Project Tracking Program

[nonobull]

I'm the creative director of a small in-house team but we get hundreds of requests that come through us each month. I'd like to find a program where people in the company can log in to initiate a project and force them to put delivery dates, budgets, scope, etc.

Then when it comes to me, I can delegate to designers, writers, etc. I don't need online approval or anything like that (mainly because no one would use it), but time tracking would be good so we know which departments suck them most resources.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

[Greedo]

lots of designers like to use stuff from 37signals, specifically Basecamp.

37signals.com

 

[decksnap]

Yes, basecamp. But keep in mind these sort of these can actually create more work than the headaches they save... it all depends on whether the time investment is worth it to create order out of the chaos.

 

[THX1139]

Basecamp, final answer.

 

[decksnap]

Ummm after rereading that, are you saying you don't open and track jobs, and bill your time to them? You probably need something like Clients and Profits. Your account manager can create estimates and open jobs, and your team can input their time against it. Among a bajillion other things.

 

[design-is]

Hi

I don't know what your budget is, but StreamTime looks promising and could suit your situation well.

 

[nonobull]

Thanks

Thanks for your suggestions. My team and I are looking into them right now.

 

[SwiftLives]

We do in-house work for a software company.

We use Microsoft Sharepoint.

I point this out less as an endorsement and more as a cautionary tale.

(We also have three Macs in a sea of 3,000 PCs)

 

[jalagl]

Another vote for Basecamp. It should work for you, it is an excellent system. I used it this year for university projects with my classmates (3 out of the 4 classmates I worked with, including myself, travelled Monday-Thursday and came back on Fridays for class, so we couldn't meet in person). It is also relatively inexpensive (free for one project, and we used google docs for file sharing).

The important thing with all PM software is for you to define how to track progress and control the process. That is the key for the software to be useful. At work it took us several years, but now we have a methodology and we use a custom system with MS Project, Project Server, and Sharepoint, and it works great (except for the occasional annoying glitch in Project Server). Another big advantage on this system is that it tracks progress on a daily basis, and customers can login to an extranet site and review the status almost in real time. We now have dedicated staff assigned to the maintenance of this system, since it has become critical for the success of our projects.