Zoho Projects Review

Zoho Projects Review
4.2
4.2 of 5 stars 1 review
  • Pricing
    (4.5)
  • Features
    (4)
  • Support
    (4)

Summary

With integrations across numerous platforms, be it applications from Zoho’s suite or beyond, this management solution stands a class apart from the rest.

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Pros

  • Feature-rich platform
  • Comprehensive Gantt charts
  • Attractive pricing and scaling options
  • A free tier with a good feature-set
  • Robust integration with numerous ecosystems

Cons

  • Not flexible concerning kanban cards
  • Other platforms offer more features at lower tiers

ABOUT

A name known across businesses small and large, Zoho enables over 40 million users every day to work online and boost their productivity. Zoho Projects is an affordable entry into the highly-contested project management solution space. If you’re a small business or startup that wants to maximize its productivity, look no further. With a robust set of features and time-keeping tools, it sets a standard for its competitors to follow. Gantt charts and Kanban boards keep your data from becoming cluttered or hard to understand, while chat boxes and forum pages ensure that communication gets the importance it deserves.

With integrations across numerous platforms, be it applications from Zoho’s suite or beyond, this management solution stands a class apart from the rest. In this article, I break down its exhaustive list of features and tools to give you an informed opinion of how you can propel your business to new heights with the help of this intuitive platform.

Who Is Zoho Projects For?

This suite design has a broad user base in mind, with a plethora of features catering to users across a spectrum of lifestyles and needs. Its target demographic consists of those who wish to get things done in an optimized and effective manner. Startups or even freelance teams can use it to organize their portfolio and their projects, regardless of the state of the project. Medium to large-scale businesses can also utilize this expansive toolset to strengthen their foothold in their part of the industry. With plans that scale from a small team to those that work in the thousands, it offers something for everyone.

PRICING

The software suite offers five pricing plans. While their free plan will get you off the ground, most of Zoho Projects’ key features are available in pricier tiers. If you work in a team of three and wish to work on a maximum of two projects, this option is rather attractive. All plans offer a 10-day free trial that lets you try out their key features before making a decision. You could even switch between plans without any loss in data.

Here are the pricing details:

Plans

Free

Standard

Express

Premium

Enterprise

Yearly Price

$0

$150

$480

$1020

$1500

Number of Projects

2

10

No Limit

No Limit

No Limit

Users Allowed

3

6

15

20

25

Client Users Allowed

3

10

15

20

25

Storage Capacity

10MB

5GB

20GB

100GB

120GB

Number of Project Templates

None

5

10

20

30

Pages And Chat Available

1 project

1 project

All

All

All

Timeline

Gantt Chart

View-only

View-only

Can Edit inside project only

Can Edit inside project only

Can Edit for Multiple projects

Gantt Chart Showing Milestones

Not Available

Not Available

Can Edit inside project only

Can Edit inside project only

Can Edit for Multiple projects

Resource Utilization Chart

Not Available

Not Available

Not Available

Available Within project Only

Available for Multiple projects

Task/ Issue Reports

Basics Only

Advanced Options Available

Advanced Options Available

Advanced Options Available

Advanced Options Available

Essential Features

Basics Only

Medium Level

Medium Level

High Level

Full Options

Level of Tracking Issues Feature

Basics Only

Basics Only

Basics Only

Medium Level

High Level

Level of Integrations

Basics Only

Basics Only

Medium Level

High

High Level

Pricing Tiers

The free tier is the most accessible means of using this comprehensive system of tools. But it only offers a basic set of features while the rest are available only on paid options. At $150 a year for six users, the standard plan offers a few neat additional features such as subtasks and reminders. IssueTracker also lets you add issues through mail at this tier. If you wish to make use of their excellent Gantt charts, the Express plan is your best bet. It costs $480 a year for a team of 15 members. The Express plan lets your users work on an unlimited number of projects. With more features added into the mix, such as exporting projects and custom views, your company will undoubtedly notice the boost in productivity.

