There are a large number of project management applications and service out there; we’ve looked at many of them in the past. Most of them are explicitly directed at coordinating a team working on projects for a client, and are a poor fit for a single freelancer working alone. That’s the market that Burden Butcher hopes to tap into, with a project management tool explicitly for freelancers.
After creating your account, you’ll be sitting at the Projects list. Creating a new project is streamlined: supply a name, a rate, a client, and optionally a deadline, and you’re ready to go. Choosing a project to work on is simple, as it should be. Each project contains four tabs in a web interface: Canvases, Milestones & Tasks, Time Tracking, and Invoice.
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Way back in May, our own Aliza Sherman took a look at DeskAway, a Basecamp-like collaborative project management solution from Synage, a SaaS pioneer based in India. In terms of features and pricing, it compared favorably to the more widely used Basecamp. Today, it gets an upgrade, including the introduction of new features that make it feel more like you’re working with people directly, than with computers working with people.
The new features incorporate elements of social networks into DeskAway’s project management and collaboration architecture. Specifically, what used to be the “Services” link now brings you to the “My Account” page where you can update your profile, associate a profile photo with your account, and provide a brief bio or mini-CV for team members to look over.
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37signals recently announced the addition of Deals functionality into their Highrise CRM product. Deals allow you to track your bids, proposals and sales opportunities with all of the Highrise goodness you would expect. Quickly assign them to clients, add files, and keep everyone updated on status. While they are not to the level of opportunity tracking in a Salesforce or full sales cycle product, they are well done and really quite useful for those who use Highrise in a sales arena. Their video explanation does a great job at highlighting the main features.
While I applaud them for the added functionality, I think the limitations they have placed on their use in some of their plans are a bit restrictive. For example, those on a standard $24/month 6 user Small Business plan only get the ability to track 5 open deals. It is true that only active deals count towards that figure, but 5 deals in a sales pipeline for a 6 user team isn’t likely to be sufficient. Want more? Pro and Plus plans give you unlimited Deals but start at double the monthly fee.
I certainly understand the tiered pricing model of web services but I don’t see the point of introducing such useful new functionality and then so severely limiting its usage. I do hope they reconsider and up that number so that even those with the mid-level accounts can benefit from them.
How do you track your deals?
While looking into the Operation Foxbook story, I ran across Aviary - an application interesting enough to deserve some notice on its own. Aviary bills itself as “a suite of powerful creative applications that you can use right in your web browser,” and although they’re certainly no Creative Suite replacement, for Flash-based tools they’re pretty good - as well as affordable.
Right now there are three tools in the suite:
- Phoenix, a layer-based image editor with a reasonable selection of masks and effects.
- Toucan, a tool for putting together palettes and color swatches
- Peacock, a generative “visual laboratory” that is the funnest tool in the bunch.
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