Here’s the thing: At ClickUp, we’re process people. And you should be too! Do you know why?

Well-defined business processes assist organizations in identifying how they operate. And they also help leaders understand how to run companies more efficiently.

But the greatest beauty of business processes lies in their ability to leverage businesses. After all, what successful business has an inefficient functioning? That’s right! None.

Then all you have to do is learn the ropes of process management—business process management (BPM), to be specific. And that’s why we put together this article for you.

You’ll learn what business process management is, why it’s important, and what it entails. And you’ll love the templates and examples we compiled for you and our suggestions for optimizing your business processes with the right tools.

Let’s start right away so you can speed up your business processes as sons as possible!

What is Process Management?

Process management analyzes existing processes within an organization, defines and describes new ones, and controls the execution of both existing and new processes to ensure they’re completed as described.

And the ultimate goal of doing all the above is improving—or optimizing—the business processes. Now, what’s a business process exactly?

A business process is a sequence of tasks (or steps) performed by one or more roles to produce output and thus achieve a goal. And if, for instance, the goal is reaching a milestone, then a business process is a definition of how to get from one milestone to the next.

Example of a business process

You can easily conclude that business process management is an expression of teamwork as it may involve multiple people. And it’s their work together as a team or organization that makes the business process come to life.

Here’s an example of a business process to fulfill an online order for donuts:

1. A customer places an online order for 100 donuts
2. The store manager accepts the order and the customer can check the order status
3. Are there enough donuts ready to pack
   • Yes: Your staff packs the donuts
   • No: An employee makes enough donuts to fulfill the order, while another preps them
4. An employee issues a receipt, packs the donuts, and updates the order status to Ready
5. An employee hands over the packed donuts to the courier
6. The courier updates the order status to Delivered

If you’re wondering about what’s missing or what could go differently in the process, we’re proud of you! Because you’re tuning into the spirit of business process management.

Bonus: Process Mapping Tools

Why is business process management important?

If you take work efficiency seriously—like we believe you do—you must be into business process management. That’s how you’ll hit your business goals smoothly, faster, and with fewer resources.

Without proper business process management, not everyone knows who was responsible for which tasks in a project. This only gets more challenging when additional teams are added to the equation.

Teams absolutely need visibility into the process at all stages when multiple groups are involved. And process management ties in all the moving parts of an organization to deliver value to project stakeholders and, ultimately, the business.

What Are the Stages of Process Management?

Process management processes that waste unnecessary time or resources are inefficient. And you must either make them efficient or eliminate them.

But here’s the catch: Identifying and improving inefficient processes is challenging. Because you know that when a process gets ingrained in an organization, changing it triggers resistance, to say the least. Unfortunately, you have to continuously improve the processes in your company anyway.

To do that, follow the business process management lifecycle:

Stage 1: Plan

In this phase, you must start by analyzing the company’s business strategy. That’s the direction your organization wants to take so it accomplishes its goals in the future. And this knowledge will guide the entire business process management lifecycle—it’s its cornerstone.

To get a process management plan in place, you first need to:

1. Understand the company’s current business goals, objectives, and strategy
2. Identify the business processes existing within the organization and distinguish between what has already been analyzed, defined, and described and what hasn’t
3. Discover the business rules that govern all of those processes
4. Uncover if and where each process has weaknesses, such as bottlenecks, redundancies, or a high expenditure
5. Determine if each process aligns with your findings from No. 1

Then, depending on the insights these steps give you, you have a few options for what to do next. You can either:

• Design and document the identified existing processes
• Update or complete the processes that don’t align with your goals, objectives, or strategy, miss important business rules, or contain weaknesses and inefficiencies

^{RINSE AND REPEAT}
Pro tip: Make sure you repeat the process planning stage at least once a year because new processes might emerge. This way you’re always up to date on your business process.

Stage 2: Model

During this phase, you must design and represent business processes, keeping in mind that they orchestrate the actions of different roles, systems (not necessarily always technological), information, and objects (depending on your business).

And by designing we mean conceptualizing each process and literally drawing a workflow (or set of workflows) for it. Visually, those are diagrams or flowcharts, which can be built into advanced project management tools like ClickUp!

If you read or hear about workflow management, that’s because business processes are represented with workflows (sometimes, many workflows). But business process management is more than creating and optimizing workflows, which is the focus of workflow management.

Also, beware that often, process management professionals create workflow diagrams with the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).

Check out our finest selection of workflow examples!

Stage 3: Execute

To implement the business processes you previously designed, you must use a BPM tool. And here are the two gold steps we recommend you follow when executing the processes with the tool you choose:

1. Test each newly designed process with a few participants from a single team or department
2. Gradually allow the rest of your organization to adopt the process

This cautious approach to process execution will minimize the impact of possible design flaws.

Stage 4: Monitor

Are your business processes running? Okay. Then you must analyze them to see how exactly they’re running.

Process monitoring helps you identify bottlenecks, repetitive tasks, and other problems you must fix. On a deeper level, monitoring a current process means thoroughly examining each of its parts. Automating business processes cuts out the manual work of these repetitive tasks.

The goal is to pinpoint which parts are working well and which ones need improvement (plus the kind of improvement they need). Analyzing your customer or client onboarding process is an effective way to determine how its execution might be affecting your customer engagement levels.

And you might get signs that something is wrong with the process by mining event log data from the information systems involved in onboarding. That’d be a data-driven approach to comprehending process performance.

And it could enable you to automatically discover new processes from process analytics data. But how do you actually analyze processes? With a business process monitoring tool.

Just like a blood test report, such a tool assesses the health of your processes. For instance, it might evaluate customer satisfaction, cycle time, revenue, productivity, and many other metrics.

However, like a health check-up, you must repeat it every few weeks or months. Otherwise, you might only realize your processes have inefficiencies until it’s too late to avoid process failures (with all the associated costs and downsides).

Ensure business process automation tools are used to cut down the time it takes to do your day-to-day work. Your entire process management plan needs attention in specific spaces—more so than others.

Stage 5: Optimize

The optimization stage—or control stage—is about fine-tuning the business process needed for improvement. That’s how you keep them efficient and achieve your company’s business goals and your overall process management plan.

Some examples of process management optimization might include:

• Eliminate redundant tasks or processes
• Automate workflows
• Improve communication between process intervenients with appropriate business tools

And don’t forget to monitor the processes that you optimized! After all, this is a cycle.

Process Management Templates to Get Started Now

Let’s go back to the idea that you can optimize business processes by streamlining workflows. And that you streamline workflows with automation.

Well, process management templates are one of the foundations of workflow automation. And the three templates below are those we recommend you take a look at when you first get into workflow management.

1. ClickUp PDCA Process Whiteboard Template

If you’re into quality management, you already know the plan, do, check, and act (PDCA) cycle—or continuous improvement cycle. But this ClickUp PDCA whiteboard template will elevate your PDCA process management plan to a whole other level.

Use it to categorize tasks into the four stages of the PDCA cycle. It might sound silly to do with a template instead of pen and paper but trust us.

This whiteboard template uses business process management software and does more than break down tasks into smaller steps. The PDCA whiteboard supports the execution of PDCA processes for better project management.

2. ClickUp Company Processes Document Template

With ClickUp’s process document template, documenting business processes got so much easier. Use the template to document standard operating procedures (SOPs), such as the steps to request time off for process improvement.

Because it’s one thing to define the tasks in your workflow, it’s another thing to know exactly what to do to complete the task.

3. ClickUp Process and Procedures Template

Once your company starts executing business processes with BPM software, use this process and procedures template by ClickUp to get an overview of your internal processes by:

• Getting process improvement details through due dates, priorities, completion rates, and the number of completed tasks (with the processes grouped, for instance, by department)
• The tasks that require the creation of documents and the stage at which those documents are
• How the processes are going to flow into one another through a project management system

Optimize Process Management Using BPM Tools

A BPM suite—composed of many BPM software options—help you implement all the stages of business process management. So, before we go, let us tell you about a few strong points of BPM and project management tools (such as ClickUp).

• They automate workflows: Bring all of a company’s business processes to life and eliminate manual and repetitive work with predefined and custom automations.
• They support collaboration: Clarify procedures without losing the process’s context or emails like a needle in a haystack. BPM tools allow team members to comment on tasks and attach files to those tasks. They even enable you to convert comments into tasks!
• They offer reports: Provide comprehensive process data you can rely on to verify if you designed your processes effectively. These reports break down a team’s performance, enabling you to check their productivity over a certain period.

And usually, you can customize the reports with widgets that inform you of tasks completed, the number of tasks worked on, members with unfinished tasks, time estimates, time tracked, and so many other measures.

Try out ClickUp and drop us a line to say what you think of it. We can’t wait to learn where you need to go with business process management!

The post What is Process Management? Examples & Templates appeared first on ClickUp.

What do you get when you cross Human Resources (HR) with the power of modern project management? Software designed to streamline onboarding, benefits, payroll, and new hire processes.

HR software is a must-have for businesses of any size, especially those focused on growth and putting their employees first!

We’ve created a list of the 15 best HR software for your business including key features, pros, cons, pricing, customer feedback, and user ratings. Plus, a dive into HR software FAQs and categories to guide you on your search.

What Should You Look for in HR Software?

HR software helps leaders and team members align on company goals, manage employee benefits, streamline daily processes, and distribute their time more efficiently. In many cases, this software is also used by employees to manage their time cards, submit requests, view important tax and payroll information, and much more. 

Your HR software should be flexible enough to keep up with your company’s growing headcount and structural changes without forcing you to invest in yet another tool to get the job done. Features to look out for in your next HR software include: 

• Onboard new employees
• Manage payroll
• Access the company practices and policies
• Track time spent on tasks and billable hours
• Schedule tasks among employees
• Manage and request use for employee benefits
• Track applicants in the recruitment process
• Manage employee reviews and HR goals

The characteristics that make HR software so valuable aren’t limited to this list. Tools to manage tasks, track progress, plan projects, and collaborate with the team will make everyone’s day-to-day a little easier and run smoother using your ideal HR software. 

The 15 Best HR Tools

We’ve done our homework to gather a list of the 15 best HR software alternatives for every category, including their benefits, key features, customer feedback, user ratings, and pricing.

1. ClickUp

Category: Best overall HR software solution

ClickUp is the only all-in-one productivity platform powerful enough to provide wall-to-wall solutions for teams of any size and industry. With hundreds of customizable features and over 1,000 integrations, ClickUp can centralize your work across apps into a collaborative workspace—perfect for HR teams managing employee data, time, and goals. 

Whether you’re streamlining your recruitment process, onboarding new employees, or tracking their progress toward goals, ClickUp’s flexible platform has everything you need to simplify and optimize long-held HR processes.

ClickUp’s HR features

Multiple views

Over 15 ways to visualize your workflows, tasks, and projects in ClickUp including several key views that your HR team will love:

• Table view for a spreadsheet-like experience managing data
• List view with multiple sorting, filtering, and grouping options
• Form view for turning employee survey responses, requests, and feedback directly into an actionable task
• Calendar view for managing schedules, time off, daily agendas, and virtual meetings
• Workload view for managing your team’s capacities

Automations for HR processes

There are over 100 ways to automate your HR processes in ClickUp so your team can focus on what matters most—your people! Automations in ClickUp can trigger task creation, assign tasks, populate and assign comments, change task statuses, and more.

Dashboards for HR tracking

Ideal for tracking project Milestones, targets, and HR KPIs, Dashboards in ClickUp gather all of your work into an instant and high-level overview. Dashboards are customizable, highly visual, and always meeting-ready to present to stakeholders and other managers. Plus, there are over 50 widget variations in Dashboards that can be created for any HR scenario positions filled, time to hire, and team performance.

HR Templates

This HR SOP Template by ClickUp is the perfect resource for introducing your team to processes using ClickUp Whiteboards. This template applies a colorful, organized, and easily edited table to your collaborative Whiteboard to help HR managers train the team, establish recruitment tasks, manage hiring processes, and more. 

ClickUp pros

• All of these powerful tools are found in one dynamic platform, so you won’t have to invest in separate products or a suite of software to access all of ClickUp’s functionality
• Over 1,000 integrations and hundred of pre-built templates to extend and streamline your experience using ClickUp
• 24/7 customer support, learning resources like ClickUp University, webinars, and Help Docs to make your transition as smooth as possible

ClickUp cons

• Does not provide specific benefits packages but can manage the data in a secure platform
• Can be a bit of a learning curve adjusting to ClickUp’s rich feature list

ClickUp Pricing

• Free Forever
• Unlimited: $5 per user, per month
• Business: $12 per user, per month
• Business Plus: $19 per user, per month
• Enterprise: Contact ClickUp for custom pricing

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (5,030+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (3,210+ reviews)

2. Rippling

Category: Best for employee management

Rippling offers a suite of products to simplify HR, IT, and finance processes using its cloud-based software. Its HR software is enjoyable to use, easy to learn, and has a ton of features that span from payroll to employee feedback surveys, and more.  

Rippling features

• Workforce reports and analytics to track hiring, headcount, and progress
• Workflow automation across consistent tasks 
• Role-based permissions and policies with customized access and approvals
• Compliance management with local, state, and federal recommendations 

Rippling pros

• Hundreds of templates that you can customize as needed
• Built to manage a global workforce with localized payroll, tax, and compliance features
• Tons of integrations to extend functionality into every HR category

Rippling cons

• Integration required to manage employee performances and reviews using Rippling
• The background check feature through Rippling is expensive
• Customization and multiple views are only extended to admin, so most of your employees will not have access to those features

Rippling pricing

Rippling starts at $8 per user, per month but all pricing plans require a custom quote from Rippling and are created for each team based on the features you need. 

Rippling ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.8/5 (1,470+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.9/5 (1,840+ reviews)

HR leaders have a tough job. They have to find the best talent and manage them in a way that makes the company money. This is why HR leaders need the best HR software! I chose Rippling for its user-friendly interface and affordability. It also has features that other HR software programs don’t have. Rippling allows me to track employee performance and create custom reports. It also helps me connect with other HR leaders to share best practices, and the system automatically tracks vacation and sick days, and it makes it easy to view employee records.

3. Workday

Category: Best for large enterprise companies

Workday merges finance processes with HR, planning, and analytics to deliver a well-rounded experience for a variety of use cases. With features tailored to professional services using billable time, education management, and sales operations, this HR software suite helps mid-sized and large enterprise companies adapt processes to keep up with their growth.

Workday features

• Analytics and reporting to track HR task progress, payroll, and benefits
• Employee time-tracking and management
• Workflow automation for professional services

Workday pros

• Multiple products to serve companies across industries
• Built to manage HR processes for large enterprise teams with lots of data, frequent changes, and thousands of employees
• Self-service options through personal employee portals

Workday cons

• Not intuitive, difficult to navigate, and dated-looking interface
• Can be a lengthy implementation process, especially for larger companies
• Expensive and not an accessible option for small businesses

Workday pricing

Contact Workday for all pricing inquiries.

Workday ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4/5 (1,290+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (980+ reviews)

4. Gusto

Category: Best for small businesses

Gusto is an HR tool for small and mid-sized teams to manage payroll, employee benefits, performance reviews, and onboarding. Like Workday and Rippling, Gusto offers insights and time and attendance features for a self-service experience across employees, but provides more in the way of hiring and talent acquisition including job postings, feedback requests, and offer letter templates. 

Gusto features

• Full-service payroll including compliance, automated tax filing, and contractor payments
• Employee management to oversee candidates from their application through onboarding
• Medical, dental, 401K, vision plans, and more provided

Gusto pros

• Multiple templates for various use cases like offer letters, hiring, and job postings
• Can organize and manage all things related to payroll and benefits
• Great for new businesses and small businesses looking for their first-time HR software 

Gusto cons

• There is a steep jump in prices between paid plans and no free plan offered
• Can take a bit of time to learn the platform and adjust to its UI
• Not all of the features from its web application are available on the mobile app

Gusto pricing

• Simple: $40 per month, plus an additional $6 per person, per month
• Plus: $80 per month, plus an additional $12 per person, per month
• Premium: Contact Gusto for a quote

Gusto ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.2/5 (650+ reviews)
• Capterra: 5/5 (1 review)

We found that Gusto is the best HR software for our needs and has been instrumental in helping our workflow run smoothly. Gusto makes employee satisfaction the number one priority, which is essential for us. It has easy-to-use features like compensation management, employee onboarding, and a self-service portal. It also includes time off and benefits management, which is important in a small business to ensure that within our small staff, these tasks are still handled professionally.

5. BambooHR

Category: Best self-service option for employees

BambooHR is the payroll, benefits, and employee data trifecta of HR software that revolves around the employee’s personal experience accessing their related tasks. Built for small and medium-sized businesses, BambooHR helps teams focus on employee retention through a tool that lets members easily use their benefits, collect feedback, set performance goals, and more. 

BambooHR features

• Reporting for company management, growth, retention, and employee satisfaction
• Multiple personal and public calendars to calculate time off and view who’s out for the day
• Built-in onboarding packets including electronic signing

BambooHR pros

• This company practices what they preach in the way of putting employees first and prioritizing work-life balance
• Creates a space for HR teams, recruiters, and managers to collaborate on new applicants
• Multiple features for employees to track their performance through assessments, feedback, goals, and training

BambooHR cons

• Outdated UX and UI
• Limited metrics in its reporting feature
• No built-in scheduling feature

BambooHR pricing

All BambooHR pricing is customized per team and available upon request. 

BambooHR ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.4/5 (1,210+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (1,920+ reviews)

BambooHR software is easy to use and amongst one of the best HRIS options for small to mid-sized businesses. BambooHR is user-friendly for HRIS professionals and employees alike. The workflows are customizable and the reporting functionality is straightforward. BambooHR makes onboarding new employees fun and helps get them to engage with the company from day one. One of my favorite features is the ability to create workflows cross-departmentally. For us, this simplified the new hire equipment process by streamlining communication between HR and the IT department.

6. Namely

Category: Best HR software for mid-sized teams

Namely is an HR software for mid-sized businesses to stay on top of their payroll processes, manage benefits, and track their working time. 

Namely features

• Reward and recognition features to motivate employees
• E-signature and E-verify functionality to streamline onboarding processes
• Tons of integrations with the option to build your own through its API

Namely pros

• Very easy for employees to view their time and paystubs through their personal portals
• Simple interface that mimics many social media platform feeds
• Designed for mid-sized companies with 25-1,000 employees

Namely cons

• Lacking powerful and intuitive employee reporting and performance features
• The platform struggles to manage data for larger companies and almost exclusively is built for mid-sized teams
• Time reporting can be difficult to manage for hourly employees

Namely pricing

All pricing information for Namely is available only upon request. 

Namely ratings and reviews 

• G2: 3.9/5 (270+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 (410+ reviews)

7. Oracle

Category: Best for industry-specific features

Oracle offers a suite of cloud-based applications for enterprise companies to manage everything from resource planning to content, customer experience, supply chain processes, and more. Among its handful of products includes Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM—AKA, its HR software for human capital management. 

Oracle features

• A digital assistant to help manage benefits, workforce predictions, and strategic company planning
• Career development and performance management features including checklists and modules
• Pre-built and custom HR KPIs and dashboards

Oracle pros

• Payroll localizations for a global workforce stretching from Mexico to China
• Industry-specific features for a tailored HR software experience
• This software is built to help companies scale and implement Agile practices into HR processes

Oracle cons

• Most of the drawbacks stem from Oracle being such a large software. The setup and the learning curve can be very time-consuming
• Lots of different applications in each product get expensive quickly
• The interface feels outdated and is not intuitive

Oracle pricing

Contact Oracle sales for detailed pricing information.

Oracle ratings and reviews 

• G2: 3.7/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 (50+ reviews)

8. HR360

Category: Best for compliance resources

HR360 is a digital resource for people management. It helps businesses keep track of employee information, performance data, and compliance with HR regulations. 

