Kanban Tool vs. Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Kanban Tool
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Kanban Tool is a visual project management application based on Kanban that helps companies visualize workflow, track project progress, analyze and improve business processes. Some key features include: time tracking and time reports, real-time collaboration and Kaban analytics.
$6
per month per user
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Social Squared is a SharePoint Discussion Board App that can be deployed across SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Social Squared improves productivity and efficiency by providing structured discussion forums for employee and student discussions. For Microsoft SharePoint Social Squared is a SharePoint discussion board application where users can post questions within relevant forums and receive answers to their questions from subject matter experts. The…
$2,200
per year per installation
Pricing
Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Editions & Modules
Kanban Tool Team
$6
per month per user
Kanban Tool Enterprise
$11
per month per user
Kanban Tool On-Site Team
$720
per year per 10-user pack
Kanban Tool On-Site Enterprise
$1,320
per year per 10-user pack
Social Squared Discussion Board
From $2200
per year per installation
Social Squared Discussion Board Enterprise Edition
POA
per year per installation
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPrices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Features
Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Kanban Tool
6.3
13 Ratings
19% below category average
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Task Management8.613 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Management6.48 Ratings00 Ratings
Gantt Charts1.03 Ratings00 Ratings
Scheduling6.411 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow Automation7.511 Ratings00 Ratings
Team Collaboration6.413 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Agile Methodology7.311 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for Waterfall Methodology3.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Document Management6.69 Ratings00 Ratings
Email integration7.39 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile Access8.610 Ratings00 Ratings
Timesheet Tracking8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Change request and Case Management8.28 Ratings00 Ratings
Budget and Expense Management3.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Professional Services Automation
Comparison of Professional Services Automation features of Product A and Product B
Kanban Tool
5.7
6 Ratings
28% below category average
Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
-
Ratings
Quotes/estimates5.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Invoicing5.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Project & financial reporting3.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with accounting software9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
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Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
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User Ratings
Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Kanban ToolLightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board
Likelihood to Recommend
Shore Labs
Kanban is well suited for a fast-paced working environment for larger teams who want continuous communication with users. Kanban is good for rapid development and daily meetings for updates and statuses. Kanban is less suited for smaller teams or groups who don't require collaboration and constant communication with involved users. Kanban is time-consuming and it takes additional effort outside of your regular work to maintain and manage the tool.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
Their customer service it top notch and always responsive. I struggled in the beginning a little bit because I'm not tech savvy and we had to add it to our SharePoint site but they helped me along the way and even had share screen meetings with me to assist!!
Read full review
Pros
Shore Labs
  • It provides a good basic overview of where tasks are on a timeline (particularly helpful for a pull-based approach).
  • It provides a good collaborative space to have multiple folks commenting on multiple tasks.
  • It does a good job of managing very basic visual elements of an agile development cycle.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
  • Organizing Data
  • Opens up discussion, whether publicly or anonymously
  • Easy to setup
Read full review
Cons
Shore Labs
  • Kanban does not show the task or story clearly. You have to open the project separately to view the details of the project.
  • Kanban gives a higher level project management view but it lacks customization and personal settings features.
  • I would like to see Kanban provide mobile access to their tool, data, and board. This would be very useful for all companies and provide an increase in efficiency and productivity.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
  • I would love to be able to assign various people as administrators of different topics (this may be an option now but a couple years ago it wasn't)
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Shore Labs
We are more likely than not to renew our use of Kanban. Even with its limits, it still is a good product that fulfills our needs.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Usability
Shore Labs
The integration with Teams is well suited. This works wonderful for my
company. Our team can easily prioritize tasks based on their importance.
It help our team identify and reduce inefficiencies in workflow. With
great visibility in data our team can make informed decisions. Ensuring
clear accountability and responsibility of team members
Read full review
Lightning Tools
Our employees really like the fact that they can find things easily with the search feature and add questions and comments as they see fit.
Read full review
Support Rating
Shore Labs
This is the best tool I had a chance to work with- since I started to use it I saved a lot of time and I made my work go smoothly.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Shore Labs
We've only tried JIRA Agile and KanbanFlow before. Kanban Tool was the one that our team actually liked and enjoyed working with. Also - it's been much easier to get started with and to understand than some of the other two (JIRA in particular). Although JIRA has many more features that we would have possibly used, the user feedback on it was so poor we were afraid that the negativity would create time wasted and less "job satisfaction" amongst the team.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Shore Labs
  • Better communication and organization of ongoing projects.
  • We are a very small team, with many areas to work on. Having everything in one system gives us a lot of visibility.
  • Greatly reduced costs from using other tools that were much more expensive.
Read full review
Lightning Tools
  • We signed up for a 3 year contract and hope to do another 3yr contract when this one is up. :)
Read full review
ScreenShots

