Office in the clouds: three popular online service for project management

One of the best ways to increase the efficiency of the staff in the office - to plant the company on good service to work together. In this review, we consider the most popular "cloud" solutions for project management

The wide spread of the Internet in today's world has led to the fact that the cloud technology lies more and more of the tasks, and the main program on the computer was the browser. This applies to both domestic and business users. Document management, communication, accounting - all of these processes in offices and factories arise with Web services. Of course, complex packaged CRM-systems are still used in many companies, but there is a growing demand for so-called SaaS-collaborative applications. SaaS stands for "software on demand» (Software as a service) and indicates online services, that there is no hassle to install, configure and update. In addition, they provide ubiquitous access to work from any computer. We are sure that there are readers of 3DNews project managers or their authorized employees, who are tired of the clutter in your organization, or just want to move the workflow to the next level. In this review, we consider the three most popular Russian service, collaborative online - "Bitrix 24", "Megaplan" and TeamLab.
"Bitrix 24"
Service "Bitrix 24" was released in light relatively recently - in April 2012, but due to the reputation and efforts of the "parent" of the company has already gained wide popularity. Built on the engine «1C-Bitrix Site Manager" Cloud is now among the priorities of the "1C-Bitrix". At the heart of the service is the concept of social intranet - the information environment within a single enterprise, with the number of employees does not matter - they may be just a couple or a few hundred. Begin to use the service, simply enter e-mail administrator and specify the third-level domain (like mycompany.bitrix24.ru). Then it can be changed on your own, but it needs to go to a paid plan.

Home «Bitrix 24"

Work with the service is similar to the use of social networks. This implies two consequences: first, there will be easy to get used to any employee who has an account "Vkontakte" or "Odnoklassniki", and secondly - "Bitrix 24" may be a useful substitute for these services. As is known, office workers love to spend time in social networks - so it's better looking pictures and put huskies within the corporate intranet. Similarity to the social networks at a glance service gives a "live feed" that users logging into your account, see the home page. It consists of the latest updates of employees who add tasks, download the document, a work report and the like. Also in the film can leave messages addressed to other employees, with attached files, links, images and videos. Thus, the tape can be aware of current developments in the company, while it can be filtered by the authors, groups, dates and other parameters, not to read everything. A record in it you can comment and mark huskies.

"Buzz" in the "Bitrix 24"

Besides the "Buzz" service provides professional functionality for workflow and communications between employees. In the left menu, the list of available sections of the service: it is "My Stuff", "Group», «CRM», «Company" and "Settings". Discuss them in detail. "My Stuff" - is the information generated by employees: tasks, calendar, downloads, photos, and messages in the film. All this is available to view both you and other users of the portal - each employee has a personal web page that displays the profile information and the listed sections.

Page employee "Bitrix 24"

Problems - the most important component of planning. They can assign both themselves and their subordinates, if any. Need to provide responsible, select run-time priority, you can add a description and a reminder, and connect the monitors and use the CRM. If you do not have time to fill out the fields, you can use the form to create a quick task. In addition, there is the ability to save templates of repetitive tasks to avoid routine. As for the view you add a task in the list, then you can use a filter that is used simultaneously as a search in the archives - for completed tasks do not disappear. The filter has a lot of modes - "I am responsible," "I Performer" and so on, up to the period when the problem was at work. Finally, there are several modes of mapping tasks: "From subtasks", "flat", "Gantt chart", "Reports". Gantt will be useful to users, experienced in business planning, but reports on the work have to produce almost everything, and present here the designer will be very helpful.

Add a task to "Bitrix 24"

Calendar in the "Bitrix 24" has three display modes - month, week, day - and shows how you add tasks with time reference, and separately by the event. They can be added using the scheduler or independently, they include a description of the invited participants and other settings. It is important to mention that you can connect and disconnect events from the active calendar: by default it is a personal calendar and your tasks, but you can create new calendars or add other users as well as external calendar as CalDav (it uses Google Calendar), and MS Outlook.

