Project Management in QuickBase
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008Project Management is one of the most popular uses of QuickBase, but unlike umbrellas, one size of Project Management does not fit all.
Project Management in QuickBase has some strengths and weaknesses, and knowing them can help you figure out the best solution for your organization.
Strengths
Customizable - The most important thing about QuickBase Project Management is that it is customizable. If you need special reports, new tables, or to keep track of new fields, you can create them in minutes, and mold QuickBase to meet your needs. If you are not the kind of person who makes those modifications on your own, there are plenty of support professionals who can help.
Interactive and Available
- Since QuickBase is on the web, it is always available. Maybe you are keeping track of a large scale printing job. It is very easy for each participant in the process - the designer, the printer, packaging and billing, to note in QuickBase when they are finished, and the task ready for the next stage.
Because of this availability, Project Management in QuickBase is not frozen in time. It is a tool that provides up-to-the-minute reports on every facet of projects, even projects that last for months. We all know that projects change over time, so having a tool that can change with your project makes the tool valuable not just at the beginning of a project, but every day. And QuickBase’s automatic emails can provide reminders about tasks that might otherwise slide.
Easy to Use
- Tools like MS Project are very powerful, but they can be a real challenge to understand. Our experience, though, has been that anyone who can use a spreadsheet has an easy time with QuickBase. Templates like Project Manager Plus provide a strong set of features, without overwhelming.
Weaknesses
Even with all these strengths, there are situations where QuickBase is not the best tool.
Rolling Forward
- Most QuickBase Project Management Templates roll forward - that is, if you change a date in the first task of a project, all the dates for future tasks move forward. But if you are in a business with hard deadlines, moving dates forward is not an option. In that case, though, you could customize a template to hold deadlines firm. If task 1 takes too long, someone further down the process just has to speed up to make up the time.Resource Allocation
- QuickBase does provide a resource allocation report on many of its templates, but this is not always enough. Say you build houses, and you only have one person who can clear a lot for construction. If you have three jobs starting at the same time, your bull dozer operator can’t clear them all at the same time. The Resource Allocation report will tell you that the person is over-committed, but ideally you would like the application to assign the person to each job, one after the other, and set schedules accordingly. That is a little over QuickBase’s head.Bottom Line
So if you are a full time planner, planning complex projects with all kinds of stakeholders, QuickBase might not be able to do everything you need. If you are a person who wears many hats, project planning among them, most likely QuickBase will provide a tool powerful enough to take care of your needs, but easy enough to use that you should get value straight out of the box.