HR360 features

• Automated job description and interview question builder
• Employee cost calculator and salary benchmarking tool
• A library of interactive guides to align with HR compliances and best employee practices

HR360 pros

• Additional apps to extend its feature functionality
• An entire online library of all federal and state laws
• Over 500 downloadable template forms 

HR360 cons

• This software relies on separate apps to access its features
• This tool is helpful for HR teams but less valuable for employees across departments
• Not the best option for mid-to-large teams

HR360 pricing

Contact HR360 for all pricing information. 

HR360 ratings and reviews 

• G2: N/A
• Capterra: 5/5 (2 reviews)

I chose HR360 because it offers a comprehensive suite of HR features, including an employee self-service portal, an onboarding module, and a performance management system. HR360 is also highly configurable, so it can be customized to meet the specific needs of my business. Additionally, the price is competitive compared to other HR software programs. Overall, HR360 is the best HR software solution for my business.

9. Clockify

Category: Best for managing employee time off requests

Clockify is a time-tracking software that HR teams can use to categorize and track employee progress during work days. Clockify gives the HR department insight into employee performance, current projects, and general activity. It also gives employees a private work calendar for requesting paid time off for future dates or day-of requests. On the admin side of things, your HR department and managers have access to an annual timeline with everyone’s approved and pending requests.

Clockify features

• Multiple timekeeping features for entering hours, marking billable time, setting a stopwatch, and overseeing your timesheet
• Invoices created by tracked time, expense, and hourly rates
• Multiple views to oversee time off, project schedules, the team, and progress

Clockify pros

• Helpful for tracking and managing the team’s workload
• Helps employees take full ownership and accountability for their working hours and off-time
• Some project management features including milestones and assigned tasks

Clockify cons

• Lacking many key HR features for managing benefits, employee portals, and hiring
• Limited time tracking automation features
• Clockify would be helpful for some departments but not all of them which isn’t ideal for an HR software

Clockify pricing

• Basic: $3.99 per user, per month
• Standard: $5.49 per user, per month
• Pro: $7.99 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $11.99 per user, per month

Clockify ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.5/5 (130+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (4,290+ reviews)

Aside from performance management, the HR department can efficiently distribute tasks, track progress, and address everyone’s needs in a timely manner with Clockify. They can also use Clockify’s reports to determine who may be overworked and help out team leaders to distribute tasks and projects. Clockify’s time tracking data also helps HR learn more about their employees’ work habits, especially if the company relies on a remote/hybrid work system.

10. Compt

Category: Best for managing employee stipends

Compt is an employee stipends platform that gives people the freedom to choose the lifestyle perks supported by their company. Helpful for HR teams managing employee benefits, Compt’s employee stipend and rewards software is customizable, IRS-compliant, and can support global teams.

Compt features

• Multiple benefits categories to reward your employees with office supplies, health and wellness classes, food, and development benefits
• Thorough bonus feature for compensating employees during career milestones

Compt pros

• A modern take on employee benefits that every team member can and wants to use
• Great for showing appreciation for remote and global employees

Compt cons

• Lacking other key HR features for hiring, retention, analytics, and performance tracking
• Focused only on stipends and perks rather than full benefits plans

Compt pricing

Contact Compt for all pricing information. 

Compt ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.9/5 (20+ reviews)
• Capterra: N/A

As the future of work sees a push toward hybrid and fully remote work environments, HR teams are navigating a categorical shift in how they deliver corporate perks. These extras traditionally included staples like healthcare and retirement benefits, and now include perks like free team lunches and group fitness classes. Compt allows teams to create stipend categories like “health and wellness” or “family.” Employees then pick services in those categories and get reimbursed by uploading receipts via Compt’s application or integrations.

11. Scribe

Category: Best for sharing training materials

Scribe is a handy HR tool for documenting your processes for you. The tool auto-generates visual step-by-step guides with text and annotated screenshots. Teams can create SOPs in seconds, then share or embed Scribes in any knowledge base to streamline onboarding, training, and tool adoption processes.

Scribe features

• Automated documentation that records processes through your browser
• Customize your step-by-step guides with annotations, text, redactions, and branding
• Easy sharing options via PDF, embedding, URL, or additional exporting options

Scribe pros

• This is a helpful tool to quickly show and teach new team members how to follow standardized company processes
• This would be a great tool to use in addition to your current tech stack across departments
• Scribe does its primary function incredibly well, including screenshots and instructions in their automated step-by-step guides

Scribe cons

• Scribe takes transcription to the next level but will not stand alone as a full-service HR software
• You will be reliant on integrations to use Scribe to its fullest extent
• No time-tracking, benefits management, or employee performance tools to align Scribe with your HR processes

Scribe pricing

• Basic: Free
• Pro: $29 per user, per month
• Enterprise: Contact Scribe for custom pricing

Scribe ratings and reviews 

• G2: 5/5 (50+ reviews)
• Capterra: 5/5 (5 reviews)

Any user can create and share unlimited Scribes (step-by-step guides). They are easy to create, duplicate and personalize for every employee. Scribes live in an easy-to-organize workspace, but also embed in any knowledge base, wiki or CMS.

12. Evergreen

Category: Best for rewarding your team

Evergreen is an HR tool that hinges on positivity. Its principle features motivate employees and maintain healthy workplace morale through peer-to-peer recognition. Plus, the more you recognize your team, the more trees Evergreen will plant on your behalf—so wholesome!

Evergreen features

• Track your achievements and your team by the number of achievements given and the number of trees planted
• Multiple integrations including Microsoft Teams and Slack

Evergreen pros

• Every time you give back to your employees, you’re also giving back to the planet
• This software is wholesome and entirely based on positive reinforcement

Evergreen cons

• This is a fun tool to offer your team but when if you’re trying to pinch pennies, it’s not necessary
• Lacking critical HR software features including benefits, payroll, performance, and talent management 

Evergreen pricing

$2.99 per user, per month—that’s it! Nice and easy. 

Evergreen ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.7/5 (50+ reviews)
• Capterra: N/A

Evergreen is the only peer-to-peer recognition app that lets teams recognize a job well done while planting trees for the planet. For the ultimate positive, feel-good team culture. My favorite features are the public peer-to-peer recognition inside Slack or MS Teams, great analytics, and the fact that company values are visible in daily operations.

13. DeskTime

Category: Best for tracking employee time at work

DeskTime automatically tracks the time you spend on the computer by logging your arrival, departure, and time spent on projects or tasks. Managers can see where their team’s time goes and gives employees proof of their time spent at work. While many of the HR tools on this list offer an array of time and attendance features, DeskTime’s primary function is to make detailed accounts of the time your employees spend at work and what is accomplished in that time. 

DeskTime features

• Cost calculation for assigning hourly rates to make payroll calculations
• Shift scheduling to distribute your team’s time evenly and give employees the option to request specific shifts
• Booking tools that let team members reserve desks, meeting rooms, parking spaces, or office equipment
• Absence calendar to track time off 

DeskTime pros

• DeskTime has several time-tracking features to promote a healthy work-life balance
• Supports time-blocking strategies like the Pomodoro technique
• Great for small businesses and freelancers

DeskTime cons

• So much visibility into your team member’s time can lead to a micromanaging and distrusting relationship between employees and managers
• This is mainly a time-tracking tool that has some crossover into common HR software features
• The UI feels very dated

DeskTime pricing

• Pro: $7 per user, per month
• Premium: $10 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $20 per user, per month

DeskTime ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (140+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (340+ reviews)

DeskTime is an automatic time tracker and workforce management system that helps to plan team resources, oversee workloads, prevent burnout, and much more. It’s employer- and employee-friendly with both team management solutions and features to ensure a healthy work-life balance.

14. 15five

Category: Best for performance management

15five is an HR software solution that focuses on performance management and employee enablement. It supports four products named for the problems they aim to solve: Engage, Perform, Focus, and Transform. 

15five features

• Manage and plan check-ins, 1-1s, assessments, and reviews from within the software
• Goal and OKR tracking on a live dashboard

15five pros

• A strong community of leading HR professionals to lean on for tips and strategies
• HR managers can oversee employee progress using OKR-driven SMART goals

15five cons

• Limited customization in the platform
• No benefits management or payroll features

15five pricing

• Engage: $4 per user, per month
• Perform: $8 per user, per month
• Focus: $8 per user, per month
• Total Platform: $14 per user, per month

15five ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.6/5 (1,720+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (850+ reviews)

15. Trakstar

Category: Best for giving feedback

Trakstar is a performance management HR software for managers to gauge employee progress and goals through constant and direct feedback. 

Trakstar features

• 360 Degree Feedback through a continuous feedback loop for employee accountability
• Goal feature for setting SMART goals, objectives, achievements, and tracking progress
• Reporting insights and dashboards

Trakstar pros

• Multiple ways to track HR progress through applicants, job postings, goals, and analytics
• Tracks the entire employee lifecycle including learning management and performance

Trakstar cons

• Lacking benefits and payroll features
• You will be reliant on multiple products to solve different daily HR processes 

Trakstar pricing

Contact Trakstar for a custom pricing quote.

Trakstar ratings and reviews 

• G2: 4.3/5 (220+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (280+ reviews)

Benefits of HR Software

Now that you’ve learned about the best HR tools on the market take a moment to understand the benefits of using an HR software for your team.

The benefits of HR Software include:

• Increased employee data security
• Optimized HR processes
• More organization
• Improved onboarding
• Minimize errors in employee tracking

Types of HR Software

To create a more narrowly tailored experience for different use cases, most HR tools can be divided among a handful of software types.

Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS), Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), and Human Capital Management (HCM) all refer to a category of HR software that typically involves a suite of products that work together to target individual HR functions like payroll, benefits, and employee onboarding. 

Core HR and HR administration software also fall under the HRMS, HCM, and HRIS umbrella, so if you’re seeing those terms used to describe your prospective HR tool, no need to worry—you’re on the right track.

If your company structure blends HR processes with talent acquisition, you may also benefit from talent management systems to streamline your workflows. These tools include features to help teams focus on recruiting new candidates, managing employee performances, providing learning and development opportunities, and overseeing compensation.

Choose the Best HR Software for Your Team

But which type of HR software will your team be most likely to engage with and introduce the most benefits for your organization? The type that does it all, like ClickUp! 

Ranked first on this list as the best overall HR software and widely used by teams across industries, ClickUp is the only tool flexible and powerful enough to provide wall-to-wall solutions for your entire company. It’s packed with hundreds of features to streamline your HR processes related to onboarding, performance reviews, employee requests, talent development, and more.

Plus, ClickUp is as powerful as it is cost-effective. Access unlimited tasks and members, ClickUp Docs, Whiteboards, 100MB of storage, and tons of pre-built HR templates on ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan.

Sign up for ClickUp today and start creating HR processes that truly put your people first.

The post 15 Best HR Software for HR Teams – 2023 Review appeared first on ClickUp.

And scrum is one such framework that’s gaining popularity in agile project management. It makes it easier to break large projects into smaller, more easily managed tasks and keep track of how those tasks are progressing. 

Properly implementing Scrum can help team members stay on task and complete projects faster and with fewer errors. Project managers can make use of templates to ensure that their scrum workflow follows the framework accurately.

In this post, we’ll present nine scrum templates that will fit a variety of use cases and workflows.

What is a Scrum Template?

A Scrum template is a pre-formatted document or tool that is used to help teams organize and plan work within the Scrum framework. Scrum templates provide a consistent, structured approach to managing tasks and progress, and they can help teams stay on track and achieve their goals in the agile project management framework.

Some examples of Scrum templates include Sprint backlogs, which list all the tasks that need to be completed during a specific sprint, and Product backlogs, which list all the tasks that need to be completed for a particular project or product. Other templates may include meeting agendas, burndown charts, and retrospective reports.

These templates are designed to support the Scrum process, ensuring your software development team has a shared understanding of the work to be done, and how it will be accomplished.

Why are scrum templates important to an agile business?

Scrum templates are essential to a business dedicated to the agile workflow as they provide structure and consistency in the way work is organized and planned. This helps a scrum master manage the software development agile team so everyone stays on track and achieves their goals more efficiently.

A team may think they understand the Scrum process and may know the definitions of all the Agile Scrum terms by heart, but still not be provided the proper amount of focus to execute a scrum task properly.

A scrum template solves this for agile teams:

It ensures all autonomous teams have a shared understanding of the work to be done while improving visibility into project plan progress. This streamlines the process to minimize the time and effort spent on organizing and planning work. They allow software or agile marketing teams to respond quickly to changes and adapt to new challenges, which is crucial in an ever-changing environment.

What makes a good scrum template?

A good Scrum template is easy to use and clear to understand. Often used within a team’s agile tools, it provides a solid agile framework for following the Scrum process. The following are some factors that make a good Scrum template:

• Easy to use: The template should be easy to understand, fill out, and update. It should have an intuitive design that allows employees to quickly get started while sticking to the agile methodology
• Clear: The template should communicate information about the Scrum process and the project’s current status within that process. It isn’t enough just to be easy to understand, it must highlight the Scrum workflow.
• Supports the Scrum process: Many templates can provide a brief overview of Scrum concepts, but a good one will go a step further. It will make it easy to track who is working on what, what their role is, and how far along they are on each of their assigned tasks.
• Customizable: Not every project is the same. While the Scrum process is simple, its real strength comes in its adaptability. Although some Scrum templates will be designed for specific tasks within the Scrum framework or specific types of projects, each should allow enough customization to fit all necessary use cases.
• Automated: Automation of some templates can save time and increase accuracy. The template should be automated to the extent that it allows for easy updates and monitoring of progress.
• Provides visibility: A good Scrum template should provide visibility into the progress of the project, allowing team members to easily see what has been done, what is currently being worked on, and what still needs to be done.
• Data-driven: The template should be data-driven, meaning it should be able to collect, store and analyze data. It should also allow for easy extraction of data and reports.
• Actionable: The template should include clear, actionable next steps and help focus the team’s work on the overall project plan. 

By following these guidelines, a good Scrum template can help teams to stay on track, work more efficiently, and achieve their goals—all with the right agile tools.

9 Scrum Templates to Consider for Your Team in 2023

These templates are for the planning and execution phases of the scrum workflow. We have a separate list of templates that will help your team organize the Sprint Retrospective.

1. ClickUp Agile Scrum Management Template

Our Agile Scrum Management Template includes all the essential elements of the Scrum workflow. It will help project managers track backlogs, sprints, test management, and retrospectives. This template covers scrum management from a broad level and is designed to support teams who need to keep track of complex projects and stay on track with the scrum goals that have been laid out.

The template provides a clear and consistent approach to organizing and planning work. Additionally, this scrum template includes a “How to get started” doc. In it, project managers and team members alike will find detailed information on how to effectively use the template.

Using the guide ensures that teams can quickly understand and implement the features and custom fields provided by the template, making it easy to start using it right away in your agile project management process.

2. ClickUp Agile Scrum Bugs List Template

Our Agile Scrum Bugs List Template provides an additional look into the base Agile Scrum Management template mentioned above. The bugs list view makes it easy to track and manage bugs as they come up, using the scrum workflow. When you use this template, you’ll find a clear and consistent interface that provides tools for identifying, prioritizing, and resolving bugs. 

It lets team members record all the critical information needed to document and resolve bugs, with sections for the description of the bug, the priority level, the person responsible for resolving it, and its current status. This template can be used in conjunction with other scrum templates on this list to ensure that bugs are identified and addressed promptly.

With the use of this template, your scrum team can improve their ability to identify bugs, prioritize them according to the impact they’ll have on the final product or its current phase, and keep track of the progress made to resolve them.

3. ClickUp Scrum Board Template

This Scrum Board Template is another additional view of our Agile Management Template. Within the scrum workflow, the scrum board is an effective way for teams to visualize and organize their work—whether it’s user stories or tracking bugs.

A scrum board provides a visual representation of the tasks that need to be completed, tracks the progress that’s been made, and makes it easy to see the status of each task. This view of the management template is divided into columns that allow an at-a-glance look at where each task stands in the process.

You’ll find columns for tasks that need to be done, and those that have been accepted or rejected. There are also columns for tasks that are pending or waiting for approval. 

Unlike physical scrum boards, the one in this template is easily updated and automated. It can integrate easily with other tools in your tech stack so information about your project’s progress is always exactly where you need it.

4. ClickUp Agile Scrum Backlog Template

The Agile Scrum Backlog Template presents another look into our Agile Scrum Management template and provides a view of the scrum backlog. Backlogs are an important part of the scrum workflow. This particular view is concerned with the sprint backlog, rather than the product backlog.

The sprint backlog is used by the development team to track the progress of a sprint. They’ll fill in the tasks of the backlog (again, not necessarily the product backlog) during the planning phase of the sprint.

This template makes it easy for them to track which tasks in the current sprint have been completed, and what stage of completion those that haven’t are at. 

5. ClickUp Agile Scrum Bugs Priority Template

Just as a hospital must prioritize emergency room patients based on the severity of their affliction, development teams must prioritize bugs based on their impact on the project. The Agile Scrum Bugs Priority Template provides them with the tools to do just that.

Developers will be able to label bugs by their severity and view them in that format with this view of the original Agile Scrum Management template. This gives a glance at how many of which type of bug is remaining and allows team members to quickly identify which bugs should be worked on first.

By properly using the bugs priority view, development managers can avoid or properly manage technical debt and reduce the chances of negative effects from improperly prioritized bugs.

6. ClickUp Scrum Sprint Planning Template

Now it’s time to move on to another template and have a look at some of the views it provides.

Our Scrum Sprint Planning Template does for the sprint planning phase what the management template did for its execution phase. Before each sprint, careful planning must take place to ensure that the tasks to be completed move the project toward its goals in the most productive way. 

This template allows sprint planners to keep track of the tasks that’ll need to be completed during the sprint, the goal of the current sprint, and other information that will help set up scrum teams for a successful sprint.

7. ClickUp Scrum Active Sprint Template

The ClickUp Scrum Active Sprint Template within the previously mentioned Scrum Planning Template will show you information about the currently active sprints. Sprints are organized into columns showing what’s in development, ready for review, awaiting deployment, and more.

For each task in a column, important information about its category, development status, timeframe, and goal are readily viewable without any additional steps.

8. ClickUp Scrum Meeting Template

Scrum meetings are another key element of the workflow. These meetings usually occur daily. They allow the team to assess the work that has been completed and what still lies ahead.

They are important to the agile nature of scrum because they are where roadblocks and other newly discovered obstacles are accounted for and fit into the sprint schedule. Our Scrum Meeting Template will make it easy to plan and execute these meetings. 

This template provides an easy way for team members to contribute to the meeting with details about what they accomplished since the last meeting, what blockers they’re currently facing, and what they plan on doing for the day.

9. ClickUp Sprint Events Template

Our final template of the list is the Agile Sprint Events Template. This template provides a central location for documenting details about the entire sprint process. Scrum teams will be able to keep track of all event meeting notes, decisions, events, and learnings that occurred during the sprint process.

This makes it a convenient document to share with any stakeholders, to get a quick overview of how the entire process went, or to refer back to as a learning exercise for future sprints. 

Streamline Your Scrum Process with ClickUp

Scrum templates are a powerful tool for organizing and planning projects that will make use of the Scrum framework. With the templates we’ve highlighted in this guide, your team can gain valuable insights into your project workflows and position themselves for greater productivity.

However, it’s important to remember that a template is just one aspect of the scrum process. To get the most out of a template,  the tools you use to implement it must also be of high quality.

ClickUp provides a central platform where teams can organize tasks, track progress, and communicate with each other. It offers a variety of integrations and customization options, making it flexible and adaptable to the specific needs of your team.

Give ClickUp a try and see how it can help improve your team’s productivity and achieve success in your projects.

The post 9 Free Scrum Templates to Track Your Workflow appeared first on ClickUp.

But its importance goes beyond that as well. Every type of business planning, from action plans to sprint plans and resource planning, ultimately derives from the larger strategic plan. That means one thing above all: you have to get your strategic planning process right.

