Basecamp is one of the most popular light-weight project management tools, and with good reason. But many enterprise users are looking for more powerful project planning and collaboration tools.

As a result, we’ve seen plenty of users who’ve migrated from Microsoft Project and Basecamp to Deskera, looking for a complete solution that meets both their needs of project planning and collaboration.

Deskera already supports import and export of project plans from Microsoft Project. Looking at the sheer number of Basecamp users who wish to migrate to Deskera, we thought it was time to roll out an ‘Import from Basecamp’ feature.

We wish we could bring in your documents as well, but sadly, Basecamp does not support this. As of now, Basecamp does not support importing of project information from any other tool either.

For more details on ‘How to import projects from Basecamp’ you can head over to our support forum. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

• Import existing plans from Microsoft Project
• Sync Deskera calendars to Microsoft Outlook and others using iCal
• Export Deskera project plans to Microsoft Project
• Export plans and reports to .pdf and .csv files
• Embed project plans anywhere on the web
• Import/Export your existing contacts from Microsoft Outlook and via .csv files
• E-mail Notifications for tasks and to-dos
• RSS feeds for project updates

Plus we know that the real way to lock in customers is to give them the keys.

Ready to migrate from Basecamp? Sign Up to manage your projects the way you really want to.

P.S. Also, let us know if there’s any other tool you wish to migrate project data from. We’ll do it.

Or any other feed reader of your choice – Google, Yahoo, Thunderbird, Netvibes, FeedDemon, Krawler[x] and even web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc.

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)  is a way for content publishers to make news, blogs, and other content available to subscribers.

Using the Global RSS Feed provided in Deskera, you can get notified of updates across all your projects.

Individual RSS Feeds are also provided for:

1. Individual Project Updates
2. To-Do List Updates for each project
3. Event Updates for each project and
4. Individual Calendar feeds as well

All you need to do is click on the  icon, subscribe directly by selecting your Feed Reader (Microsoft Outlook, Google, Yahoo, etc.) or you can also copy the URI from the address bar and paste it into your reader.

Deskera is the only truly Microsoft Project Compatible project management software available. You can import your existing Microsoft Project plans, collaborate on them and export the updated plan back to Microsoft Project.

Now Deskera allows you to embed your project plan anywhere on the web.

1. Get the embed code from the Export option in Deskera
2. Paste it into your website, blog or any HTML editor
3. You can change the dimensions of the plan to suit the destination

Some of the benefits:

1. Any updates to the plan in Deskera will automatically be reflected
2. Search-as-you-type on your embedded plan
3. View the true Work Breakdown Structure – expand task lists for a complete view
4. View task details on the Gantt Chart as well
5. Give your clients and project stakeholders complete visibility – Accurate project status. Every time.
6. Get feedback on your project plan from colleagues and experts.

Also now you can not only work on your Microsoft Project Plans on the web, but also publish them anywhere on the web. Deskera is definitely the best Microsoft Project Viewer around!

Embed Project Plans – Increase Visibility. Incorporate Feedback. Improve Efficiencies.

What are you waiting for? Sign Up.

Rest of the series: Project Planning, Simplicity

We know how Deskera lets you work on Microsoft Project files on the web. But that’s not all, Deskera offers much more than just Microsoft Project on the web.

In this part of the series, we compare the Collaboration Capabilities of Microsoft Project and Deskera Project Management Software.

Using Microsoft Project for Collaboration

Let’s take the case of John and Richard who are in-charge of end-to-end Project Management including planning all the project activities and Work Breakdown Structure for their biggest client so far.

John’s boss gifted him a copy of Microsoft Project last Christmas (for the extravagant sum of $1000) and he gets going on the project plan immediately.

• He gets a draft ready and wants Richard to take a look at it.
• Richard unfortunately does not have Microsoft Project installed on his PC.
• He tries using a free .mpp Viewer and e-mails out the changes required to John
• John updates the file and re-sends it for review each time. Way too cumbersome.

