Looking for workload management tools that could do wonders for your team's planning and productivity? Check out our ultimate list.
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Efficient workload management is key to project success and the foundation of revenue growth.
Think of it like this: the better you keep tabs on what’s in your pipeline, what’s coming up, and how much capacity you have, the better you mitigate project risks and ensure client success.
Thankfully, managing projects and your workload doesn't have to be difficult. Having a workload management tool that meets your specific needs can help your projects advance with steady, consistent progress.
But finding the best workload management tool for your requirements? Now that’s not as simple as it seems, given that different platforms cater to different teams’ needs. A tool that works extremely well in one context might lead to lackluster results in another.
So a good starting point is to list what you need help with. This will help you understand which features you need in your ideal work management software.
And to make things easy for you, below we’ve curated a list of the top workload management tools that meet different needs. You’ll find some are great help for task management and project planning, while others help you manage employees and keep on top of project risks, too.
So, let's go:
Workload management in Runn is all about understanding where people's time is being spent, and how their skills are be used. Runn gives you the ability to create high-level workload plans based on insight into your team's capacity – right now, but also weeks and months in the future.
The People Planner interface gives you full visibility into your team's assignments, allowing you to see where people are over- or under-utilized so that you can ensure that their workload is balanced and their time is being used effectively. Easily reallocate and delegate assignments across the team using Runn's intuitive interface.
Runn's Insights feature also gives you updates and key information about your workforce and projects in real-time, so you can identify where the biggest delivery risks are and make strategic moves to save your projects before they flop.
Unlike some of the other big hitters on this list, Runn is both suitable for large teams and simple to use (we measure implementations in weeks, not months), proving that complex project environments and team structures don't have to be managed by complicated software that takes months to learn and implement.
Resource Guru uses a multi-layered full team calendar to make managing schedules visual and straightforward.
One of the features that helps Resource Guru to stand out is its approach to resource booking and clash management. It makes it impossible to double-book resources, even when two separate project managers are booking a resource at the same time.
Its centralized calendar is visible across entire organizations, and this transparency is particularly beneficial for in-demand resources or complex businesses.
As well as full team calendar views, Resource Guru has individual dashboards that show staff members what they need to be working on at a given time. It uses drag-and-drop functionality for ease of use, and generates real time reports on resource utilization, overtime tracking and availability.
Float helps to promote good workload management by making resource scheduling easy. It's easy to create new projects, see resource availability and allocate resources or assign tasks.
As a team leader or project manager, you get both a high level view of your team's workload and the ability to drill down to an individual team member's schedule on a given day. Time tracking functionality also means you can compare timesheets with project schedules to monitor team performance against deadlines.
Float also makes it easy to adjust schedules. Editing shortcuts and drag-and-drop reassignment options also reduce some of the hassle of dealing with inevitable project changes.
Accelo has a wide range of applications in workload management, including sales, projects, ticketing, retainers, timesheets and resourcing. Its platform also incorporates client communications, making it a complete home for all project management activity and workload management.
Not only does it help to monitor team workloads, but it can be used to enhance capabilities in CRM, project management, time tracking, capacity planning, business development and financial reporting. This helps to find efficiencies within these processes, helping workload management while also reducing business costs.
Accelo is capable of delivering great results for complex businesses, although its sophisticated functions and integrations may be surplus to requirements for smaller organizations.
Trello is a very simple project management software that works well for tracking the progress of work, providing that work isn't too complicated. While not primarily a workload management tool, Trello's Kanban view helps project managers to make sure that team members don't have too many tasks in progress.
Trello interfaces include calendar, project and task views, and all are very easy to use. Project creation, task allocation and workflow visibility are all made simple, so team members with limited technical abilities can use it. It's intuitive usability helps team members and managers to see their actual workload in one place.
Its mobile app comes highly rated, and it has customizable automations that help to progress a project through different stages and pieces of work.
However, Trello has limited reporting and analytics functionality, which means having to do a little more digging to understand key team workload management metrics.
