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Are there any good Project Management Tools like BaseCamp out there that integrate with SalesForce in someway? Integration can be as simple as sharing/linking contacts.

I use BaseCamp as an example because I'm looking for a Web 2.0 interfaced tool - most of them out there look like they were build in the 1980's. =\

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  • Also, I'd definitely need for clients to be able to log into the system to check on status and update requirements, etc. Also, our company is small (less than 10 employees) if that makes a difference.
    – RichC
    Sep 1, 2010 at 14:05

4 Answers 4

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Check out Pivotal Tracker, even as a student I'm planning to try this out on my next university project.

From a Software Engineering perspective this "plans the work and works the plan", allows you to focus the most on the two important tasks "planning" and "monitoring"; and it makes "time management" and "optimized resource allocation" a lot easier... And the extra benefit: You work as a team! :-)


Pivotal Tracker is a free, award winning, agile project management tool
that enables real time collaboration around a shared, prioritized backlog.

  • Velocity tracking and emergent iterations
    Make planning decisions using accurate projections based on past performance.

  • Story-based iterative planning
    Base your software project management on proven agile methods.

  • Real-time collaboration
    See what your team is doing and react to change instantly.

The three most related comments:

Pivotal Tracker is a fantastic product. We've become a more efficient development team since we started using it. And even better, the management team gets on-demand visibility into my team's priorities and accomplishments.

- Jim Gochee, VP Engineering, New Relic

We love Pivotal Tracker! It is a supremely awesome tool for helping us developer-folk do some of the hardest tasks we're faced with: estimating amounts of work in simple terms, helping clients re-prioritize work, and tracking our progress based on our own estimates.

- Charles Brian Quinn, HighGroove Studios

Pivotal Tracker is a great lightweight tool for running distributed Scrum.

- Jeff Sutherland, Chairman, Scrum Training Institute & CEO, Scrum, Inc.

But well, I guess you should just try it... ;-)

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  • The "Story" approach is very intriguing to me but until I learn more about the methodology, I'm not 100% sold on it yet. I saw another implementation of the scrum project management style but I can't remember the name of the website (I think it was like ninja<something>.com or something like that). Their UI was gorgeous and I think that's what I find lacking in Pivotal Tracker.
    – RichC
    Sep 7, 2010 at 14:58
  • A good overview of Scrum I used to answer a Q in my SE course is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(development), I guess that you are talking about ScrumNinja. Have you seen the Pivotal Tracker videos? The front page of the site isn't that good but the Tracker itself seems to be just nice, it's not a "Wow! That's gorgeous" but it isn't that bad either. Anyhow, I can't suggest more than to try it (it's free) and think about it... It doesn't have sharing with SalesForce though, I misunderstood something there but I wonder if it's not too hard to just type that in a note or something similar. Sep 7, 2010 at 22:44
  • There has been placed a suggestion for integration between Pivotal Tracker and SalesForce at bit.ly/ahrMnN but I have no clue if that will be done. Sep 7, 2010 at 22:48
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See this review of Project Management Tools that integrate with SalesForce, of which 4 are free, 5 are paid and 5 others are related:

Salesforce.com Project Management Apps Quick Reviews

It specially notes ProjectForce, an open source project management application built on the Force.com platform:

A Free app from the great folks at Force.com Labs and also being run as an open source project! Nice job. Fairly clear picture of what the app is and does can be understood from the collaboration site, which also shows a fair bit of recent activity.

ProjectForce describes itself as:

Highlights

  • Manage Multiple Projects, Tasks, Milestones, Resources and Attachments.
  • Full timeline view with Gantt Chart
  • Perform Task and Project searches in a easy way

Description

With ProjectForce you can use Salesforce Users as resources for your Projects, create Tasks and Milestones with multiple assignees and set the percent dedicated for each resource.

Allow your workforce to upload and share attachments into their projects and tasks.

ProjectForce counts with a full-text search feature to find Projects and Tasks easily.

Subscribe to Projects and receive e-mail notifications when a tasks change or are marked completed. ProjectForce also offers a rich task time line providing Users with a tool to view a project across time.

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  • Yeah, I really hate the SalesForce platform UI. That's why I'm looking for something outside of Salesforce that integrates seamlessly with the SalesForce API so that I can use all the contacts from there since our sales staff already manages everything there.
    – RichC
    Sep 7, 2010 at 14:51
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Take a look at this Boomi website that seems to be a service that integrates everything with SalesForce, including databases. I'm assuming that you can use your project management software of choice, and make sure that each client uses the same file which then reduces duplicity and saves time. Not for sure if this is what your looking for, but it's a start. ;)

Update

I found this interesting site that may be of some interest to you. It's the Project on Demand software. The software is a monthly fee (20$ per month) based software that is multiplatform (Unix, Windows, Mac, etc.)

From thier website:

  • Projects On Demand (POD) is a hosted Project Management solution that is available on a simple annual subscription. It seamlessly integrates into your existing Salesforce environment.
  • Projects On Demand is the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) project solution. Project-ON-Demand manages projects in your browser for a small monthly fee. Projects On Demand builds upon the project functionality in OpenProj and delivers additional multi-project, collaboration, reporting and management features. Projects On Demand is also a complete replacement of Microsoft Project - you can even open native Project files and work on them immediately in your browser. Projects On Demand is hosted by Serena and available with annual subscriptions of $20/month per user. There is no manual installation, so you are immediately productive in Linux, Unix, Mac or Windows.... all in your browser. The web based architecture allows teams, partners and customers to manage projects anytime/anyplace.

You can also download for free the openproj software that replaces microsoft project. It appears to only work in Windows however and I'm not sure if it can sync with your SalesForce.com material.

Here is the FAQ of the Project on Demand.

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  • I'm going to assume that Boomi is way out of our price range since the only way to view a demo is to contact a sales person. We are under 10 employees so I need something that scales a little better so we can start small and grow into it later. I really like Daptiv.com but they are they same as Boomi, primarily for large companies that can afford a full featured deployment right out of the gate.
    – RichC
    Sep 7, 2010 at 14:53
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Bracket Labs is building a new agile project management tool for the Salesforce.com Platform, that will be avaliable on the AppExchange later this year: http://bracketlabs.com/project-control/

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