So finally Richard gets his boss to spend another $1000 for his own copy of Microsoft Project and suddenly feels all important and in control. So John and Richard start ‘collaborating’, sending each other new versions of the plan by e-mail till the file name reads something like this: Project-plan-(1)(150508)(1.6)final3.mpp

• They are still working on different versions
• More time is spent updating the changes rather than getting any real work done.
• No single version of the file for the team to work on.

The only way to get that done is to spend another $5000 odd for a copy of Microsoft Office Project Server. So after a lot of money and time spent for installation, configuration and training, they can at least work on the ’same’ file.

But it’s still not Real-time. The copy they are working on is as of last ‘checkout’ date, but they trudge along…

How do they discuss and collaborate on the project plan?

• They send out numerous emails to each other and the rest of the team.
• Using various online chat and Instant Messaging applications such as Yahoo, MSN, Skype, etc.
• Numerous phone calls and brainstorming sessions

Unfortunately all this communication history was either never tracked or lost in heaps of other Minutes-of-Meeting documents.

And they haven’t even started working on the project yet… Just the project plan so far.

What if they switch from Microsoft Project to Deskera instead?

• John uploads his existing Microsoft Project plans to start working on them immediately.
• Richard and the rest of team see the changes being made in real-time and update the Project Plan and Gantt Chart themselves. No additional software required, saving time and money.

• All team members access the project status from any computer running any operating system
• This leads to dramatically lower costs than buying Microsoft Project for each team member.
• John and Richard communicate real-time using the inbuilt chat functionality, or send messages to each other.
• Dedicated project discussion forums are used for gathering feedback, resolving issues and holding all other team discussions.
• Using the dedicated calendars, they setup meetings and events for all project members.
• All communication history is available whenever they need it, even for the new members who would join later.

Collaboration tools including Messages, Discussion Forums, To-Dos and Calendars are leveraged for getting the actual project work done.

And all this at negligible cost compared to Microsoft Project.

So why not sign up for Deskera? Let us know what you think.

Rest of the series: Project Planning

We know how Deskera lets you work on Microsoft Project files on the web. But that’s not all, Deskera offers much more than just Microsoft Project on the web.

Simplicity

As we’ve noted earlier, 80% of Microsoft Project users use only 20% of its numerous features. So at Deskera we’ve simplified a lot of rarely used Microsoft Project functions to deliver a more capable, yet simpler, project management methodology.

Earned Value Management

All the main EVM values are calculated by Microsoft Project, including: Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS), Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP), Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP), Schedule Variance (SV), Cost Variance (CV), Budget at Completion (BAC), Cost Performance Index (CPI), Schedule Performance Index (SPI), Variance at Completion (VAC), and Estimate at Completion (EAC).

EVM potentially is a great tool to identify variances and discrepancies and warn managers in advance of looming problems. ‘Potentially’ is the key word here.

One thing consistent across the various EVM implementation methods is that they demand quantification of project plans in advance. And accurate quantification at that.

The truth about most of the projects today is that they evolve with time, albeit within specified boundaries, and EVM is not as effective, in fact can be misleading even, when it comes to agile projects. EVM for agile projects is still an ongoing project management research area.

Even for achieving maximum potential of EVM methods, collection of real-time true progress information is critical. And the irony is that Microsoft Project does not facilitate that.

Hence the sophisticated EVM tools in Microsoft Project can rarely be leveraged to their maximum potential.

So in Deskera, we’ve employed a simple 0/100 earning rule for all tasks and we’ll be including intuitive and flexible variance tracking techniques after listening to our customers. You guys know best.

Task Types and Constraints

Microsoft Project provides for different calculation types for tasks: Fixed Duration, Fixed Units, and Fixed Work. In addition, tasks may be marked as Effort Driven.

