Productive

Vorteile

I thought this software offers more useful features than its competitors. The price is great. I like that you can assign team members and clients to tasks.

Nachteile

I thought the software was difficult to understand, so did my team. As the admin, I wish I got more of an overview of everyone in each project. I felt like I had to search a lot to find the information I wanted.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

GitHub, Jira, Slack und Asana

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

The option for more tools, such as budgeting and the price value.

Vorteile

Great for staying organized for large multi purpose businesses

Nachteile

Is not integrated with social media as it could be

Vorteile

Easy to use and uploads documents fast and seemlessly.

Nachteile

Don’t like how tasks under an umbrella task can’t have the same specifics applied (ie r for tasks to individual due dates or a single due date for all of them)

Vorteile

The features are designed for an agency so we use most of them, all day, every day. What we really like is:
1. The user interface is superb - intuitive and fast to use. The best we have seen.
2. Help files and customer services is excellent. There hasn't been a question without a really satisfactory answer.
There isn't another system we use that is anywhere near as easy to use as Productive is.
Remote working puts more pressure on the system and it has supported the team now spread out over thousands of miles.

Nachteile

Not much - would like slightly more customisable templates to allow us to add more text and graphics to them.

Vorteile

Really great task management software with good ui. Regularly adding features and improving the product. I am a big fan.

Nachteile

Better ui for sales would be good. Overall though the product is valuable for my team.

Vorteile

The balance between flexibility and clarity is so much on point in Productive. We've used a lot of tools before that claim to be flexible but where we eventually hit a major roadblock for our business. On the other hand, we have used more complex tools too but those lack clarity very often. For us, Productive is perfectly on the crossroad of these two very important aspects.

Nachteile

Sometimes, we think about a feature that would be nice to have and isn't there yet. But almost always, we find it back in the roadmap. A roadmap that is transparent and doesn't overpromise, which we like!

Vorteile

Productive includes all the features we wanted and nothing we didn't. We used ClickUp for some time, but found it was hard to use and customise to our needs. Productive gives us the tools we need to keep projects on track and assigned to the right people and gives us business metrics that keep us aligned and on-point. It's been a game-changer for us, and we can only see it getting better.

Nachteile

Productive is expensive, especially as you add more users. Other products are cheaper, but they aren't tailored to what we need, so they end up costing in other ways.

Vorteile

Project managemement, task management, time tracking, invoicing, there isn't much I don't love about Productive!

Nachteile

I wish there was a way to better implement email into the product. Right now email and Productive are separate. Having them tied closer together would help eliminate on additional product.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Todoist, Paymo, Zoho Projects, Pipefy, Front, monday.com, ClickUp und Asana

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

Made the switch from Accelo, as the email integration caused all kinds of issues and our email got placed on blacklists, so we had to switch our domain name completely for our website and email. We originally used Teamwork, then switched to Accelo because of the email integration. Teamwork was great, but missed some key features at the time we used it.

Zuvor genutzte Software

Teamwork.com und Accelo

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

Had almost all of the features I needed. Others were missing features.

Vorteile

I love the reporting system that provides me with actionable data so I can make more informed decisions and optimize profitability.

Nachteile

I sometimes have difficulty customizing certain aspects of the platform especially when it comes to the user interface.

Vorteile

Frequent updates and changes to the platform. It's getting better with every update. Has great customer support and makes collaboration really smooth!

Nachteile

Milestones could be a little clearer, but there is nothing I dislike about Productive.io. Productive.io is better with every update.

Vorteile

The time tracking for each team member combined with the project management.

Nachteile

For me, it still needs a lot of back and forwards between the menus to execute some tasks. But it's not something critical.

Vorteile

Fully-featured with a continually improving product roadmap and excellent customer support.

Nachteile

Sometimes it's difficult to work out how much budget is remaining as the calculations don't always tally with my own figures. Some nuances in how the calculations are done I think. Some features have started to move to the 'premium' tier.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Harvest, Forecast und Asana

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

It had everything we wanted and more. Could consolidate our tools into one.