The Premium and Enterprise options are the costliest of the bunch and are tailored towards offering enterprise solutions. Stepping up to a Premium plan will set you back a cool $1020 a year. It lets 20 people work simultaneously across projects with advanced tools at their disposal. And at $1500 a year, the Enterprise option allows 25 users to work with the very best that Zoho Projects has to offer. From working on Gantt charts across projects to providing deeper integration between services, this is the plan for you if you wish to give your large-scale business a shot in the arm. The Enterprise plan lets you scale up to over five thousand employees at an additional cost. If you have a team bigger than five thousand members, you can contact the team directly for a personalized quote.

FEATURES​

  1. Plan Projects
  2. Gantt Charts

  3. Feeds

  4. Timesheets

  5. Reports

  6. Teamwork

  7. File Management

  8. IssueTracker

1 – Plan Projects

Project planning is an essential facet of any business, be it large or small. Breaking down major tasks into smaller ones is key to setting and sticking to deadlines. This suite lets you cut tasks up and allot them to different users, which enables you to know who’s working on what. And with a comprehensive Project view in place, you can track several projects at once. If this level of micromanagement doesn’t cut it, fret not. Tasks can be split further into subtasks. Write comments and view them based on how they depend on each other to gain a better understanding of the tasks that make up your project. Marking tasks as dependant on each other creates a workflow that will be followed by your teammates. This feature means that they can’t move forward unless the task is done in the right manner, taking every step into account.

Kanban charts play a vital role here. They let you visualize your workflow in the form of cards that you can sort based on a variety of factors. These can range from viewing completed work, priority, or task list. This facility gives every member on your team a good idea about your project’s progress.

2- Gantt Charts

Think of Gantt Charts as another way to visualize progress. Gantt charts let you see every minute detail of your project, from milestones to overdue tasks and dependencies. Besides, color-coding ensures that you know who needs to work on what part and how that may affect the other tasks.

Alter your plans by dragging and dropping tasks across the project, and edit milestones accordingly. You can also change the views of your chart based on the factor that is most critical to the project. If time is a significant constraint, you can focus on the projects that are due soon.

3 – Feeds

Feeds is effectively a social media platform for your team members. Anyone can post a quick update or log an issue on the group. Feeds cut down on time you may need to spend on meetings, especially if the team consists of hundreds of employees or users.

View updates chronologically on the Activity Stream; this helps you keep in touch with all aspects of the project, and will help you decide where to make changes to boost productivity or mitigate issues.

4 – Timesheets

Timesheets lets you automate the tracking of time all your members work, ensuring that you don’t miss out on how much each member has worked. This feature integrates this set-up right into your project. Right from the moment a user starts working, to the end of their day, Timesheets keeps track of every detail. And with a timer, you can effectively calculate working hours for your team as well. You can modify it accordingly, based on the pace and urgency of the project.

This feature also lets you record billing hours and send invoices to clients, ensuring and maintaining accuracy throughout the process.

5 – Reports

Zoho Projects’ expansive list of features isn’t complete without a comprehensive list of reporting tools. Zoho Reports integration guarantees that you have access to a top-notch reporting dashboard and track metrics that matter. With the ability to drag, drop, mail, or print reports at ease, Zoho Reports lets you track your team’s progress and workflow based on the metrics you deem important.

6 – Teamwork

No project management software is complete without an emphasis on collaborative features. If your members work remotely, it’s about time you gained an effective means to communicate with your team. With a calendar to view projects and tasks and a chat room provision where employees can discuss projects, this suite does it and then some. You can even build company-specific Wiki Pages with the help of its Intranet.

7 – File Management

Zoho Projects helps you organize your files and lets your team share files across devices when needed. Regardless of the type of date you send, be it a spreadsheet or a report, you can save everything without leaving the desktop site. And with powerful backup features that save previous versions of files, you can quickly return to older versions of the data if you wish to. A capable searching tool rounds off this list of file management features.

8 – IssueTracker

Regardless of what sort of project your team works on, it is bound to run into unexpected issues. Especially in the case of software projects, any suite you use must come with such a provision to deal with bugs. IssueTracker was created with that very aspect in mind. It lets you organize issues based on their severity and status. Effectively, it gives you a broad view of all the issues and errors that are holding your project back, letting you fix them one at a time with the big picture in mind.