It's hard to find effective free workload management tools, as many softwares withhold key functionalities on their free versions. However, even Asana's free version has plenty of features to make a genuine impact on the workload management front.
Asana is perhaps one of the more widely known task management tools, and its intelligent and automated functionality help to create workload management benefits. It's easy to collaborate with colleagues and teams on tasks and projects, with automated notifications that keep key stakeholders informed of progress.
Both its desktop and app version are easy to use, and users commonly discover more and more workload management benefits the deeper they go.
Monday.com has a large online presence, and it also comes highly rated by the many people who use it.
It provides data-driven insights and analytics in a wide range of HR and project management applications. It's easy to use and highly visual, helping to understand workload management from a bird's eye view and at a granular, individual level.
Workload view helps to see which team members can take on more work, while it also comes with capacity and timeline dashboards to further optimize workload management.
Basecamp has become almost synonymous with project management for remote teams. Thanks to a low-cost per-user plan, easy syncing across accounts, and a hassle-free upgrade process, it's a popular tool for teams that need to plan in a collaborative central hub.
As well as the power to assign roles and responsibilities on a project-by-project basis, Basecamp ensures everyone stays on track with a timeline feature that intuitively visualizes milestones and deadlines.
Enhanced communication tools also help Basecamp stand out. Campfire is a chat channel that acts similarly to Slack, while Automatic Check-ins can be established to answer regularly recurring questions.
Teamwork is easy to use but loaded with must-have features for project and workload management. Navigating, creating, and assigning tasks to people, tracking time spent on a task, creating reports, and adding extra details to tasks are all quick and easy.
Teamwork's interface is clean and fresh, with well-explained options that dodge the off-putting jargon. But just because Teamwork is user-friendly, don’t mistake it for simplistic. Teamwork's features are deep enough for many teams, with subtasks, priority levels, and task dependencies all available to add to tasks and build robust project schedules.
On the workload management front, you can create your own teams to assign certain tasks to, quickly identify individual workloads and availability, as well as estimate task completion times and deadlines.
Initially finding favor among software developers working in agile teams, Jira's popularity is spreading beyond software development. Up to ten users can access 2GB of storage, community support, basic road mapping, unlimited boards, reports, and insights – making it ideal for small teams with matching budgets.
Where Jira really shines is its backlog view. This intuitive tool simplifies the process of prioritizing work for upcoming sprints, ensuring that tasks are aligned with team capacities and project goals. The ability to add story points to tasks allows managers to clearly communicate the complexity and effort required for each task, facilitating better planning and resource allocation.
Additionally, Jira’s pages tool offers a collaborative space for project managers to create and share important notes. This feature enhances team communication and coordination, allowing managers to document key project information and collaborate with team members effectively.
Zoho Projects is a simple, value-for-money tool, which means that there are omissions in the features you may need. You don't get access to built-in billing or invoicing tools, for example, but the ability to connect with external apps has you covered.
But what you do get is everything you need to get started, including Gantt charts, milestones, forums, pages, reports, timesheets, and more. Paid accounts also come with built-in time tracking for tasks. For many teams, this suite of features will be enough for their requirements.
One of the better-known names in project management, Wrike features the usual project and workload management tools, but at a cost that's noticeably higher than some of its rivals.
The Work Intelligence Suite uses machine learning and AI to automate what would otherwise be time-sapping, brain-draining, repetitive manual tasks. For example, it can create tasks and sub-stacks, proactively predict and manage project risks, or generate suggestions for automated responses.
As far as customization goes, Wrike can be closely tailored to your needs thanks to over 400 available integrations, including Salesforce, Quickbooks, and NetSuite. This furthers the opportunities to accelerate workflows by creating automations across different software tools.
Bonsai simplifies workload management and streamlines projects with an intuitive interface, perfect for agencies and small businesses.
