Construction Project Management software in 2 hrs

Construction projects by nature can be difficult to manage. They involve many stakeholders, hundreds of details and lots of documentation. If a detail is missed it could delay the project and end up costing the owner and contractor in time and money or even result in legal action. That’s why staying organized throughout the process is essential to the success of the project.

In the Construction market Prevalent at the Chandigarh Tricity - Panchkula, Zirakpur, Mohali, Mullanpur, the construction methodology is slowly evolving from an instinct based approach to more methodological approach where one employs lean management technique to reduce construction time and increase efficiency of labour - reducing waste is also a big part of this.

I've already spoken about construction project management using spreadsheets on a previous post - today I'm going to talk about using project management software - namely a specific one which i have been using for years - best thing it being a part of the open source community which we support

Using Project Libre Instead of Commercial Project Tracking Applications

ProjectLibre is the free, open source project tracking application that has evolved from OpenProj. The new tool has been downloaded over a million times since it was released in 2012. It is used by people located in 210 countries around the world.

Benefits of Open Source

ProjectLibre is free under the open source licensing model. This allows anyone to use the tool for any purpose. It may be used for personal projects or for commercial work for paying clients. There are no costs associated with the installation of the executable. There are no royalty fees due when it is used. Most commercial project tracking applications are not open source, but they do allow general use, in most cases. Depending on the retailer or developer, the commercial tools may have certain restrictions such as inability to use them in certain regions of the world.

Two Hours with ProjectLibre

The Good

• Basic layout very similar to MS Project, for users already familiar with that software
• Critical path calculated and displayed by default
• Nice, simple, clear context-sensitive right-click menus
• PDF export and Print look good, with easier options than MS Project
• Rollup tasks, work-driven durations, task dependencies, constraint types all work properly
• Huge selection of Task information and columns
• Plenty of detail in the Resource Sheet for adjusting allocations
• Only Resources in the Resource Sheet may be entered as Task Resources (avoids typos and duplication!)
• Project completion chart as a pane below the Gantt chart is a good presentation tool
• No messing about with Fonts, Colours or Formatting

The Excellent

• Resource Usage histogram as a pane below the Gantt chart is a fabulous management tool
• Free Software, and Java cross-platform ability
• Purportedly imports all MS Project files, and saves as Project 2003 if desired
• Various Gantt flavours built-in: EVR, Tracking, Work, Cost, etc
• Project Report and Resource Breakdown Structure give great overviews

The Bad

• Olde-Worlde amateur Java Look&Feel trying to ape the MS Ribbon
• US-style month-day-year numerical dates with no apparent way to change format
• No Resource Levelling ability (many people hate this anyway, but The Liberator loves its capricious power)
• Gantt view does not have a timescale Zoom function
• Default duration of new tasks defaults to 1 day, just like nasty MS Project
• Work Breakdown Structure view is by rollup task, not by WBS numbering scheme - maybe MS Project does this, too

The Awful

• Changes to Resource calendars do not create changes in the schedule, even though the % utilization reflects the changes Unknown
• probably no database/accounting centralization / portfolio management integration abilities?
• actual experience of import/export of MS Project files

Summary

This Free Software is very capable and has more features than most PMs actually use * there's no reason this couldn't be any professional organisations standard project scheduling /budgetting tool. The Java doesn't seem inefficient - unlike some LibreOffice apps. The advertised Import/Export features are very appealling - particularly while we're all suffering from the MS Project 2007 - 2010 backward-compatibility schism.

If you're an MS Project aficionado, there's going to be plenty of little differences here to niggle at you, whereas if you've never used any PM software before, you'll be just as overwhelmed. But if you only touch Project occasionally, this could be just the thing.

It's certainly great to be able to show a respectable Gantt chart off with a zero price point. Head over to the Project Libre project page and give this Free Software a try for yourself!