5 Must-Have Features in Enterprise Project Management Software

Enterprise project management exists to develop a methodology of management designed for larger, more complex projects. The need to track finances, tasks and resources, therefore, becomes even more critical than it already is for other projects.

To get the most control over these unruly projects, which are going to have a large number of users, you’re going to want an enterprise project management software that can give you strong reporting and analytical tools.

While enterprise PM is for large-scale projects, it involves much the same features that you’d use for smaller projects. That’s because, like in any project, you’re going to want a tool that can give you both an overview and detailed look at your project’s metrics.

That said, there are certain features that lend themselves to enterprise, ones that will help align business goals with the goals of the project and help with communications across teams, project professions and management.

The following are five of the essential tools you’re going to want in your enterprise project tools.

1. Program and Portfolio Management

If you’re managing one or many projects, you’re going to want metrics that give you an accurate picture of their progress. Project dashboards are the ideal tool to display the key indicators of your project, so you can track a project’s or projects’ progress and spot issues before they become problems.

An online enterprise project software provides up-to-date business intelligence gathered from your team in real-time. From the dashboard view of your software you can monitor tasks, teams, costs, health and more, in clear charts and graphs, which provide a wealth of information on project’s or program’s progress at a glance.

Now you have one screen in which all your projects or program is updated instantly, so you can see when something is not tracking to your schedule. And you can drill down to view the team’s workload, which is color-coded, and reallocate resources as needed to bring the project or program back on schedule.

2. Estimating and Scheduling

Using an online Gantt chart makes estimating and scheduling enterprise projects more efficient. A Gantt chart gives you a visual timeline on which to place your tasks, task dependencies and milestones. Once you’ve set the duration of those tasks you’re closer to estimating the scope of work necessary to complete the project on time.

Because your enterprise software is online, when team members complete their tasks, those updates are instantly reflected on the Gantt chart. If you notice that a task needs more or less time than you at first estimated, editing the Gantt chart is as simple as dragging-and-dropping the start and end dates.

The Gantt also works with your project dashboard, so when one tasks is update on the Gantt that status shows on the dashboard. Now you can track performance overall or in detail, which means keeping your project on track.

3. Team Engagement

Sticking with the Gantt chart for a moment, you can use the feature as more than a scheduling tool. It can also be used as a platform for team engagement. Both you and your team can attach comments, files and other documents right at the task level of the Gantt chart. Better still, when that task is updated an email automatically alerts everyone, so those team members working on the task are informed on its progress.

Discussions need not only regulated to the Gantt chart. You don’t want to keep jumping from your large scale project management toolsto some other app like Skype or Slack whenever your team wants to communicate. Keep them on the same program with a discussion feature that allows one-on-one chat or group discussions where you and your team can brainstorm, attach relevant files and stay in touch. This is especially important if your teams are distributed.

4. Task Management

The ability to plan, track and schedule your team’s work is another essential part of any viable enterprise PM software. It’s imperative that you have a tool that allows you to view all the work across your team on a single page. That way you can schedule ahead by knowing how evenly your resources have been allocated.

The tool makes reassigning team members simple. Whether the team members needs more or less work, just click on the date and change their tasks. This resources bottlenecks and and project blocks quickly and easily.

To make task management that much clearer, you can also color code team member’s schedules to see at a glance whether they’re allocated, over-allocated, unallocated, not working or if it’s a holiday.

Again, if your enterprise project software is online then you’re getting real-time data when viewing your team’s workload. Plus, it’s easy to export and share resource updates either through group chat pages or email.

5. Integration

While it’s ideal to get you and your team on only on software that’s not always possible. There are likely other apps that you and your team have grown used to using or can work in congress with an enterprise project management software to create more efficiencies. Therefore, you want to have a software that allows you to integrate with your favorite apps.

An enterprise PM software that can automate your data across your tools after a one-time setup is going to allow you easy access to those productivity tools that you use, such as Salesforce, QuickBooks, Dropbox and more.

Seamless integration with an online enterprise PM software keeps all your applications under one virtual roof. The last thing you want to do when in the midst of a large project is jump around from application to application, wasting time or importing spreadsheets and reformatting them to fit your main enterprise software.