Enterprise Work Management Software Shortlist
Here’s the list of the tools that I’ll cover in this article.
- 1. Wrike — Project management tool that is easy to learn and has reliable security features to protect your data.
- 7. Planview Clarizen — Roadmap views and dashboards to support your enterprise strategy at the price of a steep learning curve.
- 8. Adobe Workfront — Enterprise-ready work management platform seamlessly integrated with Adobe products.
- 9. ClickUp — Great data protection compliance and serious competitor in the space despite being a young company.
An apples-to-apples comparison is something we demand every time we are offered a choice between products. Don't you? Funny enough, most tool-related reviews and comparisons are the opposite. They usually start with a description of a tool, highlighting how wonderful it is. Then, a second tool shows a description of how incredible its features are.
Meanwhile, your brain is playing forced connections (the game where you are asked to connect an octopus with a wallet, for example). These connections eventually get too complicated, and this is where you start using the shortcuts called Heuristics. You probably end up selecting one feature you are looking for and deciding based on that one thing.
However, I think I will give your brain a break this time and show you ten different tools and some research that I did on the same categories. Every listing is meant to give you the research results in the same way and the same order.
Make sure you read the criteria below to understand why I chose these categories.
Comparison Criteria
Which criteria will I use to compare these enterprise project management software? I want these to be standard for every review:
- User Interface (UI): I look at the design and if it is user-friendly. Enterprise software has such robust functionality that we need an interface that looks clean and is easy to navigate.
- Time in the market: I’ll find how long the company has been offering the product. I will also discuss any relevant information regarding the company that tells us if this tool is here to stay, holds a strong position in the market, and is worth your investment.
- Security features: I’ll look at how they make your information safe. Expect information on uptime, data encryption, single sign-on (SSO), permissions, and industry standards compliance.
- Integrations: I’ll research the available integrations for each tool. At an enterprise level, you want your software to connect to other tools you use, whether this is for ease of use or data aggregation and analysis.
Enterprise Work Management Comparison Key Features
In this section, I want to talk about the general features the software should have.
- Task management: A basic feature that allows you to handle your tasks, track task progress, assign tasks, and more. Views that display tasks may include task lists, Gantt chart, kanban board, and table views.
- Asset management: A place within the software where you can store your project-related files. This repository can live within the app as a module of its own or a view within your project folder. Asset management is particularly useful for digital agencies working on marketing campaigns or website development projects.
- Document management: This feature lets you see a list or grid of documents within your project. Documents are normally attached to specific tasks and can get lost in the midst of chaos when you have too many projects. Document management solves that issue by centralizing documentation.
- Portfolio management: A feature within the software where you can track project progress and project teams across the organization. It is an eagle-eye view of your projects, how they relate to organizational goals and the interdependencies between projects.
- Resource management: Resource management can give you a snapshot of your project teams across multiple projects, their associated task lists, and workload. This feature will let you plan for new hires, assign existing people to projects, and other HR-related decisions.
- Workflow automation: Last but not least. Workflow automation lets you automate repetitive tasks. It’s a part of the software where you can define behavioural rules depending on triggers within your tasks.
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Overview Of The 10 Enterprise Work Management Software
Here’s a brief description of each tool regarding the evaluation criteria I described above.
Wrike
Project management tool that is easy to learn and has reliable security features to protect your data.
User interface: Wrike has a minimalistic multi-pane UI with a simple navigation menu on the tool's left side. Their hierarchy is similar to other tools on this list, starting with a workspace, spaces, folders, projects, tasks, and subtasks. Although the number of available views is limited compared to other enterprise project management software, it is functional and easy to learn.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2006. They released their enterprise platform in 2013 after a $10 million investment by Bain Company. After a couple more successful investment rounds, Citrix Systems declared its interest in the company. Wrike was acquired in March 2021 for $2.25 billion.
Security features: Wrike complies with SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, 27018, GDPR, and CCPA. Additionally, they guarantee an uptime of 99.9%, allow you to create role-based access, use SSO, and keep your keys to their AES-256 bit encryption using Wrike Lock.