To get there, you need to start somewhere. The many resources related to planning are a great start. But even more specifically, you need a template that can help you plug in information, digest that information, and come up with a plan that everyone in the organization can follow.

What exactly that ideal template looks like depends on your needs and existing software. That’s why in this guide, we’re sharing our 10 favorite free strategic planning templates you can start using (almost) immediately.

What is a Strategic Planning Template?

A strategic planning template is a roadmap to your business roadmap. It provides business leaders with the exact steps needed to build a plan that can outline the near- and long-term future of the business.

At its best, the template is a measurable tool that everyone involved in the planning process can follow. It helps you solidify where you are, and where you want to go.

And, just as importantly, it helps you consolidate that information into an actionable, measurable, and easy-to-process strategic plan that everyone in the organization can use.

Of course, there is no simple best business strategy template. Just like a project plan can differ from a product roadmap, you’ll need a template that matches the way you work and the type of planning you’re doing.

That’s why this guide highlights not just one, but 10 free planning templates to cover a variety of needs.

What Makes a Good Strategic Planning Template?

A good strategic planning template accomplishes a few key goals:

• It establishes a clear timeline for the planning process
• It outlines the goals of the strategic plan and derives any actions and strategies from those goals
• It clearly outlines the individual tactics and overall business strategy underlying those goals
• It establishes a way to measure the progress and outcomes of implementing the plan
• It outlines clear responsibilities for individual tasks related to the planning process
• It provides check-in points and opportunities for the team to review and adjust as needed
• It’s customizable enough to make tweaks that can make the plan more relevant for your organization and business planning process

Most importantly, though, the strategic plan template streamlines the entire process. Whereas in processes like capacity planning, details matter above all, business strategy planning should focus on a broader viewpoint that helps every stakeholder involved quickly gain an overview of the plan and its connection to the business.

10 Strategic Planning Templates to Use for Your Team

If every strategic plan has the same goals, you might think that most of them are nearly identical. You’d be surprised.

Much like project planning, different templates can lead to very different outcomes. That’s why it’s best to consider a few free strategic planning templates before selecting the one that works best for your business and situation. To help you get started, these are our 10 favorites to use for your next strategic plan.

1. ClickUp Strategic Roadmap List Template

It’s a basic template with potential power behind it. The roadmap helps you visualize how your organization can get through its strategic plam, with custom fields ranging from the duration of individual tasks to the progress of those tasks, their impact, and their ease of implementation.

Within ClickUp, you’ll be able to view your Strategic Roadmap as a progress view. But, once tasks and deadlines are assigned to individual tasks, you’ll also be able to see a timeline or even workload view to ensure continued progress. While it’s a primarily list-based template, we especially enjoy the Gantt chart as a way to see how the individual tasks interact with each other regarding the larger timeline.

2. ClickUp Strategic Roadmap Timeline Template

If you’re thinking of your strategic planning as basically bridging the gap between your company’s present and desired future state, this is the template for you. It’s more complex than the list-based template mentioned above, providing you with a more nuanced strategic roadmap once built.

The template defaults to a Gantt chart with sections for individual departments. From there, you can view a progress board and outline your current capacity. Meanwhile, a number of custom fields help you better plan through each of these efforts:

• Completion %
• Effort
• Expected Outcome
• Impact
• Strategy Progress
• Team Members

It might not be the right template if you’re just getting started with strategic planning. But for experienced leaders looking to take that planning process to the next level, it’s just the right outline.

3. ClickUp Grand Strategy Matrix Template

It’s simple but beautiful. The grand strategy matrix allows you to build a four-quadrant view of the strategic environment surrounding your organization, with a framework designed to help you understand what the path to your organization’s future might look like.

How you get to that path, of course, is up to you. The quadrants can be used for a simple SWOT analysis or for more complex planning processes, like finding market growth niches and opportunities in a tight competitive environment. Some of these options are pre-built into the template, while others can be customized to match your exact marketing plan or whatever else you need your strategic planning process to be.

4. ClickUp Strategic Plan Whiteboard Template

For the visual thinkers among us, this template is a perfect choice. Above all, it’s a visual road map that easily shows not just what steps are necessary for strategic planning, but also how those steps can (and should) flow into each other in the context of the larger project.

Of course, you can still assign different tasks and stages to individual members of the team to keep responsibilities intact and obvious. But the template’s flowchart nature and whiteboard feel also mean you can seamlessly adjust the process as needed.

The chart’s color coding ensures that anyone working on it keeps a clear overview of what’s needed and when.

5. ClickUp Strategic Marketing Plan Template

A strategic plan isn’t just relevant organization-wide. A solid business strategy is just as important for individual units, and this template shows just how those differences can manifest themselves.

Think of this free template as a more practical opportunity to plan your marketing efforts. The default list view is sorted by the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) method, sorting tasks into defined overarching objectives for the larger marketing effort. 

But that’s only the beginning. Custom fields allow you to define the channels through which you’ll approach executing the plan, while the timeline view helps you keep track of progress. And of course, the Progress Board allows you to see how those stages you’ve defined ultimately lead to achieving your strategic goals.

6. ClickUp Event Strategic Plan Template

Planning an event is hard work, and countless tasks will need need to be accomplished to ensure its success. A strategic plan template for that event, on the other hand, can keep a clear overview of the tasks needed and accomplished, and how everything connects to achieve core goals.

ClickUp’s Event Strategic Plan template accomplishes that through a wide range of custom fields, from channel to budget, hashtags, the voice used, and more. It’s designed to plan multiple events at once, all overlapping to create an event-based strategy that helps to elevate your business or your marketing strategy.

Because of the complexities involved, we’re especially fond of the board-based Event Status view. This strategic plan template has a simple overview of where all events stand, and what still needs to be done.

Of course, the list and calendar-based views can also be helpful to get into some of the deeper nuances of event planning.

7. ClickUp Action Plan Template

Strategic planning is not universally liked, in part because it tends toward the theoretical. Goals and tasks alike tend to be lofty for a true business strategy, focusing on the 30,000-foot view rather than the on-the-ground needs of the organization or your business partners.

That’s a major reason why we love this action plan template. It’s a note-based system that folds all necessary tasks to move your strategic plan forward into three sections:

• To Do
• Doing
• Done

Within that structure, tasks are separated into daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly reviews to account for their varying complexities and timelines. The result is a simple overview of everything that needs to be done, which also does a great job highlighting existing successes and accomplished tasks for the entire team to see and celebrate. Now that’s a strategic plan.

8. ProjectManager Strategic Planning Word Template

What if we told you that you can build a strategic plan entirely in MS Word? That’s what this template seeks to accomplish, through easy-to-digest sections all designed to streamline the business strategy as much as possible:

• An executive summary that introduces the context and background of the strategic plan.
• A spot for your vision and mission statements to anchor your plan into your organization’s core being.
• A SWOT analysis to take an honest look at your organization and its environment (think vision statement)
• Business goals to define exactly what the strategic plan should accomplish
• A marketing plan that outlines the promotional side of the business strategy to hit those goals
• An operations plan that serves as the actionable road map toward achieving your goals
• Financial projections of the future with the goals for the business strategy (and business growth)
• The team that will be responsible for executing the strategic, marketing, and operational plan

Keep in mind that this plan is customizable to match your needs. It requires a bit more manual work than some of the other examples shared in this guide but can provide a nice overview of the plan you’re building.

9. PowerPoint Strategic Planning Template

If part of your strategic planning process includes presentations for stakeholders (and for most organizations, it does), why not go straight to the software in which those presentations will eventually happen?

This template is, at its core, a roadmap timeline similar to others we’ve discussed above. This business strategy template focuses on the individual milestones needed to get from goal setting all the way to execution. But it’s designed specifically for PowerPoint, with customization options that make it easy to dive in and tweak.

The download is free and easy, and customization only requires basic PowerPoint skills. The timeline is set to one year by default, so you might need to make some tweaks if your strategic plan spans multiple years across your vision statement.

10. Excel Strategic Planning Template

MS Excel is not always user-friendly, but its cell-based build has enormous customization potential. It’s no surprise, then, that our final template on Excel is also one of the most comprehensive options in this guide for your business strategy needs.

The worksheet itself divides into three areas or tabs:

• Goal identification to identify key elements like goals for your organization through focused brainstorming.
• Goal setting, using the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) business strategy template for business goals.
• Action planning, converting those goals into tactics, and tracking the progress of those tactics towards attaining your goals.

Keep in mind that, thanks to its MS Excel nature, this is largely an internal planning document and not designed for external presentation. But within that context, the key elements of this business strategy template can be immensely helpful to get and keep your strategic planning on track.

Supercharge Your Strategic Planning With ClickUp

It’s impossible to build a strategic plan in isolation. No matter the organization, chances are it’s a team effort. So why not expand that team to include the right tools? 

This is not an exaggeration: the right strategic planning template can make or break the process for you. Whether you’re trying to hit business objectives, run competitive analysis, or perform SWOT analysis, a clear outline lets easily build a plan that the entire organization can follow.

And when that template is free? All the better.

And here’s the best part: the software powering most of the templates we’ve shared above, ClickUp, is free to try as well. It’s a project management and productivity tool built for teams, which works out perfectly if that project is your next plan to create your overall business strategy. 

Ready to get started? Try ClickUp for free today.

The post 10 Free Strategic Planning Templates in ClickUp, Word, and Excel appeared first on ClickUp.

When you unfold the different styles and ways to structure projects, you prevent them from turning into a hot mess. With the right project management structure, everyone in your team—and the teams around you—will know exactly who is what.

It’ll be so much easier to control work and make the best decisions for the project and, ultimately, the business.

In this article, you’ll learn what defines a project management structure and how to choose one. But more importantly, we’ll give you directions on how to easily create those structures in ClickUp!

Keep reading!

What Are Project Management Structures Used for?

A project management structure is used to clarify the hierarchy and, consequently, the report lines in a project. The structure outlines each project intervenient’s function and authority to supervise and make decisions.

These organizational structures take the shape of charts. And their value lies in being a reference for team members to go back to during the project’s execution.

After all, with employee attrition and turnover, project management structures change. And the same might happen during holidays and when you hire many new workers.

But the project might have just started, requiring the definition of its organizational structure. Or it might be so old that its organizational structure has changed over time.

It’s faster and more comfortable to check a chart in an accessible repository than bugging (sometimes various) colleagues asking whom to talk with to solve an urgent matter.

^{PROJECT MANAGEMENT OR PROJECT ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE?}
Some refer to these structures as “project organizational structures” instead of “project management structures.” That’s because they represent the organization of people around a project. And depending on the structure, the style of coordinating and managing the project team’s work and communication changes.

Nevertheless, any project management structure serves as a foundation for:

• Clear communication: Align all team members before and during a project on the expected kind of contribution each one will have to minimize conflicts
• Effective team collaboration: Clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and the connections between them
• Optimization of workflows: Staff, technological systems, and materials within and between projects are defined
• Removal of possible roadblocks: These might exist because of excessive or deficient resource allocation and workload

And all of the above characteristics are somehow project management principles.

Different Types of Project Organizational Structures

Let’s have a look at the three main types of project management structures. Each has a different configuration of team member roles within projects and the company.

And that determines the responsibilities and authority of each individual within the context of a project or the company. Beware that we’ll show you templates you might need to customize to your reality.

But in the meantime, check the differences between the structure types at these levels:

• The project manager’s role
• The coordination of work and people, which is either vertical or horizontal
• The line versus staff positions, considering that
  • A line position represents a team member directly involved with the product.
  • A staff position represents someone who supports the work of those in line positions without getting directly involved with the product.
• The concentration of decision-making, which is either owned by a few team members or distributed across the company

Functional organizational structure

The functional project management organizational structure organizes staff members into departments. And each one of those departments represents a functional area within the company, such as HR, finance, or marketing.

A functional manager is responsible for each one of the departments. And an executive oversees their work.

Functional managers are the decision-making authorities and coordinate projects horizontally. And for each project, they select team members from the respective department’s staff. Those team members accumulate their responsibilities within the department—for instance, payroll processing—with project work.

Recommended for: Cross-functional projects that staff can accumulate with their departmental responsibilities

Projectized organizational structure

In the projectized (or project-based) project management organizational structure, the largest divisions of people within the company are projects (not departments). And similarly, the coordination of work is project-oriented, thus vertical.

Also, the authority to supervise work belongs to project managers—one per project. And they allocate staff members to projects, which means that those members are dedicated to projects (instead of departments).

Recommended for: Small agencies and young startups

Matrix organizational structure

A matrix structure is a grid in which project team members have two report lines. There are variations of this structure that include:

Weak structure

At first glance, this matrix organizational project management structure looks the same as the functional organizational structure. But there’s a difference: Staff members coordinate the project’s work across departments (instead of a functional manager) in this matrix structure.

Balanced structure

Balanced matrix structures don’t have full-time project managers. Instead, a project manager is also a staff member and accumulates departmental work with the responsibilities of part-time project coordination. Plus, a functional manager is still the one making decisions on project budgets, resource allocation, and other aspects.

Strong structure

The strong matrix structure contains a special department exclusively dedicated to project management. And the members of that department are all full-time, cross-functional project managers (supervised by a functional manager).

A manager of all project managers heads the project management department. And every project manager has authority over their own projects.

How to Choose the Best Organizational Structure for Your Team

Don’t know which project management organizational structure is best for you? No problem! Here are a few thoughts and guidelines to help you figure that out:

Analyze your constraints for resource allocation

When you consider your resource constraints, think about the staff and labor, but also you want to evaluate resources like software, tools, and other team expenses.

Your hiring budget affects the allocation of human resources. And it determines the functions each employee takes on. Also, the budget influences each team member’s time available for project work.

• A functional organizational structure suits staff that must accumulate project work with departmental responsibilities
• In weak-matrix structures, team members coordinate the project alongside departmental work
• Balanced-matrix structures have some staff members accumulate project coordination with departmental work
• Projectized structures require you to plan to have a project manager dedicated only to supervising project work
• Strong-matrix structures require enough budget for a full-time project manager and a project management department with a dedicated head

Realize which authority your project managers need

That’s their decision autonomy, largely depending on the project management structure you select. But the decision power also depends on the existence of functional managers in addition to a project manager.

Besides, the project organizational structure impacts the communication between staff and project managers. In other words, it defines the report lines within projects.

• In a balanced matrix structure, a project manager doesn’t make decisions on budget or hiring personnel
• A project manager in projectized structures doesn’t share authority in projects
• Matrix-like structures have project team members report to both a project and functional manager

Evaluate the size and complexity of your projects

When a project is less complex or smaller, the project manager can have other functions besides coordinating project work. They can accumulate project coordination with project and/or departmental work.

Smaller projects work best with functional, weak-matrix, and balanced-matrix structures.

On the other hand, larger or more complex projects fit organizational structures with project managers who don’t do the departmental or project work. An organizational structure that works best here includes projectized and strong-matrix structures.

Appraise your company’s maturity

If an organization isn’t mature yet, it might not have departments. And this means that departmental duties are residual, so personnel is dedicated to project work almost their entire time. This works best for young startups.

5 Project Management Structure Examples and Templates for Different Teams

Once you choose a project management organizational structure, you might need to customize it for your team. But we’re one step ahead and have some examples to save you time. Have a look at the five different project management structure examples you might run across:

1. Marketing team project management structure

This simple example of an organizational structure applies to content marketing teams. In the example, the blog manager is a project manager. The blogs are tasks in the project, and the team members are the content strategists, blog writers, and illustrators involved in creating posts.

Illustrators report not only to the blog manager but also to the creative manager. The latter decides the budget and allocations of illustrators and other creative positions to the blog project and other projects, such as social media campaigns.

Typically, the blog manager and sometimes the creative manager report to the content director (or Head of Creative). And this director reports to the VP of marketing or chief marketing officer.

2. Design team project management structure

One organizational structure might work better for one team other another—which is why a functional organizational structure is important for design teams. But we just showed you one of the possibilities, which contains a design lead among project team members.

In this structure example, each project manager supervises a project team. And the coordinator of project managers is the product manager, who defines the roadmap governing all projects related to a product.

Project team 1 develops the website. Team 2 creates design components that appear on the website. And team 3 builds software components that the computer programmer in team 1 uses.

This means that teams might be multidisciplinary yet have their own visual designer. But then a design lead coordinates the output of those designers, so it conforms to the same design guidelines.

3. Sales team project management structure

It’s common to organize sales teams and projects geographically as a sales director often supervises multiple regional sales managers, and each of the latter supervises district sales managers.

Depending on the district’s size, each district sales manager coordinates the work of one or more sales rep teams. The goal of each team is to grow the customer base and increase the revenue within the corresponding district.

4. HR team project management structure

For human resources teams, a project consists of large or complex HR work that demands a project manager to oversee it. Examples of these projects would be creating an employee onboarding experience, a handbook, or developing a severance program.

An HR department configuration with an HR director supervising an HR manager could be a functional organizational structure used for a business. Sometimes HR managers are responsible for their own teams, organized according to the nature of their work—recruiting, compensation, benefits, and learning and development (L&D).

For instance, to design an onboarding training course, the instructional designer could play the role of a project manager in addition to developing the course itself. And they’d count on the input of staff members from the other two teams to create the course, provided that the latter would maintain their recurring departmental duties, such as interviewing or payroll processing.

5. Construction team project management structure

Construction teams can have pretty elaborate project structures in place. And to create a structure, you must understand what each role within a construction project means:

• A senior project manager oversees the work of project managers and superintendents
• Project managers stay in the office, plan project goals with the senior manager, and ensure the team hits those goals They supervise both superintendents—at least one per project—and project administrators—usually one per project if the project is big enough
• Superintendents are managers on the job site responsible for defining schedules and overseeing the general foreperson
• The general foreperson—one per construction site—supervises trade forepeople and the execution of work by all the other field workers, such as carpenters, painters, drywall professionals, electricians, and plumbers
• Project administrators take care of all the paperwork that a project requires to run smoothly. That can be, for instance, requesting and tracking payments to vendors and subcontractors

How to Create an Organizational Structure in ClickUp

The two easiest ways to create a project management structure in ClickUp are through our ClickUp Mind Map and ClickUp Whiteboards features.

Using ClickUp Mind Maps to define project structures

First things first, what is a Mind Map? In the context of this article, a mind map is a visual representation of the internal structure of your organization.

It’s a diagram depicting the report and authority relationships between project staff members, managers, and other executives. You can use it to plan and set up your project and communicate the project management structure to the stakeholders.

Now in ClickUp, you can create a free-form mind map either in a Mind Map View or on Whiteboards. In the first case, add a mind map view to your ClickUp workspace. And in the second case, add a mind map to a whiteboard.

Note: You can convert mind map elements into ClickUp tasks. But if you’re working in a mind map view for the first time, we recommend you choose the blank mode (instead of the task mode).

Let’s go through the steps you must follow to create a mind map either in a mind map view or on a whiteboard.

Step 1: Draw the highest authority

Because mind maps are hierarchical structures, start with representing the highest position of authority in your project. That position is a root node in the diagram.

Step 2: Represent the first level of child nodes

Depending on the type of project organizational structure you selected, draw the root node’s child nodes. Those can be functional managers, project managers, or managers of project managers. And if it’s helpful, name each position with the person’s name.

Step 3: Branch child nodes

At this point, depending on your project management structure, do one of these:

• Add staff members and project managers to functional departments by branching them off from functional managers.
• Add staff members to project teams by branching them off from project managers.

And if you have a project management department, add project managers to that department by branching them off from the manager of project managers.

Step 4: Highlight project teams

Delimit each project team. You can do it, for instance, by using different colors for distinct project teams. There are other ways on Whiteboards to denote by shapes or colors as well.

Step 5: Mark project managers

Signal full-time and part-time project managers. For instance, tag nodes with symbols to make that distinction.

Want a faster way to get started? Use ClickUp’s Simple Mind Map template to get your project management structure in place.

And if you’re unsure if ClickUp is the right tool to design mind maps, check out our article on all of the best mind-mapping software options available on the market!

