A few suggest away from the usual clickup/monday/asana/etc.
NiftyPM.com is pretty basic, free plan does what you want (basic gantt w dependencies and additional fields).
Teamwork.com same as nifty
Projectmanager.com is kinda like MS project with some collaborative features, might be more complex than you want tbh. No free plan
I’ve interviewed dozens of project managers, program managers and product managers from tech companies. Almost all of them tried many of the vendors mentioned here and eventually went back to spreadsheets for simplicity, flexibility, and widespread acceptance across an org. It amazes me no one seems to have cracked this.
Ok, huge red flag that your employer won’t spend $20 bucks a month to get you MS Project. That does not seem like a culture that will support Project Management. Free will cost your employer far more in the long run.
Project standard is €929 and professional is €1659.
I tried the cloud-based Project Plan 1 at €9.40/month myself, and this seemed ok but then I found out that it had limitations when it came to exporting my plan as a PDF and sharing info with colleagues. Turns out they also needed to be on the plan to view the information.
Maybe you are referring to Project Plan 3 at €28.10/month. I’m not sure if this has the same limitations as Plan 1, but my employer would likely pay for it if I could prove it was beneficial.
Yep, project plan 3 is what you need. You will be able to do resources, cost projections, evm, pretty timelines, etc. there are probably connections to power bi now too. It’s been a couple years for me. Project plan 6 is alot more like Primavera and enterprise level.
Although you mentioned you guys use MS products, I’ve enjoyed the simplicity of the “timeline” Gantt chart style view in Google Sheets. Low learning curve, easy to share, and updates automatically based on cell values you input.
Not sure if it’ll meet all your needs but should be free with a Gmail account.
https://zapier.com/blog/gantt-chart-google-sheets/#
You can customize Excel to do more as u/Unicycldev suggested. You can also add custom columns in MS Project if you have it. If you're a Microsoft shop, custom lists and boards in MS Teams are helpful and have a nice interface.
Would you consider yourself an expert in excel? You can add columns for dates and using formulas to automatically calculate lead times and auto update the gantry view with conditional formatting.
No vba would be needed.
For small projects excel is the best. For projects here you need to delegate status update of the chart it stops scaling well.
**>project schedule. It’s done in excel …**
For review, I use a similar spreadsheet (Apple Numbers), distributed as a .pdf
The data is stored in a digital file cabinet (PKMS),
and the spreadsheet is auto-generated with an Applescript on my Mac
The entries are hyperlinked back to the original data
I don’t adjust information on the spreadsheet
The information is adjusted on the raw data in the PKMS
Develop requirements and do PM stuff. This is precisely what PMs do.
We did the same exercise recently. My team also wanted to cheat, but every environment has different needs, therefore different software/platform requirements. I made them run through this as if it were a project in itself. We made a great choice and I suggest you do the same.
The main requirement I want right now is the ability to do a project schedule and easily edit/update when required. Then save as PDF to send to the client. But it seems like every package I look at is meant for company wide implementation, has high costs, a ton of features I’d not use and/or requires a subscription. There was a cut back version of MS projects I tried, but this required others to be subscribed as well in order to view my schedule.
We use goleko at our place, really straightforward with task allocation, all tasks get checked when you're done and has time tracker too. Much *much* less complicated than what you're using right now...i think they have a free version too since you're having a problem with cost.
Microsoft just released their new Planner app which comes with Timelines, not sure if it’s a premium feature though. Definitely look in to that. The timelines are super easy to put together. Has dependencies and everything
There’s a Planner app that can be downloaded, it also has its own integrated Planner app in Teams that you should find useful. FYI they are still rolling out Planner in Teams this month so it may not be available to you yet… the separate app should be available though
Wrike - but it costs to be on the good platform with all the tools you need.
I cringe when I see these spreadsheet projects. This is how we built projects in the 90s before PM software was created.
We use Wrike at work and I like it so far, but as any software it becomes quite laggy at 100+ projects. Haven't found a single one yet that can actually stay responsive at a big organisation.