Integrations: Wrike offers 400+ pre-built native integrations, including Microsoft Office, integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
Pricing is available upon request.
Trello
Atlassian project management solution with 99.99% uptime.
User interface: As one of the main players in the space, Trello offers a beautiful visual experience through its customizable boards. It is very easy to get started with the tool, set up and start sharing projects to collaborate with your team. User reviews on this product mention there’s no need for onboarding because of how intuitive it is.
Time in the market: Trello was first introduced to the market under the codename Trellis in 2011. Following a spin-off from Fog Creek, Trello Inc was born in 2014. Later that year, it raised over $10 million from investors. Finally, Atlassian acquired Trello in January 2017 for $425 million. Headquarters: New York City, NY.
Security features: The enterprise tier lets you set granular permissions and access to power-ups. Also, SAML SSO for your logins, 99.99% uptime, SOC 2, 3 and ISO 27000 certifications, and GDPR compliance.
Integrations: Trello offers you unlimited integrations in their enterprise plan. These integrations include popular apps like Slack, Weebly, Evernote, Miro, and over 200 others. Additionally, there’s a power-up store where you can shop for extensions that will make your product even easier to use.
Pricing is available upon request.
Asana
Unicorn startup turned top enterprise project management platform.
User interface: Asana is a project management powerhouse. I think it’s highly intuitive and simple to use. It has all the features in simple menus and integrates dozens of features seamlessly into its UI. To confirm my opinion, I went looking for reviews, and people seem to think the same. The main categories are efficiency, ease of use, and intuitiveness.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2008. After launching the product in 2012, Asana raised over $150 million in a span of 6 years. The company then went public in 2020 and operates under the stock symbol ASAN. Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Security features: The enterprise product shows how big is Asana. They have SAML 2.0 and SSO for logins, 128-bit encryption with full ownership of your key, 99.9% uptime, and data leak prevention systems in place. Moreover, the product has 10+ certification and compliance programs, including GDPR, GLBA, SOC 3, and FERPA.
Integrations: Asana has over 100 integrations, including Microsoft and Google apps, Adobe Creative Cloud, Salesforce, Tableau, and ServiceNow. Further, there are over a thousand app integrations available through Zapier. Finally, Asana’s API lets your technical team build custom integrations.
Pricing is available upon request.
Toggl Plan
Tool for scaling businesses that can’t afford an enterprise-tier plan.
User interface: Toggl Plan is a friendly-looking tool with lots of colors that is perfect for timelines and roadmaps. Online reviews give this tool a top rating for its visual attractiveness and how easy that makes it to find your way around your work.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2006. With 3 distinctive products, they decided to split them into different companies only to bring them back together years later when they realized they were stronger that way. Pretty much like the Backstreet Boys. Headquarters: Tallinn, Estonia.
Security features: The business tier, their top tier, offers SSO, AES256 encryption and SHA2 signatures and is GDPR compliant. No uptime guarantee.
Integrations: Toggl Plan makes its API available to developers for specific integrations. The app currently integrates with Slack, a couple of calendar apps, and has a browser extension that can connect with Asana, JIRA, Podio, Gitlab and Github.
ProjectManager.com
Alternative to Microsoft Project offering 99.999% uptime for their tool.
User interface: Project Manager looks noice. Maybe I’m being fooled by the dark theme and bright neon colors, but it’s definitely cool. Users report it as an easy tool to learn with lots of features and a quick way to customize it. The time I spent using the tool made me realize the same. However, it was also easy because it looks a little like MS Project. Therefore, I think familiarity with that platform will help you with its adoption.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2008. Since then, they have won awards for being a fast-growing company and sold their product to NASA and the UN. Headquarters: Austin, Texas.
Security features: Among the features available in the enterprise tier, the platform lets you create custom security roles, use SSO for easy access, and see audit logs. They protect your data with 256-bit SSL data encryption. Also, they offer an impressive 99.999% uptime thanks to a partnership with Liquid Web! Finally, if you are looking for compliance, their platform has the SSAE-16 certification and is HIPAA ready.