Calendar in the "Bitrix 24"

Working with files in general, is not anything special - a procedure for loading and control rather typical. But there is one curious detail is provided access to the files via WebDAV, allowing you to connect a folder in the operating system as a separate network drive (for example, under the letter Z) and work with it in the "Explorer", as with Dropbox. In the help section provides detailed instructions for Windows and Mac OS X. Galleries too are no different from those in social networks: this part is more related opportunities to entertainment - it is expected that employees will upload photos from vacations, corporate events or other activities.
For the separation of interest in the service, there are also groups in which users can enter - for example, "holidays", "sales training" or "technology." The groups are the same features as in the "My Stuff" - "Buzz", a calendar, photos, and others, but, in addition, there is a section Wiki, with which you can create a knowledge base on this or that issue. The important role played by section CRM. It allows you to keep track of contacts, companies, deals, leads and products, track events, sales funnel and design reports. In the settings, you can integrate with e-mail and online shopping. And in the "Company" are invited to the portal new employees - just send them an email. Each employee can be assigned to the position and select a unit to which it will apply. Units are added to the page, "Structure", which displays a tree diagram of the organization - and that applies to anything. Each division has its head and - if necessary - subsidiaries.

The structure of the "Bitrix 24"

"Bitrix 24" lets you fine-tune the policy of access rights on the site. There are several levels of rules that define a list of possible acts. In addition, individual access rights are configured for each downloaded file or create a folder - for example, employees do not need to see the books of the company. The same applies to groups is an open group, but there are closed, the entry into which must be approved by an administrator.
In addition to all the above, the service is used to control the working hours of staff. Arriving at the office, the user is required to make the clock run of the day, in the time available to put on the record a pause, and finish at the end of the working day and send the head of the report, which lists all done for the day. In addition, the site is schedule absences, where there are gaps all employees associated with these or other reasons (vacation, sick leave, etc.). Another feature of service - a built messenger. It allows you to correspond with all the employees of the company and it replaces the ICQ, all the more so for the "Bitrix 24" there is an application for Windows and Mac, which allows you to stay connected even after you close your browser. There are applications for mobile devices, while ready-only version for the iPhone and iPad , but will soon be released and for Android. Thus, a manager can send messages to their subordinates, no matter where they are.

Messenger «Bitrix 24" for Windows

Now let's talk about the cost of the service. There are three tariff plans - "Project", "Command" and "Company." The first is free, but has a limit: up to 12 employees, 5 GB of space on the server, in addition to some of the functions it is cut down. The remaining tariff plans are respectively 4990 and 9990 rubles. a month, and they differ affordable place (50 and 100 GB) and functionality: time tracking, activity reports, briefings and use your own domain is available only on the most expensive tariff. Price is not so low, but the benefits of using the service in the company can easily outweigh it.
"Megaplan"
"Megaplan" appeared on the market, SaaS-services much earlier than the "Bitrix 24" - in 2008, with the Development started in the two years before that for internal use in the online store "Yutinet." Since then, the service has grown and gained more than 2,500 customers, some of which are quite serious organizations - such as Akado, RuTube, Avon, «Channel" and others. And in March 2012, a package of 51% of "Megaplan" was bought by "1C", which is now owned by the two services.
The product has several tariff plans: "Collaboration», «CRM: Customers & Sales" and "Business Manager", which are 152, 305 and 406 rubles per month for a single license and different set of available features. There is the opportunity to try any of the tariff plans, within 30 days from the restrictions on the number of tasks, transactions and so on. By the way, especially for private users the company released a separate free service "Miniplan."

Home "Megaplan"

By registering, the "Megaplan" can enter the selected domain (such mycompany.megaplan.ru). From the point of view of the service interface is very different from the "Bitrix 24." "Megaplan" does not look like a social network, it is rather an organizer: there is no "buzz", messenger or upload photos, but there are modules "Messages", "Employees", "Operations" and others - depending on your plan. The design was created in Art, and he characterized the simplicity and style (as well as similarities to other works of the studio, such as "Yandeks.Pochta"). Each section is designated its own icon on the control panel, and when you hover the mouse over them changing the color of the strip that separates the content of this panel section.

The color of the median change when you hover over the icon

Posted in Beautiful view mode also pleased desktop that opens when you click on the icon "Megaplan." Here there is "taskvoch" - a white board with a clock in the center of the dial which highlighted the case today. At the most the board can draw markers and stickers to place notes. Displayed next to the news, and activity feed list.

Corporate "taskvoch" from Art Lebedev Studio

Consider the functionality of the modules, which in "Megaplane" there is more than ten. Starting a "Task" with his work begins. The tasks can be displayed in lists, hierarchy or as a Gantt chart, and have many functions: the name, the essence, the director responsible, the deadline, the degree of completeness. When you add a task you can also specify a list, attach files, add tags, assign a repetition of participants (this may be collaborators, auditors and customer), plan of work, to introduce bonuses or penalties. In addition, there is a separate type of tasks - projects where the designated manager, the team and there is a starting point. Tasks can be filtered as the letter: "Inbox", "Outbox", "discount", "Completed", "Paused" and so on. Added and custom filters based on a combination of different conditions.