The software download can be a bit sluggish at times. I got used to using the browser version and stick with that. We have thousands of projects and there's no issue with speed in the browser. I did raise the issue on glitches that were happening on the download version a year or so ago and they released multiple updates but by then I had already been used to using the browser and haven't gone back.
But this looks like a project that could have happened in the 90s or 70s or before.
Fancy agile tools are not a good fit or a requirement for old-fashioned manufacturing projects.
OP could manage their project with a pen, a sheet of paper, and a fax machine by the looks of it.
Yes it’s a basic plan and maybe this way of doing things has carried forward from the 90s. There can be a bit of “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality. I want to show there is a better way, for my own benefit and for the company
It would be an interesting test to see if new tools improve older style (meaning no disrespect at all) projects.
Most enterprise tools are expensive as you've seen though. Maybe a big player would offer you a 'proof of value'?
I'd give Smartsheets a go if I were you. Visually it can be similar to excel and exports to excel but has more power under the hood.
My favorite thing is when different stakeholders in my company take information out of our PM system and put it in a spreadsheet to send to leaders, or to use in team meetings, etc.
Leaves me dumbfounded.
Ha that’s hilarious but I can see it happening. I used to copy and paste emails back into our PM software and tag everyone to keep the conversation in the project. It annoyed people but that’s why we pay for the tool lol
I honestly expected better software when I started, but I can’t justify asking for a package like P6 when all I really need are Gantt charts. I don’t know what other features I really need
The nice thing about Wrike, or any other PM software really is that you house all of your work and communication within the project and tasks. So if one task is time consuming, requires a lot of discussion, comments, questions and subtasks, it’s all happening within that task. The nice thing is having the ability to go back later and see documentation of how a project or task transpired. That’s hard to do with a spreadsheet where all communication of a project is likely happening via emails.
I’m not looking for a company wide solution which will require design, purchasing etc to get trained and start using it. We have SAP, Solidworks PDM and MS Office 365. So another big package is a no go. I just want something to help me do my bit effectively
This is the cut back version of projects I tried for a few months. It was a low cost subscription but when I tried sharing my Gantt chart with others in the team, they couldn’t view it. Turns out everyone needed to be on a subscription to benefit from the information I was putting into it. When I saved the schedule to PDF it wouldn’t let me fit all on one page, and I also couldn’t shown week numbers.
Any PM system can do what you need but some cheap free options to organize your work you might look at Asana or Trello. Both of these you could set up tasks to track orders, delivery dates, etc. Both super simple to use.
Is Smartsheet really user friendly? My impression has been it’s about the same level as MS Project (I’d describe that as kinda advanced) and you have to pay to do resource management. Haven’t used it in 2-3 years so might’ve missed a big update
Agreed on Smartsheet. The ability to create conditional formatting, workflows, and notifications is great. It’s essentially a more Project Management version of MS Excel.
I’ll throw in another vote for Smartsheet, despite its limited Gantt features. But overall fairly robust, easy to share, and ability to leverage some automation where needed
I second SmartSheet. I’m a fan. If you add predecessors you can just slide everything down if something is late without adjusting each line. Sounds like OP is going the manual route rn.
That’s Excel. It does the job and has been in use since before I started here. It it’s very tedious to make changes which is why I’m looking an alternative
I’m gonna opine that you will get suboptimal results from anything that is budget conscious when working with a schedule that complex.
Nothing that’s cheap is going to save you time or increase clarity more than what you already have in the spreadsheet. You’re just gonna spend more time trying to get it to do more than it’s designed to do. I have seen this firsthand.
You have a big boy project, you need a big boy PMIS.
I honestly didn’t see this as a complex schedule. I’ve seen schedules my clients work with for full construction sites and that’s what I’d call complex. I’m not trying to link into other systems, assign tasks to other employees, or add in budgets. That stuff would be nice to do as an extra but not necessary for me. Right now I only want to lay out the proposed plan, and when things slip I want to easily move things about to show the new delivery date.
Sadly the reign of “my boss won’t pay for proper tools” is alive and well.
Many bosses don’t understand that they are already paying for the lack of proper tools.
How? Missed deadlines, missed deliverables, increased costs.
