Custom Project Management Solutions: Key Features, Benefits, and Costs
The Role of Project Management Software
Custom project management (PM) software facilitates efficient decision-making and enhances collaboration among project managers, team members, and stakeholders. It assists with:
Project planning.
Management of project teams, budgets, tasks, risks, and documents.
Collaboration within project teams.
Approval and prioritization of projects.
Monitoring project progress.
Reporting on project effectiveness and resource usage.
For businesses with intensive project needs, custom PM software can include extended features for portfolio project management (PPM).
Core Features of Custom Project Management Software
Drawing from years of software development experience, we highlight the core functionality of custom project management systems:
Project Planning
Initiation and approval workflows.
• Goal setting, milestone identification, KPI tracking, and deadline setting.
• Activity planning and scheduling.
• Resource availability and cost assessment.
Project Monitoring
Task completion tracking and resource consumption monitoring.
• Real-time project progress tracking.
• Task updates in real-time with automated notifications.
• Automated evaluation of project health against planned parameters.
Financial Resource Management
Estimating and planning project budgets.
• Requesting and scheduling financial resources.
• Budget allocation modeling and tracking.
Human Resource Management
Planning project team lineups and assigning roles.
• Scheduling high-demand professionals for upcoming projects.
• Monitoring team workload and performance.
• Tracking individual team member progress.
Time Management
Time tracking for tasks and projects.
• Personal time reports for team members.
• Planning and visualizing team members' availability.
Risk Management
Setting, evaluating, and prioritizing project risks.
• Monitoring risk factors throughout the project.
• Assigning risk mitigation activities.
Physical Resource Management
Monitoring real-time availability of assets and consumables.
• Tracking consumable resource usage.
• Requesting and scheduling physical resources.
• Modeling purchasing versus rental scenarios.
Project Collaboration
Defining accountability and collaboration scenarios.
• Organizing and monitoring group tasks.
• Simultaneous group work on projects.
• Built-in or third-party communication tools.
• Document sharing and co-authoring.
Gantt Charts
Visualizing project tasks, schedules, and resources.
• Structuring project activities.
• Planning resource capacity.
Extended Features for Portfolio Management
Project Portfolio Monitoring
Monitoring all projects in the portfolio, outlining dependencies, assigning strategic KPIs, and setting custom ranking criteria.
Program Management
Interactive program roadmapping, task and goal assignment, and identifying problematic projects.
Human Resource and Financial Resource Management
Booking employees for high-priority projects, viewing employee availability charts, monitoring resource allocation.
Project Portfolio Analytics and Reporting
Modeling scenarios, setting resource allocation scenarios, and customizable reports on portfolio statistics and progress.
Integrated Project Management Software
Our custom project management software acts as an intermediary for data exchange among all these systems, ensuring seamless integration and efficient project management. By leveraging these integrated software solutions, we are able to deliver projects on time, within budget, and to the highest quality standards.
At Alfa Plus Inc., we understand the importance of efficient project management in delivering successful outcomes for our clients. Our approach involves integrating custom project management software with various types of software to streamline project workflows and enhance collaboration. Here's how different software types are integrated into our project management system:
ERP Integration
Our custom project management software exchanges project-related data and information on the availability of project resources with our ERP system, ensuring smooth project planning and resource allocation.
Human Capital Management Software Integration
Integrated with our project management system, our human capital management software shares employees' profiles and availability data, enabling us to effectively assign tasks and manage project teams.
Payroll Software Integration
Our payroll software provides workloads of project team members and their payroll data to our project management system, ensuring accurate tracking of project costs and resource utilization.
Asset Management Software Integration
Integrated with our project management system, our asset management software exchanges data on physical resources' availability, costs, requirements, and utilization, helping us manage project resources efficiently.
Business Intelligence (BI) Tools Integration
Our project management system provides project-related data, reports, and forecasts to our BI tools for analysis, enabling us to make informed decisions and optimize project performance.
Valuable Integrations for Alfa Plus Inc.'s Custom Project Management Software
We recommend integrating our custom project management software with relevant corporate systems to enhance visibility into project-related data and streamline project staffing, budget planning, and resource tracking. Here are key integrations:
PM + ERP
Provides 360-degree visibility of project data for ERP users.
Offers data on internal/external project demand, inventory management, and more for PM solution users.
PM + Human Capital Management Software
Streamlines project staffing and employee selection.
Helps plan human resource capacity based on employee availability data.
PM + Asset Management Software
Enables checking asset availability and requesting assets for projects.
Improves budget estimations with uploaded physical resources' costs.
PM + BI Tools
Tracks and visualizes KPIs, risks, and resource consumption.
Provides diverse cumulative reports for project/program forecasting and success probability prediction.
Success Factors of Alfa Plus Inc.'s PM Software
Strong PM Analytics
Enable near-real-time analysis of project effectiveness and accurate forecasting of project resources' capacity.
Ample Functionality for Project Team Members
Ensure team members can register activities, track progress, access project maps, and manage documents.
PM Software Security
Implement security measures throughout the software lifecycle to prevent data leakage.
Cost Considerations for Custom Project Management Software
Key Benefits of PM Solutions
Enhanced project teams’ performance.
Optimized human resources management.
Fewer projects facing costs overrun.
Increased number of timely delivered projects.
Decreased organizational and project risks.
Transparent and clear project approval process.
Increased ROI of the company’s project investments.
PM Software Cost Factors
To estimate investments into custom project management, consider:
Development
Functional complexity (number and specifics of PM features).
Number and types of integrations (e.g., APIs, messaging).
Performance requirements (minimal and expected number of users, scalability parameters, etc.).
Migrating data from siloed project management sources (e.g., department-specific PM tools, Excel spreadsheets).
Support, Maintenance, Enhancement
Relevant support timeframe (e.g., 8/5, 12/5, 24/5, 24/7).
Scope of support activities for current PM issues and upgrades.
When Custom PM Software Is Best
Consider custom PM software when:
A significant number of users need access, making platform-based solutions costlier over time.
Specific and diverse project management workflows require precision.
Integrating with complex software ecosystems necessitates tailored integration architecture.
Project Management Software Implementation
Alfa Plus Inc. is prepared to advise and develop a tailored PM solution:
Consulting
Analyze industry and business specifics, define existing PM processes, provide a requirements specification, suggest integration maps, estimate costs and time, calculate expected ROI.
Development
Create requirements specifications, develop secure and scalable architecture, design GUI for smooth workflows, develop front and back end, integrate with relevant business software, conduct full-cycle testing, perform post-implementation support and maintenance, handle software evolution.