Vorteile

We became an early client of these folks a few years ago. They are constantly rolling out new features, including a lot of specific requests we've made to them. They ALWAYS respond to our requests and update us on their status. They have, far-and-away, the most responsive customer service of any SAAS product we subscribe to. And the product is head and shoulders above any of the other tools we used over the years (we've trued dozens including all the big ones you've heard of)

Nachteile

It's meant to be an end-to-end solution for small-ish agencies. So beyond project management, there's financial reporting, invoicing, expense tracking (including Quickbooks integration), and sales tracking. The Sales tool is probably the least developed. It works great, and we use it, but it would be nice if it were more tightly integrated with the rest of the tool so revenue forecaster would be more accurate. There are a number of customization features, so were able to cobble together an adaquate tool (we previously used both Salesforce and Hubspot)

Vorteile

I love that we can set up project budgets and track our progress against them in real-time so we can better allocate resources and determine our profit margins. I also appreciate that the company has a robust roadmap and is constantly adding new features. It is fundamentally easy to set up on the project side. There is a ton of flexibility with different views you can have for tasks. The ways you can slice and dice your data in here is a major win for agency owners.

Nachteile

The biggest thing we need is a way for our clients to submit tickets to our team so that we can tie it back to the project and if needed, add a new project scope, but there is no interface for clients to submit requests to us via Productive. We haven't found any ticketing software that will integrate with Productive either (maybe by Zapier, but we'd really just prefer to stay in Productive as much as possible).I would also like to be able to see more history on staff time off/vacation time. Once a year has been completed, the data got removed when their new allocation was given. The Dashboard view can use some improvement based on the priority of actions. I would also like to see time chronically from when my timer was started so I can see when it happened during the day, but if you use the timer feature and then switch to the calendar view, it throws all the entries to the top of the day for some reason.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

monday.com und Wrike

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

We wanted insight into our profitability per project and to track project-related time/expenses more thoroughly.

Zuvor genutzte Software

Asana

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

The profitability tracking won us over

Vorteile

We love that this tool is agency management in one tool! We can track projects / tasks, as well as record employee PTO, schedule work to manage capacity, and bill ALL IN THE SAME PLACE. Customer support is responsive and immensely helpful. Especially for explaining the parts of the tool that applies to areas outside our expertise (like finances).

Nachteile

The list layout leaves things to be desired in terms of design and organization of information. Would love to see automation, and the ability to mark tasks as dependent on / blocked by others come to the tool. The note taking tool is really basic and not co-write-friendly.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

ClickUp

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

The comprehensive reporting / time management / resource management tools. ESPECIALLY the overhead tool.

Zuvor genutzte Software

HoneyBook

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

The comprehensive reporting / time management / resource management tools. ESPECIALLY the overhead tool.

Vorteile

Productive shines in its range of features that just click with our wishes in managing projects. It keeps track of alle important aspects of tasks, budgeting, time, invoicing and reports we need to do our best job for our customers.

Nachteile

Productive could become better when it has a translation in Dutch, for our customers who are not as tech savvy as we are. The way projects can be invoiced could get some improvements, also bulk editing budgets.

Vorteile

We haven't had a single issue with Productive and have yet to hit a limitation or thing to improve. It has been such a breath of fresh air to come across an out-of-the-box solution that fits our team and way of working. It's clear that Productive listens to user feedback and quickly implements features and fixes. Their support is also outstanding - going above and beyond to provide excellent customer service.

Nachteile

Having tried 6 other project management and team collaboration software, I am pleased to say that Prodocutive has surpassed my expectations and there isn't anything that we don't like.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Teamwork.com

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

The cluttered user interface, lots of small bugs like issues with bulk actions, inconsistent and unreliable emails, and much more. It really put us off from using the software.

Zuvor genutzte Software

Teamwork.com und Nifty

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

Teamwork was much more limited and basic. The UI alone was what helped us choose Productive as everyone was able to use it without training or worrying about "where is this or that". You get what you see with Productive.

Vorteile

It has everything you need - from task management (including subtasks and workflows!) to reporting and time management. The price is very reasonable, regardless of the number of users. Some project management software has affordable pricing for a small number of users, only to rip you off when your company grows.