Its project scheduling and management features enable detailed timelines, milestone setting, and efficient resource allocation. Task-setting and monitoring capabilities break down complex projects into manageable tasks, ensuring accurate forecasting and reducing schedule and budget risks.
Bonsai's resource allocation and management support proactive scheduling by assigning tasks based on skills, availability, and capacity, maximizing team utilization rates. Data visualization and reporting tools offer real-time insights into team utilization and project performance. Detailed timesheet reports and intuitive dashboards help make informed decisions, keeping projects on track and within budget.
By consolidating project, client and financial management into one user-friendly platform, Bonsai simplifies operations and enhances productivity. Its extensive suite of features makes it a valuable tool for effective workload management, ensuring your team operates at peak efficiency.
Kantata helps people-first agencies, consultancies, and custom software solution providers manage projects, optimize human resources, and forecast business costs.
It offers multiple views, including boards and charts – there’s also a task tracker available to make it easy to keep tabs on work in progress and to prioritize tasks.
And although there’s a slight learning curve, the platform’s intuitive UI makes it easy to use. There’s also a proactive support team that can help you with setup.
To boot, Kantata offers a Salesforce integration among other integrations it offers, which makes it useful for service-based businesses that rely on Salesforce.
nTask is a fairly easy-to-use project management software for individuals and self-managing small to medium-sized teams.
It gives you an overview of projects in two main views: Kanban board and Gantt chart. Within the dashboard, you can also track issues and monitor risks in dedicated spaces so you can resolve/mitigate them before it’s too late. There’s a separate column for tracking and taking notes on meetings as well.
Its pre-built board templates simplify getting started with nTask. In terms of resource management, nTask allows project assignment, time tracking, custom statuses, and team chat features.
As for integrations, you can connect with 1000+ apps using Zapier.
For project-based businesses and professional service firms, efficient workload management can be the difference between a healthy profit and happy clients and…well…the opposite!
Your workforce is your biggest investment and you need to optimize their workload for maximum ROI. But heavy workloads and frequently shifting project scopes make workload management a perennial challenge.
Here are four top features of workload management tools and how they translate into bottom-line benefits for ambitious project-based businesses. When you are searching for a workload management solution, focus on these elements in order to find the right-fit tool for your team:
Project scheduling tools support better project planning by creating detailed timelines, setting milestones, and allocating resources efficiently. Features like Gantt charts and dependency tracking help project managers create visual project plans that keep all stakeholders informed and on track.
Project management tools also improve demand forecasting, strategic capacity planning, and schedule and budget adherence, by identifying potential bottlenecks and mitigating risk early. They also make it possible to pinpoint resourcing needs in advance, to ensure resource supply matches demand, reducing resource risk.
TL;DR – Look for features that aid with better project planning, schedule and budget adherence, and that flag project resource requirements early.
Resource allocation and management features support proactive scheduling by assigning tasks based on skills, availability, and capacity. This maximizes utilization rates and ensures the right people are working on the right tasks at the right time.
Features such as resource calendars help maintain a balanced workload across the team, preventing delays and increasing project quality. They also ensure no individuals or teams are unfairly overworked, which improves staff satisfaction and engagement – and reduces costly and disruptive employee turnover.
TL;DR – A tool that supports proactive resource scheduling and management will help ensure higher utilization, fewer delays, accurate skills matching, and better project outcomes.
Data visualization, reporting, and analytics tools allow managers to monitor key metrics and make better, faster, more confident business decisions. Visualization tools like heat maps and charts make complex data easier to interpret, so you don’t have to rely on complex calculations or data analysis to understand project status or business needs.
Together, these tools enable data-based decision-making by highlighting trends and potential issues. For example, resource utilization reporting helps inform recruitment strategies and timely promotion of new vacancies. This reduces disruption to delivery and maintains workforce capacity.
TL;DR – You can't management what you don't measure. Look for features that let managers monitor metrics through real-time at-a-glance insights and in-depth reporting, for more confident data-based decision-making and improved business outcomes.
