Item: Wrike
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Wrike for workflow management in our company. When a customer signed up for a website, a workflow got created to ensure every step was completed before moving on to the next department. Once a task was marked complete, the next person would get notified that their task was ready to start. This allowed us track how long a site took to build and if there were any hangups along the way.

We used Wrike for other workflows as well - adding locations to the site, adding a tracking number to the site or if the client started/canceled PPC campaigns. If our clients reached out for edits to the site or their account, our customer support team would create a ticket for the respective department to complete the work and put a due date on the ticket for us.

I used Wrike for projects I was working on as well, which lived in my personal dashboard. This allowed me to keep track of side projects I had to complete and so my boss knew what I was working on. This helped keep me organized so I knew where to focus my time.

Pros and Cons

I liked being able to have my own dashboard for projects I was working on - this was great to keep track of things to be able to talk about at meetings with supervisors.
Being able to track the progress of website builds was big for us so we could see if there were any hiccups that needed to be addressed.
Being able to use the different views when looking at dashboards was a nice feature especially for certain workflows or projects.
Getting email notifications to my email when my tasks/tickets were ready was great. I didn't have to live in Wrike and wait for something to pop up - I could do other work and when I got my notification I would change gears and get my ticket done.

As much as I liked getting my email notifications, sometimes there would be a long delay from when the ticket was created to when it hit my inbox. This was bad for urgent tickets that needed to be done right away. I would end up getting messages from the account manager about a ticket not being done, but I never got my notification.
Because my dashboard had a bunch of workflows on it, I had to have our admin for wrike set a lot of my stuff up custom for me. (it could be easier now, but at the time I had a difficult time doing it on my own)

Return on Investment

I think being able to track tickets and workflows had a positive impact on our business because it allowed us to address areas or departments that needed help.
I know over the years of using Wrike, servers went down sometimes which made it impossible to complete tickets/tasks assigned to employees. This was a negative impact because if tickets weren't getting done, edits weren't being completed and sites weren't getting launched.
I feel having dashboards for employees kept everyone organized so tasks were less likely to slip through the cracks.

Alternatives Considered

Asana, monday.com, ClickUp and Freedcamp

I'm not sure how our company chose Wrike over other products like it when we first started using it. I know part of our company was using Asana and we transitioned everyone off of that platform onto Wrike. This not only saved us money at the time, but we were able to do more with Wrike than Asana. Asana wasn't as user-friendly in my opinion and was more difficult to create workflows, which led to tasks not getting created or done.

Last year our company moved on from Wrike to Monday. I'm not sure on all the reasons for this move, but the transition happened last year. I think there were some reports managers used for internal use that weren't available in Wrike but were options in Monday, which prompted the move. I also think to scale our business with more workflows/departments, Monday offered an easier path to accomplish our main goals as a company.

I've used ClickUp and Freedcamp outside of my company for projects because they are free and easy to use (not needing it for tracking workflows or anything like that.)

Key Insights

Do you think Wrike delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Wrike's feature set?

Yes

Did Wrike live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Wrike go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Wrike again?

Yes

Other Software Used

monday.com, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager

Likelihood to Recommend

Wrike worked really well for me because I had tasks at different times in a website build but it was easy to keep track of what needed to be done next. With us having so many clients, Wrike was well suited for us to scale how many sites we could build in a month. I believe some of the supervisors/managers used Wrike to see if we needed to hire any more employees in certain departments depending on how many tickets came in through the month. I also think managers used Wrike to see how many support tickets came in each month and broke that down by department as well. That likely was a good way for them to see if everyone was pulling their weight with tickets.

Products Replaced

Not Sure

Key Differentiators

Ease of Use

We wanted to be able to streamline workflows in our company. Each workflow had multiple steps, and Wrike allowed us to be able to complete a task and then notify the next person when it was time for them to work on their task in the process. We had workflows set up for website builds and PPC campaign builds. Wrike was also used for one-off tickets/tasks sent to our support team from our clients. These ranged from small edits to the website, wanting new banners created, adding code to the website, wanting a custom report created to needing more call tracking numbers for their locations. Wrike was pretty easy to use, which allowed us to get tasks done more quickly as well as be able to track how long workflows took to get done.

Wrike also made it easier to keep track of your own tickets/tasks/projects. This was very helpful during review times - you had all your projects from the last quarter marked completed and could explain what each project entailed. I personally used my dashboard in Wrike over waiting for notifications to my email because it was updated quicker and I was able to see the most urgent tasks that I had to get done that day. Overall, Wrike was very useful to us.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I wasn't involved in the selection process, so I don't know exactly what factors were made to choose Wrike. In the past, we had used JIRA for some workflows but Wrike was easier to use and we were able to scale a bit better. I'm not sure how much Wrike cost us on a monthly basis but we used it for a few years.

I think Wrike is a good option for companies to use -- but before choosing any platform you just have to do your research to see which one fits your needs the best and factor in the cost (if you are on a budget for tools to use).

Usability

Wrike was pretty straightforward to use once you got logged in and got a crash course on how to use it. Once I was able to get my own dashboard set up for all my different tasks/tickets/projects, I was able to go to one place for all my incoming work. If I ever had any questions, my co-worker who implemented Wrike for us either already knew the answer or would find the answer for us.

I had email notifications set up for any new tickets as well, but sometimes my dashboard would get updated before I got my email. Either way, I was able to keep track of what needed to get done and knew what was the most pressing ticket to get done.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using	None

Easy Tasks

Setting up email notifications was pretty easy to do
Switching the layout of your dashboard wasn't difficult to do
Creating a ticket/task and assigning it to a co-worker

Difficult Tasks

Customizing my dashboard was difficult at times and needed the assistance of our admin to get things to work correctly
Sometimes there were long delays in getting an email notification for tickets
I tried creating my own workflow once and it didn't work out too well

Wrike is a great option to keep your company organized

Overall Satisfaction with Wrike