Will you be productive with Producteev?

Producteev either finds itself in an honoured position or an unfortunate position in being first up in my review of Web based task management productivity tools. In Producteev, I see a lot of yet untapped potential. It uses the advantages that come with being an online platform but for me, it fails to check some boxes for basic functionality and fails to utilise the information at it’s disposal. One cannot argue over the price, being free, but I think there are better options out there.

 

Features and Functionality

There are three aspects I want to cover in this section, project setup, task handling and collaboration.

Project Setup: This section shows up to the left of the main screen and covers the people within your network, the projects list and the labels that can be used for categorise tasks. All simple to understand and utilise. At this level one can also search across people, tasks and labels.

Task Handling: Tasks can be quickly easily entered. With each task an associated sub-window can define task dates, priority, people allocation, sub tasks and activities on that task. Standard todo list functionality for the most part.

Collaboration: This is where the benefits of online system can differentiated a task management system from standalone local systems. Producteev has several nice features associated with this including,

• Invite members by email to join a group
• Can leave messages, preventing email chains
• Can upload files
• Can track changes, comments activities
• The ability to follow tasks and be updated with changes

Such advantages over traditional local collaboration really gives such online tools a clear theoretical advantage, which brings us the mobile aspect.

 

Mobile platform

Producteev projects can be viewed across several platforms including Mac OS, Android, IOS and of course it’s web interface. The IOS platform is quite usable for viewing and light editing functions of the tasks but notable that some functionality is missing. For example, in the Web version you can indicate which task is in progress, but not so for the IOS version. Given the importance of in progress view, this could be improved.

 

Is it effective/Productive?

For basic task sharing among colleagues who may be geographically distant I can see Producteev could be a workable solution. It is also reasonable straightforward and quick to enter tasks, set dates and people. All good points. For me personally, the inability to handle task imports from other tools and the low importance given to subtasks would be deal breakers.

Free vs. Premium

There are two versions of the platform out there. The key difference lies with the integration with MS Outlook.

 

Areas for improvement

• The issue of task import really needs to be addressed. Many companies will sketch out tasks on another app and without the ability to effortlessly import them a significant roadblock is in place preventing adoption.
• The lack of control over subtasks is a clear omission. Scheduled dates are also needed for these especially as they may be delegated to various people and it would be advantageous to have a tree view including these in the main task window.
• The IOS app needs to be able to indicate when a task is in progress. This is available in the Web version but not mobile. Since the ability to view “In Progress”, tasks is critical for some flows like Kanban, again another oversight.
• Given the tool has access to the tasks, resources, dates and even which task is currently being performed it could do much more with that data. For example, overviews for project hours, timesheets, which task is taking longer than planned etc.
• I do not want to upload files. I would like to link to local files for collaboration. Uploading in some cases is not acceptable for security reasons or even logistical for large files. So, links to local files would be good.
• Looks like only tasks and subtasks can be set. Need another level of hierarchy? Could be difficult.

 

Summary

In theory, online collaboration tools offer many advantages over traditional collaboration techniques and software. However, I can’t help but feel Producteev has not even scratched the surface of that yet. As a free collaborative todo list one cannot really complain but I think for the corporate world key functionality and administrative issues need to be dealt with.