e4clicks Project Estimator vs. Taskworld

If you are considering purchasing this (very expensive) software, there is a 100% chance you are doing so because you have been awarded a Government contract that dictates you use 4Clicks Project Estimator. There are plenty of easier to use estimating packages out in the world, but you can't use any of them if you have a contract that requires 4Clicks.

Incentivized

I don't know anything about pricing, but if Taskworld were an inexpensive choice I would say it works fairly well for small to mid-sized companies with complex workflows. It's great for managing tasks that move through multiple-stage pipelines that aren't necessarily linear. However, depending on the price it's not worth the spend for all the technical difficulties it brought. Our company was relatively small (60 employees) and yet we constantly faced "server issues" and bugs and even software-wide crashes that seriously impacted our ability to do business. If you choose to go with Taskworld, be sure you have a solid disaster-management plan in place just in case, because chances are you'll experience bugs on a weekly basis

• The estimates it produces are simple and easy to follow. The formatting is good.
• The tech support provided is very attentive.

Incentivized

• Task Management - It's super easy to track progress on Taskworld. If your team keeps up with it, you'll never wonder where in the project someone is, because it's marked.
• Project checklists - Having these to organize out smaller portions of the tasks makes everything so much easier and helps keep track of progress.

Incentivized

• The software feels 20 years old. It has not kept up with modern times, and practically functions like an old DOS program.
• Clunky interface, arcane commands.
• Even their training info focuses on hotkeys like this is 1995. Even though I am of an age to remember computers in 1995, the younger generations of managers/estimators are not. It is time to bring the software into the new century!

Incentivized

• Taskworld crashed ALL THE TIME. It was so frustrating. You'd notice certain functions not working (like adding an additional location or reassigning a task) and then the whole thing would go down. We lost at least 3 individual business days due to Taskworld acting up.
• We often requested features and bug fixes that took forever to be resolved. Taskworld staff was responsive, but issues took too long to resolve. As a small example, the GIF functionality of chat and task communication was down for weeks with no explanation.
• Small glitches were frequent and obnoxious. We had to clear caches all the time in hopes that we'd be able to use Taskworld the way it was intended. There were many times employees didn't get notified of their "@ mentions" or weren't seeing notifications at all. It was a nightmare of death by a thousand cuts.

I can't say too much about the support we've gotten from Taskworld, because we haven't needed it. There haven't been any issues we've to have to reach out about because it works too well. Given the quality of the application, I'm sure the quality of the support follows.

Incentivized

WinEst uses much the same database (RS Means/Gordion type) and has a similar interface. It is a bit cheaper.

Incentivized

We used Basecamp very briefly before switching over to Taskworld. Basecamp wasn't nearly as dynamic as Taskworld and served more as a static archive than an active workflow software.

• As stated before, if you are buying this software, it is because you have a contract forcing you to. While it does work, it is clunky, awkward, and very expensive.
• The price of the software and databases has always been high, but with the fairly recent acquisition of 4Clicks by Gordion (who also bought RS Means for their databases), there is literally no competition. Prices will continue to be very high, with no check on how high they can go.
• Again, can't fault 4Clicks tech support, as I think it is the best in the industry. They know their product and they respond to issues immediately. Considering what we spend a year for this product, however, you would expect nothing less.

Incentivized

• Efficient task assigning and management
• No stories left behind! It's too easy to track what's been worked on.

Incentivized