Stuff I use

Several weeks ago I was on the lookout for a project organization tool to help us track all the stuff we’ve been working on. I work with a small group of great people and while we each have our roles and specialties we also tend to help each other out. So we thought it would be nice if we kept everything somewhere visible to everyone in the team, so if anyone was bored with what she is doing she can just look at the list of our exciting projects and go do something else.

Teamwork meant we were working on the same documents at the same time. Teamwork is great, but we found ourselves e-mailing documents back and forth and soon enough there would be several versions of the same document floating around somewhere.

So. We needed: 1) We needed a centralized place where we can store all our projects and all the stuff associated with each of them: Word documents, ppt presentations, Excel spreadsheets, Photoshop and html files, stylesheets, links, e-mails, etc. 2) We needed a way to track edits on these documents so if back-tracking is necessary we can do it easily. 3) In addition to that we have a constant flow of new ideas for future things to work on and we needed a place to store them so that we can come back to them later. Oh. And we needed this solution to be accessible from the web so that we can work on them from any computer.

My number 1 choice was Google. Each of us already had a Google account. We can save documents within Google Apps. We can have different notebooks and tag them for each project. Then maybe we can keep track of deadlines with Google Calendar. Problem with that was…it would take time to link them all together and organize it in a way that will work with everyone.

I looked at Workspaces. That wouldn’t work.

I looked at Zoho. That might work, but there’s cost involved. The cost wasn’t a big deal, but in the world of Web 2.0, I was pretty sure I would find a solution that I wouldn’t have to pay for.

I looked at Basecamp. They have a free version, but it limits you to just one project and no storage at all. There’s gotta be something out there.

And then I found Wrike. It’s free and it’s simple. There aren’t any features we don’t need. It covers just what we need it to cover.

Everything is organized in folders and subfolders and tasks. There’s a built-in calendar to keep track of due dates. And when you’re done setting it up, you can invite other users just by putting their e-mail addresses down. Those users get an e-mail telling them that they are active participants in whatever project you created, with a link to the folder.

There’s a place where I can make notes. Other users sharing the project can edit it, and their edits are time-stamped so you can track who did what, so if you ever have to back-track it’s all documented right there.

There’s a place for file uploads. This is by far my favorite feature. You download the file so you can work on it, and when you’re done doing your part you can upload the new version. While you certainly can, I don’t delete previous versions that were uploaded so that we have the option to go back to a previous version. But since uploads are time-stamped, it’s easy to figure out which one is the latest version.

Then…Wrike also sends e-mails to remind you of overdue tasks, or to inform you when a project is created and has been assigned to you, or of changes to a project (if a project was deleted or if your role was changed and who changed it…) that you are a part of. This way you don’t have to keep checking for changes in status, etc.

The only thing I have against Wrike is that it does not work with Safari.

Other than that, I think I’ve got my needs covered in this area.

I’ve been using it for about a couple of weeks now and I love it so far. My colleagues love it too.