Forecast.it is a project portfolio management solution built around features such as resource planning and time tracking, budget estimating, and analytics and reporting, with key third-party integrations.
$29
per seat (billed annually)
Paymo
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Paymo is a collaborative work management platform that helps track team progress, collaborate in context, and make smarter decisions. It acts as a single source of truth, where project planning, resource scheduling, file proofing, time tracking, and billing feed into each other to co-exist under the same roof.
Forecast is well suited for tracking schedules, especially if it is only being controlled by a single department. When it comes to using Forecast in a larger ecosystem with more "cooks in the kitchen" it would be helpful to have the software more easily integrated with other software.
Beautiful interface throughout, easy setup, most natural progressions are fluid and easy to use. Browser functionality allows us to use it cross-platform. Very reasonable pricing model as well. We have had a little trouble using Paymo for the entire creative process to have proofs reviewed and approved. Also, have to use external forms to have work submitted from campus.
The ability to code exactly what time I worked on a project enables me to bill clients more accurately and within different minimums, which besides more accurately tracking time, this has been extremely helpful as I negotiate contracts for services and offer different deals with potential clients. Some are billed to the minute, some in 15-minute minimums, and some in 20-minute blocks.
The live reports are great, showing time spent in the minimums that I've set, while also including as much detail as I wish to share.
I've now started just writing my notes into the tracker, which are then carried into the live reports - this eases my needing to send logs to clients, as well as helping me to keep projects on track.
Not as intuitive as its companion software, Harvest. This software takes longer to learn when on-boarding new staff. It is also difficult to view time notes without needing to physically open them up. This could be improved by expanding the "on hover" functionality. Personally, having spent as little time in workflow software is really important, as it gives me more time to code.
Because we use this software to plan schedules, items often fall through the cracks. I would like to see some more sophisticated syncing with not only Harvest but also with Asana.
Lack of integration with Asana. It would be nice to pull data from forecast and display it in Asana. This would be helpful for understanding how much time I have to spend on a project rather than bounce back and forth between web apps.
It would be really helpful if on the timer tool, they asked you to switch projects when you stop the timer, so it could fill that time in right away for you.
I never use the 'My Tasks' because I don't fully understand how to integrate it to be useful to what our purposes are in Paymo. Some Youtube tutorials might be helpful
It is a complete, a bit overambitious app but with many features that are needed. I didn't need most of the features but managed to make the most of the two I was using. Also, I think it is a well-rounded app and I am considering moving some team collab there.
Good! Fast, excellent, speedy responses. They always wanted to know why and how they could improve on something (good on receiving feedback, too). Not that they were much needed, but my limited experience with them is good; they were really keen to understand what the problem was really about and how they could help with it.
I have not used any other scheduling software other than Forecast. The company selected Forecast because it is used in conjunction with Harvest. The pair of web apps can be used to pull detailed data. This is very important to our agency, and making data-driven decisions is exceptionally important to our agency mission.
We still use Trello and Slack, but Basecamp and HubSpot are too much for our operation to manage or integrate. Paymo is missing some of the tracking features of HubSpot and isn't as universally used as Basecamp but we've been with them for 8 years and they seem to know what matters most to their user base
Gives me more accurate time that I've spent on projects compared to older methods I've used.
Has data that I can pull together, for example my boss wanted to know the percentage of time I'd spent working on projects for one client compared to everything else - I was able to give them an accurate percentage.
Forces you to stay on top of jobs, which can lengthen the time to complete something
