performance analytics increases, Jira responds with smart features and functions.

l.sidorenko