Nachteile

Filters for tasks could have more options (e.g. date filter has only equal or not equal). It would be perfect to have a single overview of tasks across all projects. Currently, that is somehow possible but lacks more powerful filters.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

ActiveCollab

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

Productive offers time tracking out of the box, which is a feature most PM tools don't have

Zuvor genutzte Software

Basecamp

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

Interface looked better and it seemed we would get more reporting features

Vorteile

Everything is all in one place without the need of multiple softwares

Nachteile

Some features that are a no-brainer (eg. tracking non-billable proposal hours) should have been able to be directly tracked from the sales function instead of having to be tracked as internal hours. But these are nitty gritty details which should make way to Productive sometime in the near future

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

ClickUp

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

Complex and not used to its full advantage

Zuvor genutzte Software

monday.com

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

Clickup was similar to other flexible-tasks allocation management system and does not offer the overall suite of features that Productive does

Vorteile

In theory, Productive has the perfect set of tools for the modern agency. Powerful project budget tools including weekly or monthly budgets for retainer clients make it easy to make sure you are utilizing 100% of budgeted time but no more. Reporting tools are in theory very flexible and easy to spit out exactly the right data you want - from team utilization to billing to profitability, task completion - you name it! Productive is also pretty easy to set up and the UI is very clean, modern, and not clunky in the least bit like many competitors.

Nachteile

There are SERIOUS bugs that totally defeat the purpose of using this product. All of these I've brought to their attention but they have dragged their heels on fixing. Here are some of the top bugs:

#1: When you/your team logs time and goes to create an invoice from it, the date for every single time entry is off by one day as it appears on the invoice, vs. the date you actually logged that time. You can get the accurate dates with time logs from the reporting module and when you compare, you'll see every date on the invoice is incorrect and your customers will start questioning why you logged time on the weekend...

#2: When you go to download a custom report made in the report module, e.g. the hours report mentioned in #1, you get a blank PDF. Try CSV format? Also blank file, with only the header row filled in, 0 rows of data.

#3: Invoice formatting - if you use Productive with Quickbooks Online, when your invoice syncs over you will end up with some random HTML code as part of the descriptions e.g. <ul><li>Notes about this time entry</li></ul> on each line of the invoice. Have fun manually cleaning these up!

Vorteile

For us it is one of the best options out there. And I recommend it especially if you want to better understand, analyse and forecast the profitability per resources, services offered, projects and tasks.
In terms of task management it works smooth and easy, like any other premium task manager. The big differentiation comes in terms of budget tracking, expenses and resources overview. In the past 1.5 years since we use Productive.io it helped us to see some trends in terms of services that are profitable and see which clients / projects are not profitable. This way we managed to improve the overall performance of our business.

Nachteile

- The onboarding / initial setup can take a bit. Nothing too bad, but you might need a couple of days to get used with the UX.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Trello, Basecamp und Asana

Zuvor genutzte Software

Teamwork.com

Vorteile

The product is robust yet streamlined at the same time. They simplify the UI to enhance the UX and make it easy for team members to jump right in. The flexibility with budgets has been the best feature for us, as we are able to put all shapes of budgets into the system and track them correctly and effectively across all of our projects.

Nachteile

I wish there was some way to create a production schedule within the projects so they could easily be visible at all times. Everything is tracked within this system EXCEPT for production schedules, so I feel most strongly about that element missing.

Vorteile

Great product that is easy to use with a nice inteface. Love the updated design and we rely most on the project management and time reporting function. They work really well.

Nachteile

Kind of expensive if you have a bigger team. Works good for us since we are a small team.

Vorteile

I've used Productive for the past 7 months and it's been very, very helpful. As a project manager it offers you a great way to keep an eye on your running projects, upcoming deadlines, internal planning and much, much more.

Besides that I must say that the customer service offered by Productive is the best I've experienced in my career so far. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and his team are simply amazing, doing a great job assisting your every need and are more than happy to jump on a video call to help you out when needed.

When asked to help me with a financial overview by using 'Insights' [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] immediately took the liberty to create some overviews to show me what Productive is capable of which helped me out a lot.

Nachteile

In all honesty I didn't miss a feature. The team is constantly updating Productive as it is and if you have useful feedback they'll implement this within a few months. It's perfect.