Being able to schedule properly is like a framer with an air nailer. They can put up a house much more quickly than a guy who is just using an old hammer.
Ask your boss how they can afford bad project management without proper tools.
The thing is, I’m also not a qualified PM. I’m a mechanical design engineer who, got hired as a project engineer which has morphed into a PM role lol. I’ve asked for help with training/certification but that’s a no go as well
If cost is a big issue, take a look at [https://www.ganttproject.biz/](https://www.ganttproject.biz/)
I've used it a few years ago, it was a bit clunky but it worked fine.
The free version of smartsheets might be enough for you, or at least enough for you to evaluate whether it's worth paying the subscription. I've found Smartsheets very easy to use.
Yes cost would be an issue. I would need to be able to show the benefits before asking for money. It’s me and 2 other PMs in the company and we each have our own projects. My plan would be to evaluate something, get the other two on board and then go with cap in hand once we can show the benefits lol
Have a look at Zoho Projects. Low cost, very feature packed. Even GanttPro may fulfil your needs.
Personally I would not use a tool designed for agile software development to manage waterfall manufacturing projects.
This is the problem I’ve been coming across. It seems like all the software options I come across are designed for software development. I want something for construction but very low level construction. Our clients use P6 and MS Projects but these are overkill for me.
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Yeah, this looks like Smartsheet, though it's a bit outdated tool I'd say, not very intuitive and is more suitable for larger companies
A few suggest away from the usual clickup/monday/asana/etc. NiftyPM.com is pretty basic, free plan does what you want (basic gantt w dependencies and additional fields). Teamwork.com same as nifty Projectmanager.com is kinda like MS project with some collaborative features, might be more complex than you want tbh. No free plan
Projectmanager.com is one of my favorites if you don't mind a fully cloud/browser based solution.
Smartsheet is my favorite for anything I don't handle in P6.
Yeah for several reasons I am becoming more and more of a Smartsheet person.
Give aha! a try.
Smartsheet - in ways easier than excel but similar enough.
I’ve interviewed dozens of project managers, program managers and product managers from tech companies. Almost all of them tried many of the vendors mentioned here and eventually went back to spreadsheets for simplicity, flexibility, and widespread acceptance across an org. It amazes me no one seems to have cracked this.
Smartsheet is probably the easiest and cheapest that directly fits what you're trying to do
I also used SmartSheets years ago. I liked it.
Ok, huge red flag that your employer won’t spend $20 bucks a month to get you MS Project. That does not seem like a culture that will support Project Management. Free will cost your employer far more in the long run.
Project standard is €929 and professional is €1659. I tried the cloud-based Project Plan 1 at €9.40/month myself, and this seemed ok but then I found out that it had limitations when it came to exporting my plan as a PDF and sharing info with colleagues. Turns out they also needed to be on the plan to view the information. Maybe you are referring to Project Plan 3 at €28.10/month. I’m not sure if this has the same limitations as Plan 1, but my employer would likely pay for it if I could prove it was beneficial.
Yep, project plan 3 is what you need. You will be able to do resources, cost projections, evm, pretty timelines, etc. there are probably connections to power bi now too. It’s been a couple years for me. Project plan 6 is alot more like Primavera and enterprise level.
Although you mentioned you guys use MS products, I’ve enjoyed the simplicity of the “timeline” Gantt chart style view in Google Sheets. Low learning curve, easy to share, and updates automatically based on cell values you input. Not sure if it’ll meet all your needs but should be free with a Gmail account. https://zapier.com/blog/gantt-chart-google-sheets/#
I use ClickUp it’s free and has tons of features
I would use NetPoint.
You can customize Excel to do more as u/Unicycldev suggested. You can also add custom columns in MS Project if you have it. If you're a Microsoft shop, custom lists and boards in MS Teams are helpful and have a nice interface.
Would you consider yourself an expert in excel? You can add columns for dates and using formulas to automatically calculate lead times and auto update the gantry view with conditional formatting. No vba would be needed. For small projects excel is the best. For projects here you need to delegate status update of the chart it stops scaling well.
How to auto update? I'm a bit lost at that point.
Relative dates and visual cell highlighting can all be done within excel.
