OpenProj Review

Several days ago I received a message from Marc O’Brien, vigorous CEO of Projity. They are launching new project management tool – OpenProj. OpenProj is designed as a cross-platform substitute for MS Project. Unlike web-based Project-ON-Demand from the same stable, which I’ve already reviewed here, OpenProj is a desktop application being close copy of Microsoft origin.

General

As OpenProj is a desktop stand-alone application you need to install it first. No issues here. On the first glimpse interface looks familiar enough for any MS Project user so there shouldn’t be any significant problems on the beginning. Of course there’s an option to import file from MS Project. It loads tasks, resources (Project-ON-Demand didn’t do that) and connections between resources and tasks. Nice job done here as the application is expected to migrate users from Microsoft solution. One more thing to notice: Projity-based application works (at least for now) as a stand-alone application only – there’s no collaboration features on board. I don’t say it’s automatically wrong – quite often people just don’t use them.

I was able to import an old mpp file. I was able to create simple project quickly. Generally these are strengths of OpenProj, yet these are also must-haves on the market the solution is addressed to.

Issues

Definitely OpenProj is still far from perfection. I don’t say here about feature range, which is quite OK (even too wide for me), but about the quality of existing functionalities. There are three areas which should be improved:

1. Editing area
This is a sin which I see so often (Google Docs is one of my favorites here), that I’m not surprised at all. When you try to fight with market leader, whoever it is, you can’t deliver worse quality, especially in the area which is used the most often – the editing area. OK, what’s wrong here?

• Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V works when used on task name, but does not when used on resource name.

• Del on resource name on Gantt chart deletes the whole line instead of clearing resource name cell.

• Insert on tasks list adds new line but focus is set not on the newly added task but on the following one.

• On the task list there’s no dropdown to choose resource from.

• Every time the cell is clicked it enters “edit mode,” what makes navigation much less intuitive.

These are only several examples which popped up on the very beginning. Generally typical user converted from MS Project will quickly call the OpenProj unintuitive and unfinished, because it doesn’t work like we used to.

2. Organizing projects
OK, that’s the clue of the whole thing. You enter all those resources, tasks and then you need to create something what looks like a project. You switch tasks, paths, relations etc. And you get frustrated as you still get no software which makes the task more pleasant. MS Project does really poor job here, but unfortunately OpenProj isn’t any better – it fails to keep even Microsoft “standards.”

• When adding relation between a couple of tasks by selecting them on the list and choosing a chain icon, the predecessor will be always the one which is higher on the list, no matter which one you’ve selected earlier.

• When working with “percent complete” column every click on that column outside the current task list automatically adds a task what brings a mess into the project.

• Changing a day to non-working time doesn’t affect existing tasks in any way, while new ones know there’s another free day.

And yes, that list isn’t complete. These are just few points I’ve noticed during first hour or so reviewing OpenProj.

3. Interoperability
OpenProj will definitely work in “mixed environments” where a part of people will use MS Project and a part (hopefully) OpenProj. There’s an option to import an mpp file. But why the heck there’s no option to save the project as one? Wanted to make MS Project users’ life harder or what? Hey, they rather stop using OpenProj than move to use an xml files instead of an mpp format. Yes, I know xml is more open etc, but mpp is a standard, you want it or not. If I send xml file to my customer he’ll ask me to send a “normal” mpp file.

Cool Things

As with other Projity’s products cool things lies in concepts standing behind the development, not it the quality of results.

1. Price
OpenProj is basically free. MS Project is not. Nothing more to comment here.

2. Cross-platform
Linux, Unix, Mac and Windows. Definitely pushes the market borders further, although as I’m the Windows user, I can’t say either what is the competition on other platforms (if any) or how big can be the impact of OpenProj here. I haven’t played with the Projity’s new child on platforms other than Windows so I can’t say if it works better, worse or just the same.

3. Acceptable quality
Having vented all my rants above I think OpenProj has acceptable quality for now. It’s definitely less intuitive (yes it is possible) than MS Project and I expect the managing of complex project will be hell, but industry standards in the area aren’t very high. You can easily figure out basic things, the rest wouldn’t be a piece of cake anyway. Remember that’s the first version of OpenProj – according to the law of version 3 I should wait a bit to see a mature product.

My opinion

Projity definitely tries hard to cut some of project management tools market from Microsoft. After web-based Project-ON-Demand they try on another front. I don’t share Marc’s optimism that OpenProj will be enabler for the part of the market which hasn’t used MS Project because of its price. I see much work is to be done in future improving the application.

Projity’s path isn’t easy as they’ve chosen demanding competitor and, to be honest I don’t really believe they can stand a direct confrontation (I had a short discussion with Marc about that). However I’d look for a chance in a niche where MS Project rather won’t come – the lite version. I know, I was mentioning that in the Project-ON-Demand review, but that’s the thing I still miss.

I’d love to see lightweight solution which brings limited functionality but do it well. Tasks, resources, connections, simple Gantt chart and simple cooperation features. This is I believe the real market enabler and the place where you don’t have to fight the Redmond giant. At least not on a daily basis.

Tagged as: openproj, project management, project management software, review