Desk Evaluation Projectdesk Software Evaluation

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ProjectDesk Software Evaluation

ProjectDesk is an entirely Web-based low-end project management and collaboration application which is designed for the more fundamental processes and tasks in a project management. it's more of a virtual workspace for managing members of a project than it is a complete project management system, and its use as a collaborative platform that has task tracking makes its functionality suitable for small and medium businesses (SMB), yet lacking for larger companies and corporations' complex project needs.

Navigability, Usability and Look & Feel

Being entirely Web-based, the challenge for this application and others like it is first addressing how to manage relative location of the user in the application, and second, how to provide navigational capability to the user to move from one step in a process to another. Across the top of the ProjectDesk screens is a banner with each specific area of the application called out, and navigation is handled relatively easily using this approach. Usability of the actual application, including the use of standardized graphical user interface (GUI) conventions including pull-down menus and support for attachments is also done well. The usability however suffers from a lack of customization for the specific screens, and a lack of being able to define an individualized workflow for tasks and collaboration. This is a major drawback of usability as the application, despite being low-end and inexpensive, does not allow for the flexibility to define a specific workflow for the customers' specific needs. It pushes every customer into the same approach to task management. Yet given this limitation, the application is relatively easy to work with and can be quickly used, primarily for its collaboration functionality.

Relative Advantages and Applicability to Work Needs

There are many limitations to ProjectDesk that limit its suitability for work needs beyond just being a tasks scheduler and relatively inexpensive collaboration platform. First, there is no integration at all to other applications, in fact there appears to be no way to get the data out of this application once it has been input. At least the support for XML integration to the task level would have been relatively easy to get completed with third party programmers. In addition, there is no support for dependency tracking, network diagram view, Gannt, PERT or dependency views of projects, and no support for Task Drivers or support for multiple level projects. In addition to all these limitations, ProjectDesk also does not appear to have a process interlink to quotes, proposals or additional flow-on tasks that the project task list would be used for. Most noticeable when one considers collaboration from a global standpoint, ProjectDesk does not appear to be supporting any other languages but English.

Conversely ProjectDesk does have value purely as a collaboration platform where workgroups are primarily interested in tracking their tasks over time. The interface, which is intuitive, makes learning the application very quick and also can lead to higher rates of user adoption in larger groups as it is comparable to other low-end applications. There is also the support of document sharing and automated e-mailing of project document to members of a team. Given the fact this is an entirely Web-based application there is also no hardware investment involved on the part of companies choosing to use this application.

In summary, ProjectDesk does not have the functionality to replace Microsoft Office Project 2007, Primavera or any of the higher-end project management applications a company may rely on. It does however have the functionality and features to be a replacement for low-end document-sharing and collaboration portals including Microsoft SharePoint. The lack of support for process management and the flexibility to align processes to the unique requirements of customers however makes this unsuitable for many project management tasks. The lack of support for any other languages also negates its value from a globalization perspective as well.