Announcing The Social Way To Get Things Done: Zoho Projects 2.0

Posted on Last Updated On by Rodrigo Vaca
4 Mins Read

Today we're excited to end the 'mystery' and announce Zoho Projects 2.0. What is so exciting about this launch? It will change how teams get work done.

Remember the days when teams had their documents in a share, their discussions

through mail in some ancient mailing-list software, the project plan in Microsoft Project, any relevant content on the company's intranet, and chatted with people on the team using a variety of IM clients? What happened when you needed to find something? What about when someone new just joined the team and needed to 'ramp up'? And sure, 'big' announcements always found their way, but what about the stuff that happens on a daily basis - the gears that move the team - how do you keep track of those?

Well, of course you remember those days, because they are actually these days. That's how most people still collaborate today. But no more. Zoho Projects brings all of that together into a single package of teamwork nirvana.

Zoho Projects 2.0 goes beyond the traditional 'project management' space and helps people work together to achieve a common goal. It's not just about tasks, milestones and priorities (but we do that too of course). It's about how people interact and what they need while working on something - whether it's a local team or a distributed team, an internal team, or a customer-facing one. Many times when we hear 'Project' he instantly think of a PMI-certified guy with a huge Gantt chart taped in his office door. But every team is always working in some sort of project, whether that's formally defined or not. And that is where Zoho Projects helps.

So, why 'social'? Social because we realize that getting work done is less about the work or 'the plan', and more about the people that work to make that plan happen - and how they make it happen. The new Project Stream makes it easier for people to stay on top of what's going on with their team and their project. Teams can keep all their relevant

documents and files neatly organized in a centralized place. And it's not just about files, but also about the discussions that are going on around the project, or the content (and in these days that means more likely than not web content). And of course also about those IM chats.

Alright, I could go on about this for days. Instead, let me jump to the juicy stuff. Here's what's to love about Zoho Projects 2.0:

Plan your projects

  • Keep your projects organized: Milestones, Tasks and Tasks Lists

  • Set-up dependencies, assign ownership, priorities and more

  • Import MPP files - Plan in Microsoft Project, collaborate in Zoho

Collaborate with your team

  • The Project Stream keeps you up-to-date about the latest activities going on around your project

  • Set your User Status to let your team members know what you're working on

  • (you can think of that like a private Twitter for your Project)

  • Keep all your meetings, milestones and tasks organized in the shared calendar

  • Store your files and documents in one place, keep track of the changes with the version history

  • Integration with the award-winning Zoho Office - so you can create/edit/view documents using just your browser

  • Discussions - interactive forums make everyone a part of the conversation - and

    keep important topics and decisions available for everyone to see

  • Create team and project web pages with the integrated Wiki

  • My personal favorite - the always-on, embedded chat means you can chat with your entire team - or with only one person using just your browser. And it also keeps a log of what's been said so you can refer back to past conversation. And you can also setup different 'chat rooms' - one for every topic you're discussing.

Track your progress

  • The Project Dashboard offers a quick at-a-glance view of upcoming tasks and

    milestones, meetings and whatever has been happening around your

    projects.

  • Reports visually represent your team progress against your pre-defined goals

  • And finally, for those teams with external customers, the Timesheet

    makes it easy to log and track who has spent how much time doing what.

    But it doesn't stop there, you can automatically generate and send the

    invoice using Zoho Invoice (or export the data to use any other

    invoicing medium that suits you).

If you want to see more of Zoho Projects in action before you sign up, below is a ~3 min video with a good overview. You can also view the screenshot tourwe have prepared for you.

We are sure that after trying Zoho Projects for a month you will wonder how your team ever got stuff done without it. We actually used Zoho Projects 2.0 while building Zoho Projects 2.0 and it proved invaluable - we'll have more about that later.

Rodrigo

Comments

20 Replies to Announcing The Social Way To Get Things Done: Zoho Projects 2.0

  3. I haven't entered since the last week, and now I found this great update... I'm happily surprised.Congrats and keep up the good job!

    Reply

  4. I haven't entered since the last week, and now I found this great update... I'm happily surprised.Congrats and keep up the good job!

    Reply

  5. Hugo -Thanks for elaborating. We agree with you - sometimes it's hard to get the people out of e-mail! We have been thinking about some other e-mail integration scenarios as well.So far, if you go to the 'Users' tab, you can send e-mails to project members straight from there. And for example, when you write a new post in the Discussion forums, you can notify by e-mail to the relevant parties.Not exactly what you're describing, but it does give you some option to go outside of the project.Thanks again for the feedback, we'll keep this in mind.best,Rodrigo

    Reply

  6. Hugo -Thanks for elaborating. We agree with you - sometimes it's hard to get the people out of e-mail! We have been thinking about some other e-mail integration scenarios as well.So far, if you go to the 'Users' tab, you can send e-mails to project members straight from there. And for example, when you write a new post in the Discussion forums, you can notify by e-mail to the relevant parties.Not exactly what you're describing, but it does give you some option to go outside of the project.Thanks again for the feedback, we'll keep this in mind.best,Rodrigo

    Reply

  7. Rodrigo
    I was thinking in strengthing the ZOHO PROJECTS functionalities with email facilities. Remember that some people (by sure, my costumers) are still "emailing-people", not yet "sharing-people".So, you could send easily an email from the wiki, task, milestones, foro, ... screens to anyone that you like (including "no users").Thanks and congratulations! Zoho Projects is very good!

    Reply

  8. Rodrigo
    I was thinking in strengthing the ZOHO PROJECTS functionalities with email facilities. Remember that some people (by sure, my costumers) are still "emailing-people", not yet "sharing-people".So, you could send easily an email from the wiki, task, milestones, foro, ... screens to anyone that you like (including "no users").Thanks and congratulations! Zoho Projects is very good!

    Reply

  9. Good stuff! Can't wait to try it out. Have used the original version of Projects a bit. Thanks for all the improvements.

    Reply

  10. Good stuff! Can't wait to try it out. Have used the original version of Projects a bit. Thanks for all the improvements.

    Reply

  13. Hugo -Currently, Zoho Docs and Zoho Projects use separate DBs so we can keep data separate.
    Regarding Zoho Mail - what did you have in mind?Rodrigo

    Reply

  14. Hugo -Currently, Zoho Docs and Zoho Projects use separate DBs so we can keep data separate.
    Regarding Zoho Mail - what did you have in mind?Rodrigo

    Reply

  15. Great improvements - can't wait to put the new system in action. Projects has been an invaluable resource for me and my company. Thanks!

    Reply

  16. Great improvements - can't wait to put the new system in action. Projects has been an invaluable resource for me and my company. Thanks!

    Reply

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