Problem in the "Megaplane"

Another module is designed for planning of time - a "to do", which usually include small current events: That's where to go, call tomu-to and the like. The section has three pages: a list of daily and weekly, where you can see things in a convenient format. Clearly, in the calendar includes only those that are anchored to the time, and if you add a "quick" thing, it is only in the check-list, which, incidentally, may be few. You can add business release period on the calendar or by using intelligent input line. "Megaplan" understands Russian and can recognize phrases like "27 December at 17:30 the plane" or "today, take out the trash." When editing a case, you can choose the type, "business", "call", "meeting", "meeting", "holiday", "sport". They differ in the available fields: everywhere there is a description, time, repetition and reminders, but not all members are present and place. Cases in the calendar can be shared between these categories and the participants. Another feature of service - it supports two-way integration with Google Calendar.

Calendar in the "Megaplane." All business for today

Since "Megaplan" is designed for team work, one of the core modules is also a "staff." You can add people in the mass, and in a single order, pointing mail, name, position, and if necessary - username and password and complete personal data, including Skype, TIN, date of employment, and more. Each employee has a separate page, and together they share the same list, which can be filtered by department and status - in the office, freelancers, and so on. In addition, there are sections in the module "Salary", "Bonus", "Structure", "Relationships", "holiday", "Reports", where you can view or plan various organizational aspects of the device. It is worth adding that "Megaplan" lets you fine tune the policy of access rights, according to which each group of employees will be able to perform actions on the service in strictly designated limits.
With regard to communications between employees, they are carried out using the module "Messages", which acts as an internal company e-mail. The message has recipients, subject, content, and attachments, they are divided into incoming, sent and deleted. More RAM in it, and replace ICQ, as "Bitrix 24" with his messenger, "Megaplan" can not. However, the message - it's not the whole arsenal of product: even here there is a section "Discussions", intended for the panel discussion of news, corporate parties, plans to work and the like. It is built on the principle of a forum where there are themes and cues participants. Sharing files between users takes place in the module "Documents", where you can download the service texts, presentations, PDF, tables, images, and everything else. The following file types can be viewed online, and the pages / slides are turned with the arrow keys. Editing is not carried out by means of service - it needs to download a file to your computer.

In "Megaplane" You can view downloaded documents

CRM-component "Megaplan" is included into the high line rates and is quite advanced. Here, there is a module "Finance", "Clients", "Transactions", "Accounts", "Reports", which enables you to record customer base, execute transactions, invoices, monitor cash flow, generate jobs and financial reports - they, in turn, can then be exported to "1C-Accounting" (incidentally, the last product will be better integration). Все это требует от пользователей сервиса базовых знаний бухгалтерии.
Напоследок стоит сказать, что у «Мегаплана» присутствуют приложения для iOS и Android , которые позволят с удобством пользоваться сервисом в мобильном режиме.
TeamLab
Платформа TeamLab была разработана латвийской компанией Ascensio System SIA в 2009 году, а сегодня доступна уже на восьми языках, включая русский. В отличие от рассмотренных ранее сервисов, TeamLab — это открытое программное обеспечение. Исходный код продукта доступен на SourceForge и распространяется по условиям лицензии GNU GPL v3, хотя туда и не были включены некоторые последние функции. «Облачная» версия TeamLab доступна бесплатно с ограничением в 1 Гбайт дискового пространства, а за $49 в месяц можно пользоваться дополнительными сервисами — 50 Гбайт места и улучшенным загрузчиком файлов.

Главная страница TeamLab

Как и в других сервисах, после регистрации вы можете войти по адресу своего домена вроде mycompany.TeamLab.com, а потом сменить его на свой собственный домен, причем для этого необязательно платить. Первое, что видит пользователь при входе в TeamLab, — окно с иконками разделов сайта: «Проекты», «CRM», «Документы», «Сообщество». Разработчики не стали смешивать все в одном интерфейсе, а отделили одно от другого. В данном случае такое решение оправданно: функциональность каждого из разделов получилась достаточно широкой, и это не пошло в ущерб удобству. В то же время чат, календарь и персональные настройки доступны на верхней панели из любого раздела.

