5 Must Have Add-ons to Power up Your Orangescrum Community Version

“Which Add-ons do you recommend for us?”- It is a common question our customer support team faces every day on live chat. Well, requirements vary from customer to customer and so varies the recommended add-ons. However, there are certain add-ons we would recommend for every project management team. Here are my top 5 must have add-ons that help businesses of all sizes maximize their productivity, efficiency, and profitability effortlessly.

1. Time Log Gold:

1. Time Logging: Flexible yet Accurate

“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.” – Lee Iacocca.

You run a business & it’s essential to track the exact time spent by your resources on the tasks which add to your revenue. There are 3 different ways you can log spent hours to a task.

• Timer: – Log your spent hours through the timer. As you start the Timer; it automatically selects the default project and task from where you started it. The timer keeps running while you are working on the task. Once done just click ’Save’ and your spent hours are added to the task.

• Time entry: – Provide your start time and end time details of the task and the spent hours will be auto calculated. You can also add additional notes to the task if needed.
• Timesheet: – 100s of tasks, no time to add time details for each task? No issues! Just add the spent hours on a single page. It doesn’t need your start time and end time information for each task.

ii. Resource Utilization: Control your Budget and Time

How do you plan, manage and utilize your resources effectively? With this feature, you can track which resource spent how much time on a task or project. Measure it, improve on it, and take control of your Time. Strengthen your grip over errant resources.

iii. Resource Availability: Get the availability status of resources on a go

Are you struggling with different tools and projects to get the information of the resource schedules? Orangescrum solves it all. Now you can get a view of the tasks on which resources are booked, available or on leave. You can also see your overloaded resources at a glance to prevent resource burnout & improve productivity.

iv. Resource Settings: Add holidays and work hours for effective time management

Now you can define your business hours and company holidays and weekends in Orangescrum. Once the holidays are updated, you are duly prompted of incorrect assignment when resources aren’t available.  This way you project planning isn’t impacted and the project team is also aware of each other’s availability and assignments.

Explore Time Log Gold add-on

2. User Role Management:

Larger is the team, different are the positions and their roles. You cannot just put everyone under user and admins and provide same access to each user. For example, Project manager and coordinator cannot have same access to Gantt chart, editing time logs etc.

With  User Role Management add-on, you can:-

• Manage custom departments and roles
• Define custom access permission for each role.
• Manage project wise custom roles
• Define multiple roles to a single user.

Explore User Role Management add-on 

3. Gantt Chart:

“A goal without a plan is just a wish”. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The analytical view of a project with all its inter-dependencies – be it the tasks or the resources to help you identify and re-plan project schedules with improved task organization.

You understand where the resources and teams are engaged. So, you are able to manage them better proactively.

Gantt Chart add-on provides

• Highly interactive graphical view of multiple tasks, sub-tasks, their dependencies and timelines on a single platform
• Drag and drop to change start and end dates and dependencies
• Provides “Critical Path” of the project
• Milestones and associated tasks mapping
• Print/Export the Gantt chart view inform of PDF and PNG
• Get information of closed tasks in the project for transparent planning.
• Get custom visibility to project plan with Workdays/Full week view.

Explore Gantt Chart add-on 

4. Task Status Group:

Project Management is not restricted to a single industry or a team. The task life cycle varies across projects. Having the ability to define task statuses that are relevant to the teams is critical.

It helps in better status categorization and provides a clear picture on the task and project progress at a glance. Project tracking, reporting, and review become easier to quickly point out task trends in terms of delays, process & communication gaps & team performance as a whole.

With Task Status Group add-on, you can

• Define your own statuses workflow for tasks and milestones
• Create, edit and manage unlimited Task Status Groups
• Track task progress based on the assigned status weightage
• Provides transparent information of the workflow to your team members
• Know how much time is spent to change one status to another
• Improve the efficiency of the business and reduces the execution cycle

Task status group add-on makes your task management simple and easy.

Explore Task Status Group add-on

5. Executive Dashboard:

Important business decisions cannot be taken without accurate data, facts, and figures. And it becomes all the more important when you have multiple strategic initiatives running at the same time.

CXOs do not have time to struggle through every project to find the progress and nag project managers to provide project details. Having a high level as well as a granular view of the project portfolio, resources, tasks and time spent metrics enable prompt status reviews for quick & informed decision making.

With the Executive Dashboard add-on, you can

• Get RAG (Red, Amber, and Green) status in terms of Project Cost & Time.
• Get real-time insights of projects, costs, time, resource utilization and overall operational statistics
• Define Checklists, Sub-Tasks, Task Linking & Custom Task Reminders
• Know all upcoming and overdue tasks of each project and resource
• Track progress of each project and milestone on monthly basis for each client
• Monitor project cost to the company against cost approved and task status of the task against each resource
• Define the salary of each resource, role-based hourly rates and default hourly rate in your organization
• Add custom project type, industry, and statuses to define your project
• Get In-App notification and email alerts “15 minutes” before “task start times“

Explore Executive Dashboard add-on 

The add-ons are specially designed to add structure to your projects, provide better handle & clear insights of project, teams and enhance productivity at the workplace. Please share your thoughts in the comment section and let us know which of the Orangescrum add-ons you think are important for your team.

If you’re looking for a carefully built PM tool for your design studio, IT Company, consultant firm, marketing agency, or creative team, take the add-ons and see why more people choose Orangescrum.