Now the truth is that each of these, whether duration, units or work, possess a degree of variance with the effort involved being a reflection of the same. When the value of any of these metrics changes, the others are naturally affected and subsequently Microsoft Project asks you to specify a reason each time. This would be really cool if it was in fact used as a feedback mechanism to train Microsoft Project, but it just happens to be an unnecessary interruption.

Also, there are eight types of constraints that can be applied to individual tasks in a project. But the true purpose of these constraints can be achieved only when the entire team and resources are aware of these, which is rarely the case for teams using MS Project.

We believe that the ability to define dates and dependencies get the work done, and you can always attach additional notes to tasks.

User Experience

At Deskera, we pay a lot of attention to User Experience and we’ve worked hard to improve it. Whether it’s Microsoft Project’s inconsistent UI behavior or confusing expansive error messages, we’ve ensured that along with efficient project management, we’ve delivered enhanced usability and navigability within the system.

Don’t take our word for it. Experience it for yourself by signing up.

Zoli Erdos, of the highly respected Enterprise Irregulars, echoes our sentiments on Project Management 2.0 at CloudAve.

In the 90’s I worked on a number of fairly large scale SAP Projects in a variety of roles, including Project Manager, and supervisor of several other projects.  The standard tool was Microsoft Project.  It was used for:

• Planning a Project (initial Scoping)
• Selling it
• Periodic reporting to Steering Committee during the actual projects

What’s missing from the above?   Well, how about using it to help the actual daily work of project team members?

Project  team members did not even have access to MS Project, it only existed in a few copies on the PM and Team Lead’s computers. Information-flow was one-way: feed the beast to be able to occasionally print charts that look impressive (scary) enough which Steering Committee members won’t question.

Okay, I am admittedly sarcastic, but the point is:  PM 1.0 was all about planning, reporting and it served Management but did not help actual Project Execution.

My expectation of PM 2.0 would be that it helps all team members involved who can share information, collaborate on it and actually get clues from the system on where they are, where they should be, what their next step is, instead of just feeding the beast.

And that’s exactly what we are trying to do at Deskera. Oh & if you already use Microsoft Project, Deskera is just for you. Deskera lets you work on Microsoft Project files on the web. Really.

Give it a go by signing up for free.

We know how Deskera lets you work seamlessly on Microsoft Project on the web. But that’s not all, Deskera offers much more than just Microsoft Project for web.

In this series of posts, we’ll take on Microsoft Project by doing an in-depth head-to-head comparison around what we believe are the primary four decisive factors while looking for a Project Management Software.

• Project Planning
• Collaboration
• Resource Management
• Deployment and Pricing

PROJECT PLANNING

One of the features we love in Microsoft Project is the ability to quickly create tasks, set dates and define dependencies. This can be attributed to chiefly:

• A spreadsheet style data entry interface
• An interactive Gantt chart where you can drag and drop tasks and links

Microsoft Project:

So we went ahead and did exactly the same in Deskera. For existing Microsoft Project users, switching has never been easier. And for the others, this is one of the fastest ways to create plans anyway.

Deskera:

And as Joel Spolsky says: “Good UI designers use consistency intelligently, and, though it may not show off their creativity as well, in the long run it make users happier.”

We’re sure you would agree.

Rest of the Series – Simplicity, Collaboration

Let me take you through the Project Plan in Deskera

The Task Grid lists out all your project tasks along with their duration, dates, predecessors and resources. Now it not only looks like an Excel sheet, but acts like one too. We find it much easier to edit task details in the cells in the classic Excel fashion rather than having to

• Click to open a form
• Find the fields you want to change and then key in the information and finally
• Click to close the form (and some people seem to throw in a confirmation message everywhere just for kicks)

On the right, we have the Gantt chart. An interactive one, you drag and drop tasks and links much like Microsoft Project, but the coolest thing is that it’s truly collaborative, REAL-TIME. Much like Google Docs. We weren’t kidding about combining the best of both worlds.

