Zoho Projects

Speed is everything in the project management world, as businesses look for ways to streamline operations and decrease the time it takes to complete important client tasks. Zoho Projects is a project management, collaboration, and bug tracking solution that provides users with a 360-degree view of projects as they’re happening in real-time.

Zoho Projects utilizes a Feed system for team collaboration. Group news feeds reduce the need for email and enable group members to track the progress of individual tasks. Zoho Projects also provides users with a number of advanced project management and collaboration features, including forums, Gantt charts, and group chat rooms.

Built to scale, Zoho Projects is utilized by small businesses, mid-size firms, and large enterprises in virtually every industry, from e-commerce retailers with fewer than five employees, all the way to large IT firms with hundreds of employees.

What is Zoho Projects?

An integrated project management solution, Zoho Projects provides teams with planning and reporting capabilities, along with bug tracking and collaboration tools. The solution allows business users to post their current project statuses, track the time they spend working on specific client tasks, and effectively plan for upcoming events.

Zoho Projects benefits teams by cutting down on the back-and-forth emails that tend to clutter people’s inboxes. The solution also provides a centralized place for storing, managing, and sharing documents, including spreadsheets, reports, video clips, and graphics. Groups that utilize Gantt charts and time tracking tools will appreciate having these features integrated into their project management systems, as well.

Zoho Projects Main Features

Creating Task Lists

When teams implement proper task management protocols and schedules, they increase the chances of being able to work continuously, without delay or interruption. One of the key project management features that Zoho Projects provides involves task lists, which users can create within any project.

Tasks are activities that should be accomplished within a specific period of time. (For example, finishing a presentation or coming up with a marketing strategy.) To add a task from the dashboard, click the “Add Task” button and enter the name of the task. You can make any task into a task list, and include associated files or attachments for your colleagues to view.

Sharing Documents

Zoho Projects provides users with tools for managing and sharing multiple types of documents, including .doc, .xls, .xlsx, .docx .pdf, .pps, .ppt, and other types of files. Files can be stored and managed in one place, and they can be associated with specific tasks. Hierarchical folders can also be used to store documents in a way that mirrors the structure of existing workflows.

To upload documents and track file versions, click the “Documents” tab and select the file you wish to upload. Add a brief description, along with any relevant tags, and select which folder the file should go into. Zoho Projects will send an automatic notification to selected users when your file has finished uploading, if you choose that option. These notices will go out regardless of whether those users have enabled notifications.

Setting Tasks Dependencies

Project managers understand that tasks are not silos, and team members cannot always complete their assigned tasks until colleagues have finished working on their own. Setting task dependencies is one way to link related tasks. This feature automatically adjusts associated tasks when a “top task” is rescheduled or delayed. Users can set dependencies in the Gantt View, as well.

Sequence numbers help you decipher your task dependencies list, with numbers being allocated to tasks based on the start date. To change task values, click on any cell within a task, change the value, and click “Enter” to save your changes. If you alter the end date of a “parent task,” then the start date of all subsequent tasks will be altered, as well.

Gantt Charts

Gantt charts give team members a visual representation of the progress of tasks, task lists, and individual milestones within a project. The Gantt view now has two charts. The chronology chart shows you the tasks sequentially. The milestone chart lets the users view their milestones, the task lists those milestones contain, and all the related tasks.

Change a task’s start or end date, or move an entire task, by dragging a bar to the appropriate space. You can also set task dependencies and filter Gantt charts based on your own criteria. As you manually update a task’s completion level, the Gantt chart will update automatically, as well.

Hosting Chat Room Discussions

When back-and-forth emails get to be too much, Zoho Project users can move their discussions into private chat rooms. Built-in chat rooms provide large groups with a place to discuss important topics.

Set up a chat room to focus on a particular topic—for example, coming up with a marketing strategy—and invite colleagues to join in. There is no limit to the number of people who can join a Zoho Projects chat room. Because a project can have multiple types of people, including marketers, designers, and engineers, separate chat rooms can be created to discuss specific topics. Organizations always have the option to archive chat transcripts, as a way to save important discussions for future reference.

Utilizing Interactive Forums

Project forums serve as a way for organizations with physically separated teams to bring employees together through the web. Within Zoho Project’s interactive forums, team members can post topics, discuss important ideas, and capture knowledge. Unlike chat rooms, forums do not necessarily function in real-time and users do not have to be online at the same time to use this feature.

Post a new topic in your company’s forum. When you start a new topic, Zoho Projects will notify any team members who may be interested. If words alone aren’t enough to get your message across, upload images or links to relevant websites, as well. Forums are organized into categories, and users can keep an eye on the specific topics that interest them most by using Zoho Projects’ “watch a topic” feature.

Zoho Projects Integrations

Zoho Projects integrates with a number of popular business applications, including Google Apps, Dropbox, GitHub, Zoho Reports, and Zoho Invoice. The Google Apps integration, in particular, enables users to sync tasks from their Gmail accounts and import files into Zoho Projects directly from Google Drive.

One of the most popular ways for users to integrate Zoho Projects into their existing workflows is by combining the solution with Zoho CRM. Zoho Projects can be integrated with a CRM account by associating the IDs of the portal owner. Contacts can also be imported from CRM into Projects once the two services have been integrated.

Zoho Projects Pricing

Zoho Projects is always free for small teams. Paid plans for larger groups start at $20 per month for the Express plan. Medium-size businesses that sign up for the Premium plan can expect to pay $35 per month, while large teams that sign up for the Enterprise plan can expect to pay $80 per month. Zoho Projects offers discounts of up to 35%-off with yearly plans.

Zoho Projects Bottom Line

• Get a complete view of events as they occur in real-time.

• Track the progress of individual tasks.

• Give teams the freedom to collaborate on their own terms.

• Manage documents in the cloud.

• Plan for events and receive alerts when deadlines are missed.