Avaza vs. ConceptDraw PROJECT

There are teams who work hard, and there are those who work smart. Avaza helps you be the latter--it's is a great tool for any team collaborating on several projects, especially multiple projects with a lot of simultaneously moving parts. It has just about everything you need - from team schedules to timesheets, down to the task and sub-task monitoring. The best part for me is that we can switch from List View to Kanban to Gantt charts!

For small and medium companies or independent departments of large companies where usually an individual plans the projects this is the best tool without all the overheads of complex software like Microsoft Project and without any privacy concerns of all online project management tools being used today. Not that convenient when you want your employees to update timesheets, etc., as everything needs to be fed into the tool by the project manager.

• Helps keep track of time spent on each project
• Helps employees break down their time spent throughout the day
• Encourages better time management skills

Incentivized

• PROJECT is tightly integrated with Diagram and MindMap, the two other tools in the CD Suite. This allows me to do initial scoping in MindMap and then switch to PROJECT and go back and forth as new requirements are exposed and tasks are developed.
• For projects that entail the development of mechanical or electro-mechanical systems it is necessary to develop a topology of the system. By using MindMap I can define the required elements of the system, switch to Diagram to develop an initial layout of the components of the system and then switch to PROJECT to start defining the task to develop the system. Once the system has been defined I use CD Solutions to generate presentations that incorporate the reports and dashboards generated by PROJECT.
• PROJECT is cross platform (Mac and Windows). We are a Mac shop, so the ability to import Microsoft project and Visio charts and export to those formats as well saves a lot of heartburn when so many of our partners and potential customers are Windows users.

• I wish sub-tasks could also have due dates
• For really big projects, we hope there could be phases (aside from sections)
• In the chatbox, it would be great if photo attachments could be displayed as screenshots (instead of downloading the file)

• We had to spend a good amount of time to understand all the features so some interactive built-in tutorials would have made getting started easier.
• The UI does not look so good in macOS Catalina Dark Mode and I often switch to light mode when working on this software.
• Multiple people working on the same project at a time cannot update as there is no way to synchronize changes so we put the file in our code repo but manually co-ordinate to make sure only one of us is changing the plan at a time.

Because it has been amazing and easy to work with.

Incentivized

Avaza is very easy to use, but the mobile app needs work.

Incentivized

They are always available and open to doing a call or a shared screen to walk through the issues.

Incentivized

Customer service from the ConceptDraw sales team is relatively quick and they do a good job of answering basic questions. However, the user base for ConceptDraw products is not huge so finding answers online for anything beyond basic help-file questions is difficult

Incentivized

I've used Trello before, but Avaza has way more features and is more applicable for cross-team collaboration. We selected Avaza for it's ability to not only project manage, but also for invoicing, expenses and it's ability to track time. We've gotten more accurate with estimate project hours, and therefore create more accurate proposals

Incentivized

Microsoft Project is a typical Microsoft product - too much programming overhead, poor graphics, confusing and fussy interface. OmniGraffle is close to CD PROJECT but has its own fussy parts, plus it is a lot more expensive than CD PROJECT; it is in the middle between Microsoft and CD.

• Avaza has made it easier to see how long I spend on certain types of projects and where I could be spending more time.

Incentivized

• Inexpensive way to present a professional project plan when needed

Incentivized