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5 Reasons Wrike is the Best Project Management Software

Professionals, marketing teams, creative teams- we all need a project management solution to organize their workload. You can’t just keep everything listed in a Microsoft Excel sheet. Well, you could, but it’s not very efficient.

There are many options to choose from- Asana, Jira, Basecamp, Trello,

A client management solution will not only help you organize all the pieces of a client task in one place, but you can prioritize activities, set deadlines, create recurring tasks, manage projects, and track files and keep all your client’s information and communication in one place so everyone is on the same page. And that’s just the beginning.

There are numerous options on the market that will help you organize your business and increase your efficiency. So which one should you choose?

Some teams choose their client management solution based on the specific elements they need. For instance, engineering and design teams might utilize a Kanban board which provides teams a way to instantly see what members are working on right now, what tasks they have completed, and what is coming up. These are great for teams that handle long-term projects.

At Interrupt Media, we use Wrike. It is our preferred client management software for a number of awesome reasons.

1. Wrike UI is customizable

Whether you use kanban boards, lists, or Gantt charts- Wrike’s project management tool can do it all. You can customize the UI to fit your taste or to better suit your project role and needs.

• To begin, you can create a client project or a folder.
  – Use Projects to manage tasks that are part of a larger goal. Projects can have their own attributes separate from tasks, like Status and Finish Date, which you can track.
  – Use Folders as containers to organize and categorize work, making it easier to find and share information. Unlike Projects, Folders do not have attributes you can track.
• From there, you can choose your default view as a list, a project board, a table, or a Gantt chart.
  – A list is simply that, a list of your tasks organized by due date.
  – A project board displays your project in board view and arranges them by status: New, In Progress, Completed, On Hold, or Cancelled.
  – Use the Table view to see your tasks, folders, projects or Spaces in a spreadsheet format.
  – Use the Gantt chart view to see your project tasks in a timeline view.

2. Wrike lets you control task management

One of the options we love is the ability to fully control tasks so everyone knows the status when they log into Wrike.

• You can change the task owner when task dependency changes so that that person knows action is required by them to move a task forward.
• You can prioritize tasks and assign them for the current week or a future date. You can also assign a specific due date.
• Wrike also allows you to change a task status whether it is active, in progress, on hold, completed, or canceled.

3. Wrike permissions are cost-effective.

We love that we can add clients to project boards as collaborators without being charged for additional users. As a collaborator, clients can:

• Gain insight into how a project is going.
• Make comments to answer questions that arise during a project.
• Access all related materials in one accessible place.
• Provide missing documentation or materials.
• Monitor progress and give approval to continue.
• Project managers can easily monitor all activities to ensure projects are running smoothly without having to track down various parties and inquire as to “where they’re at” with a project.

Want to know more about the different Wrike licenses? Here’s an overview.

• Regular and External Users: require a paid user seat. The number of regular/external users you can have depends on how many seats you signed up for.
• Collaborators don’t require a paid user seat, but there is a limit on how many collaborators you can invite into your account.

4. Wrike is excellent for mixed-teams with mixed tech-literacy

Simply put, Wrike offers excellent ease of use. It’s very straight forward and options are easy to understand and implement. This is very beneficial for agencies who might have web engineers who incorporate agile DevOps into their workflows, but who might also have team members of a less technical skillset, like writers (that’s me), who need an easy-to-use system.

For maximum efficiency, everyone needs to use the tool, and with Wrike, that’s an easy task.

• From the navigation panel, you can
• Check your “Inbox”, where your notifications about tasks will appear
  Check all tasks assigned to you via the “My Work” tab
• Manage assignees
• View activity stream to see the latest updates on projects
• Check overall project progress via the “Dashboard” tab
• See your project laid out over the month in the “Calendar” tab (Internal users only)
• Save time, manage expectations, and gain big picture visibility with the “Reports” tab (Internal users only)
• Respond to all the notifications on all your tasks at once via the “Stream” tab

5. Wrike is a one-stop organization tool

No longer do team members and clients need to be scouring the cloud to find documents related to a task. No longer do team members need to go back and forth between email, chat, and Wrike. All of the moving pieces of a project can be conducted within Wrike, such as time-tracking, real-time status updates, and file sharing. Wrike is an excellent resource management tool that helps increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

• Control how your tasks are organized

One of the best things about Wrike is that it really is a one-stop solution for task management and organization. You can organize your tasks by campaign, project, department, or any other criteria you can think up.

• Assign work and approve it in Wrike

You can manage the entire lifeline of a project within Wrike. From task assignment to final approval.

• Conduct all back and forth communication and notifications in Wrike

Questions about work, dependencies, client review- all of it can be done within Wrike via comments and the inbox. Team members and clients can be tagged so that they will receive a notification (of their preference) whenever they are mentioned in a task.

In addition, email blasts can be sent to a department for project handoff and delegation. Doing this automatically creates a task for them. Easy automation!

• Keep all documents and files in Wrike

You can also set up folders, store documents, and manage permissions within Wrike being sure to observe company security measures.

All in all, we think Wrike is the best in terms of usability, customizability, and all-in-one features. It simplifies project planning, increases the efficiency of workflows, and streamlines collaboration visibility.

We love the fact that we have complete control over task management which keeps everyone updated on project status and eliminates bottlenecks and hold-ups due to miscommunication. It’s incredibly user friendly so that all of our teams can use it effectively. Its cost-effective permissions have shown us an immediate return on investment and frankly, we just love that we don’t need five tools to do the work that Wrike does in one. Best of all? Wrike has a mobile app so you can use your valuable Wrike features on the go.

Topics: Marketing Tools, Project Management