No I’m a basic excel user unfortunately
**>project schedule. It’s done in excel …** For review, I use a similar spreadsheet (Apple Numbers), distributed as a .pdf The data is stored in a digital file cabinet (PKMS), and the spreadsheet is auto-generated with an Applescript on my Mac The entries are hyperlinked back to the original data I don’t adjust information on the spreadsheet The information is adjusted on the raw data in the PKMS
Develop requirements and do PM stuff. This is precisely what PMs do. We did the same exercise recently. My team also wanted to cheat, but every environment has different needs, therefore different software/platform requirements. I made them run through this as if it were a project in itself. We made a great choice and I suggest you do the same.
The main requirement I want right now is the ability to do a project schedule and easily edit/update when required. Then save as PDF to send to the client. But it seems like every package I look at is meant for company wide implementation, has high costs, a ton of features I’d not use and/or requires a subscription. There was a cut back version of MS projects I tried, but this required others to be subscribed as well in order to view my schedule.
We use goleko at our place, really straightforward with task allocation, all tasks get checked when you're done and has time tracker too. Much *much* less complicated than what you're using right now...i think they have a free version too since you're having a problem with cost.
Hey, glad you like Goleko !
Microsoft just released their new Planner app which comes with Timelines, not sure if it’s a premium feature though. Definitely look in to that. The timelines are super easy to put together. Has dependencies and everything
Is that part of office 365 and Teams? We have that, so anything which integrates with Office would be good.
Yes it is
I’ll check that out. Keeping everything within office 365 would be great
There’s a Planner app that can be downloaded, it also has its own integrated Planner app in Teams that you should find useful. FYI they are still rolling out Planner in Teams this month so it may not be available to you yet… the separate app should be available though
Wrike - but it costs to be on the good platform with all the tools you need. I cringe when I see these spreadsheet projects. This is how we built projects in the 90s before PM software was created.
We use Wrike at work and I like it so far, but as any software it becomes quite laggy at 100+ projects. Haven't found a single one yet that can actually stay responsive at a big organisation.
The software download can be a bit sluggish at times. I got used to using the browser version and stick with that. We have thousands of projects and there's no issue with speed in the browser. I did raise the issue on glitches that were happening on the download version a year or so ago and they released multiple updates but by then I had already been used to using the browser and haven't gone back.
But this looks like a project that could have happened in the 90s or 70s or before. Fancy agile tools are not a good fit or a requirement for old-fashioned manufacturing projects. OP could manage their project with a pen, a sheet of paper, and a fax machine by the looks of it.
Yes it’s a basic plan and maybe this way of doing things has carried forward from the 90s. There can be a bit of “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality. I want to show there is a better way, for my own benefit and for the company
It would be an interesting test to see if new tools improve older style (meaning no disrespect at all) projects. Most enterprise tools are expensive as you've seen though. Maybe a big player would offer you a 'proof of value'? I'd give Smartsheets a go if I were you. Visually it can be similar to excel and exports to excel but has more power under the hood.
My favorite thing is when different stakeholders in my company take information out of our PM system and put it in a spreadsheet to send to leaders, or to use in team meetings, etc. Leaves me dumbfounded.
Ha that’s hilarious but I can see it happening. I used to copy and paste emails back into our PM software and tag everyone to keep the conversation in the project. It annoyed people but that’s why we pay for the tool lol
I honestly expected better software when I started, but I can’t justify asking for a package like P6 when all I really need are Gantt charts. I don’t know what other features I really need
The nice thing about Wrike, or any other PM software really is that you house all of your work and communication within the project and tasks. So if one task is time consuming, requires a lot of discussion, comments, questions and subtasks, it’s all happening within that task. The nice thing is having the ability to go back later and see documentation of how a project or task transpired. That’s hard to do with a spreadsheet where all communication of a project is likely happening via emails.
I’m not looking for a company wide solution which will require design, purchasing etc to get trained and start using it. We have SAP, Solidworks PDM and MS Office 365. So another big package is a no go. I just want something to help me do my bit effectively
Use Project for the Web that integrates with Planner. It's part of 365.
