10 Best Task Management Software Of 2024 – Forbes Advisor

Whether you’re a freelancer or an enterprise-level company, it’s important to consider how you and your teams work best. We suggest looking at how each task management tool handles collaboration, communication, views and pricing structure.

Collaboration starts with your coworkers, but it also includes outsourced help and clients. If you need to share view-only boards with clients, ensure it offers that feature at the price point you can afford. Alternatively, some task management software let you invite clients or collaborators as guests and you can set permissions for different users.

Some task management tools are nothing but boards for listing and organizing tasks for a project. Others let users leave comments, send direct messages, start group chats or integrate with popular communication tools, such as Slack. Choose one that best fits your organization’s communication requirements.

Kanban-style views are visual and very easy to use, but not everyone works best with that style of project management. If you need Gantt charts or a timeline view, be sure to consider what views each task management software offers as you whittle down your list of choices.

Finally, pricing structure is a huge part of choosing the right task management tool. If you have a small team, a per-user, per-month pricing plan might work fine for your budget. Larger teams may want to consider an enterprise plan with a custom price or a flat-fee price with unlimited users allowed.

Essential Features

The best task management software include basic features to help you build and manage tasks and projects on the whole. Make sure these features are present even in the low-priced plans.

• Project views: It’s hard to find task management software with only one view but, often, multiple varied project views are locked behind high-tier plans. These are important for getting a granular look at the work that needs to be done or a 50,000-foot view of all the projects that are ongoing. Flexible project views are also great for ensuring everyone can work the way that’s best for them, whether they’re list makers or prefer a visual Kanban-style dashboard.
• Subtasks: All task management software includes task management, but you may only be able to find subtask management in the best task management software. This feature allows you to break up a large task into multiple subtasks and assign them to different team members.
• Client access: You’d be hard-pressed to find task management software without client or guest access. So many projects require approval or feedback from clients, so this feature is an almost must. More advanced task management software offer client view settings, so a client can only view, comment or edit, as you see fit.
• Time tracking: Built-in time tracking is one of those features that’s common but not always present in task management software, which is why integrations are also important. You should be able to track billable and non-billable hours in most task management tools.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA): Most task management tools include security features to protect data and a popular one is 2FA. This feature requires users to sign on with more than a password—they have to also confirm their identity with a code from an email or SMS message.

Collaboration Tools

Task management software is made better with collaboration tools. Without ways to collaborate, you’d still rely on email, phone calls and meetings to make sure everyone is on the same page. So, as you assign tasks, reassign projects and get feedback, it’s helpful to have all of that happen in one place. Look for these tools to help you collaborate within your task management software.

• Communication tools: In the best task management software, you’ll find comment features on tasks and built-in live chat. These features can help colleagues work together, managers get updates and employees get feedback quickly.
• Task dependencies: The ability to draw a line from one task to another to show work that needs to be completed before another element from the project can take place is huge for collaboration and time management. It is one way task management software can simplify complex tasks and projects.
• Status updates: Managers may want to choose task management software with built-in status updates. These are like broadcasts you can use to notify a team with updates on tasks or projects, which saves time and keeps everyone in the loop.
• Real-time documents: Real collaboration between coworkers or teams may need to happen in documents themselves. One of the best ways to do this is to look for task management software that includes a proprietary document feature built into your app. It allows everyone to work simultaneously on the same document, so there’s no need to reload a browser or app to see what’s changed.

Integrations and Device Compatibility

The best task management software today is cloud-based, so you should be able to access your tasks and projects from any browser. Still, it’s important to ensure that your chosen task management software supports the devices your team and company use. Most software create mobile apps for iOS and Android, but not all. If not, make sure the browser version is optimized for mobile, at least.

It’s equally important to check the integrations available with task management software. Just because there’s a missing feature in the software you want, there may be a way to integrate another app for a complete solution for your business. You may only need to add a time tracking app to your stack or you might want to connect your CRM or accounting software, such as Salesforce or QuickBooks.

Ease of Use

Project and task management is notorious for ranging from simple to extremely complex. For larger businesses with multiple teams, there can be a lot of moving pieces with dependencies and various subtasks associated with each task. That’s why it’s vital to choose the right task management software for your team’s or company’s skill.

The easiest task management software has intuitive interfaces with drag-and-drop functionality, so you can create and move tasks around on a board or list. These are great entry-level task management software options. As your team or business grows, you may want to migrate to a more advanced task management software that includes Gantt charts and real-time reporting that’s more helpful for managers and stakeholders.

Free vs. Paid Task Management Software

Knowing when to use free vs. paid task management software comes down to the size of your business, projects and budget. Freelancers and ultra-small businesses can likely get away with the limitations of a free task management software solution. Limits are usually applied to the number of users, collaborators, tasks or projects, file size or advanced features.

As your needs grow, you may find you need to upgrade to a low- or mid-tier plan with more advanced features or fewer limitations. If you’re a manager who needs to view various reports to study a myriad of data, you might need to start off with a paid plan as these reports aren’t usually available on free plans.

Another big difference between free vs. paid task management software is how the plans handle or allow workflow automation. Some free plans may allow some automation, but you’re likely limited to a set number of actions per month and you may be surprised at how quickly those run out. Workflow builders are key to reducing the time you spend doing the most mundane parts of task management, so it could be worth it to you to start off with a paid plan anyway.

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