Mac Project Management Apps
I’ve been searching high and low for a great Mac based project management application. In my former job we used Microsoft Project which was actually a great app, however it isn’t available on the Mac without using Virtual PC. I tried many, many different applications ranging from free (GanttProject.org) to $300 (FastTrack Schedule). So far none of them have provided me with the feature-set I am looking for.
GanttProject.org was actually a very close fit to my needs despite being a relatively new program and missing many features others might find critical. The interface was pleasing and the price was certainly right! However it didn’t offer me the ability to easily schedule my weekends off and it didn’t allow durations of less than one day on tasks. I really wanted GanttProject.org to suit my needs, but in the end it fell short.
The next app I tried was FastTrack Schedule 8. It had a look very similar to Microsoft Project so I had a good feeling the product would suit my needs, albeit at a very expensive price. FastTrack Schedule fell short in a couple of areas though. First and foremost, it did not have any resource leveling functionality! Without that my scheduling needs are too complicated and I can’t work 90 hours in one day.
dotproject looked quite interesting. Unlike the other applications I tried, dotproject is web-based. This has its plusses and minuses. The positive is that I can access the information whenever I have an internet connection regardless if I have my own computer with me or not. This would be good while traveling. The downside is that there are times when I’d want to review the information when I have my computer, but no internet connection. There was also no way to level resources which made it a deal breaker for my needs. Neat program though!
Next up was SharedPlan Personal and Pro. I quickly threw out those apps as the interface was too disorganized. I couldn’t find a way to create a hierarchy of tasks other than to link them in a long line. My evaluation lasted about five minutes.
I even tried out OmniOutliner which I already own a license for. However it was just too flexible to be a robust project planning application when you are dealing with as many projects as I have. It is a wonderful application though!
And for real simplicity, I toyed with the idea of just using plain ol’ iCal. However moving every task when one slips is just not reasonable.
PMX seems to be the closest thing to what I need. It does have resource leveling through a plugin (additional charge for the plugin) which instantly made it a better choice than the rest of the software I tried. The interface was very clean and easy to use. The application was simple where it needed to be simple and had advanced features where I needed them to be. I could easily schedule weekends off (set by default I think). I like the idea of supporting a smaller, shareware author. Being able to export to iCal was a great bonus.
I’m leaning towards PMX, however there are still a few things missing that I would like. A priority column is a must. Along with that column being able to sort the task list by priority and/or due date within each outline level so that when I level resources important tasks and tasks that have an earlier due date are scheduled first. Because I was using the demo version I was unable to try the Resource Leveling plugin. So hopefully if I purchase the program and the plugin it will work as expected.
If anybody out there has other recommendations I would love to hear them. I’m looking for a Mac app that will allow me to enter tasks organized in hierarchal fashion, assign due dates to tasks that have a due date, assign dependencies where appropriate, assign priorities to tasks, and then create me a leveled schedule based on priority and due date. Are you out there?
Explore posts in the same categories: Computer Technology
December 13th, 2005 at 7:39 pm
Hello, Tim!
If you could return from time to time to GanttProject and share with us your thoughts and (probably) ideas, it would be great! I do want to make GP something like “Mac in the world of project management applications”. Feedback from experienced Mac users is highly appreciated!
Just FYI: weekends are supported in the upcoming GP 2.0 (the second development preview is available at the moment), hour/minute/second/millisecond level granularity is likely to appear in GP 2.1
Best regards,
Dmitry Barashev, GanttProject co-administrator
September 16th, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Tim,
I too am looking for a good project management application for Mac. After evaluating several, I’m almost settled on Fastrack 9. Would you happen to have any updates to this post? Any new ideas or suggestions…
Darcy
September 17th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Hi Darcy - Yes. I’ve been trying the demo of Omni Plan and I’m extremely impressed. It is really what I’ve been looking a long time for. It is still in beta and has some bugs, but once it is officially released I think it will be a winner.
October 22nd, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Hi Tim,
Reached this page via Controlling Chaos podcast webpage.
I was pleased to read your comments regarding Omni Plan, since I have been looking at it and would echo that it looks very promising. But I’m always out to consider all possible options before committing to purchase software, so I was wondering whether you had any comments regarding how you consider OmniPlan compares to Xtime.
I think if OmniPlan is made in a way that integrates conveniently with OmniOutliner (which I already have and enjoy) it would be very powerful.
Best wishes from a friend in mac,
Jorge
Jorge S. Burns, PhD
October 26th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Hi Jorge, thanks for the comments. I haven’t done much with trying to integrate OmniPlan with OmniOutliner. Although since they share the same roots I would imaging there is probably some ability to import/export the information either way.
So far from what I’ve seen, OmniPlan looks great. For me it was much more intuitive than Xtime. My only gripe with OmniPlan is the announced price. It is a little more expensive than what I want to spend based on my needs. Over the past year or so I’ve created a pretty good Project Planning template in OmniOutliner that is currently meeting my needs. No gantt charts or anything like that, but it provides me with some good time calculations that serve me well.
October 27th, 2006 at 5:16 am
I’ve tried FastTrack and a few others, but eventually settled for Merlin, a very nice Ma-only application from the company ProjectWizards in Germany. I’ve used mind maps (using NovaMind) for some time to brainstorm the initial WBS, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Merlin actually has the capability of importing a NovaMind file and generate the task list from it!
Although not as expensive as FastTrack, Merlin isn’t especially cheap, but well worth its price. It is available on http://www.projectwizards.net
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 am
I have licences for several commercial OS X project management applications including Merlin 2.0.5, OmniPlan 1.1.2, iTaskX 2.1 and xTime Project 4.5. They are all pretty robust, with varying strengths and weaknesses. xTime is the kid brother of the bunch, but all offer good levels of functionality and import/export of MS Project files. I tend to use Merlin and OmniPlan most, but that might be idiosyncrasy. My background is robust in PM involving executive responsibility for complex, multinational programmes with budgets near USD 1 billion but I now operate in a boutique consultancy so have not stress-tested any of these products in a demanding multi-user context. For the individual project manager, these cover the essentials of good project management and continue to receive development investment from their respective stables…
October 8th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Hi,
I’m with SharedPlan Software and if you’re still interested in such tools I would encourage you to check out the progress we’ve made in the last couple of years. Basically, we’ve improved the user interface as well as added a hosted project server.
Also, there’s a video showing simple creation of project (sub) levels.
If you need more info or would like to discuss any of this please drop me a piece of email.
Roger
http://www.sharedplan.com