Using ClickUp Whiteboards to define project structures

Whiteboards are especially suited for collaborating remotely and in real-time with managers and other executives while determining a project management structure.

The steps for creating mind maps still apply to designing organizational structures on Whiteboards. Yet, instead of creating a Mind Map on a Whiteboard, you can spice up your structures with other visual elements and diagramming restrictions.

In ClickUp Whiteboards, you can draw shapes and link them with connectors. You can also add sticky notes and text to your project management structures and upload image files, such as headshots or symbols, to distinguish positions.

Pro tip: Use ClickUp’s Introduction to Whiteboards template to get started.

Thoughts to Keep Top of Mind

When you pick the best organizational structure for your project, you’re optimizing talent and resources. And you’re laying out the foundation for efficient workflow management and high-performance teams.

Because without those two ingredients, clear project goals, and a vision, there’s no way you’d get the desired outcomes and quality.

Connect with us! And we’ll help you set up a project management structure that makes the best impact on your projects.

The post Project Management Organizational Structures (Including 5 Examples and Templates) appeared first on ClickUp.

Having your finger on the pulse of your project progress, resources, schedule, and setbacks is vital to delivering on your promises to all clients, stakeholders, and team members—to the point where it’s absolutely necessary to seek help from powerful project management software designed to help architects work efficiently.

There are tons of benefits to using project management software with features to help teams increase productivity, but architects must look for additional functionality that speaks to their unique challenges, processes, and work styles.

But how do you pick?

Lean on this detailed list of the top 10 project management tools for architects to find the best tool for your needs. Take note of every must-have feature to look for in high-quality software, and compare app breakdowns, drawbacks, pricing, and more.

What Should You Look for In Project Management Software for Architects?

There are a ton of functional tools on the market today, but each one is tailored to specific use cases.

For architects, schedule management, reporting, and collaboration tools are key. But what do those features look like on paper?

Here are the top five non-negotiable features to look for in your next software for project management for architects:

• Multiple project views to visualize your timeline, tasks, and schedule
• Custom sharing and collaboration features so clients can access, view, comment, or edit materials as needed
• Time tracking and billable time calculations to ensure your invoices are accurate and prompt
• Instant reporting and milestone tracking to visually convey your progress toward completion
• Tons of integrations to extend the functionality of your project management tool and bring more context into every task

The 10 Best Project Management Software for Architects

With your budget, team, and must-have features in mind, use this list to guide your software search.

Follow along as we dive into the top project management tools for architects to find the software that best fits your needs.

1. ClickUp 

Successful architectural projects require careful planning and organization. But it can be difficult to keep track of all the moving pieces in a project—from materials to timelines, estimates to checklists. Whether you’re managing a small renovation or a large-scale build, a productivity platform like ClickUp helps architects stay on top of their tasks from start to finish!

ClickUp takes the guesswork out of project management with powerful features like Gantt charts, Calendar view, and process automation. You can create task dependencies with just a few clicks, as well as assign tasks to team members and contractors anywhere in the world. Plus, ClickUp easily integrates with other software and apps so you can manage work from a single, dynamic workspace! 

ClickUp best features

• Over 15 project views, including Calendar, List, Board, Gantt, and the unique Workload view
• Fully transparent platform to align team members on project progress analytics, goals, priorities, and time
• Detailed Start Dates, Due Dates, and Exact Times for accuracy when scheduling deadlines and Milestones
• Over 1,000 integrations to bring all relevant data and information into one platform
• Custom statuses and project Milestones to convey progress updates at a glance
• Custom timesheets, reports, and insights with time-tracking widgets
• Project Milestones for resource planning and scheduling
• Advanced time estimates to forecast your workweek
• Create Task Checklist Templates to speed up task creation. Check out our RACI matrix examples!

ClickUp limitations

• Not all views are available in the mobile app—yet
• So many powerful collaboration tools can pose a learning curve for some users

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever Plan
• Unlimited Plan: $5/month per member
• Business Plan: $12/month per member
• Business Plus Plan: $19/month per member
• Enterprise Plan: Contact Sales for pricing

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (3,500+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (5,400+reviews)

2. Monograph

Monograph is a project management software designed to make architects’ lives easier. It streamlines the planning process by providing all the elements of project planning in one place, from scheduling and budgeting to meetings and to-do lists. Monograph also offers a shared company calendar so that everyone involved in a project can conveniently collaborate in the same space. Plus, each user can customize their interface to keep things digital and organized.

This project management software is best for phase-based projects. By dividing the work into smaller, more manageable phases in Monograph, you can better keep track of progress, identify areas that need further attention, and even spot potential problems before they become bigger issues. The goal is always to get the project completed faster while still maintaining the highest quality standards.

Monograph best features

• Time and expenses tracker through MoneyGantt
• In-app Timer to track billable and non-billable time
• Project Reports comparing free performance
• Resource and forecast staffing tools

Monograph limitations

• Lacks a variety of project views
• Time Log exports are limited to a CVS format

Monograph pricing

• Monograph starts at $40/user per month, billed annually

Monograph ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5 (100+ reviews)
• G2: 4.3/5 (2 reviews)

3. Newforma

The next project management software for architects is Newforma. This software tool is specifically designed for architecture and engineering firms. It offers a wide range of features that streamline processes and boost productivity. With Newforma, architects can quickly access project materials, create timelines and task lists, store documents, share information with colleagues and collaborators, review design plans, and monitor progress in real-time. As a result, architects are easily able to stay on top of their projects and complete them on time. 

Architects of all experience levels will find Newforma useful. Its intuitive interface makes it easy to set up and manage projects, while its advanced features give architects full control over the process. From managing bids and contractors to tracking change orders and project costs, Newforma helps keep things organized.

Newforma best features

• File server, SharePoint Online, BIM 360, and ProjectWise content accessible in a single view
• Submittals and RFI Dashboard to monitor overdue and upcoming items
• Outlook Add-in to drag and drop emails into a project folder
• Project Center to manage key document deliverables 

Newforma limitations

• Newforma Plans App only supports Apple devices
• Limited PDF editing functionality

Newforma pricing

• Contact Newforma for details

Newforma ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 3.8/5 (8 reviews)
• G2: 4.1/5 (90+ reviews)

4. Outplanr

Outplanr is a powerful tool for managers and teams that allows them to turn mundane to-do lists into comprehensive action plans. With Outplanr, teams can set up projects quickly and easily by breaking down tasks into manageable steps. By seeing an entire task at once, teams can ensure they’re on the same page while avoiding confusion and productivity blockers. 

Outplanr makes it easier to track progress by giving teams the ability to monitor their action plans in a visually appealing way. They can view an overview of all the tasks associated with each project, which helps them stay organized and updated on the team’s progress. Additionally, teams can adjust their schedule based on any changes or new developments, which gives them more control over their architectural project.

Outplanr best features

• Time tracking widget 
• Upload widget to track the progress of file completion
• Actual vs estimates project completion times
• Native iOS, Android and MacOS, and Windows Desktop apps

Outplanr limitations

• Lack of customization options in project views
• Limited native integrations 

Outplanr pricing

• Starts at $15/month for 3 people

Outplanr ratings and reviews

• Capterra: N/A
• G2: 4.3/5 (10+ reviews)

5. ArchiSnapper

The ArchiSnapper project management software makes it easy to generate accurate field reports and collaborate with others on architectural projects. It’s a powerful solution that helps teams capture multiple dimensions of a job quickly, making sure all projects are accounted for. With its intuitive design, you can use the ArchiSnapper app to easily keep track of details about jobs, tasks, and other types of data. 

For teams working remotely, ArchiSnapper helps keep everyone connected. It enables simple and efficient communication across departments and locations, with detailed status updates immediately available. Plus, you can also share documents with others, so everyone is always on the same page. Whether you’re managing a single project or multiple tasks across several locations, ArchiSnapper ensures that you’re producing accurate field reports and collaborating with your team quickly and effectively.

ArchiSnapper best features

• Customized field reports and punch lists 
• Numbered pointers on plans to visualize location-based work
• Annotation functionality on drawings available in Web, iOS, and Android apps
• Email templates 

ArchiSnapper limitations

• Expensive pricing plans compared to other tools 
• Limited Gantt chart functions 

ArchiSnapper pricing

• Starts at $29/month per user, billed annually

ArchiSnapper ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (40+ reviews)
• G2: N/A

6. Xledger

Architectural project managers need an accounting tool that can keep their finances, project costs, and expenses up-to-date. Xledger is a great solution to streamline onsite work management and accounting operations. The user-friendly platform allows ease of access and a range of features designed to simplify the process.

Xledger allows architects to stay on top of their financial planning with a host of powerful analytics tools. Automated reports, customizable dashboards, and detailed forecasting are all possible with this robust platform. With Xledger, you’ll be able to make smarter decisions faster—enabling you to move quickly and efficiently toward goals.

Xledger best features

• 200+ predefined and standard reports
• Automated time and expense billing
• Xledger Mobile app for iOS, Android, and Windows phones
• Project costing, reporting, and follow-up on construction projects

Xledger limitations

• Limited ability to handle different levels of complex projects
• Lack of communication capabilities compare to other project management tools

Xledger pricing

• Contact Xledger for pricing plan details

Xledger ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (6 reviews)
• G2: 4.5/5 (2 reviews)

7. Heeros

Heeros (formerly Taimer) is a project planning tool for teams that need a better way to stay on top of tasks, deadlines, and budgets. Teams can easily set up notifications to track progress and plan projects down to the last detail. By integrating into existing workflow systems like DocuSign, Google Calendar, and HubSpot, Heeros eliminates tedious tracking and boosts productivity to help architectural firms deliver projects faster.

Heeros is also focused on helping teams with resource scheduling. Gantt and Grid views show deadlines, workload, and capacity so project managers can plan with full transparency. For example, the Gantt view allows project managers to see the phases of a project timeline and plan dependencies. 

Heeros best features

• Scheduling and resourcing with task prioritization
• Kanban boards for collaboration
• Built-in time track to budget, track, and assign hours based on team capacity
• Bills, purchase orders, and expenses management 

Heeros limitations

• Limited ability to handle different work styles and preferences
• Project management is a paid feature under the Business plan

Heeros pricing

• Free plan
• Contact Heeros for paid plan details

Heeros ratings and reviews

• Capterra: N/A
• G2: N/A

8. Teamwork

Teamwork is a collaboration tool designed to help teams collaborate on projects. Its easy-to-use interface allows members of a team to assign tasks, set deadlines and goals, track progress, and communicate with each other in one central hub. With Teamwork, leaders can also access real-time reporting so they can stay up-to-date on their team’s progress.

Teamwork streamlines the process of managing projects. Teams can keep up with timelines and ensure tasks are being completed by creating checklists and due dates. They can also share files and documents within the platform and use collaboration tools to have productive conversations around those items. It facilitates better communication between team members and makes it easier for the team to stay on track with their project by offering a comprehensive view of the entire project history.

Teamwork best features

• Resource management for day-to-day capacity planning
• Project management templates for team collaboration
• Desktop and mobile apps to update work while on-site 
• Unlimited free client users

Teamwork limitations

• New users can get overwhelmed by the overload of features and UI design
• The platform can take time to update project fields when assigning tasks

Teamwork pricing

• Free Forever
• Deliver: $9.99/month per user, billed yearly
• Grow: $17.99/month per user, billed yearly
• Scale: Contact Teamwork for details

Teamwork ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5 (700+ reviews)
• G2: 4.4/5 (1,000+ reviews)

9. TeamGantt

TeamGantt is a handy project management software to help architecture firms plan projects using visual charts. By leveraging the power of Gantt charts, TeamGantt gives architects the flexibility to visualize their tasks and milestones. With easy-to-use drag-and-drop features, architects can simply move the timeline to keep tabs on the latest status. This allows them to respond quickly to changes in their project demands, making difficult tasks easy to handle.

Architects can also identify critical paths in the project timeline, plan out resources needed for each task, and even track issues and delays. TeamGantt’s Gantt charts bring transparency and order to architecture projects, allowing teams to make informed decisions. 

TeamGantt best features

• Resource management tab
• Portfolio views and reports
• Project plan templates
• Planned timeline vs. actual timeline

TeamGantt limitations

• Complex dependency functionality for smooth architectural project management 
• Time tracking is a paid feature 

TeamGantt pricing

• Lite: $19/month per manager, billed yearly
• Pro: $49/month per manager, billed yearly
• Enterprise: $99/month per manager, billed yearly

TeamGantt ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (100+ reviews)
• G2: 4.8/5 (800+ reviews)

10. Basecamp

Basecamp is an online project management solution designed to help teams work together and stay on track with their projects. It offers a range of features to help teams collaborate, assign tasks, manage deadlines, store files, and communicate effectively with everyone involved in a project. 

Its intuitive design allows teams to break down tasks into manageable chunks and prioritize them according to importance. With the ability to assign tasks, set deadlines, and discuss objectives in real-time, teams can stay organized and productive. Basecamp’s tools make it easy to keep everyone in the loop by allowing users to share files, upload images, and make comments right within the platform. 

Basecamp best features

• Hill Charts to visually see progress uphill or downhill over time
• In-app individual or group direct messages 
• Project, assignment, and schedule dashboard on one page
• Real-time chat and messaging system

Basecamp limitations

• Limited progress tracking functionality
• No task priorities

Basecamp pricing

• Unlimited users: $299/month, billed annually
• For freelancers, startups, or smaller teams: $15/month per user 

Basecamp ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.3/5 (14,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.1/5 (5,000+ reviews)

Check out these Basecamp alternatives!

Choose the best Project Management Software for Architects

Project management software is crucial for architects to efficiently manage their projects and teams. Among the various options available, ClickUp stands out as the best tool. With its intuitive design, customizable features, and seamless integration with other tools, ClickUp offers a comprehensive solution for architects to manage their projects, tasks, and teams with ease.

Whether you’re a solo architect or leading a team, ClickUp provides the flexibility, transparency, and collaboration you need to take your projects to the next level.

Try ClickUp today!

The post 10 Best Project Management Software for Architects appeared first on ClickUp.

To create the perfect to-do list, you first have to consider the time frame, how you’ll delegate tasks, and how you’ll mark tasks completed. Your gut instinct might be to go to Google Sheets, Microsoft Word, or Excel, or simply download a printable PDF to-do list.

There are a ton of to-do lists out there, but we’re here to make life easier and provide you with the 10 best and free options!

Ready to step up your productivity?

Let’s look at the benefits of using a to-do list template first!

10 Free To-Do List Templates 

Your to-do lists don’t have to be an overwhelming, random mishmash of everything. The following 10 free to-do list templates should help you maximize clarity and reduce inefficiencies. 

1. ClickUp’s Daily To-Do List Template 

A simply daily to-do template captures the essential daily tasks you plan on undertaking. ClickUp helps you set up the most mundane tasks you have to perform and the specific time of the day they should be completed—all with the ability to customize and choose your view!

ClickUp’s Daily To-Do List Template makes it easier and faster to add and organize tasks. It offers a variety of options to organize your tasks, plan your workflow, and order them based on priority.

If you are leveraging task management software, you should be able to sync this daily to-do list template into your work or other task lists. With ClickUp, you can update the status of your list item and create subtasks for your priority tasks.

Easily view your items in List View, Kanban View, Table View, within ClickUp Docs, or several other ClickUp display options, so you have all the details you need at glance.

This daily task to-do list template is best for those planning out every detail of their day, from when each task is to be done to which tasks are a top priority.

2. ClickUp Digital Product To-Do Template 

Unsure how to improve your digital product? Well, the ClickUp Digital Product To-Do Template saves you hundreds of hours of designing and auditing your digital product so you don’t miss a thing during a product launch.

This digital product checklist helps you create your digital product from start to finish. The simplified doc includes a design checklist, product packaging checklist, and selling plan checklist. 

On the design checklist, you can generate and organize product ideas, and develop an efficient product development process. At the tail end, you’ll have the selling plan checklist where you can strategize on how best to reach your niche target market and utilize the online marketplace.

For each product, you can include digital product guidelines to help you for future reference.

3. ClickUp Quality Control Checklist Template

In today’s competitive landscape, you’ve got to ensure that each of your products matches the customer’s expectations. Luckily, with the ClickUp Quality Control Checklist Template, you can track the quality of your projects.

This to-do list template includes the status bar that helps you check whether the project is approved, newly approved, pending, or rejected. 

There’s also a custom field where you can indicate the results, approval dates, progress, and remarks on the project. On these custom fields, you could also detail any test procedures done on the project and critical milestones and events, both major and minor. 

With this template, you have two automation options. You can automate the changing of the status of resolved subtasks. Equally, when the project status changes, you can automatically have a custom field set up. 

For further customization, you have three different view types. You can view your task list in a list, table, or guide-style format. 

4. ClickUp Moving To-Do List Template

Whether a simple or big move, packing up for the move can be stressful. Thankfully, with ClickUp Moving To-Do List Template, you can make it less overwhelming. 

With this task list template, you can create a quick checklist of the things you need to do and a task list of what’s been completed so you’re ready to go on moving day.

You can create a task list of everything you need to do at each stage of the move. Easily assign a priority task and deadline for each. Or assign an individual to be in charge of specific tasks so everyone knows who is responsible for what.

Let’s face it—you’re not going to get this type of delegation in a printable checklist template that’s only available in a PDF format. Instead, track the process of each task, note down comments for the next to-do list, and update statuses to be on top of the entire move.

5. ClickUp Bucket List Template  

Do you want to rebrand your business or rappel down a waterfall? Whatever the goal, the ClickUp Bucket List Template helps you plan, organize and prioritize your aspirations. 

Of the various list templates mentioned, this one lets you group your bucket list items into different categories. For instance, you could set destinations to visit or experiences in a task list.

Under each, you can list the different subtasks you’d want to undertake or experiences you’d want to have—whether it’s a day or an entire week. The template comes with six custom fields, which you can populate per your preferences, and is a great option to involve family members coming along. 

You can organize and view your bucket list in one of five ways too. List out the tasks as a list or have these be arranged by rating, continent, or people you intend to undertake the task with.

Finally, if each item on your bucket list is interlinked, you can have these organized as a sequence task list. If you are looking for an easy-to-use to-do list template with complete visual design elements, this one has a lot to offer. 

6. ClickUp Class Assignments To-Do List Template 

It can often feel impossible to remember and keep track of your homework, internships, or other activities. Given the sheer amount of work you’ll be juggling, you need the means to stay productive and avoid any frustrations with forgotten homework assignments. 

The ClickUp Class Assignments To-Do List Template provides you with three custom options to organize your class assignment. For instance, you can organize your assignments based on task types, topics covered, or assignment grades.  

For easier tracking of the different assignments, the template is synced with nine ClickApps. This means you can track and sync all assignment emails, time track them, and map all dependencies, among others. 

As soon as an assignment comes in, you can note its due date and track and update its progress subject to the 12 status listed. These assignments can then be viewed as one of the six view types available, including exams, papers, or a list arranged based on the due date. 

7. ClickUp Getting Things Done Template 

If you intend on being more productive and getting things done, you want to break down your tasks into actionable work items to manage workflow. You can achieve this with the ClickUp Getting Things Done Template. 

Among the clarity-boosting tools available on the template are seven pre-built view types that can be customized for your needs. On the list view, you can see all of your work at a glance for insights into due dates and the level of effort required. 

Visualize your workflow on a customizable Kanban board so you can organize your tasks by the due date, priority, status, and more. You can also use the calendar view to plan and schedule your projects and tasks directly from a calendar. 

Note that each of the seven pre-built view types on the template comes with three pre-built Custom Fields. The first two are contexts in terms of assigned category and effort, which details the amount of time and energy required per task. The last is the blocked custom field. 

Suppose you want to move tasks through your getting things done template for an easier and more efficient workflow. With this list template, pick from the seven pre-saved Lists for each step of your task item. There are plenty of automation options to make your life and work more manageable with this awesome task list template.

