How to Choose the Best Online Project Management Software

1. How to Choose the Best Online Project Management Software? Have you ever wondered how project managers manage their projects, especially the ones which are of significantly long duration? How is planning done for such a project? How is the budget allocated? How are resources managed for big projects? How are timelines defined and managed? How do we track progress? How do we keep track of the costs incurred in such a project? In large projects like construction of a building, managers need to do project planning well in advance and keep track of budget, costs, resources, and schedules at every point in time. It is not possible for project managers to manually keep track of everything and manage the project. In this era of cut-throat competition across businesses, it is imperative that companies be as productive and efficient as possible to keep themselves in the competition. Hence, to effectively manage the projects, companies use online project management software. OfficeTimer is one of the online project management software. It is a project management tool used for planning and managing projects. It can be used for scheduling dates, setting milestones, capturing cost and revenue, and most importantly reporting results from time to time. But how does OfficeTimer support all these functionalities? What makes OfficeTimer best project management software is its access to data of all the departments, be it Sales, Finance, Production or Materials. In other words, OfficeTimer is an integration of all the departments of business. Let’s understand the hierarchy of OfficeTimer Module:

2. ●Work Breakdown Structure (WBS): As the name suggests, Work Breakdown Structure refers to splitting the project into multiple manageable tasks. WBS helps in simplifying the project and carrying out the project in stages. It also helps in estimating the budget and cost requirement at various stages of the project, which gives a better understanding of the project. A project can have multiple WBS depending upon the complexity and deliverables of the project. •Network: The network determines the sequence of activities within a project. It sets a relationship between various activities which helps users understand the process flow of the whole project. For example, there are 3 activities, say A, B, and C in a WBS. Network determines in what order will these activities be carried out, what are the resources required to carry out these activities, and what will be the cost incurred in carrying out these activities. •Activities: Activities in OfficeTimer can be described as the actual tasks which are to be carried out at the work centre. The data defined in each activity are – Work Centre, duration of the activity, start and finish date of the activity, and resources required to carry out the activity. So, in a nutshell, WBS, Network, and the Activity forms the structure of any project. Once the project is created, you can use it for tracking and reporting KPIs. You can plan costs for various activities, allocate resources for activities, and set up milestones to keep track of the progress. Hence, it is a time tracking software. Let’s take an illustration to understand the concept at length. Consider yourself a manager of a manufacturing firm developing a standard product X. Suppose the manufacturing of product X requires multiple raw materials, human resources, and overhead expenses. You may consider these cost components as your KPIs and would like to track them. For this, you may break down each requirement into WBS. This will allow you to manage each cost component in a better way. Then, you need to plan a budget for the manufacturing of product X. So, OfficeTimer allows you to plan costs for each of the materials required, allocate man-hours and overhead expense required for the manufacturing. In different stages of the manufacturing, you can track how much of the budgeted cost has been realized into actual cost, and at the end, you may compare the planned cost and actual cost to get the variance. Similarly, you can also know how many hours were required by each human resource in the project. This way, OfficeTimer works as a cost as well as time tracking software.

3. Planned Costs Actual Costs Nikhil Jain Management Intern, OfficeTimer https://www.officetimer.com/