OmniFocus is a project management platform for iOS: Mac, iPad, and iPhone. It has features such as task management, Siri capture, and workflow automation.
$4.99
per month
Project Insight
Score 4.0 out of 10
N/A
Project Insight is a web-based project and portfolio management software. Project teams can access, edit and update their projects information anytime, anywhere, with any supported browser, tablet and mobile device. Features for experienced project managers include: MS Project import/export, intelligent scheduling, resource allocation, Outlook integration, document management, approvals, time/expense tracking, issue management, 100s of dashboards and advanced permissions.
1) Great for managing your work and personal activities. 2) One of the best implementations of the Getting Things Done method. 3) Not really suited for collaborative work management; OmniFocus is managed on a per-user basis so you can't share/assign tasks.
My rating would vary depending on the types of projects that need to be managed. Since I am in software, I don't think it was an excellent fit to manage software projects unless they are small projects with only a few tasks. On the other hand, if you are needing to manage a wide range of departments that are working on a single project with many moving pieces, then I would think that PI might be a better fit. Think of it as a jack of all trades, but master of none.
Ease of viewing what tasks need to be done at the present moment and the sorting of those tasks by availability, due date, start date, needed resources, and project.
The visual interface is really nice to work with, the UX/UI is intelligent and intuitive.
It's the most extensible software I've used. There is a community of people that publish compatible scripts for Omnifocus at no charge.
The code is robust and I've almost never had a bug or a glitch that resulted in issues.
The software syncs in the cloud between MacOS and iOS seamlessly and faster than other To-Do software. The sync aspect is available free of charge.
The development team at Omnifocus is on top of bugs and they have been adding releases regularly to increase functionality and performance.
While OmniFocus adheres to the GTD (Getting things done) principles, it can be used in almost any manner and you aren't stuck with just that methodology.
I would really like to see graphic presentations of how I allocate my time, what categories of tasks don't get accomplished, etc.
I would like to see OmniFocus include Gantt chart functionality, such as allowing me to see how long it took me to accomplish a task from start to finish. Allowing me to actually input time spent, and seeing it on a Gantt chart, would be icing on the cake.
OmniFocus has excellent user forums. They're active as well as mature, since the product has been around for years. I've never needed to actually contact customer support because OmniFocus is popular enough that I've always been able to find an answer in the forums, or in an article, or in a YouTube video.
I found Project Insight somewhat opaque overall. I thought the training was sparse and answers to questions few and far in between. There was a lot of power there for the dedicated user/administrator. For me, who was a casual user and administrator, I found support lacking. I didn't administer Project Insight much, just some work on integrations with other tools.
OmniFocus is built for the user with a lot going on - consequently, it does a great job at organizing lots of things in a manageable workload. It's perfect for taking a project and breaking it down into small tasks for yourself or teams. Once you get past the learning curve, it's quick at adding new tasks. Overall, it's an excellent product.
When I got to the company where I used Project Insight, we had our own custom tool that fit the tasks that it was designed for but wouldn't grow with the company unless resources were put onto expanding capabilities. We needed something more.
We replaced that tool with Redmine. It worked well and was easy to use, but it looked pretty dated when we got it, and since we didn't have many resources for managing, it looked dated after a few years without receiving upgrades. It was a decent tool for small teams that were focused on similar tasks. Redmine was much more straightforward than Project Insight and felt more reliable since we never had an issue with our internal servers. On the other hand, Redmine felt dated and didn't fit as many of the tasks that were needed. Redmine's price was right if you installed it locally and was probably still cheaper if you used their SAAS version.
Jira, on the other hand, felt like an excellent tool for software teams. Jira had a great project and task management and felt right for a software team. Jira also had useful integrations, even with Project Insight. Jira seemed pretty unreliable, worse than Project Insight. Our team would have preferred Jira, but I think it didn't work for other teams.
OmniFocus keeps our tasks moving forward. Using a free script you can search all your current projects for projects that have no next step assigned to it to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
When we serve our clients, the attention to detail we are able to give them comes from accurate tracking of what we need to deliver.
We complete projects 25% faster than before and we can see where the bottlenecks are immediate. We have also been forced to document tasks in a more concrete manner which allows for better execution.
