Computerworld about VIP Task Manager

Mar 3, 2010

Computerworld about VIP Task Manager

Computerworld about VIP Task Manager

In recent issue of Computerworld Polska, Piotr Waszczuk analyzes today's market of project management software in his article "From heavy artillery to open source". VIP Task Manager is chosen as an example of easy-to-use means for project management. Here is a full text of interview with VIP Quality Software CEO Vasyl Badera, used as an expert opinion for the article:

1. How does task management methodology differ from a typical project management solution?

Real project management solutions are seldom used by our target audience – small business, teams and departments. Our clients simply can not afford using their limited resources (time and people) for "pure project management" and spend money on the software fully used by only one person in the team – project manager. Moreover, our customers' workflow rarely consists of projects only; it is rather a mix of projects, processes, recurring events and routine tasks. That is why task management is a more universal solution for them; it is focused on tasks and allows users to group them into projects, to do lists, schedules, or whatever they need.

2. What are the key features of VIP Task Manager software? Where did the idea to create such software come from?

The idea of VIP Task Manager together with its key features came from our customers. They needed a tool which would allow them to share tasks and we tried to provide them with possibility to do this as quickly and simply as possible. All the key features of VIP Task Manager are devoted to this target: multi-user simultaneous access, immediate pop-up and email notifications, real time task discussion, etc.

3. What features distinguish the capabilities of the VIP Task Manager software from a typical calendar? What main capabilities does the system give to the managers of project teams?

VIP Task Manager gives users a unique possibility to display the same tasks in three different views. Task List view is very useful for making personal to-do lists for each employee, it's filters panel allows one to get almost any combination of tasks according to their properties. Task Tree view is convenient for planning, and especially using templates for planning typical projects and business processes. Calendar view shows task as daily, weekly and monthly schedules, it's best for creating personal or team's agenda.
At any moment the manager of project team can quickly get both a big picture of project progress and see what each team member is doing, has done, and will be doing. As for team members, they don't need to make reports (they hate doing reports), all they do is check tasks as done and provide more details if needed, while required reports can be simply generated and printed by project managers.

4. The client software runs on the workstations, but all customer data is stored on a central server administered by your company - is that true? Or is that fully Software as a Service model?

In fact, VIP Task Manager can be deployed both as a product and/or as a service. If users are in the same office and joined together with local network (LAN), it is better to buy the "product" and keep the database on a server machine (or any PC that will work as a server) and connect to it from the workstations. Also if users are in different locations they can connect to the database through the Internet, VPN, etc. Of course, we provide VIP Task Manager as a service too, users can install "client application" only and connect to the database on the dedicated server where we store their databases. 

5. To which extent can customers change the functionality of the VIP Task Manager software on their own? What tools are needed for that?

VIP Task Manager is quite flexible in setting it for users needs. We understand that customers know better what to do and how to succeed in their business, so VIP Task Manager offers two very popular solutions for customization: Custom Fields and Custom Workflow. Custom Fields are additional fields users can create for task and projects. For example it can be a simple field "Cost" which is entered for each task and the sum is automatically aggregated for the whole project. Or it can be a complex field with formula which will calculate cost per hour depending on which employee is assigned to a particular task. Custom Workflow allows to create unique set of statuses for various types of tasks. For example, journalist's tasks with attached articles can have the following workflow: In Draft, Written, Corrected, Approved, and Published.

Learn more about VIP Task Manager features and download FREE trial version of the software at:
http://www.taskmanagementsoft.com/