8. ClickUp Home Renovation To-Do List Template 

Given the complexity of home renovations, starting one without a detailed to-do list is certainly ill-advised. You will need a to-do list for pre-renovation and actual renovation, comprehensively captured on ClickUp Home Renovation To-Do List Template. 

This home renovation project management to-do list template helps you keep track of your budgets, timelines, contractors, and more, ensuring you achieve your home renovation dreams.

You can have the different projects you intend to undertake categorized based on the specific areas of the house. List the start and expected due dates for priority tasks and add the labor and material costs. You can also list the progress and status of the project about the estimated due date. 

If you are a novice at home renovation or a seasoned contractor, this to-do list template helps you organize all the tasks for a successful house renovation and enables you to track the progress of each. 

9. ClickUp Party Planning To-Do List Template 

Organizing a memorable party calls for meticulous attention to detail. To avoid stress and last-minute mayhem and ensure the success of your party, you ought to consider leveraging ClickUp Party Planning To-Do List Template. 

On the checklist template, you can organize your party planning by grouping the party into stages. You can list the tasks needed for the preparation during the event and at its close. Each of these can have subtasks with visually trackable progress and the option to assign one of the five statuses available. 

Whether you are organizing a small party or you’re a seasoned party coordinator, the ClickUp Party Planning To-Do List Template ensures that no crucial detail slips through the cracks and that you do not end up being caught in a frenzy. 

10. ClickUp Self-Care To-Do Template 

Given how busy we all are, you want to ensure that you get enough self-care and self-love as often as possible. With the customizable ClickUp Self Care To-Do Template, you can maintain a detailed description of all the things you need to take care of yourself. 

To organize the self-care tasks you plan on undertaking, you have four custom fields to use in this checklist template. You can categorize the tasks based on self-care types or wellness types and maintain notes on each, as well as reference material. 

You can also track your list of daily or weekly tasks and update their progress based on the six statuses available on the template. This should help you prioritize off-track, on-hold, or not started tasks. 

Overall, if you are keen on staying accountable and consistent with your self-care, the ClickUp self-care to-do template helps you visually see how you’re doing on a large scale in pursuit of your wellness needs. 

What Are the Benefits of Using a To-Do List Template?

Unfortunately, a lot of us try to search for a type of to-do list to simplify our lives, but it ends up leaving us disorganized and disconnected from the action tasks at hand. The consequence is often less clarity and more effort into organizing our work.

Work + More Work =

A simple to-do list is supposed to help us reduce procrastination and not create more work to track a task. With the template, writing your to-do list doesn’t have to be an exercise in futility.

The templates make it easier for you to create your to-do lists, review them and maximize your productivity while working on each. Tasks should be simple to sort so you can prioritize your work.

And if you ever want to change the order of your to-do list, create a status column, or add tasks with new prioritization, you’re not going to get far without a template. Pre-built and customizable templates are useful starting points for individuals needing a helping hand regarding their initial to-do list.

That’s not to say that seasoned individuals can’t leverage a simple to-do list, but instead, it could help the task pros get through their checklist faster.

Look at it this way. Your to-do list template is essentially a personal assistant. Using a productivity tool enhances the quality of your to-do lists. So let’s take a look at our 10 favorite to-do lists and say goodbye to pen and paper.

Want More Templates for Your To-Do Lists?

A to-do list helps you break down your goals into smaller, bite-sized chunks that you can easily manage. While these are our top 10 to-do lists, ClickUp has even more. Check out the full list of ClickUp Templates to see more work, simple, and calendar to-do lists you can use for free.

With these professionally designed templates, start prioritizing tasks so you can better manage your workflow. It’s all about efficiency!   

The post 10 Free To-Do List Templates by ClickUp  appeared first on ClickUp.

Gone are the days of the dated and challenging interfaces of yesterday’s spreadsheets—now, we have tools like Coda and Airtable to make or data and knowledge bases more intuitive, valuable, and engaging to use.

While Coda is more document-based and Airtable is, well, table-focused, both software help teams achieve similar goals.

Whether working remotely or in person, teams can manage projects, updates, bugs, and more using Coda and Airtable’s database management tools, integrations, reports, and more.

But which one should you choose?

We’ve created this detailed guide to help you make that decision for yourself.

Follow along as Coda and Airtable go head-to-head in the ultimate facedown. We’ll compare their key features, pricing plans, security tools—and even bring you another software alternative to excel in the areas that Coda and Airtable fall short.

What is Coda?

Coda provides a comprehensive suite of editing tools and customizable document templates to facilitate the rapid creation and collaboration of all types of data. Every element—like spreadsheets, task lists, timelines, and images—is conveniently accessible within the document, allowing project managers to track changes easily.

Coda’s document-based interface has been designed with powerful navigation, inviting users to tailor their workflows as necessary. To top it off, users can access their project information from any device and location with seamless integration with platforms such as Slack and Google Drive!

What is Airtable?

Airtable is a spreadsheet-based software designed to improve project management and organization. It has an intuitive user interface for team members to easily store and sort information, track project progress, and collaborate with others.

With Airtable, project managers can easily organize their tasks into different views and create workflows and pipelines to better manage their projects in just a few clicks. The software also offers real-time updates on project tasks and progress, giving project managers more visibility into their tasks.

Check out our full Airtable review!

Comparing Coda and Airtable is like trying to decide between your childhood favorite ice cream flavor and a hot fudge sundae: Both are delicious, but ultimately it all comes down to your non-negotiable features list. So let’s weigh your options carefully before deciding which one will satisfy your appetite!

Coda Vs. Airtable: Feature Comparison

Coda offers the works—from cloud-based documents to databases, all in one platform. Airtable, on the other hand, is more like an impressive Google Sheets with automation. Here’s how the two relational databases stack against each other.

Feature #1: Database creation and management 

Coda is the perfect tool for busy project managers who need to keep up with document databases. Its sleek interface makes it easy to group and sort data within documents using quick shortcut keys. So whether you’re in a deep brainstorming session or building complex project timelines, you have the power to structure your content within the document any way you want!

Here’s how it works: Formatting Coda docs to create project plans is like building with LEGOs. First, you need to figure out the pieces you need for your structure. Think of it like gathering goals, timelines, and budget information. Once you have all the pieces, arrange them into blocks of data like checklists, tables, and Gantt charts. Then, adjust your blocks around the document until you’ve designed your perfect project plan.

Learn how to create a content database!

Airtable’s workspaces and bases are like filing cabinets for project teams. Each base functions like its own individual drawer to separate different types of projects and resources. The organized structure makes it easy to find the information you need, while customizable workflows let you create unique systems that work best for your team. However, the biggest downside to Airtable’s relational database is individual records across bases cannot be synced. 

Winner: Player’s choice!

Some people work better in document-based interfaces and others in spreadsheets. 

Something on your mind? If viewing a task in multiple databases is a must-have feature for your day-to-day work, check out ClickUp! The Tasks in Multiple Lists feature adds the same task to different Lists within your workspace. So when cross-functional teams are working on the same task, they don’t have to cross digital bridges to reach the task!

Feature #2: Integrations 

By integrating Coda with other apps and tools, teams can unlock a range of powerful capabilities. The Coda integration capabilities allow teams to tailor their stored data to fit their specific needs by taking advantage of customization options like pre-made buttons.

This is made possible with Coda Pack’s extension. The Pack extension opens the doorway to customize how your documents look, work, and integrate. This is key if you currently use project management software and want team members to pull requests from your project tracker or access live data from Coda document links. Tasks can move along faster and smoother without any lag time or delays!

The integration of Airtable with other software applications and tools is a powerful way to expand business data. For example, integrating Airtable with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) allows organizations to manage day-to-day communications with customers. This integration also allows organizations to create automated processes so tasks and updates are efficiently handled.

Additionally, users can tap into the data stored in Airtable from within other applications, making it easier for them to manage their workflows in one place. 

Here’s a peek at a few no-code and low-code integration options:

• Partner extensions maintained by the Airtable team
• CSV import/export to add data to a table
• API and external systems to run scheduled jobs

Winner: It’s a tie!

Both have a diverse set of integrations to connect your favorite apps and tools. 

Feature #3: Reporting and visualization

With Coda, teams can easily visualize their performance across different metrics to keep everyone up-to-date on progress and performance and easily identify areas where they need to take action—all within a dashboard.

In a traditional sense, dashboards are high-level overviews of work across the team, department, or project. But Coda’s customizable dashboards might feel strange because of its filter logic approach. You’ll need a basic understanding of Coda’s formula language (more reading) and a thorough knowledge of your reference points and settings (more effort).

Although Coda and Airtable both have helpful tools to summarize data, Airtable has a more simple approach since the platform’s interface is designed for teams to collaborate on a shared view of table data.

Teams working on the same project, like an event or product launch, can quickly make the necessary changes without setting up an entirely new view.

Winner: Airtable!

Coda Vs. Airtable: Pricing and Security

While pricing and security can sound a bit dull and technical, they’re both important to growth and scalability in your organization. Coda and Airtable offer feature-rich tools to make work life easier—but here’s the real kicker: Their security levels and payment approaches are different, so be sure to evaluate them before making a decision!

Pricing plans

Software can either be a budget saver or budget buster, depending on how you use it. A business’ software choices can drastically affect its bottom line. By automating repetitive tasks and streamlining operations, quality software can reduce overhead costs. However, if a company picks the wrong software for their needs, they could end up with a hefty bill. Poorly managed software—and lack of team training—can lead to costly outcomes.

Coda pricing

• Free plan: $0
  • Connected tables, charts, Kanban boards, and forms
  • Third-party tools and services via Packs
  • Powerful formulas and automation, and more
• Pro plan: $10/month per Doc Maker
  • Unlimited doc size
  • Access to dedicated support
  • 30-day version history, and more
• Team plan: $30/month per Doc Maker
  • Unlimited automations
  • Unlimited version history
  • Doc locking, and more
• Enterprise plan: Contact Coda for pricing
  • Advanced access controls
  • Advanced user management
  • Priority support, and more

Airtable pricing

• Free plan: $0
  • Up to 5 creators or editors
  • Unlimited commenter & read-only users
  • Interface Designer, and more
• Plus plan: $10/month per seat billed annually
  • Automatic table syncing
  • 5,000 records per base
  • 5GB of attachments per base, and more
• Pro plan: $20/month per seat billed annually
  • Granular interface permissions
  • Field & table editing permissions
  • Gantt and Timeline Views, and more
• Enterprise: Contact Airtable for pricing
  • Advanced interface controls
  • Unlimited workspaces per organization
  • 250,000 records per base, and more

Discover the top free database software!

Security

When you’re about to make a big purchase, it’s important to read the fine print. And with SaaS products, that means making sure you understand their security policy before taking the plunge.

After all, when you buy software, you’re entrusting sensitive information. So before you prep the team to migrate to new software, make sure you check your organization’s security standards and their non-negotiable security requirements list for all purchases. 

Your IT, Purchasing, and Finance teams will appreciate your thoroughness!

Both Coda and Airtable have dedicated security pages on their sites to get a general overview of active steps they’re taking to secure data regularly.

If you’re looking for a database solution that provides the best of both worlds—the flexibility to handle teams and data, plus customization and end-to-end security—look no further than ClickUp!

Meet ClickUp — The Best Coda and Airtable Alternative

There’s no need to settle for one or the other when it comes to spreadsheet or document-based project management. Instead, reach for the software that can support both and then some!

In the battle of Coda vs. Airtable, the winner is clear—ClickUp.

ClickUp is a powerful productivity software with hundreds of dynamic features to help cross-functional teams centralize their work into one collaborative and secure platform. It’s designed to be customized by every user, allowing teams, members, and even entire businesses structure, tailor, and manage processes down to the last subtask.

ClickUp is intuitive to learn and highly visual by nature, with color-coded task statuses, over 15 unique project views, and customizable Dashboards for a full picture of your progress in a single glance. And with more than 1,000 integrations with other work tools, you’ll never be forced to open another tab or refresh your window to get the latest updates.

It’s packed with advanced tools across every pricing plan, including a free digital whiteboard software, built-in Chat, screen recording, and more. But what makes ClickUp the ideal choice between Coda and Arirtable are its dynamic document editor, Table view, and pre-built templates.

Dynamic ClickUp Docs

If you love Coda for its intuitive document editor and integrations, then you’ll love ClickUp Docs even more! With live detection to edit documents alongside the team, delegate comments, and widgets to connect Docs directly to your workflows, ClickUp Docs is as collaborative as it is productive!

Create everything from simple to-do’s to beautifully structured wikis with nested pages to create a visual hierarchy. Then use Slash Commands and rich formatting options to add style and functionality, including banners, tables, buttons, attachments, code blocks, and more.

You can trust that your Docs are always protected in ClickUp with advanced and custom permissions to control who can see, edit, or access your assets at any time. And when you’re ready to share your work in or outside of ClickUp, it’s as simple as copying a URL.

Lightening-fast Table view

Of the 15+ project views in ClickUp, Table view is the one to give Airtable a run for its money.

Create intuitive and powerful visual databases in ClickUp to efficiently manage resources, client relationships, task progress, and more in a spreadsheet-style format.

Link anything from tasks to documents, dependencies, bug reports, and customer orders to bring more context into every row and column of your Table, then manage your work using ClickUp’s robust filtering and grouping options. Even drag and drop columns to choose the organization of your date, or hide and pin colums to access information quicker!

Table view is all about efficiency—even if you’ve never used it before! Kickstart your database using a pre-built template from ClickUp’s Template Library or copy and paste information from other tools directly into ClickUp.

And like ClickUp Docs, when you’re ready to present your progress to clients, stakeholders, or other departments, you can share Table view in ClickUp by exporting or via a simple link.

Asset Management Template by ClickUp

One of the greatest challenges of building a knowledge base or database using a document editor or table is simply getting started. A lot of data, collaboration, and learning goes into creating these comprehensive resources, and that’s why templates are such a key part of using any project management software.

Luckily, ClickUp’s vast Template Library offers hundreds of pre-built templates for every use case, including ClickUp’s Asset Management Template Folder, to manage your resources, assets, and equipment from every angle.

Click between three custom views, including ClickUp’s dynamic Calendar and List views, to visualize your tasks, deadlines, and all relevant information. Then show the progress of each task using the 10 pre-made task statuses that come with this template. But enough of this talk—try it for yourself!

Docs, Tables, and So Much More in ClickUp

The best part of these advanced features in ClickUp is that they’re offered completely free on ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan!

So instead of feeling forced into docs or spreadsheets between Coda and Airtable—choose both! Only when you choose ClickUp.

Access ClickUp Docs, Table view, hundreds of pre-built templates, over 1,000 integrations, and so much more when you sign up for ClickUp today!

The post Coda Vs. Airtable Comparison: Which Tool is Better? 2023 appeared first on ClickUp.

That’s why it’s so important to set your database up for success the moment you create it, and why it’s key to invest in an intuitive and efficient data entry software program to help maintain the information for years to come!

Whether we like it or not, spreadsheets are a big part of our days. And though we’d never admit this to our boss (and maybe even ourselves), we don’t know where we’d be without those formulas and pivot tables!

But it takes daily attention and thoughtful care to make sure your data sets are up-to-date and completely accurate. Especially considering the importance of the information we’re storing! You may be adding to your CRM, overseeing a project budget, or managing bug submissions—all of which require the utmost care.

But how do you find a software that is both trustworthy and powerful? We’ll show you.

Read and learn everything you need to look for in your next data entry tool and 10 of the best software for the job! Find detailed feature comparisons, limitations, pricing information, ratings, and more.

What Should You Look for In a Data Entry Tool?

The best data entry tools offer more than just spreadsheets to organize information, they connect directly to your workflows to help you manage projects, bugs, customers, and more—all from the same table or chart.

Still, many of the key data entry software features differ from most project management tools you might be used to. While workflow management, collaboration, and task creation are vital elements of both types of software, the must-have features to look for in your next data entry tool include:

• Multiple views—including ClickUp Tables, lists, and charts—to understand your data from every angle
• Dashboards, insights, and reporting for a high-level look at your data analysis
• Automations or formulas to save time on repetitive action items and calculations
• Advanced filtering, grouping, and sorting to access specific information quickly
• Integrations with project management tools, collaboration tools, and more, to bring additional functionality and context to your database
• Data importing and exporting to build databases quickly and share them with ease
• Form building features to send user feedback directly to your database

While it sounds like a lot, there is still so much more effective data entry software that can do for you—these are just the essentials! The good news is, a lot of tools meet these criteria, and even exceed it! And lucky for you, we’ve searched the web to find the 10 software that serves this function best.

The 10 Best Data Entry Software

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to put that knowledge to the test! With the size of your team, customer base, budget, and overall work style in mind choose the data entry tool that will not only meet your needs but scale with you as your business grows!

Start here with our tried and true list of the 10 best data entry software programs for teams across industries. Access detailed feature breakdowns, drawbacks, pricing information, and more. We even threw in a free and fully customizable template resource to kickstart your database-building process.

1. ClickUp

Data entry is an essential part of any team’s workflow, but it can often be a slow and tedious process. Manual data entry tasks can cause errors that could potentially lead to missed deadlines or wasted resources. Enter ClickUp—an all-in-one productivity platform built for teams to reduce reporting time and build a central database!

With ClickUp’s easy-to-use interface, data entry processes are streamlined and simplified. Any changes or updates you make to task items are automatically synced for full visibility. Plus, powerful automation tools are built-in, so you can set up custom triggers and reminders to keep everyone on track with mission-critical tasks. 

Ultimately, your workflows become faster and smoother so you can get back to doing what’s important—moving your business forward!

Try ClickUp’s Editable Spreadsheet Template and start building visual databases today!

ClickUp best features

• Over 1,000 integrations to bring all relevant data and information into one platform
• Build custom timesheets, reports, and insights with time tracking widgets
• Over 15 customizable workflow views to manage tasks from every angle
• Reporting and Dashboards for an instant high-level overview of your work
• Search and Command Center bar to find anything in your Workspace
• Free and accessible help resources, webinars, and online support
• 50+ Task Automations to streamline any project workflow
• Custom task statuses to visually convey progress
• A vast Template Library for every use case

ClickUp limitations

• Not all views are available in the mobile app—yet
• Its rich set of features can create a learning curve for some users

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever Plan
• Unlimited Plan: $5/month per member
• Business Plan: $12/month per member
• Business Plus Plan: $19/month per member
• Enterprise Plan: Contact ClickUp for custom pricing

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (3,500+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (5,400+reviews)

2. nTask

nTask is a task management platform designed to help managers handle manual data entry processes efficiently and securely. With the nTask platform, managers can create task lists and assign specific tasks to team members or groups of users with ease. Not only does this help streamline data entry processes, but it also ensures that all tasks are properly handled in a timely fashion.

The nTask platform allows managers to easily track the status of every task, from assignment to completion. This makes it easier for managers to monitor their team’s progress and ensure data is entered accurately and on time. Integrated features like real-time tracking enable managers to quickly assess the performance of their team and make changes when needed. 

nTask best features

• TImesheet monitoring for data verification
• Document sharing and file management
• Financial Summaries to monitor project budgets 
• Budgeting

nTask limitations

• Attaching large files when sharing takes longer than normal
• Only suitable for teams with less than 50 team members

nTask pricing

• Premium: Starts at $20/month for 5 users
• Business: Starts at $60/month for 5 users
• Enterprise: Contact nTask for details 

nTask ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)
• G2: 4.4/5 (10+ reviews)

3. Zoho Forms

Zoho Forms is an online form-building and data-collection tool designed to help teams reduce unnecessary paperwork. With Zoho Forms, users can build customized electronic forms for their specific needs and then share them with their team or the general public. The forms can be used to collect information from customers, employees, vendors, or any other group that needs data gathering.  

Once created, forms can be sent out, and information collected on a secure platform in real time. All data collected by Zoho Forms is accessible in the cloud, so users can view it at any time. With integrated features like automated notifications, analytics and reporting, real-time collaboration among team members, and secure storage of data, Zoho Forms centralizes your data entry systems. 

