Introduction
Zoho Projects is a web-based application that sets a platform of a comprehensive collection of features to support organizational information flow within and outside the business. Zoho allows users start up their projects by use of a smart project-management tool, form interactive documents by use of the Sheet, Writer, and Presentation tools, and cooperate with the website visitors by use of the forms features. The site is an online project management tool. It offers a means for small business managers to plan, cope and track projects from scratch to the end.
Advantages of Zoho Projects
Zoho Projects works well for small enterprises. Its application offers a common sense tactic to creating tasks, scheduling, planning, and collaborating the projects to complete it as planned. This application enables organizations to manage projects, thus minimizing administrative costs. The Zoho interface is intuitive, and users can easily create the custom interface by use of the WYSIWYG configuration option. By providing the right PM tools, Zoho helps organizations to accomplish their projects quickly and fast. Zoho has a BugTracker feature which helps track bugs during the process. Its customizable fields allow the ability to add files, and comments depending on the user requirements.
Disadvantages of Zoho Projects
Zoho has some bottlenecks. One of them is that in a task, to log hours the user ought to scroll to the bottom. For many entries, this is cumbersome. Its interface is unprofessional, and administrative users may not find it attractive to use. When dealing with larger files, Zoho has a sluggish performance. The last disadvantage is that Zoho is designed for small businesses since it is only suitable for businesses transactions limited to a maximum of ten currencies.
Comparison to Microsoft Project
There are several similarities and differences between the Zoho Projects and the Microsoft Project. The two are both web-based and designed for small organizations. However, Microsoft Projects is also suitable for mid-size businesses and enterprises. On the mobile support, Zoho projects have an iPhone and Android app while the Microsoft project is not compatible with any mobile platforms. The Microsoft Project is more complicated to learn and use compared to the easy to use Zoho Project’s interface. It would take more time for users to understand the Microsoft Project as compared to the Zoho Projects.
Important steps to getting started
With Zoho Projects, it is possible to create projects and cooperate with the team. Projects can either be created or retrieved from an existing project template. Groups can be created and projects classified based on the business need. To get started with projects one should click ‘Projects’ and then ‘New Project’ on the right. Clicking the Plus icon in Group Name creates a new project group only for the administrators. Tasks can also be created. After creating a task, one can move, copy, and reorder a task. Additionally, one can set repetition and reminders for each task. The set work hours for a task can be edited if required. To accomplish this, click open to view task details page of the designated task, edit the Work selection available at the lower right and choose ‘Set task duration as work’ in ‘Update Work’, to regress the work hours. The reports in Zoho include choices like Resource utilization charts, Gantt chart, and Zoho Reports for all projects of a specific user. To open the reports page, click Reports & Gantt Charts on the Tasks & Milestones, to open the Milestone Gantt, Chronology Gantt, Resource Utilization chart, and the Task Reports for a certain Project.