Первое, что пользователь видит при входе

Рассмотрим, как устроены доступные разделы, и начнем с проектов. Первое действие — добавление нового проекта, у которого вводится название, описание, назначаются менеджер и команда. У проектов есть вехи и задачи, которые относятся к этим вехам (задачи, в свою очередь, могут включать в себя подзадачи). Настроек не очень много — ответственный и крайний срок. Элементы в списке можно сортировать и фильтровать по различным параметрам. На других вкладках участники проекта могут создавать темы с обсуждением тех или иных вопросов, работать с документами, вести учет времени с помощью таймера. Находящийся в стороне раздел «Команда» позволяет менеджеру проектов управлять правами доступа других пользователей.

Предстоит добавить первый проект

Раздел «Документы» является особенной фишкой TeamLab. Здесь можно не только загружать файлы с компьютера, но и редактировать их или создавать новые средствами собственного редактора документов. Поддерживается работа с текстовыми документами, таблицами, презентациями и рисунками, и стоит заметить, что редактор в TeamLab весьма мощный — он может достойно соперничать с Google Docs и Microsoft Office Web Apps. Если учесть возможность совместной работы с членами команды и то, насколько тесно он интегрирован с другими модулями сервиса, его вполне можно взять на вооружение в компании. Еще одна фишка раздела «Документы» — поддержка других «облачных» хранилищ, таких как Dropbox, Google Drive, Box.com и Zoho. Вы можете импортировать документы из этих сервисов (за исключением Dropbox) или настроить постоянный доступ к ним (за исключением Zoho).

Редактор текста в TeamLab

Коммуникации между сотрудниками проходят в разделе «Сообщество». Добавить новых пользователей можно вручную или импортом из адресной книги Google, Yahoo!, Windows Live и файла в формате CSV. Каждый пользователь имеет свою карточку с фотографией и анкетными данными. Сотрудники делятся по группам, у каждой из которых есть руководитель. Переписываться друг с другом можно в чате, где есть приватные сообщения и общие комнаты. Функциональность раздела также включает полный набор социальных сервисов: «Блоги», «Форумы», «Фото», «Закладки», Wiki, где можно воспользоваться многими возможностями современных коммуникаций в рамках корпоративного интранета.

Добавление новых пользователей на портал

По сравнению с другими модулями CRM обладает чуть более широкими настройками. Тут можно добавить компании и персоны, включив в информацию о контактах достаточный объем данных, или импортировать их из файла CSV, указав при этом параметры обработки. Задачи добавляются как и в разделе «Проекты», но у них еще может быть обозначена категория — звонок, обед, встреча и так далее. Отдельная вкладка называется «Возможные сделки». Там можно создавать сделки, указывая бюджет, стадию и вероятность успеха. Также в CRM добавляются мероприятия, к которым привязываются события, задачи, участники и документы. Что касается событий, то с ними можно работать в календаре. Он не относится к определенным разделам, но туда может включаться сводная информация из других модулей — дни рождения контактов, вехи проектов и прочие. Календарь вполне типовой, он может отображать день, неделю, месяц или произвольный период и иметь вид списка. Поддерживается создание календарей из ленты iCal.

Календарь в TeamLab

Как видите, функциональность бесплатного сервиса TeamLab не настолько широкая, как в других рассмотренных коммерческих проектах. Что касается поддержки мобильных устройств, то разработчики не стали выпускать специальные приложения для iOS и Android, а создали отдельную веб-версию сервиса, адаптированную под экраны смартфонов. С ней удобно работать в любом мобильном браузере.

Conclusion

Мы рассмотрели три наиболее популярных в России «облачных» сервиса для совместной работы в команде — «Битрикс 24», «Мегаплан» и TeamLab. Все они довольно быстро осваиваются пользователями, легко интегрируются в компанию и помогают значительно упростить многие коммуникационные и управленческие процессы в повседневной деятельности. Говорить о том, какой продукт лучше или хуже других, однозначно нельзя — они все имеют совершенно разный подход и стоимость. «Битрикс 24» является наиболее современным сервисом с развитой системой взаимодействия между сотрудниками. В малой команде его можно использовать бесплатно, а вот при большом количестве пользователей придется выкладывать 4 990/9 990 рублей в месяц. «Мегаплан» скорее похож на классический органайзер, перенесенный в «облако», и, хотя здесь нет бесплатного тарифа, расценки являются наиболее доступными — до 406 рублей в месяц за лицензию. TeamLab имеет преимущество в виде встроенного редактора документов, но в остальном по функциональности сильно отстает от конкурентов — это объясняется его бесплатностью.
И напоследок стоит добавить, что если у вас есть желание использовать один из рассмотренных сервисов, но нет доверия к хранению информации в глобальном «облаке», то за вами остается возможность развернуть коробочную версию у себя на сервере.