Vorteile

it's still growing. Productive develops new features and keeps evolving.
Client support and chat is really nice. They try to help you within a day.

Nachteile

Scheduling is till pretty hard, and you can't track hours on sales efforts for a client wihout making a project.

Vorteile

I love that you can use it from time capturing to project and task management .
The tool is not perfect, but it allows you to provide feedback and ask for things that are necessary for your business to grow. Staff support is 100%! Thanks for all you do Productive and for all your fast responses.

Nachteile

It's not perfect, but it is learning from our needs. I know it will grow into an all-in-one tool.

Vorteile

I like the split of booked and billed hours, as well as the ease of invoicing

Nachteile

It's very expensive compared to similar products. The mobile app is clunky.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

FreshBooks

Warum Productive gewählt wurde

It lacked features

Zuvor genutzte Software

Zoho Books

Gründe für den Wechsel zu Productive

The feature set

Vorteile

The thing I liked most is the speed and design of the UI/UX alongside the feature set. We have tried most PM tools and this covers all that and more to help us run more efficiently and see the data we need.

Nachteile

I would really have to dig to find something I didn't like about the software. Most of the issues fell on me at the beginning with ways I should have been operating my agency before getting on Productive. So really there is nothing that I dislike.

Vorteile

There are so many features packed into one tool making my job easier and more organized.

Nachteile

Sometimes it's a bit glitchy when trying to schedule projects in the far distant future.

Vorteile

It really has the potential to unify the agency processes and eliminate the need for several tools. It brings together time tracking, project management, CRM and sales, financials, invoicing. One of the really cool options is the fact that you can use as much or as little features that you need. You adjust the software to your sales and business process not the other way around.

A special hat-tip goes to the support team. They were readily available, helpful, really went an extra mile to help out, even came to our office and did a presentation and training even before we signed up for the software. I am in this industry for more than a decade and rarely does one see support team with so much passion about their product and their willingness to explain all the possible details. Highly recommended!

Nachteile

In some rare occasions there are minor issues with synchonisation between time entries made from the website, mobile app and desktop widget. However, when we reported those issues, team was quick to fix them and continiously offered help.

Vorteile

UX details that make everyday tasks like logging time simpler. And, over time, getting more and more simple, taking fewer and fewer clicks to perform the desired action.

Nachteile

It's "opinionated" in the sense of data/information architecture (clients/budgets/expenses/invoices/etc. - you have to follow the logic of the application).

Vorteile

Productive is a good product to track projects and time spent on it.

Nachteile

Strict methodology brings some rigidity.

Vorteile

Integrated sales, project management, time tracking, team scheduling and invoicing software. Most of the tools you need to manage an agency in one.
If you want to run your agency the Productive.io way, this tool will integrate your whole business.

Nachteile

The tool does everything. Which means that you'll be best of running your business and using the tool exactly as the developers intended, which takes some getting used to.
For a tool that is meant to do everything it doesn't really cater to the power-user a lot, there are few keyboard shortcuts and you'll be clicking a log.
The tool can be buggy and slow at times. And there is no off-line support.
Using Productive.io will create a HUGE single point of failure for your company.

Vorteile

The main features are awesome and so far we've used almost daily the task list, time tracking, sales board and the project's management section.

We're also very happy with the customer service provided by Productive.io

Nachteile

I'd like to be able to customize more our quotes (ie: change colors, fonts, layout, add additional text like our terms and conditions etc.).

Sometimes, I'm also confused about small details (where to click, what's the link between sales, projects, the pricing ie: hourly or not), but in a few weeks we've already seen the software update and improve a lot so we're convinced the team behind Productive.io is working making everything on point.

Vorteile

My favorite thing about Productive is being able to organize and personalize my own dashboard layout. I am someone who works better when I can make task lists and productive allows me to make private lists for myself to use throughout the day.

Nachteile

I wish this software would allow subtasks under the original task -- sometimes a task isn't complete unless multiple subtasks are completed first. This would allow our workflow to move more smoothly.

Vorteile

Very simple to navigate through. It is easy to set up collaborative tasks and track team productivity.

Nachteile

You have to enter your tasks manually to track your tasks and timing. It also does not seem to give you an accurate overview of your weeks tasks productivity.