You Don't Need a Project Management Certification to Use Wrike
October 06, 2017
You Don't Need a Project Management Certification to Use Wrike
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Wrike
I use Wrike for managing all types of creative and web design projects. It has everything I need for scheduling and deadlines. I make lots of notes throughout each project and export them at the end. It gives me an accurate picture of the project and serves as a record of client requests and interaction. I am generally the only user although I've used it to coordinate multi-channel marketing efforts for a small team in the past. With projects/folders and task breakdowns, I can accurately plan projects and see my project load at a glance. It definitely keeps me organized and gives me a visual way of looking at my work load.
- Projects and tasks. It's very easy to create a project or folder and subsequent tasks. When I used it for a larger team, we had an enterprise level subscription and the ability to create numerous folders and sub-folders. We planned out the entire folder structure, scheduled every marketing task and put everything on a schedule. Once it was set up, it was an invaluable tool for managing all of our activities.
- Project filters and views. You can drill down and filter projects to see specific timelines or tasks. I especially liked the feature where you could export the whole thing to Excel to manipulate further, or pass on as a report. Wrike can easily provide a clear picture of what's "on your plate" for a few days, weeks or even months.
- Interface. I'm a fan of clean UIs and Wrike has always been uncluttered (even with tons of tasks) and easy to use. The interface is glitch-free and I don't have any problems. Files upload, changes save automatically, etc. They regularly add new features and I like the integrations with Google Drive and dropbox. Many times, I upload comps or drafts of creative I'm working on, along with notes.
- Minor - assigning a default user. Each time I add a task now I have to assign a user. With me as the primary user, I would love to be able to set myself as a default. I've read some discussion on this and it can be done if you add the task under "My Work." When I'm adding multiple tasks, that extra step seems counterproductive.
- On an enterprise level, I thought Wrike was competitively priced, though on the higher end. I feel it was well worth the cost as it brought the team together, reduced missed deadlines and kept some activities from falling through the cracks. By having a detailed breakdown of scheduled projects and tasks, I could identify areas where we could add or remove activities.
- Makes a powerful BI tool when combined with other reporting. After a year of tracking all our projects, we were able to export marketing campaign data and compare with sales data. It allowed use to see what seemed to work and what didn't.
I looked at Trello and Basecamp, which are great for collaborating with a team – especially those with remote team members. It seemed like the main goal of those is interactivity and though I needed it for my team, I needed something that could keep me on task as well. I needed more scheduling, task management and the ability to view users and projects in different ways. I've picked up MS Project multiple times over the years but always found it to be way too robust for my needs. I don't like overly complicated interfaces and products that introduce features that are more confusing than useful to me. Wrike balances simplicity with available features and functionality to take it full-out enterprise level. It's kind of like having extra horsepower in your car's engine... may not need all that power but I like knowing it's there if I need it.