Learn how to create a form in Excel!

Zoho Forms best features

• Responsive web forms to submit and access from anywhere
• Tabular column cataloging to perform task actions
• Natural language processing capabilities
• 30+ field types with customizable properties

Zoho Forms limitations

• There aren’t a lot of form template options
• If a user wants to return to a form later, they have to save a code snippet first. This can drive away the average user

Zoho Forms pricing

• Basic: $10/month, billed annually
• Standard: $25/month, billed annually
• Professional: $50/month, billed annually
• Premium: $90/month, billed annually

Zoho Forms ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5 (90+ reviews)
• G2: 4.3/5 (90+ reviews)

4. Fluix

Fluix is a no-code workflow management software helping teams streamline their business processes. With this tool, teams can easily transfer information from paper documents to a digital format, reducing the time and costs of manual data entry. It also allows users to capture and manage critical data more effectively and efficiently, providing enhanced visibility and insights into the data. 

The software gives users the ability to customize data validation rules for each field, ensuring that captured data meets their standards. Teams can integrate this software with external systems, making it easier to create streamlined workflows. Fluix also gives users access to all the necessary information from a single location, giving them greater control over their business data. 

Fluix best features

• Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence) and Tableau integrations to generate reports
• Routine task automation to automate manual processes
• Images with geotag
• API and data extraction

Fluix limitations

• Advanced functionalities are additional paid features
• Limited templates and customization options 

Fluix pricing

• Fluix starts at $30/user per month with 10 users minimum 

Fluix ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5 (40+ reviews)
• G2: 4.8/5 (10+ reviews)

5. FoxTrot

FoxTrot is an enterprise automation platform designed to help teams work smarter, save time, and increase their overall productivity. This powerful platform helps automate tedious back-office tasks, such as scheduling meetings, allocating resources, managing personnel data, tracking customer purchases, and forecasting revenue. 

FoxTrot makes it easier for teams to collaborate and make better decisions by creating custom dashboards and reports, giving users a complete picture of the entire organization in real time. With FoxTrot’s automated tools, you can monitor process performance, access detailed analytics, and generate more accurate financial forecasts. From workflow analysis to resource optimization, FoxTrot helps teams make smarter decisions that drive progress and maximize efficiency.

FoxTrot best features

• Files and folders automation to organize unstructured data
• SQL (Structured Query Language) execution
• Script creation and editing
• Central Activity and Audit log

FoxTrot limitations

• Lacks advanced task management compared to other data entry software
• Limited customization options to fit personal preferences

FoxTrot pricing

• Contact FoxTrot for pricing

FoxTrot ratings and reviews

• Capterra: N/A
• G2: N/A

6. Typeform

Typeform is an intuitive and fast data processing platform that helps teams of any size work with data more efficiently. With Typeform, users can quickly create forms, surveys, and polls, saving valuable time and energy when gathering a large amount of data. 

Typeform eliminates the potential for common data entry errors through its powerful automated systems. Its interface allows for simple drag-and-drop functionality, making it easy for users to quickly create forms, surveys, and documents. The platform also provides comprehensive analytics to track performance and detect any discrepancies that may exist. 

Typeform best features

• Google Sheets, Google Analytics, and HubSpot integrations
• Conversion tracking
• User and survey management
• Google Tag Manager 

Typeform limitations

• Limited form customization and design options
• Lacks task management features (integrate Typeform with ClickUp!)

Typeform pricing

• Basic: $25/month, billed annually
• Plus: $50/month, billed annually
• Business: $83/month, billed annually

Typeform ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (600+ reviews)
• G2: 4.5/5 (600+ reviews)

7. Infinity

Infinity BPO Services is a business process outsourcing company providing data cleansing services to help teams improve their productivity and accuracy. Data cleansing involves meticulously reviewing databases, spreadsheets, and other sources of data for discrepancies or errors to ensure accuracy. 

Data cleansing is an essential process that needs to be completed fast to ensure the accuracy of your data. It involves removing incomplete, invalid, inaccurate, or irrelevant records from your database so that you can make more informed decisions. A fast solution is needed as too much time spent on cleaning data can lead to unnecessary costs and delays, as well as errors and discrepancies in the data.

Infinity best features

• Image capturing and editing
• Insurance Claim data entry
• Data cleansing
• Excel processing

Infinity limitations

• Initial setup and onboarding could be a long process, depending on the requested services

Infinity pricing

• Contact Infinity for pricing 

Infinity ratings and reviews

• Capterra: N/A
• G2: N/A

8. Zed Axis

Zed Axis is a data import/export tool for QuickBooks. The cloud-based platform enables users to upload information simultaneously and ensure accuracy across all their transactions. Its batch data entry tool is specifically designed to help teams with large amounts of data entry into QuickBooks.

When importing through Axis, you have three choices: duplicate, skip, or overwrite any existing transactions. To make things even simpler, you can easily adjust the importing options to do this for you. Zed Axis helps streamline operations, reduce costs, and leave your team with more time to focus on core business objectives.

Zed Axis best features

• Data management capabilities, including transactions batching 
• Function mapping to manage business data 
• QuickBooks Desktop journal entries import
• Data quality control and replication

Zed Axis limitations

• Limited support for real-time collaboration
• Lacks customization options

Zed Axis pricing

• Annual Subscription (Software License Only)
  • Import: $145
  • Import & Export: $235
  • Import, Export & Auto: $325
• Plus Annual Subscription (Software License and Support Options)
  • Import: $285
  • Import & Export: $390
  • Import, Export & Auto: $495

Zed Axis ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.1/5 (10+ reviews)
• G2: N/A

9. Tabidoo

Tabidoo is a cloud-based solution designed to help teams create custom database applications. By bringing all of your data into one single place, it enables users to find what they need quickly while making collaboration within and across teams much easier.

Tabidoo helps you keep track of information more easily by streamlining items like search functions, versioning, and notifications. It supports a broad range of formats for both files and structured data, and its powerful engines enable users to build dynamic views of the data and quickly access relevant information. The platform also provides an intuitive user experience with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop mobile interface, allowing users to get up and running quickly.

Tabidoo best features

• Data import and export functionality from Excel spreadsheets
• Table, Kanban, and Calendar data views
• Customizable data types
• Users, roles, and rights permissions

Tabidoo limitations

• Limited free plan with basic functionality compared to other data entry software
• Lacks a variety of data management views

Tabidoo pricing

• Contact Tabidoo for pricing

Tabidoo ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5 (5+ reviews)
• G2: N/A

10. Conexiom

Conexiom is a cloud software for teams to automate their trade document processes. The platform streamlines time-consuming activities, allowing businesses to focus on strategic projects and build better relationships with customers. 

Teams can access the documents from any computer or device in a safe and secure environment. Businesses also benefit from features such as automated document validation, customizable business rules and logic, short processing times, and integrations. These key features help teams save time and money by reducing manual data entry and increasing team productivity. Conexiom gives teams full visibility and control over data entry tools. 

Conexiom best features

• Reports and dashboards for visibility into document processing speed
• Admin tools to manage users, settings, and the data entry process
• Data extraction from any document
• Business rules, logic, and lookups

Conexiom limitations

• Lacks team collaboration features
• Limited customization options

Conexiom pricing

• Contact Conexiom for pricing

Conexiom ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (30+ reviews)
• G2: 4.6/5 (50+ reviews)

Create Detailed Databases With Ease in ClickUp

Each of these tools offers tons of features to streamline your data entry process and organize information, but only one option does it all while creating wall-to-wall solutions for teams and businesses across industries. And that tool is ClickUp.

Create spreadsheets quickly and efficiently using Table view to manage everything from inventories to client information. Even convey critical context in a single glance with ClickUp’s Custom Fields to bring file attachments, ratings, and progress percentages into your task columns.

Plus, Form view in ClickUp can turn bug submissions and customer feedback into actionable tasks. Then organize the entries based on priority into a clean and functional table.

But the best part? All of this comes at absolutely no cost!

Sign up for ClickUp today and start optimizing your data entry processes in no time.

The post 10 Best Data Entry Software Programs (Reviews & Pricing) 2023 appeared first on ClickUp.

Accounting project management software is a must-have resource for front and back-office procedures—especially for independent accountants, operation managers, and consultants.

These tools help accountants calculate and share accurate invoices, track billable time, streamline personal workflows, and communicate with clients. The success of your accounting project management software has everything to do with your bottom line, so you want to make sure the tool you choose is flexible, easy to use, and accessible to internal and external stakeholders.

With so much pressure riding on picking the perfect software, it’s important to do your research before investing in the next accounting project management tool to pop up in your search results. But luckily for you, you’ve come to the right place!

We’ve researched and tested the top accounting project management tool to create this list of our 10 favorites. Find key feature breakdowns, drawbacks, pricing information, ratings, and more!

What is Accounting Project Management Software?

Accounting project management software helps accountants oversee their workflows, manage client relationships, track billable time, issue invoices, and stay on top of key action items—it’s no small feat!

Think of this tool as a combination of accounting project management and CRM tools. In true accounting fashion, it’s vital that your accounting project management software support multiple views to create spreadsheets, tables, and databases for budget, client, and task management. The best tools are also easily accessed by stakeholders and customers to approve or view upcoming invoices.

Productivity features like time tracking, multiple assignees, assigned comments, and workflow automation are major assets in accounting project management software, as these features help accountants streamline processes, improve collaboration, and ultimately, increase profitability.

The best accounting project management software will also integrate with tons of other work tools to bring more information into your platform and stay updated at all times.

10 Accounting Project Management Software

Even with this knowledge in mind, it can be hard to choose the best accounting project management software due to the number of tools on the market alone!

Budget, team size, industry, and work style all play significant roles in guiding you to the best software for your needs. The challenge is, that the personal trial and error process can be time-consuming and ultimately unproductive if you don’t have a constructive starting point.

And that’s why you have us!

Use this detailed list to kickstart your software search. We’ve compiled a list of the 10 best accounting project management tools for any team, including thorough comparisons, drawbacks, pricing, reviews, and more.

1. ClickUp 

ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform with hundreds of visualization tools to automate routine tasks and centralize communication from a single workspace. Whether you’re managing a large firm or a small team, ClickUp makes your project management processes easier. With features like automation and project time tracking, you can keep track of tasks as they move through the workflow.

For larger firms, ClickUp’s efficient and effective workflow management tools can make it simpler to keep everyone on the same page with monthly goals and financial KPIs. Set up lightning-fast spreadsheets in Table view, create high-level client and project dashboards, and get time-saving reports about where everyone’s time is going. Let ClickUp do the heavy lifting so you can focus on what matters most: Growing your business and serving your clients better!

ClickUp best features

• Over 1,000 integrations with other work tools, including Zoom, Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, and more
• Add time estimates that you can split between the team to forecast your workload
• Custom statuses and project Milestones to convey progress updates at a glance
• Record time from any browser window with the ClickUp Chrome Extension
• Build custom timesheets, reports, and insights with time-tracking widgets
• Forms to instantly create actionable tasks out of bug submissions
• Automatically calculate billable time for accuracy across all invoices
• Automated formulas to accurately calculate your billable time
• 50+ Task Automations to streamline any workflow

ClickUp limitations

• Not all views are available in the mobile app—yet
• Its rich set of features can create a learning curve for some users

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever Plan
• Unlimited Plan: $5/month per member
• Business Plan: $12/month per member
• Business Plus Plan: $19/month per member
• Enterprise Plan: Contact Sales for pricing

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (3,500+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (5,400+reviews)

2. Jetpack Workflow

Accounting managers know that staying organized and on top of day-to-day tasks is critical to running a successful business. But all too often, managing clients’ financials can be overwhelming and tedious. Jetpack Workflow simplifies the accounting process from start to finish. 

With its easy-to-use graphical interface, real-time task visibility, assigning deadlines, automating approvals, and sending invoices are made easy. Plus, it integrates with your existing accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero, so you don’t have to learn how to use a new system. And because Jetpack Workflow helps you stay on top of tasks faster, you can reduce delays and errors in billing. 

Jetpack Workflow best features

• Custom scheduling functionality to automate deadlines
• Client project views with filter, sort, and search 
• My Work page to view workload capacities 
• 2,000+ apps using Zapier integration
• Billing sync with QuickbooksOnline
• Unlimited clients and docs
• 70 workflow templates

Jetpack Workflow limitations

In the search function, if you’re not careful you’ll enter info on the wrong client. The search box (until clicked) will show one client name and lower data entry screen will still be on the previous. —Capterra review 

I wish you could tag a client with a label in their file like we can with templates. Also, would like to see a password protected area to keep client sensitive data like username and passwords for their accounts that even JetPack employees would not have access to for security reasons. —Capterra review

Jetpack Workflow pricing

• Organize: $36/month per user, billed annually
• Scale: $39/month per user, billed annually

Jetpack Workflow ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5 (50+ reviews)
• G2: 4.1/5 (10+ reviews)

3. QuickBooks

QuickBooks is an accounting software product for tax professionals to streamline bookkeeping and payroll processes. It helps simplify the way businesses manage their finances and make informed decisions. With QuickBooks, all your financial data is stored in one place, which makes it easy to access and analyze information quickly. 

You can even use it to track daily sales, generate invoices, and manage accounts receivable. Additionally, QuickBooks provides helpful features such as tracking bill payments due, setting up payment plans, and creating accurate financial reports. 

QuickBooks best features

• Income tracking and auto-sort expenses
• Business miles auto-tracking
• 1099 contractors management 
• Professional invoice generator
• Job costing analytics
• Mobile app
• Receipt capture 

QuickBooks limitations

Often lots of errors and hassle when trying to perform some activities. To reach support is complicated. Subscription price is expensive and not flexible (for instance, once you enroll to higher plan and activate some features, you cannot downgrade your plan any longer).—G2 review

I feel that the reporting features could be more robust. Additionally, I think the accountant-user side has some features that are lacking from a business-owner perspective. It also happens to be the mostly costly option on the market. —Capterra review

QuickBooks pricing

• Simple Start: $30/month
• Essentials: $55/month
• Plus: $85/month
• Advanced: $200/month 

QuickBooks ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.3/5 (5,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4/5 (2,000+ reviews)

4. OfficeTools

OfficeTools is a practice management software designed for small to mid-sized accounting teams. It helps teams organize clients and their accounting information. With OfficeTools, you can easily create invoices, track time and project progress, and ensure accurate financial reporting—all while automating most of your daily project management tasks.

This accounting solution tool also makes it easier to collaborate with your team members with financial document storage in one secure location. This way, you can quickly review key documents without having to search through multiple folders. Plus, it eliminates manual data entry, so you can spend more time on higher-value activities such as consulting or providing strategic advice. 

OfficeTools best features

• Credit card payment processing and ACH transactions through OfficeTools Cloud
• Built-in machine learning to automatically tag and categorize documents
• Project tracking functionality
• Microsoft Exchange integration
• Client billing status and rates
• Day, week, and month calendar views
• Unlimited contacts

OfficeTools limitations

The biggest challenge for our organization is that some of the functionalities built into office tools are not compatible with the major vendors requiring our staff to learn new shortcuts.—G2 review

This software is constantly freezing and giving error messages.—Capterra review

OfficeTools pricing

• Starts at $49/user per month

OfficeTools ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.1/5 (100+ reviews)
• G2: 3.7/5 (80+ reviews)

5. Microsoft To Do

Microsoft To Do is a task management tool designed to make it easy for a growing accounting firm to stay organized and on top of work. With its streamlined features and intuitive design, users can add tasks, set due dates, attach files, and access their information from anywhere. 

The application provides powerful search capabilities for quickly locating important data, allowing accountants to focus on what’s important and get more done. It also syncs seamlessly with other Microsoft applications like Outlook and Office 365, creating a single workspace that efficiently streamlines accountants’ daily workflow.

Discover free project management software to help manage virtual teams!

Microsoft To Do best features

• Reminders and due dates in daily checklists
• iPhone, Android, Windows, and web apps
• Smart daily planner
• Outlook Tasks integration 
• Quick access sidebar
• Custom backgrounds
• To do list sharing

Microsoft To Do limitations

Not being able to move items from one list to another is a real headscratcher for me. And also, there should be a settings option one could check to automate moving uncompleted tasks to subsequent days.—Capterra review

Some versions allow for categories, but not all, which I would prefer. While this is certainly not a deal-breaker for me, it does leave me wishing that I could rely on setting categories to further organize and view my tasks across devices.—Capterra review

Microsoft To Do pricing

• Microsoft To Do is free with a Microsoft account

Microsoft To Do ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (2,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.3/5 (40+ reviews)

6. Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet-based project management tool designed to help accountants create and present financial reports. It allows users to create spreadsheets that contain data, formulas, visualizations, macros, analysis tools, and more. 

With Excel, accountants can quickly and accurately generate complex reports in a way that’s both easy to understand and aesthetically pleasing. Excel provides accountants with an efficient and cost-effective way to make sense of financial reports and streamline their workflow.

Microsoft Excel best features

• Tables to connect to data from Power BI (Business Intelligence)
• Formatting, sparklines, and tables to create visual content
• Integrations with other Microsoft 365 products
• Real-time collaboration within spreadsheets
• Formulas to perform calculations
• Mobile, desktop, and online apps
• Template library

Microsoft Excel limitations

Switching between Excel and its versions is often incompatible.—Capterra review

Microsoft Excel can sometimes be difficult to use due to the lack of detailed instructions and tutorials for some of its features. More transparent explanations would help me better understand this program’s full capabilities.—G2 review

Microsoft Excel pricing

• Microsoft Excel is available as a standalone version for $159.99 or with a Microsoft 365 subscription

Microsoft Excel ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5 (18,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (2,000+ reviews)

7. Xero Practice Manager

Xero Practice Manager is an accounting practice management software designed to help tax and accounting firms better manage their client relationships and finances. It streamlines processes such as bookkeeping, invoicing, and financial reporting, giving accountants the ability to provide better services to their clients while boosting their firm’s productivity.

With its user-friendly design, Xero Practice Manager makes it easy for the team to improve efficiency and profitability. By eliminating tedious manual data entry, they can concentrate on providing the best advice and guidance to their clients, leading to stronger client interactions.

Xero Practice Manager best features

• Suggested matches to categorize and reconcile bank account transactions
• Expense management tools to submit or reimburse expense claims
• Integration with Xero’s practice management software 
• Customizable templates and sample reports
• Inventory tools to populate invoices and orders
• Task and file management
• Time tracking

Xero Practice Manager limitations

One downside to Xero is that it can be a bit pricey for small businesses. It also lacks some more advanced features that more expensive accounting software offers. —Capterra review

Something I dislike with Xero Practice Manager would be that the interface looks kind of old-fashioned. Well it is easy to use but I hope the design could be improved in the near future. Hoping there would also be a filter option when searching for entities that have a certain characteristic.—G2 review

Xero Practice Manager pricing

• Early: $13/month
• Growing: $37/month
• Established: $70/month

Xero Practice Manager ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.4/5 (2,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.1/5 (20+ reviews)

8. TaxWorkFlow

TaxWorkFlow is a workflow accounting system designed to help accountants quickly and easily prepare tax returns. The platform makes it easy to organize documents and capture information. TaxWorkFlow eliminates time-consuming tasks such as manual data entry, enabling accountants to deliver accurate tax returns faster than ever before. 

By using TaxWorkFlow, accountants can quickly create accurate tax calculations, produce accurate forms and generate reports in a fraction of the time it traditionally takes, allowing them to more easily serve their clients and optimize their profits. 

TaxWorkFlow best features

• Cloud or in-house data storage for document management
• Onboarding email invitations for new staff with instructions
• Native or custom filters to instantly access key information
• Calendar view to arrange client appointments
• Document and client management systems
• Time and billing overview
• Native Windows application

TaxWorkFlow limitations

• The interface is outdated compared to other accounting project management software
• No monthly pricing plans

TaxWorkFlow pricing

• Contact TaxWorkFlow for pricing plan details

TaxWorkFlow ratings and reviews

• Capterra: N/A
• G2: N/A

9. Karbon

Karbon is an accounting project management software designed to help growing businesses and accounting firms better collaborate, bring clients and systems together, and coordinate their data in one place. It streamlines communication, simplifies project management, and offers integrated solutions that effortlessly integrate with existing systems. 

