Item: ClickUp
Rating: 10
Author: Alistair Wilson

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

ClickUp is the backbone of our remote technology consulting practice. We use it to plan, manage, monitor and report on all external and internal projects - our CU instance currently features around 40 participants with some form of permission, but a wider audience of say 75 who have 'visibility' of the projects they are stakeholders of. We make extensive use of guest licences and permissions management to ensure that external collaborators can see just what they need.

We run all of our projects according to the principles of agile and needed a tool that would flex with us to achieve it, without sacrificing some of the features we needed for anything 'waterfall'.

We vetted multiple options and felt that overall ClickUp gave us the right combination of power and flexibility. We also needed to solve the time tracking issue to measure track and measure external contractors' time logs without needing additional external apps and services. ClickUp's native time tracking works seamlessly between mobile, tablet and desktop.

Pros and Cons

Customisation of statuses, views.
Flexible, threaded conversations that mean 'tweaks' aren't lost in translation.
Time tracking.

Enhance the home view to allow for filtering and customisation via widgets (home view is the magic of a well organised ClickUp instance).
Speed (although ClickUp 3.0 allegedly will be enhanced 500%).
iPad (needs more granular interface, it's too simplistic).

Return on Investment

Increased speed of project startups - we have templated folders, lists, statuses, checklists and views. We have gone from 2h manual process to 10m templated SOP.
Our clients are impressed with how we capture, manage and report on their projects. A well configured tool makes us look 'smarter.'

Collaboration

Threaded and assigned comments stand out as one key feature which demonstrates how ClickUp helps us keep up good momentum across all of our projects and collaborations. We are now confident to say that conversations that are held within a ClickUp environment do not fall through the cracks vs Slack or email threads. We have a higher degree of completion of conversations which means enhanced and faster decisions and overall greater productivity.

All-in-One Productivity Platform

I don't go to Google Drive or email very often since ClickUp. It's nice to have a safe home where we know we'll find the thing we need within a context that helps us to know what to do with it next.

Alternatives Considered

monday.com, Todoist: To-Do List & Task Manager and Trello

ClickUp has given us everything these other apps have offered and then some. Overall we like how it is packaged and continuously updated and enhanced at a good cadence.

Key Insights

Do you think ClickUp delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with ClickUp's feature set?

Yes

Did ClickUp live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of ClickUp go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy ClickUp again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Slack, Miro, Google Workspace, Webflow

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited:

Distributed teams that are trying to escape email, must have a high degree of proficiency of productivity technology - ClickUp is not for the faint-hearted. I would say that for a team of 10+ a single champion must be assigned a good proportion of their salaried time to dive deep into ClickUp optimisation.

Highly transient team. If an org is working with large numbers of external collaborators, then the guest allowance is great for that.

Less Appropriate:

ClickUp 'enters the zone' when it is customised to how the team works: Views, dashboards, permissions, folder/list org. If a team needs something that works off the shelf for simple processes, then I would say that CU is a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. In this instance, they want some basic task manager. I would say that to be successful the users need to be fairly switched on in terms of tech and learning how to make the most of their work tools. If there is a low level of motivation regarding technology, it might fail.

Support Rating

I like how diligent ClickUp are in making sure you hear end-to-end updates on any features that are fixed/released that you have previously been involved in / conversed with them about. This gives a great sense of 'influence' over the direction of the tool - which everyone hops will evolve to meet more and more needs.

ClickUp is a large company that has done well to scale human-based support to make users feel accommodated and cared for.

ClickUp Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

ClickUp: The backbone of professional services operations, if you make it so!

Overall Satisfaction with ClickUp