Overview
What is Podio?
Podio is a cloud-based platform for organizing team communication, business processes, and reporting in project management workspaces; also it may be used as a light CRM platform. It enables workflow automation and integrations. It includes a free version and paid…
Great tool to keep a small team organized and accountable.
Perfect tool for project management in the organization
Workflow Program Review
One of the most advanced and reliable project management tools
Solid Software
Great Organizational Product!
Podio can fit ANY need your business has!
Podio as a new user
Podio stands strong in workflows
Podio -- flexible and easy for non-profit use
Podio for Projects
User Friendly App. Customization At Its Best!
Podio - help your team work together!
Good tool for large teams- room for some improvement
Popular Features
- Task Management (24)3.131%
- Team Collaboration (26)3.131%
- Workflow Automation (25)1.212%
- Document Management (22)1.111%
Pricing
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $9 per month
Features
Project Management
Project management software provides capabilities to streamline management of complex projects through task management, team collaboration and workflow automation
- 3.1Task Management(24) Ratings
This includes the ability to plan, track, collaborate and report on tasks.
- 8.6Resource Management(20) Ratings
Resource management is workload planning to maximize resources.
- 8.4Gantt Charts(8) Ratings
Gantt charts are charts that show tasks or events along the y-axis displayed against time along the x-axis.
- 1.1Scheduling(21) Ratings
Scheduling capabilities allow users to set schedules on tasks, and create timelines and milestones.
- 1.2Workflow Automation(25) Ratings
Workflow automation is the ability to route work requests along an approval process automatically.
- 3.1Team Collaboration(26) Ratings
Team collaboration capabilities let team members work directly with each other and provide team updates.
- 2.1Support for Agile Methodology(15) Ratings
Agile is a time boxed, iterative approach to development that builds software incrementally instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end.
- 9.4Support for Waterfall Methodology(11) Ratings
Waterfall methodology is a tradition development method that is linear and sequential.
- 1.1Document Management(22) Ratings
Document management provides for centralized management of all project documents.
- 8.8Email integration(21) Ratings
Email integration allows work requests to be made directly from email.
- 8.8Mobile Access(21) Ratings
Mobile access is the ability to access the software from a smartphone or tablet.
- 8.2Timesheet Tracking(13) Ratings
Timesheet tracking is the ability to track all billable and non-billable hours for each project.
- 8.4Change request and Case Management(18) Ratings
Change request and change management enables tracking of all customer requests including priority and timeframe.
- 1.1Budget and Expense Management(16) Ratings
Budget and expense management provides the capability to track all expenses by employee or department and link them back to department. It also enables hourly rates to be set.
Professional Services Automation
Features that support professional services organizations
- 1.2Quotes/estimates(9) Ratings
Ability to create, manage and send project fee proposals to customers
- 8.8Invoicing(9) Ratings
Ability to create, manage and send invoices to clients during or after completion of a project
- 8Project & financial reporting(9) Ratings
Ability to analyze project and financial data based on custom criteria to gather insights and improve business performance
- 8.8Integration with accounting software(6) Ratings
Real-time, two-way sync with accounting or financial software to facilitate project and financial reporting
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Podio?
Podio Integrations
Podio Competitors
Podio Technical Details
Operating Systems | Unspecified |
---|---|
Mobile Application | No |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(131)Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-3 of 3)Falling in and out of love with Podio in a week
- Podio's apps are the most customizable tools I have seen anywhere, and I have tested and evaluated a large number of work management solutions. The abstract nature of their apps makes them ideal for very specific, niche cases as well as common, general purpose uses. The solution is elegant: an app is simply a collection of app items, with characteristics and perhaps links to other apps & their app items, all of which can be defined by your needs. Anyone who enjoys making "lists" of "things" should love this.
- Custom reporting is a dream in Podio. I can take any characteristics or fields in any of my app items, compare or filter them with other apps' items, run calculations on them and figure totals by month, team member or almost anything else you can imagine. The possibilities really seem limited only by your imagination.
- Podio has a lot of features, but another strength to factor in is third-party support. There are a lot of outside companies that offer additional features like detailed workflows, synchronizations between other cloud-based apps, and possibly even graphs in the near future.
- Task management is an afterthought, unfortunately. For complex production operations that need detailed tasks, recurring tasks, prerequisite tasks and staggered due dates for a large number of projects, Podio simply does not cut the mustard. In this area, Asana reigns supreme. It's unfortunate that simple things like due dates are missing from the app item task list view. You have to click on the task to see its due date; there is no project view of due dates. You can see due dates on the global task view, but then you can't see the app item or project that task is part of. In a production dept. with a lot of duplicate named tasks, the global task view is all but useless. Unfortunately, there is no project-based, big picture view of tasks, assignees and due dates in a single view. If you have a large team doing a lot of Production work, go with Asana or AskCow. We use Asana.
