Liquid Planner Online MS Project Replacement
If you’re using a large project management app like Microsoft Project, you are probably continually banging your head on the wall trying to get the huge app to share information with others without a giant set of servers and staff to run it.
There is a definitely niche of enterprises that fall through the crack between those small enough to use a simple, Web-based solution with fewer tools but lots of collaboration and those large enough to set up their own services to host MS Project. It’s the goal of Liquid Planner to fill in that gap.
At first glance, the service seems to fill that need and do it well. While not as robust in features as Project, it’s not quite as over-simplified as a lot of its other online competition. Liquid Planner offers faster integration and a much lower time-to-proficiency time frame than Project, but includes many of the features of the MS app that are considered “must haves” to those who use it.
The immediate views are really well done, with organization in a Gantt chart with quickly-recognizable color coding to give at-a-glance overviews. There’s enough power for real depth to show as well, though.
Switching to a prioritized task list with one click, you can then look at the most crucial or pending tasks and how they’re progressing as well. Drag-and-drop capability allows for easy reorganization and fast changes to keep up with your project’s flow.
Priorities can be set globally for either teams or entire organizations, so you can quickly ad resources to a new priority or a task that’s falling behind without a lot of cut-and-paste rewrites. Multi-leveling of projects and tasks allows you to go as deep as you’d like with them as well, so if you want to get down to a task micro-management level, that’s infinitely possible.
Tasks can be converted to whole new projects and visa-versa so something that becomes larger than it is (or spins off) can be handled quickly.
In today’s world of outsourcing, far-flung offices, work-at-home contributors, freelancers, and more, this tool is one of the better larger-project apps out there. While it’s likely over-robust for most freelancers or small shops, larger outfits will find it extremely useful. At $25/month (prepaid yearly) or $35/month (monthly), Liquid Planner is definitely not overpriced.