Kanban Tool Screenshots

Screenshot of Visual project management tool - Kanban board from Kanban Tool.Screenshot of The collection of Power-Ups form Kanban ToolScreenshot of Kanban Tool board example, with My Work widget, Recurring and Postponed Tasks visible in the side panel. User's own background selected.Screenshot of Kanban Tool  board example. Default light theme applied.Screenshot of Kanban Tool - an open card view, with comments in the side panel. The choice of what fields show on cards is with the user.Screenshot of Kanban Tool's free Power-Ups  for user's own activation.

Lightning Tools Social Squared Discussion Board Screenshots

Screenshot of MODERN, RESPONSIVE SHAREPOINT DISCUSSION BOARD
Discussion Forums can be created for a variety of different reasons. This example is a Forum Group for the Microsoft 365 technologies such as Teams, Planner, and SharePoint. Forums are then created within the Forum Groups for more specific discussions. Under the SharePoint Forum Group, there is a Forum for SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online. Anyone looking to ask a question regarding SharePoint 2019 for example would be able to post their question under SharePoint On-Premises rather than SharePoint Online. This also allows subject matter experts to focus more on the questions that they can respond to and provide value.Screenshot of SHAREPOINT DISCUSS BOARD – TOPICS VIEW
When navigating into a forum, the topics and discussions that are taking place are shown. Any new topics that not yet read will be highlighted. It also displays whether topics have been answered, their average ratings, how many views and posts are within the topic, and also provides the ability to subscribe to the forum to be notified of new posts within it.Screenshot of READING DISCUSSIONS AND PROVIDING FEEDBACK
Social Squared offers a threaded discussion view with the ability to provide feedback to other users.

Posts can be rated, voted upon, or liked by users in order to give feedback to the user creating or responding to a post. Additionally, replies can be marked as answered or marked as featured, which gives readers of forums assurance that the response they are reading is validated to be the correct answer.

Users also receive feedback through the earning of badges. The more users post or mark posts as answered, the more points are rewarded. This makes it easy to spot subject matter experts.Screenshot of SUGGESTED TAGS
Social Squared provides a rich text editor for creating and replying to topics. The Rich Text toolbar provides functionality such as inserting images, YouTube videos, Stream Videos, Formatted Code Inserts, as well as font formatting.

While typing, suggestions on how to tag a post appear. Selecting an existing tag will provide consistency in the tags used making it easier for other users to discover the post.Screenshot of SOCIAL SQUARED TAG CLOUD VIEW
The Social Squared Tag Cloud view makes it easy to navigate to posts within a specific category even if they span multiple forums. The more a tag appears in different posts, the more prominent it will be in the tag cloud. Users can navigate to posts with the tag in one click.Screenshot of DISCUSSION BOARD WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS TAB
Social Squared is a Discussion Board App for Microsoft Teams Tab’s and Microsoft Teams Personal Apps. Social Squared provides information workers the ability to post questions within relevant forums, and receive answers from their team. The Discussion Board layout for posts makes it easier to find answers to questions that may have already been asked before. Through features such as “Mark as Answered”, “Forum Moderation”, “Post Rating”, “Post Likes”, “Post Voting”, users will be assured that the answers they are reading are validated.