- Don't even bother telling Podio about their shortcomings. The absurdly negative answers I got from my assigned client services representative were (and I quote) "Tasks are a simple function. They cannot be customized" and when I asked if I could make tasks more prominent, "tasks will always be on the bottom of the item." When I suggested app items could benefit from color coding (common in all major text editors, spreadsheets and traffic intersections), I was hit with the insulting, "A color-coded rainbow of an item list won't happen" and most frustratingly, "You are one customer among very, very many." Thanks for nothing, Podio support. They simply do not care about you or your company's needs, and clearly only want to do business in aggregate. Terrible, deplorable customer service. Bad enough on its own to not want to do business with them on principle alone.
- Automated Workflows, while exciting initially, turned out to be rudimentary at best. You have two triggers and two effects, giving you a total multiplier of four whole options. Nothing to write home about there.
- While the text-based reporting is great, a total lack of charts or graphs means I still need to resort to using spreadsheets to visualize sales performance. (or another software solution)
- Task Management
- 10%1.0
- Resource Management
- 30%3.0
- Gantt Charts
- 10%1.0
- Scheduling
- 70%7.0
- Workflow Automation
- 10%1.0
- Team Collaboration
- 60%6.0
- Support for Agile Methodology
- 50%5.0
- Support for Waterfall Methodology
- 50%5.0
- Document Management
- 50%5.0
- Email integration
- 50%5.0
- Mobile Access
- 50%5.0
- Timesheet Tracking
- 90%9.0
- Change request and Case Management
- 10%1.0
- Budget and Expense Management
- 80%8.0
- Podio may have helped us sharpen our own customer service by demonstrating how NOT to treat customers.
- Since we are still in the evaluation stage and are actively seeking other options, I can't say that this experience has harmed us. I am glad I found out sooner rather than later about their attitude towards their customers before we had invested too much time & money in it. I may be just "one customer among very, very many" but I intend to share my experience with other prospective customers, and I expect this mistake will impact them more than just the value of our company's business.
- Linking related "apps" to one another and running calculations and reports on fields was extremely simple and straight-forward.
- Shared workspaces and personal chats all but eliminate the need for a separate communication system like HipChat or the now-defunct Campfire.
- Choosing multiple views for each app is handy, because not everyone visualizes things the same way. Or maybe the data lends itself to a table in one circumstance, and cards in another, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
- Task Management is deplorable. Really an embarrassment compared to a system like Asana. To make matters worse, Podio has a sort of fundamentalist objection to genuinely improving their task system: https://help.podio.com/hc/communities/public/questions/200519198-Sub-task
- Tasks in Podio are simply too rudimentary to achieve anything but the most basic of task lists. If you're looking for a task management tool primarily, keep moving. Nothing to see here...
- Initial set-up and data entry is a chore. The best way to make Podio work for you is to build custom apps. This is really interesting at first, but gets old pretty quick once you realize how many separate apps you need to build in order to accomplish what should be fairly simple functions. Podio's layering on built-in functionality for tasks and contacts actually makes matters worse rather than better because the native implementations cannot be removed if you prefer a custom app you build yourself. Contacts in two places, tasks in two places... it becomes a mess pretty quick.
- Development is S L O W . Looking at the Task Management issue, you can see that Podio has known this is a weakness of theirs for YEARS. Nothing has been done. Workflows were purported to be great when they were first announced, but the simple workflows are all but useless and the Advanced workflows cost $14 per user per month! It takes too long to get anything done...
