One year ago today, I evaluated a number of cloud based project management systems to help reduce my administration effort for my customer projects.  In the end, I boiled this down to 2 strong candidates (having discounted such products as BaseCamp as being very light on features for a typical freelancer or small business), and finally selected TeamworkPM as the solution I would use.

Having used this system for a year now, I thought it would be useful to re-review TeamworkPM, and explain why it has transformed my business.

Providing a Customer Project Portal
Initially, my main requirement was to introduce a cloud based project system which in turn would provide an easy to use method where my company and my customers could communicate whilst working on projects.  I wanted a system which would allow my customers to keep track of their deliveries, to be able to track progress, communicate any design/time issues and so ultimately reduce the amount of administration I would need to provide.  I thought such savings should lead to reduced management time, therefore reduce any risks and associated costs.

Whilst a number of project management systems provided a customer portal, I initially selected TeamworkPM as my preferred solution because not only did it tick all my client portal boxes, but the use of the client portal was crystal clear and could be fully branded with my company domain, colour scheme, logo and titles.   As far as my customers are concerned, the project portal is part of my own web site.  I even provide a link to my branded TeamworkPM login screen as part of my main company web site.

All of the customers who have used the portal have commented how easy it is to use, how clear the information is, and how they can find the information they need.  Most of these comments were given to me generally as part of a project wrap up process.  For customers to report this to me as part of general project meetings proves to me that TeamworkPM most definitely is an asset to my communication with my customers.

Clarity, Focus and Time Saving
Beyond my initial requirements, I have continued to find more and more uses for TeamworkPM when working both on internal projects (I have a marketing project in TeamworkPM) and with my customers projects.

Whilst initially intending to use it only for external customer projects, I found that the reporting, alerts and screens were so clear, it was actually easier to use TeamworkPM for tracking other internal projects within my business.  The whole process of having a clear list of tasks, with tracking, alerts if not completed, and a central associated file store ( for specs, designs, scripts, delivery files, etc) brings clarity and focus.   It really helps when juggling multiple projects at the same time.

Whilst I initially hoped that TeamworkPM would help reduce the amount of project updates my company would need to produce, I am happy to report that it virtually eliminated project based discussions.  In my last four fairly complex projects, once the project was defined and included in the portal, I cannot recall a single email or phone call regarding dates, status updates, slippage or next actions.  All communication could therefore be focused on the design and delivery, so administration time and costs associated with running the projects virtually vanished.   Customers could simply log into the portal and see for themselves what was being delivered, when, and what the current status was.

We also ended up using the TeamworkPM file storage system for delivery of all files associated with the project (designs, source and run-time).  All of my customers loved the fact that they were automatically notified when files were available, and that they could retrieve them at their leisure.  They also loved the fact that all previous versions of files were retained, and so they could go back to older versions should they be needed.

The only feature currently missing from TeamworkPM in regard to using it as a file store for projects is the ability to see when a customer downloads a file.  This would be a nice feature, but having checked, none of the other cloud based project management systems I originally looked at recorded or audited this information.

Real Benefits
There has been no doubt that using TeamworkPM has been a real boost to my company.   In terms of reduced administration for project management, it is equivalent to having an additional member of staff who is running the projects for me.   Certainly, the reduction of time spent updating customers on project status or emailing files has meant that TeamworkPM has paid for itself many times over.

But in addition to the time and money that has been saved, it has made my company look more professional and has made the flow of information between my company and my customers virtually seamless.  I cannot praise TeamworkPM in this regard high enough.

Summary
TeamworkPM is a near perfect cloud based project management administration system.   I say near perfect, as there are still a few options which I would like to see introduced.   Whilst it produces lots of nice reports and gantt views for project overviews, it still lacks project task gantt views – but this is only a small consideration as the task list works well enough and standard MS project files can be uploaded and viewed.  As I say, I would also like to see a flag (or get an email) to say that a customer had downloaded or viewed attached files – but that is just me being picky.

I am very glad that I took the plunge a year ago to start using a cloud based project management system.   I dare say that one of the others would have done the job equally as well, but TeamworkPM has proved itself to be the right choice for me.

In fact, two of my customers who used TeamworkPM to track the projects I did for them have now adopted it as their own project management system for their own customers.

If you or your business runs any form of projects, I can really recommend using a cloud based project management system.  And whilst there are many products out there, I can highly recommend TeamworkPM.