The collaborative project management platform provides secure, cloud-based storage and access control features that make it easy to keep everyone’s data secure and up-to-date. With its intuitive design and capacity dashboards, Karbon makes it simple to gain insights into your organization’s performance and quickly respond to rapid changes.

Karbon best features

• Bulk uploads and downloads to work items or contacts
• Client management and onboarding templates
• Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive integrations
• Work Scheduler for resource management 
• Kanban boards and activity timelines
• Client tasks and auto reminders
• Leaderboards

Karbon limitations

Making bulk changes to work or teams or general setup is not efficient or fully available to admin users. I understand why but there are some times when this is a roadblock. If there were more levels of permissions for users maybe the ability to make more extensive changes more efficiently could be added to the team members with higher accessibility.—G2 review

On My Week, I can’t assign some tasks/work for today. Sometimes I can find my self scrolling down my week to search what I still need to complete today. Moving it to Working On Now is also not the best because I’m working on a lot of projects everyday.—G2 review

Karbon pricing

• Team: $59/month per user, billed annually
• Business: $79/month per user, billed annually
• Enterprise: Contact Karbon for pricing

Karbon ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (100+ reviews)
• G2: 4.8/5 (300+ reviews)

10. Canopy

Canopy is a cloud-based project management software designed for accountants to stay organized and maximize their time. It takes care of the tedious paperwork associated with managing clients, automates repetitive tasks, and provides a single view of all client records. 

The platform also provides real-time insights into the performance of both individual clients and the firm as a whole, which can be used to make more informed decisions and identify areas for improvement. With Canopy, accounting firms are better equipped to get ahead of their client work.

Canopy best features

• Calendar sync with Microsoft and Google
• One-time, recurring, and scheduled invoices
• Global Inbox to view and manage email
• Prebuilt forms for client requests
• In-app merchant onboarding
• Bulk action tool
• Saved filters

Canopy limitations

They have a few drawbacks such as the inability to send text messages (we use a third party system), lack of complex reporting (though easily created on the users end by CSV export and a little Excel wizardry), and a few other minor gruffs, but Canopy does have these on their radar (go check out the forums!) and is working on building these in over time.—Capterra review

The only thing I dislike about Canopy is that I do not have the option to change the color themes of the programming. I think I would enjoy Canopy even more if I was able to brand Canopy to the colors of our business. I think Canopy could have some more design features added in.—G2 review

Canopy pricing

• Canopy offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts with optional add-on packages

Canopy ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (200+ reviews)
• G2: 4.6/5 (220+ reviews)

You Can Always Account on ClickUp

A lot goes into effective accounting project management software, that’s why it’s critical to find a tool that is as flexible as it is powerful!

ClickUp is the only productivity tool that can centralize your work across apps and scale with you as you grow. Its dynamic Table view allows you to create intuitive and detailed databases with ease and efficiency to manage tasks, invoices, and customers—all from the same workspace.

Plus, it can do it all on every pricing plan.

No matter the size of your team or budget, ClickUp has every feature needed to streamline your accounting project and improve customer relationships from the jump.

So what are you waiting for? Try ClickUp today.

The post Best Accounting Project Management Software 2023 appeared first on ClickUp.

Many agencies are constantly faced with numerous agency management challenges. From managing multiple projects, clients, and timelines to producing quality work and tracking progress while simultaneously searching for new business opportunities—agencies have their hands full.

Give your creative teams the support they need to succeed and prevent burnout by using the right agency management software to help with resource planning, project management, team collaboration, client management, and more.

We’ve rounded up 14 of the best agency management software available today, along with their best features, limitations, pricing, and customer review ratings, to help you choose the right ones for your needs!

What is an Agency Management Software?

Agency management software, or agency management system, is a complete solution for managing processes and streamlining workflows. In other words, it’s a tool that streamlines operations and improves processes to help you scale your business.

However, finding the right agency software for your team requires research and careful consideration, as not all agency management tools are built equally! Some are best for project management, while others are best for scheduling appointments, gathering client feedback, pipeline management, etc. 

Regardless of what industry you’re in, agency management software can help you get the boost and support you need to manage every part of your business.

14 Best Agency Management Software

And now we’re here. We’ve put together 14 of the best software for digital marketing agencies for advertising agencies, brand, PR, web design, and others. Take a look at each to understand what you can use each one for, what tool you can add to your tech stack, or perhaps which tool covers everything your team needs.

1. ClickUp

Best for project management and team collaboration

Let’s start with ClickUp.

ClickUp is an all-in-one project management and productivity tool built for all teams across different industries, including marketing agencies, in their early to mature stages.

This feature-rich software offers hundreds of advanced features to give marketing agencies the tools they need to manage multiple projects, clients, and deadlines, improve team collaboration, track goals, and measure progress—all in one place.

First of all, ClickUp offers a fully customizable platform, giving any teams the flexibility they need to configure ClickUp to fit their unique workflows and project requirements. As for viewing your work, get over 15 custom ClickUp Views to visualize your work, which is very useful when managing different projects. Use the Board view to see where each project stands easily, the Calendar view to keep track of deadlines, the Workload view to manage your team’s work capacity, and use the other views to help make project management easier. Additionally, the Dashboard view with real-time reporting allows you to create a high-level overview of your work for better resource management and keep everyone in the loop, updated, and on track to hit your agency goals.

Now for team collaboration, digital agencies can also take advantage of collaborative features such as ClickUp Whiteboards, where teams can brainstorm and create visual roadmaps, and ClickUp Docs for outlining strategies, documenting SOPs, and more. There’s also a built-in Chat feature where teams and clients can exchange messages in real-time and ClickUp’s email management feature that lets you send and receive emails without leaving ClickUp.

And with the sharing and permissions settings, digital agencies can easily share documents and tasks with their clients or invite them to their Workspace to streamline communication between teams and clients. To speed up the feedback and review process, simply use the Proofing and Annotation feature that lets teams and clients comment within an attachment.

Those are just a few key features to call out. Take a look at a few other features that could help your agency operations.

Best Features

• Custom views: Choose from 15+ views to manage different tasks and projects
• Pre-built and custom automation: Create efficient and consistent processes, and put manual work on auto-pilot with automation in ClickUp
• Collaborative Whiteboards: Enables teams to collaborate on projects in real-time and sets ClickUp apart from other agency management tools
• Integration capabilities: Connect ClickUp to over 1,000 work tools, including a few apps mentioned in this roundup (Calendly, Make)
• Customizable templates: Get access to a library of templates for any use case, including a Marketing Agency Template by ClickUp

Limitations

• While ClickUp offers a vast number of features and is highly customizable, figuring out how to use them efficiently to increase productivity may have a bit of a learning curve

Pricing

• Free Forever: Feature-rich free plan
• Unlimited: $5 per month/user
• Business: $12 per month/user
• Business Plus: $19 per month/user
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing 

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.7 out of 5 (4,780+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 (3,070+ reviews)

Learn how other digital agencies, like Zenpilot, use ClickUp to optimize their workflow

2. Calendly

Best for scheduling and booking

Calendly is an agency management tool that helps with client retention, recruiting pipeline, and everything in between by offering myriad ways to automate tasks and save time.

It features automated qualifying and scheduling right on your website, which makes it way easier to book calls with potential clients whether it be via Zoom, Google Meet, or a business phone system. It also frees up space for employees so they can work on high-priority tasks.

Calendly also sends automatic pre and post-call email questionnaires and follow-ups, which helps agencies appear even more professional and helps with building stronger customer relationships. 

Best features

• Helps teams schedule their meetings in an easy and efficient way
• Very simple to use with a clean and intuitive interface and a neat setting process
• Plenty of integrations and the option of synchronizing it with different calendar apps
• Suitable for teams and startups who can embed it on their websites and even use it to charge for consultation services

Limitations

• Calendly’s performance is optimized when integrated with Google Calendar. There have been reports of inconsistencies when integrating with Outlook
• It does not provide a training guide or a dedicated support page

Pricing

• Basic: Free
• Essentials: $8 per seat/month
• Professional: $12 per seat/month
• Teams: $16 per seat/month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.7 out of 5 (1.470+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 (2,590+ reviews)

3. Walling

Best for visualizing, organizing, and sharing ideas

Walling is a work management tool that organizes ideas, tasks, and projects in a visual and, above all, creative way.

It gives a complete overview of everything being done at the moment and offers multiple options for visualization – mood boards, Kanban boards, calendars, etc.

Walling is packed with real-time team collaboration features, which make it much easier to progress with both in-house and client tasks and deliver all of these on time. 

Best features

• It’s a note-taking app with a particular focus on the visual part (walls bricks)
• A wide range of platforms to get teams started 
• Appropriate for creative teams involved in design/marketing industries or department

Limitations

• Walling’s data structuring method has a learning curve and requires understanding to utilize its flexibility effectively

Pricing

• Free plan
• Premium: $5 per member/month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• Product Hunt: 5 out 5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.8 out of 5 (25+ reviews)

4. TeamGantt

Best for task management

TeamGantt is an easy-to-use project management tool that features a Gantt chart to help agencies manage projects within a timeline.

It adapts to the needs of different types of agencies and employees as well (since everyone on the team can easily customize their workflow without interfering with other members).

With TeamGantt, everything is just a click away. This tool makes project planning, task, document, and chat organization a breeze, simplifies time tracking, streamlines communications, and gives an accurate overview of progress. All of this eliminates headaches related to client updates and keeps both clients and teams happy. 

Best features

• Equipped with file sharing, time tracking & task level communication features
• Visually track the progress of the tasks assigned to each team member
• Simple and personalizable layout
• Suitable for teams or freelancers who prefer keeping track of the progress of their projects via Gantt charts

Limitations

• TeamGantt has a lack of budget and financial tracking features, which makes it difficult for teams to track project costs accurately
• The UI can be somewhat challenging to navigate for some users, making it a bit hard to find the data they need quickly

Pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.8 out of 5 (840+ reviews)
• Capterra: 3.6 out of 5 (90+ reviews)

5. Make

Best for workflow automation

Make is a no-code workflow automation software that displays everything that you are building and creating in a visually appealing manner. This tool is great for agencies that want to improve workflow management and boost productivity across all teams.

Make can help with all of those things agencies are struggling with, such as effective lead generation, lead routing, contract management, and everything in between needed to close more deals faster. It connects with thousands of apps, ClickUp included, and makes it easy-peasy to bring all that matters to a single platform. 

Best features

• Endless numbers of app integration scenarios and plenty of shareable ready-to-use templates
• The UI, as well as the UX, are well-crafted, with an excellent history of search options
• Highly effective team management automation, and it’s possible to set up separate automation for each team/department
• Make’s API makes it suitable for automation service agencies

Limitations

• Designed for Unix-based systems, which limits its platform support
• Complex syntax for defining automation tasks, which makes it difficult for beginners to use

Pricing

• Free
• Core: $10.59 per month
• Pro: $18.82 per month
• Teams: $34.12 per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.7 out of 5 (180+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.8 out of 5 (290+ reviews)

6. Sendinblue

Best for email marketing, digital marketing campaigns, and marketing automation

Sendinblue is a feature-packed tool built for the needs of agencies that want to power their business with the right sales and marketing tools.

This software allows agencies to send persuasive emails, SMS, or WhatsApp messages for time-sensitive offers and segment messages by different audiences and different types of clients to increase retention rates and build stronger client relationships.

It also allows storing all client contact information in one place, tracking every stage of the pipeline, and monitoring data and performance to spot areas for improvement.

Best features

• All-in-one marketing platform that allows its users to launch email & SMS marketing campaigns, set up automation, and manage contacts via an in-built CRM system
• Automations are available across all plans
• Website-embeddable chat options on the website 
• Automated campaigns and marketing segmentation features

Limitations

• Multiple users have reported limitations with the automation features
• Sendinblue’s email template options are limited and not very customizable

Pricing

• Free
• Starter: Starting from $25 per month
• Business: Starting from $65 per month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.5 out of 5 (1530+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6 out of 5 (1540+ reviews)

7. Trafft

Best for booking and appointment scheduling

Keeping your agency organized has never been easier. Thanks to Trafft, you can now manage your agency and grow your brand. The software keeps all of your appointments in line, your clients organized and your business booming.

Trafft is the solution for agencies that need to streamline their booking experience both for their team members and their clients. 

This booking software handles everything in the booking process, even sending automated emails or SMS reminders to your clients.

Best features

• Business dashboard to monitor all your appointments or events
• Customer management panel for detailed info on your customers
• Smart calendar and scheduling
• You can create a booking page without coding knowledge
• It can handle online payments, invoicing, and tax management directly from the app

Limitations

• Trafft does not offer the capability to schedule events that take place over multiple days
• Trafft is not optimized for usage on mobile devices

Pricing

• Individual
  • Basic: $12 per month
  • Pro: $39 per month
  • Expert: $59 per month

• Company
  • Starter: $69 per month
  • Scaling: $150 per month
  • Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.7 out of 5 (16+ reviews)
• Capterra: 5 out of 5 (34+ reviews)

8. Sprout Social

Best for social media marketing

Sprout Social is a comprehensive tool used by many social media and marketing teams out there. With Sprout Social, agencies can understand their clients and their clients’ audiences better and use this data to tailor their business and marketing strategies.

On top of that, it helps with all things content-related, planning, publishing, driving engagement, and improving responsiveness included. Last but not least, agencies using Sprout Social can get access to data-rich dashboards and make more strategic decisions to grow their own and their client’s businesses. 

Best features

• Helps with managing social media activity and communication across multiple platforms
• Meticulous analytics enables users to conduct competitor checks and smoothly export data ensuring future effective social media campaigns
• Cost-effective for mid-size enterprises and teams who want to maximize their digital presence through a data-oriented approach

Limitations

• The platform has a learning curve and can be overwhelming for users unfamiliar with social media management tools
• The pricing is relatively high, which could make it difficult for startups to make the purchase and increases in cost when multiple team members need access to it

Pricing

• Standard: $249 per month (each additional user +$199 per month)
• Professional: $399 per month (each additional user +$299 per month)
• Advanced: $499 per month (each additional user +$349 per month)
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.3 out of 5 (2,050+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 (520+ reviews)

9. Circle

Best for an all-in-one community platform for creators and brands

Circle is the kind of tool agencies need for community and team-building activities. This interactive software provides a seamless experience of group chats, live streams, and events, to name a few.

Its robust engagement features truly make it possible to create a buzzing atmosphere within your agency and empower members of different teams to work together on a single, unified vision. On the other hand, with Circle, agencies can help their clients with brand awareness and connect with other builders and creators in the space. 

Best features

• Enables creating community forums, topics, and threads to get the audience involved in open discussions
• Permits businesses, in general, to keep their customer retention high by simplifying the engagement and & back-and-forth among the community members
• Users can host and organize events within the platform itself, where members can post and interact. Also, it’s possible to create live streams and customize the sharing settings.

Limitations

• It’s not suitable for course creators as it lacks a dedicated checkout page and has a clunky paywall feature that affects conversions
• The option to create a course is only available on the Professional and Enterprise plans

Pricing

• Basic: $49 per month
• Professional: $99 per month
• Enterprise: $399 per month

Customer reviews

• App Store: 4.8 out of 5 (2,200+ reviews)
• ProductHunt: 3.6 out of 5 (40+ reviews)

10. Canny

Best for client management and customer feedback tool

Agencies need feedback from clients in order to improve their services, and of course, to maximize their earning potential. Canny is one of the best customer relationship management software out there that makes it no-sweat to collect, organize, and analyze feedback.

Not only does it allow collecting client feedback, but feedback coming from teammates as well. This way, agencies can ensure that the best ideas don’t slip through the cracks and use their time in the most efficient way – to build the most-requested features, diversify their services, or focus their efforts on a certain type of service only. 

Best features

• Collect and analyze clients’ feedback in an effortless way
• Easy to integrate it with various external platforms 
• Enables setting up a feedback system by either embedding it on a website or using it as a subdomain

Limitations

• Canny’s voting board is quite useful but can unintentionally bias feedback if not configured properly, which can limit the effectiveness of the feedback collected

Pricing

• Free
• Growth: $400 per month
• Business: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• ProductHunt: 4.3 out of 5 (45+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7 out of 5 (35+ reviews)

11. Testimonial

Best for collecting testimonials from customers

Testimonial, as the name suggests, is a software for collecting client testimonials. Agencies can easily embed video and text testimonials on their websites and even create dedicated landing pages in about 2 minutes without hiring devs

Testimonials, when used effectively, can skyrocket any agency business. Not only can agencies upload testimonials and social proof without coding, but they can monitor and track the performance of each, have them all displayed on a dashboard, and even promote the best-performing ones to attract more clients, which is a massive revenue driver.

Best features

• Collect and display praises, whether in text format or video and show them off to prospects
• Testimonial videos are shareable on social media and embeddable on websites, while they can also be used in marketing campaigns
• Setting up automation with testimonials is possible using third-party apps like Make

Limitations

• It does not offer in-built tools for editing and making adjustments to videos received from clients
• Customers receive limited instructions on how to create high-quality videos

Pricing

• Starter: Free
• Premium: $50 per month
• Ultimate: $150 per month
• Agency: Starting from $300 per month

Customer reviews

• ProductHunt: 4.2 out of 5 (15+ reviews)

12. Coda

Best for document and file management

Coda is an all-in-one solution for managing documents, tasks, to-do lists, and data in an easy yet interactive and engaging way. Agencies use it to speed up the decision-making processes and collaborate with the in-house people more efficiently.

It is fully customizable to different agency needs and easy to evolve as agencies grow. Coda displays data in a way that is easy to consume, while dashboards make it easy to track progress and updates on client work.

Best features

• An all-in-one doc that puts together documents and tables to make managing tasks and interactively collaboration and coordination as smooth as possible
• The “Packs” feature is tailored for integration purposes with other applications
• Suitable for apps devs teams (among others) aiming to build a simple business organization framework that facilitates access to docs and data

Limitations

• Coda’s interface design is considered dated and less visually appealing
• From time to time, the document structure in Coda gets disorganized.

Pricing

• Free
• Pro: $10 per month/Doc Maker
• Team: $30 per month/Doc Maker
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• G2: 4.7 out of 5 (380+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6 out of 5 (80+ reviews)

Bonus: Coda Vs. Airtable

13. Tally

Best for creating forms

Tally is another great no-code software for agency management. This form builder actually goes beyond just creating forms but supports form logic, calculators, custom closed messages, file uploads, and collecting payments, to name a few of its superb features.

With Tally, agencies can collect loads of data, analyze or export it, and organize it by project or team members (who can further collaborate on forms and share form results in shared workspaces). 

Best features

• Form builder with unique UX and UI that allows the creation of an unlimited number of forms and polls within minutes 
• Endless customization options 
• Collecting payments, calculations, form logic, and answer piping are some of this software’s shiniest features
• Can be integrated with pretty much any product available in the market 

Limitations

• Tally’s lack of features like conditional logic and data integration makes it less suitable for more advanced types of forms and might reduce its overall functionality

Pricing

• Free plan
• Tally Pro: $29 per month

Customer reviews

• ProductHunt: 4.9 out of 5 (70+ reviews)

14. Pitch

Best for collaborative presentation software

Pitch is a presentation software that comes with thousands of customizable, professionally-designed templates agencies can use to pitch their services and project plans to clients.

This tool makes it easy to prepare conference keynotes and team meeting presentations and share work and updates beautifully and creatively. Finally, Pitch boasts team collaboration features and simplifies presenting ideas, sharing feedback, and making decisions.