Podio is great for remote teams
1. For our regional marketers to request materials (flyers, etc) from the graphic designers and for the designers to get most of the pertinent information in one form (as opposed to 5 emails just to get basic facts, quantities, etc)
2. For our properties to let the designers know what events are being planned on properties so we can support them with flyers, social media, etc
3. For our social media marketing team to access the event information from the properties to fill their editorial calendar and write posts/review before scheduling
- Flexible - Podio is built on customizing the apps to fit your needs and expectations
- Adaptable - we've been able to pivot how we use it as we learn more with minimal loss of actual data
- Good at everything - so far everything we've thrown at it has worked out pretty well
- Steep learning curve - not a particularly intuitive design, likely because it IS so adaptable
- No roadmap - there's a lot of suggestions for product features, but no roadmap of where they are going with this
- Recently updated - didn't really know it was coming or what would be on it, but they are invested in their product and made some good updates
- Good at everything, great at nothing - again, because it IS so adaptable, it doesn't excel at any one feature
- Increased communication between departments
- Central place to find information (instead of digging through email chains)
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Creating webforms
- Creating/finding new apps
- Assigning tasks
The no.1 tool for Small Medium Enterprises
- Provides clients the ability to take a workflow in email, excel or paper and make it easy to use and modify
- Makes it easy to delegate tasks and track progress
- Reduces the need to have WIP meetings and action and communication is immediate
- Allows for collaborating in multiple locations and supports flexible work practises
- Ease of working with clients and suppliers on a common platform
- Greater sales visibility and facts to follow up on outstanding leads. You can track actual compared to target sales
- Cross functional application. Some CRM's have a narrow focus on one or two functions. Other project management tools are very IT or technically focused. Podio can apply across multiple functions and roles
- Podio is customised for the way you work as opposed to changing your behaviours to fit a system
- Integration with Citrix GotToMeeting, video, audio and chat makes it easy to work in one place
- Use of web forms for collecting information pre and post meetings
- Lack of automation of workflows. There is a 3rd party solution called Globiflow and Podio have launched a basic workflow tool.
- GoToMeeting integration is good however expensive compared to other solutions
- Podio can be complex to learn and requires training
- Podio architecture is best to be set-up before you build too many apps as it can become confusing
- The search features could be improved
- Not able to clone workspaces, only apps
- Keeping on top of notifications and learning how to unfollow notifications
I suggest getting a Podio authorised partner or a user with 3 months+ experience to help set it up. Documenting your current workflows and agreeing on the way to do things first, makes the build in Podio easier. Podio is a little like snow skiing for the first time, you can teach yourself, however it can be more enjoyable if you learn from an expert.
Also don't start too big. Work on one area of the business and test it. People need to get to know the core of tasks, chat, apps etc as they learn customised apps. I suggest not to bite off too much at the start.
Combine heavy and like users in the testing environment to account for different skill levels and ways of learning.
Lead from the top. If the owner/leader is using it this will have a ripple effect.
- 30%+ reduction in sales cycle for many clients.
- Productivity gains from new employees on-boarding and trained quicker
- High life time value of clients due to customer service improvements
- 25%+ increase in sales for existing clients.
- Increased new product launches through speed and quality
- Increase in employee engagement
- Asana,teamwork PM,Insightly,Basecamp,Trello
- Ability to get apps of the market place
- Ability to build customised apps
- Less than 5 users free
- $10 per user per month which can be cancelled one month in advance
- Podio support and help
- Podio community through Podio workspaces and Linkedin groups
- Ability to go across multi functions
- Citrix owned and backed
- Research and upgrades
- External users free
Marketing
People
Finance
IT
Client services
Legal
Expert level
Basic programming
Advanced programming
- Sales CRM
- On-boarding clients and Smart Assistants
- Marketing
- Finance and integration with accounting software - Xero
- Talking into an app which sends a message to a Smart Assistant who enters task into Podio. When complete you get notified. Combine speed of technology and people to take action.
- Linkedin profiles. When someone looks at my linkedin profile we have a Podio app that tracks a series of actions
- Writing a book. Did interviews in Podio and then outsourced this to a ghost writer to create ebook
- Link to google drive
- Link to Xero accounting software
- Automated app building
- Business Plan that can be cloned for clients to use
- API links to infusion soft
- Dashboards - graphics and scorecards
- Back-ups
- Automation
Templates confusing and cumbersome
Cost per month
UX
Asana
No ability to build apps
Sharepoint
No ability to build apps
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Vendor Reputation
- Third-party Reviews
Read forums
Test more competitors
Use an expert to help set-up
- Professional services company
Ongoing support. As an authorised partner we are now self sufficient and use other partners for complex programming
We started small with multiple users
We did weekly training
We stopped using other tools and use Podio for everything - especially stopped email and excel
- How to set up the architecture
- What worked in paper or excel was different when cloud based or on the phone
- Getting time in client and supplier diaries to train them
- Self-taught
Assigned a person to me that I can chat to
Great Podio forum and community
- Chat
- Task
- Building apps
- Workflow
- Search
- Editing data fields
- Xero
- Google Apps for Business
- Infusion Soft
- Share File
- Lucidchart
- Evernote
- Flipboard
- File import/export
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
- Easier user interface
- Automation