INTEGRATIONS

This expansive suite of tools and applications offers a variety of integrations with several services. Some are affiliated with Zoho while others work in tandem with other project management software as well. The Standard and Free tiers give users the flexibility to work with Zapier, a store of over a thousand apps and services. Several tools from established firms such as Google are readily available on Zapier to be used to assist your project. It also lets members work with Zoho Meeting and Zoho CRM’s contact and account management suite. Express users can take advantage of Zoho Invoice and Zoho Books, both comprehensive invoice and expense management solutions. If you wish to work with even more flexibility, with renowned tools such as Dropbox and Github, the Premium and Enterprise tiers are the way forward.

There is a provision to build your integration with your service. Integrate existing workflows or create entirely new applications with the help of concrete APIs available to craft a tailored project experience. A well-documented process guide helps even novices grasp the fundamentals of API integration.

Here are some of the major categories where you can integrate additional services:

  • Payment gateways
  • Sales management
  • Contact and lead management
  • Monetary management
  • Inventory
  • Dropshipping
  • Time tracking
  • Customer scheduling
  • Invoicing
  • Database management
  • Marketing tools
  • Social media marketing
  • Calendar

More About Zoho Projects

Setup And Ease Of Use

Despite being a suite with plenty of menus and submenus, Zoho Projects has a fairly straightforward interface. It is designed in such a manner that it doesn’t get in the way of getting work done. Tabs neatly segregate menus and task views. Each user in your team can create a custom dashboard for themselves, highlighting what’s most important to them. This dashboard is a godsend if multiple departments work in tandem in your organization. Alerts warn users about upcoming deadlines and the tasks that need to be dealt with, based on their priority.

All it takes to set things up is signing up on their website. You will immediately be offered a free plan. You can switch between tiers with no loss of data, so feel free to try them out to gain a better understanding of which service might be right for you. One also gets a custom url for your company’s portal.

Device Compatibility

Desktop Browser App

Android App

iOS App

Windows Phone App

Apple Watch App

X

X

With a slick and simple user interface, the desktop and mobile apps make project management a walk in the park. And with comprehensive apps on all major smartphone platforms, be productive on the go. They offer the right balance between performance and flexibility. Stay up to date on everything going on in your firm across projects. Also, you can post statuses or add tasks with a few clicks, wherever you are.

The timesheet module lets you log hours for your work, even if you work from home. This feature ensures that the effort your team puts away from the office is recognized as well. You can share documents across devices and users as well via the app itself.

Customer Support

Although this suite is intuitive by design, one can always have queries regarding its advanced features or specific issues about their project. This possibility is why they have a reliable customer support system in place to help users out.

Zoho Projects offers customer support round the clock. A team of experts is always available to sort out your queries via mail. A knowledge base filled with tutorials and solved issues will provide a substantial headstart to managing your project efficiently. The FAQs also do an excellent job of answering commonly-asked questions. And if you have a query that veteran users could solve, check out the active forums and get assistance from the Zoho community. Project users can post questions and queries directly and gain valuable solutions and feedback from users across the globe.

PROS AND CONS

PROS

  • Feature-rich platform
  • Comprehensive Gantt charts
  • Attractive pricing and scaling options
  • A free tier with a good feature-set
  • Robust integration with numerous ecosystems

CONS

  • Not flexible concerning kanban cards
  • Other platforms offer more features at lower tiers

CONCLUSION

Zoho Projects is an incredible project management software suite with a toolbox that improves every facet of your project. Be it communication in a team or across teams; this offering provides several means of improving contact between users. And with tools that deal with tracking bugs and time-keeping, it will undoubtedly boost productivity across the board. With a free plan for up to five users and affordable paid plans that scale up conveniently for larger businesses, this platform is indeed attractive for a wide variety of people.

While this offering does fall short in some areas, especially when it comes to Kanban cards, the rest more than makes up for its downfalls. Integrations with massive ecosystems from Zapier, Google, and Zoho themselves, are blessings that can undoubtedly boost your workflow. If you’re on the fence about whether this suite is for you, try out the free offering today!

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