Best features

• Collaborative team-focused presentation platform with a super clean UI
• The powerful live chat feature helps team members collaborate on presentations in real-time with a fancy speaker view option
• A bunch of great templates to get started
• Team members can track the status of their work as well as the data through a Google Analytics integration

Limitations

• Limited availability of ready-to-use templates that can be easily customized to fit the specific needs of the user

Pricing

• Starter: Free
• Pro: $8 per member/month
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Customer reviews

• ProductHunt: 4.9 out of 5 (120+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.8 out of 5 (25+ reviews)

Choosing The Right Management Software For Your Agency

There are plenty of agency management systems out there, and that’s great for you. Now, the key is to find the tools that offer flexibility to support your agency as it scales, can help you with resource planning, and that work seamlessly with other work tools to keep your workflow under control.

As mentioned early on, ClickUp is an all-in-one-project management and productivity tool that offers a fully customizable platform to give your agency the power to configure ClickUp to fit your workflow and complex projects and support your team as your business expands. This reason alone makes it one of the best agency management software out there today.

And because agencies may need multiple apps to help run daily operations, you can easily sync and connect ClickUp to other work tools to bring all your work in one place.

Getting started with ClickUp is easy and free. It’s time to work smarter with the right agency management software in your tool belt.

Guest Writer:

Alladdine Djaidani is an internet marketer and founder of Hustler Ethos. He likes to help companies rank on google and drive growth without breaking the bank.

The post 14 Best Agency Management Software in 2023 appeared first on ClickUp.

Team collaboration tools vary in complexity, functionality, and type, but they all share a common goal—to help teams work together better. While the work-from-home movement drove a ton of popularity to these tools, they’ve proven their worth!

Now, more than half of employers still use collaboration tools to communicate with employees, clients, stakeholders, and more. In fact, you probably already use real-time collaboration software in your daily work life.

And yet, efficient teamwork and communication are still some of the most challenging hurdles to overcome, especially for cross-functional teams.

If you’re in this boat, then it’s time for a change.

Since collaborative work management falls into such a broad and sweeping category, it’s increasingly difficult to find the tool that best serves your team’s work style, use case, size, industry needs, and processes. You’ve come to the right place, though!

We’ve already done our research and testing to bring you 15 of the best team collaboration software for any use case. No matter what you’re looking for from your next tool, we have the feature breakdowns, pros and cons, ratings, and reviews to kick off your software search on the right foot.

What Should You Look for in a Team Collaboration Software?

Team collaboration software goes far beyond a simple DM or quick email.

This means that finding the best collaboration tool for your team starts with thoroughly understanding what you’re looking for from the product: Ask yourself:

• What projects does the team work on? The collaboration tools that help construction project management teams greatly differ from those used by software engineers, and the same idea goes for HR departments vs sales teams.
• What’s the size of your team and budget? Many tools are priced per user, per month. So if you’re forking over $10 per user, per month for more than 200 people on software that people are resistant to use, you’re not going to see the immediate results you’re hoping for.
• What specific problem will this tool solve? Are you looking for a way to reach the team quickly or edit documents alongside each other? Your ideal tool may do one or both of these things!

The answers to these questions will point you in the right direction. But how do you tell the high-quality software apart from the rest? By looking for features like this:

• Threaded comments, chats, and instant messaging
• Assigned comments or @mentions
• Screenshots, screen recordings, or video meetings
• Highly visual custom statuses, project milestones, and task dependencies
• Collaborative or live-editing in documents, tables, tasks, and more
• Goal-focused features
• Digital whiteboard software or brainstorming features
• Multiple integrations

And more!

Yes, you can find all of these features in one team collaboration software. But not every tool performs these functions equally well, and we’re here to help you weed out the tools that just aren’t for you.

The 15 Best Team Collaboration Software

The possibilities are endless when it comes to efficient team collaboration software, so it’s nice to have the best tips, breakdowns, and software alternatives in front of you to guide your search!

Use this detailed list to compare features, pros and cons, pricing, and reviews of the 15 best collaboration software for every team.

1. ClickUp

ClickUp is the only productivity tool powerful enough to bring all of your work together across apps into one centralized and collaborative platform. This tool provides wall-to-wall solutions for teams of any size with its rich set of customizable features to help you save time and streamline processes, whether you’re connecting with stakeholders, aligning on goals, or overseeing project timelines.

Collaboration is at the core of every ClickUp feature, with multiple built-in tools to develop ideas from start to finish alongside the team, then visually convey progress as you set your plans in motion. Plus, there are over 15 ways to view your work in ClickUp, including its unique Chat view to consolidate all relevant conversations into one convenient hub.

And still, there is so much more ClickUp can do for your team!

ClickUp best features

• Over 1,000 integrations with other work tools, including Zoom, Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft Office, and more
• A dynamic Goals feature to align the team on OKRs and track progress in multiple ways
• Custom statuses and project Milestones to convey progress updates at a glance
• Assigned and threaded comments in any ClickUp Doc, task, or ClickUp Whiteboard
• Multiple assignees on tasks for total transparency into all progress
• Free and accessible help resources, webinars, and online support
• A vast Template Library for every use case

ClickUp limitations

• So many powerful collaboration tools can pose a learning curve for some users
• Not all views are available in the mobile app…yet

ClickUp pricing

• Free Forever
• Unlimited: $5 per user, per month
• Business: $12 per user, per month
• Business Plus: $19 per user, per month
• Enterprise: Contact ClickUp for custom pricing

Ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (5,670+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (3,540+ reviews)

2. Slack

One of Slack’s best features is secure, real-time messaging with team members, external partners, or customers. The platform’s direct messaging feature is useful when facing a deadline or trying to resolve an urgent issue.

Through group channels, team members can communicate, share updates, and provide feedback on projects. Even when working remotely, people can stay in touch and aligned. You can set up different channels for different topics, projects, or teams, making it easy to find relevant discussions.

Sometimes Slack channels will become cluttered. Multiple threads talking about the same project will require extra clarification. Constant interruptions take you away from deep work. For best results with Slack, connect it with other collaboration tools or task management software to boost productivity. 

If you want to manage projects and tasks right within Slack, check out the Slack integration with ClickUp!

Slack best features

• System roles to classify a team member as an administrator to manage Slack accounts or non-administrator
• Channels to create central, shared spaces for conversations, files, and people
• Workflow Builder to automate routine actions and communication
• Huddles and clips with audio and video options

Slack limitations

• Limited customization options in individual settings
• Support for data loss prevention is an Enterprise plan feature

Slack pricing

• Free plan
• Pro plan: $7.25/month per person, billed yearly
• Business+ plan: $12.50/month per person, billed yearly
• Enterprise Grid plan: Contact Slack for pricing

Slack ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (22,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.5/5 (30,000+ reviews)

3. Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides)

Google Workspace (formerly known as G Suite) is a collection of cloud-based collaboration tools offered by Google. Apps like Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides, allow remote team members to work together from anywhere at any time. 

To collaborate in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, invite other people to view or edit a document by sharing a link or emailing an invitation. Once they have access, you will be able to see their cursor and any changes they make in real-time. You can also communicate with your collaborators using the built-in commenting and suggestion tools. The revision history also allows you to go back and see how the document has changed over time.

Check out the best Google Docs alternatives!

Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides) best features

• Easy-to-manage sharing controls with different permissions (edit, view, or add comments)
• Comment and edit in real-time with team members or external partners
• Unlimited revision history to undo any changes
• .docx, .pdf, .odt, .rtf, .txt, or .html formats

Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides) limitations

• Load times rely heavily on internet connectivity, especially with large files
• Predefined templates and layouts limit customization 

Google Workspace pricing

• Docs, Sheets, and Slides are free with a Google account

Google Workspace ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (40,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (14,000+ reviews)

4. Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing platform for anyone to conduct virtual meetings, webinars, and video chat. It includes features such as screen sharing, recording, and breakout rooms, and it can be accessed through a web browser or through its mobile and desktop apps. The platform is designed to facilitate remote communication and collaboration, making it an ideal enterprise collaboration software choice.

One of the main benefits of Zoom is its ease of use. Zoom is user-friendly, and it does not require any specialized technical knowledge to set up and use. Additionally, Zoom offers a wide range of features which makes it a versatile tool for a variety of use cases, such as all-hands meetings, project planning sessions, and virtual events!

Zoom best features

• Team Chat to collaborate outside of virtual meetings and phone calls
• Curated Virtual Background library to personalize meetings
• Dedicated app marketplace, integrations, and APIs
• Online Whiteboard to brainstorm ideas

Zoom limitations

• The number of meeting participants is limited, even on paid plans
• Not suitable as a long-term project management tool

Zoom pricing

• Zoom offers Personal and Business paid plans depending on the industry or Zoom product needed

Zoom ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (13,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.5/5 (50,000+ reviews)

5. Figma

Figma is a browser-based interface design tool for teams to collaborate in real time on the development of websites, mobile apps, and other digital products. The platform aims to improve collaboration and productivity for design teams. It allows for easy sharing and feedback on designs to stay on the same page and iterate faster.

Another benefit of Figma is its accessibility. Figma is browser-based, so there is no need to download any software. You can work on your designs from anywhere and share designs with team members, stakeholders, and clients!

With Figma’s advanced functionality, designers can produce design specs, developer handoffs, and code exports, which makes it easier for developers to implement designs.

Figma best features

• Padding, direction, and spacing settings with Auto Layout to simply developer handoffs
• Modern pen tool to draw in any direction with Vector Networks
• Plugins and Widgets to create custom workflows
• Live links for easy sharing

Figma limitations

• Not suitable as a standalone task management tool
• Steep learning curve for team members (and external partners if required)

Figma pricing

• Free plan
• Figma Professional: $12/editor per month, billed annually
• Figma Organization: $45/editor per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Contact Figma for pricing

Figma ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (500+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (700+ reviews)

6. Hugo

Hugo is a powerful meeting management tool designed to help you organize and run efficient, productive meetings. It’s easy to use, with an intuitive user-friendly interface for quickly creating agendas, assigning roles and resources, taking minutes, and much more. With Hugo, you can customize your meeting experience to fit the needs of your team or organization.

This tool lets team members collaborate in real-time during the note-taking and editing process. For instance, multiple members can edit and comment on a document side-by-side, seeing each other’s changes as they are made!

Hugo best features

• 80+ free meeting agenda templates are accessible in Word and Google Docs
• Powerful Search functionality to find any doc or task quickly
• Native integrations and more through Zapier
• Unlimited docs and tasks in the free plan

Hugo limitations

• Advanced project management tools are paid features
• Limited customization options

Hugo pricing

• Basic: Free for up to 10 users
• Pro: $6/user per month for up to 25 users, billed annually
• Business: Contact Hugo for pricing

Hugo ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (50+ reviews)
• G2: N/A

7. ProofHub

ProofHub is a web-based project management platform with task management, calendars, and file sharing. Team members can review the accuracy of documents and other files with its proofing services, streamlining the approval process.

All skill levels will be able to use the software since it is intuitive and easy to use. Also, it offers multiple customization options, including custom roles, permissions, and workflows, so that teams can customize the platform based on their specific needs. In addition, it can be used to access and share important files with other tools, including Google Drive, Slack, and Dropbox.

ProofHub best features

• Automatic reminders to schedule work on calendars
• High-level control over teams and projects
• Multiple assignees functionality
• Time tracking

ProofHub limitations

• A Small number of native integrations compared to other team collaboration software solutions
• Not suitable for agile project management

ProofHub pricing

• Essential: $45/month, billed annually
• Ultimate Control: $89/month, billed annually

ProofHub ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5 (70+ reviews)
• G2: 4.5/5 (70 reviews)

8. Miro

Miro is a cloud-based digital whiteboard platform designed for creative teams to collaborate on visual projects such as mind maps, process maps, user journeys, and wireframes. It includes features such as real-time collaboration, sticky notes, and a wide variety of pre-built templates and shapes to create beautiful diagrams. 

Miro’s real-time collaboration tool allows multiple team members to work on the same board simultaneously, which helps to facilitate faster and more efficient brainstorming and decision-making.  For instance, a product team can use Miro to work together on a customer journey map in real-time, enabling them to quickly make changes and get feedback without delays.

Miro best features

• Anonymous voting and live reactions
• 1,000+ expert and community-made templates 
• Time tracking within the whiteboard
• Group stickies with clustering 

Miro limitations

• Doesn’t support all platforms like Linux
• No task time tracking feature

Miro pricing

• Free plan
• Starter: $8/member per month, billed annually
• Business: $16/member per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Contact Miro for pricing

Miro ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (900+ reviews)
• G2: 4.8/5 (4,000+ reviews)

9. MindMeister

MindMeister is a web-based mind-mapping software that allows users to create, edit, and share visual diagrams of their ideas and thoughts. It is commonly used for brainstorming, project planning, and organizing information. 

Mind maps are a way to visually organize information and ideas, and MindMeister allows users to create these mind maps online, making it easy to share and collaborate with others. You can invite others to edit their mind maps in real-time, making it an ideal tool for teamwork. This allows remote teams to work together on projects and ideas, regardless of their location. 

Discover more MindMeister alternatives!

MindMeister best features

• Mixed Map layouts to build multiple diagrams
• Comments and notifications to create discussions
• Embedded media to add context to ideas
• Templates for brainstorming and strategy planning

MindMeister limitations

• Various exporting options are reserved for the expensive paid plans
• Limited integrations with other tools and apps

MindMeister pricing

• Basic: Free
• Personal: $4.99/month
• Pro: $8.25/month

MindMeister ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (200+ reviews)
• G2: 4.3/5 (30 reviews)

10. Microsoft Teams

A cloud-based collaboration software developed by Microsoft, Microsoft Teams provides a comprehensive tool for teams to communicate, collaborate, and share files in one place. Teams can create channels for specific projects, departments, or topics, and members can join and leave channels as needed!

A channel offers members real-time text, audio, and video chat, the ability to share and edit documents, and the option to schedule and participate in online meetings. For example, a product marketing team could use a channel to coordinate the launch of a new product, where cross-functional partners can discuss ideas and collaborate on documents in real-time.

Microsoft Teams best features

• Calling, voicemail, and call transfers for group collaboration
• Whiteboard app for ideation and brainstorming
• Automatic sync and version history tracking
• Chats, tasks, and shared to-do lists 

Microsoft Teams limitations

• Limited integrations with other non-Microsoft products
• Too many functionalities might get in the way of streamlining work 

Microsoft Teams pricing

• Microsoft Project offers two paid pricing solutions depending on your team and software requirements: Business and Home

Microsoft Teams ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5 (8,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.3/5 (13,000+ reviews)

11. nTask

Task and project management platform nTask helps teams and individuals prioritize, manage, and collaborate on tasks in one place. In addition to task lists, Kanban boards, timelines, Gantt charts, time tracking, and customized dashboards, it also provides tools for effective team collaboration. 

With nTask’s automated reminders and notifications system in place, teams stay informed of due dates and other important updates. For example, users can set up automated reminders to be sent out three days before a task is due.

nTask best features

• Gantt charts and task dependencies
• Document sharing and file management
• Time estimations
• Reply-Later 

nTask limitations

• Attaching large files when sharing takes longer than normal
• Only suitable for teams with less than 50 team members

nTask pricing

• Premium: Starts at $20/month for 5 users
• Business: Starts at $60/month for 5 users
• Enterprise: Contact nTask for pricing

nTask ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)
• G2: 4.4/5 (10+ reviews)

12. Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management tool for remote teams to centralize all of their work-related information and conversations in one place. Teams can create to-do lists, schedule events, and share files, making it easy for teams to stay on top of their work. 

Additionally, Basecamp has a built-in message board and chat feature, allowing team members to communicate and share information in real-time. For example, team members can use the message board to share updates on their progress and ask questions, while the chat feature can connect quickly with other team members and discuss ideas.

Basecamp best features

• Hill Charts to visually see progress uphill or downhill over time
• The Hey! menu streamlines notifications in a single menu
• Check-in with an automatic poll for the team
• In-app individual or group direct messages

Basecamp limitations

• No task priorities (check out Basecamp alternatives)
• Limited progress tracking functionality

Basecamp pricing

• Unlimited users: $299/month, billed annually
• For freelancers, startups, or smaller teams: $15/month per user 

Basecamp ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.3/5 (14,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.1/5 (5,000+ reviews)

13. Monday.com

Monday.com is a cloud-based project management platform built for teams to collaborate, track progress, and improve communication. It gives managers the ability to easily assign tasks, set deadlines and milestones, delegate responsibilities, and monitor performance. 

Additionally, it provides users with real-time visibility into their workflow so everyone can be on the same page about deadlines, expectations, and progress. Monday doesn’t offer a chat messaging feature, so integrations with tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom will help increase productivity. 

Monday best features

• Customizable dashboards and automation
• Dependency tracking for managing projects
• Workload management
• Secure file storage

Monday limitations

• The Time Tracking Column feature is only available in the Pro and Enterprise plans
• Steep learning curve to familiarize with functions and interface (check out Monday alternatives)

Monday pricing

• Individual: Free forever
• Basic: $8/seat per month starting at 3 seats
• Standard: $10/seat per month starting at 3 seats
• Pro: $16/seat per month starting at 3 seats
• Enterprise: Contact Monday for pricing

Monday ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.6/5 (3,300+ reviews)
• G2: 4.7/5 (6,600+ reviews)

14. Flock

Teams can easily collaborate, communicate, and work together with the help of Flock, a cloud-based collaboration and communication platform. A variety of tools and features are available to users, including chat, video conferencing, file sharing, project management, and task tracking. 

Flock also provides users with an intuitive, user-friendly platform that makes it easy for teams to stay connected, even when they are working remotely. It also helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal!

Flock best features

• Polls within channels with an option to respond anonymously
• In-app video conferencing for one-on-one or team meetings
• Attachment Picker button to share files
• Public and private message channels

Flock limitations

• Advanced customization options are reserved for Enterprise-level plans
• Steep learning curve to build a stable and consistent team workflows within the platform

Flock pricing

• Free
• Pro: $4.50/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact Flock for pricing

Flock ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.5/5 (300+ reviews)
• G2: 4.4/5 (200+ reviews)

15. Airtable

Airtable is a web-based software that allows users to create and manage databases in a spreadsheet-like format. It combines the functionality of a database with the ease of use of a spreadsheet, making it a popular tool for data management and organization.

Airtable helps team collaboration by providing a central location for storing and managing information that can be easily accessed, shared, and edited by multiple team members. 

In Airtable, project managers can structure and organize data in a way that makes sense for their teams by creating custom fields, forms, and views. By creating a custom field for storing a record’s “priority” status, the user can filter views and sort tables to identify high-priority items quickly.

Airtable best features

• Extensions to create dashboards of charts, graphs, and top-line metrics
• Data syncing with other platforms and apps to streamline information
• No-code interface to group or sort data
• Javascript functionality to expand automation

Airtable limitations

• Limited ability to handle separated team and individual workflows (check out Airtable alternatives)
• Basic time tracking feature compared to other team collaboration tools 

Airtable pricing

• Free plan
• Plus: $10/seat per month, billed annually
• Pro: $20/seat per month, billed annually
• Enterprise: Contact Airtable for pricing

Airtable ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.7/5 (1,000+ reviews)
• G2: 4.6/5 (2,000+ reviews)

Bonus: Airtable Vs. Coda

The Collab of the Century—You and ClickUp

The benefits of team collaboration software make it a must-have tool for any team—no matter where you’re working from. The trick is finding software with enough features and functionality to remedy the challenges teams face together on a daily basis.

The only solution? ClickUp.

ClickUp is the only tool on this list that provides a fully transparent and collaborative workspace for teams to oversee project progress, plan tasks, and communicate more efficiently from virtually anywhere in the world.

With in-app chat, hundreds of customizable features, and over 1,000 integrations to consolidate all of your work, ClickUp is the ideal team communication software across the board.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for ClickUp today and watch your collaboration improve beyond belief.

The post Best 15 Team Collaboration Software 2023 appeared first on ClickUp.