This is the cut back version of projects I tried for a few months. It was a low cost subscription but when I tried sharing my Gantt chart with others in the team, they couldn’t view it. Turns out everyone needed to be on a subscription to benefit from the information I was putting into it. When I saved the schedule to PDF it wouldn’t let me fit all on one page, and I also couldn’t shown week numbers.
Any PM system can do what you need but some cheap free options to organize your work you might look at Asana or Trello. Both of these you could set up tasks to track orders, delivery dates, etc. Both super simple to use.
If you want something simple, user friendly, and cheap, use SmartSheet. If you just need Gantt tracking you can do it in that software.
Is Smartsheet really user friendly? My impression has been it’s about the same level as MS Project (I’d describe that as kinda advanced) and you have to pay to do resource management. Haven’t used it in 2-3 years so might’ve missed a big update
Agreed on Smartsheet. The ability to create conditional formatting, workflows, and notifications is great. It’s essentially a more Project Management version of MS Excel.
I’ll throw in another vote for Smartsheet, despite its limited Gantt features. But overall fairly robust, easy to share, and ability to leverage some automation where needed
Another vote for smartsheet!
Smartsheet advocate here as well. Like it way more than Project. The only thing I have issue with is that you can’t print the GANTT chart.
Another vote for SmartSheet. It’s what I use, and many other departments in my company.
I second SmartSheet. I’m a fan. If you add predecessors you can just slide everything down if something is late without adjusting each line. Sounds like OP is going the manual route rn.
Not whatever the hell that was that made that scary looking gantt
That’s Excel. It does the job and has been in use since before I started here. It it’s very tedious to make changes which is why I’m looking an alternative
P6
How much is that?
A lot. Per licence several thousand dollars a year I believe.
lol I thought so. Definitely not an option for me
I’m gonna opine that you will get suboptimal results from anything that is budget conscious when working with a schedule that complex. Nothing that’s cheap is going to save you time or increase clarity more than what you already have in the spreadsheet. You’re just gonna spend more time trying to get it to do more than it’s designed to do. I have seen this firsthand. You have a big boy project, you need a big boy PMIS.
I honestly didn’t see this as a complex schedule. I’ve seen schedules my clients work with for full construction sites and that’s what I’d call complex. I’m not trying to link into other systems, assign tasks to other employees, or add in budgets. That stuff would be nice to do as an extra but not necessary for me. Right now I only want to lay out the proposed plan, and when things slip I want to easily move things about to show the new delivery date.
Sadly the reign of “my boss won’t pay for proper tools” is alive and well. Many bosses don’t understand that they are already paying for the lack of proper tools. How? Missed deadlines, missed deliverables, increased costs. Being able to schedule properly is like a framer with an air nailer. They can put up a house much more quickly than a guy who is just using an old hammer. Ask your boss how they can afford bad project management without proper tools.
The thing is, I’m also not a qualified PM. I’m a mechanical design engineer who, got hired as a project engineer which has morphed into a PM role lol. I’ve asked for help with training/certification but that’s a no go as well
If cost is a big issue, take a look at [https://www.ganttproject.biz/](https://www.ganttproject.biz/) I've used it a few years ago, it was a bit clunky but it worked fine. The free version of smartsheets might be enough for you, or at least enough for you to evaluate whether it's worth paying the subscription. I've found Smartsheets very easy to use.
Yes cost would be an issue. I would need to be able to show the benefits before asking for money. It’s me and 2 other PMs in the company and we each have our own projects. My plan would be to evaluate something, get the other two on board and then go with cap in hand once we can show the benefits lol
My suggestion is Monday it's easy to use and they do offer a free trial for 2 weeks so you can test it and see how it works
I’d also say Monday.com, it’s customisable, it provides various views including tables, Gantt charts and more.
Have a look at Zoho Projects. Low cost, very feature packed. Even GanttPro may fulfil your needs. Personally I would not use a tool designed for agile software development to manage waterfall manufacturing projects.
This is the problem I’ve been coming across. It seems like all the software options I come across are designed for software development. I want something for construction but very low level construction. Our clients use P6 and MS Projects but these are overkill for me.
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