Now let’s move on to the toolbar:

• New template:Many projects within a company tend to have a set of common tasks, hence the inclusion of templates. Templates not only make it easier to enter the same tasks across projects, but at the same time ensure consistency across projects, making it easier to compare performance. So select those common tasks in the plan and click ‘New Template’, give it a name and you are done.
• Insert Template:To insert tasks from a template into you plan, select a blank row, click ‘Insert Template’  and select the one you want.
• New Task:Adds a blank row in the grid where you can start keying in the information directly
• Indent and Outdent:Indenting a task pushes it to a lower level while outdenting it promotes the task to a higher level. So when you indent a task, it’ll become a ’sub task’ of the task above it and outdenting it would make it a ‘parent’ task of the one below it.
• Show Progress:Displays the progress(% complete) of all the tasks on the Gantt chart.
  
• Overdue Tasks:Highlights only the tasks which are overdue on the Gantt Chart.
  
• Show Priority:Displays the priority level(High/Moderate/Low) of all the tasks
• Show Resources:Displays color-coded resources for all tasks on the Gantt Chart.
• Task Information:You can update and edit task information by clicking here. Update the task’s % completion and attach notes as well.
• Import/Export Plan:Import/export your existing plans from Microsoft Project. Both .mpp and .mpx files are supported.
• Reports:Generate extensive reports on your project’s status. You can generate reports on activities, resources, milestones and you can also track your project costs.

Get your own hands-on experience at demo.deskera.com.

First off – Deskera makes a fabulous Web Based Microsoft Project Viewer. If you happen to use Microsoft Project, you would know how painful it is to use it in a collaborative (read: ease of use for teams of 2 people or more) way. Hence, Deskera. 

Besides being a fabulous Web Based Microsoft Project Viewer, Deskera also makes a good Project Management System. Today’s project management software can be broken down into two categories:

1) Project Planning Software – Microsoft Project, OpenWorkbench, etc.

No doubt, Microsoft Project is a really powerful project planning tool , but 80% of the users use only 20% of its numerous features. It also happens to be too expensive for most SMEs, and in this age, the fact that it is desktop based means it’s not really great for collaboration.

2) Project Execution Software– Basecamp, Central Desktop, Liquid Planner, Zoho Projects, etc.

Web-based project execution software works when it comes to light-weight collaboration. It facilitates quick and efficient management of tasks and to-dos.

But unfortunately, projects are not only about remembering the milk. What’s lacking is the ability to plan your projects, define dependencies and analyze project performance. No system can generate reports for data it doesn’t have.

Deskera – 100% Project Management, 0% Compromise.

With Deskera, we have tried to tightly integrate the best of Enterprise 1.0 Project Planning and Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration tools. We believe Deskera is a complete solution with powerful project planning capabilities, collaboration tools to get the work done and continuous project and resource performance appraisal.

Project planning

• Import/export existing plans from Microsoft Project
• Create tasks, define dependencies
• Allocate resources based on costs and availability
• Intuitive and interactive real-time Gantt Charts

Collaboration

• Social Networking
• Discussion Forums
• Project Calendars and To-Dos
• Messaging and Chat

Performance Reporting

• A powerful, yet intuitive, dashboard
• At a glance project ‘health’ charts
• In-depth custom Project Status reports – resource, time and cost.
• Export reports to multiple formats

We thrive on customer feedback and are offering Deskera completely FREE for a limited time. These customers can continue to use Deskera free of cost even after we introduce a paid-for version. Sign up here

Deskera is an attempt at making life easy for business & office users. As a business user Deskera gives you an integrated desktop that lets you:

• Manage your projects & teams effectively
• Manage your office documents
• Manage your tasks, contacts appointments and calendar schedules
• Connect with your colleagues

Deskera interoperates wonderfully with popular Project Management softwares like Microsoft Project®. It lets you export/import to & from Microsoft Project®.

Could Deskera be your Business Web-Desktop ? We’ll let our users decide.

Deskera is currently available to a select few beta customers open to all for sign up. You can signup here: signup.deskera.com