Integrations: Project Manager integrates natively with tools like MS Project, Slack, Jira, Microsoft Office 365, and a handful more. It also has Zapier integrations with Salesforce, Quickbooks, and over a thousand more apps.
Price is available upon request.
Hive
Easy to learn friendly interface, yet enterprise-ready with minimal downtime.
User interface: Hive could potentially be the easiest tool to learn from the ones on this list. Its UI is colorful, friendly, easy to navigate, and uncluttered. An important detail to keep in mind while using Hive is that right-click options are available on the platform to help you perform certain tasks faster.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2015. After successful investment rounds in 2016, 2017, and 2019, Hive has raised $15+ million and continues to grow today.
Security features: Hive is HIPAA compliant, offers a guaranteed 99.9% uptime SLA and has SSO authentication. Further, at the enterprise level you can set permissions for access and resourcing. This will allow other users to be able to approve and resource team members if it’s required for their job.
Integrations: Hive integrates with file management platforms, calendar apps, Salesforce, Jira, Slack, and Zoom. Additionally, you can access thousands of other apps through their Zapier connector.
Price is available upon request.
Planview Clarizen
Roadmap views and dashboards to support your enterprise strategy at the price of a steep learning curve.
User interface: Clarizen gives off a feeling that it’s an old tool. The look and feel is outdated compared to other online competitors, and I can already tell it is a pain point when learning to use it. User reviews online confirmed my suspicion as they mention complexity in the UI because of the wide range of features and taking time to learn the software at first.
Time in the market: Formerly known as Clarizen One, the company was founded in 2005 and acquired by Planview in 2021. The platform is present in 124 countries and is now helping the Planview portfolio advance the company’s ability to accelerate strategy to delivery for enterprises.
Security features: This enterprise pm tool offers TLS protocol and AES-256 bit encryption. Further, users have to create unique usernames and passwords that comply with security policies. Clarizen uses active directory federation services to permit SSO and is GDPR, SOC 2 and ISO 27701 compliant. There’s no uptime guarantee at the moment.
Integrations: Planview Clarizen has over 20 native integrations, including Slack, Procore, Tableau, Active Directory, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. Additionally, you can access 2000+ more apps through Zapier.
Pricing is available upon request.
Adobe Workfront
Enterprise-ready work management platform seamlessly integrated with Adobe products.
User interface: Adobe Workfront recently underwent a UI redesign. Now, it is a minimalistic, clean, and customizable interface that has user navigation at its center. I find this new version easy to navigate, plus it mixes features that I love from other tools. For example, the top of the screen shows a folder pathway similar to that of Dropbox or Sharepoint. To navigate through it, you just need to click on the destination folder you wish to visit.
Time in the market: Workfront was founded in 2001. After raising over $95 million from venture capital, Adobe Inc acquired them in November 2020 for $1.5 billion. The tool has been upgraded since then to work seamlessly with the Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Experience suite.
Security features: Adobe has an entire PDF addressing security. Here are the highlights.
- Documents and assets have AES-256 bit encryption + HTTPS TLS for transmission.
- 99.9% guaranteed uptime.
- Limit data visibility through user-based role permissions.
- 10+ standards compliance, including HIPAA, GDPR, SOC2, and GLBA.
Integrations: Adobe Workfront has integrations with tools like Slack, Jira software, Salesforce, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, and more. Additionally, it integrates with Adobe Creative Suite and Experience Manager to let your team work without leaving their design tools. Their Rest API allows developers to connect other tools and uses Adobe’s Application Security Stack to minimize security mistakes while coding.
Pricing is available upon request.
ClickUp
Great data protection compliance and serious competitor in the space despite being a young company.
User interface: ClickUp is one of my favorite tools in this regard. Their interface is easy to learn to navigate, works similarly to other big pm tools, and can be customized in every way. Even the way the navigation menu is displayed. The only thing you need to learn well is the hierarchy. Workspace > Spaces > Folders > Lists > Tasks > Subtasks.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2017. Since then, it has released two versions of its platform and gone through three investment rounds, series C being the last one. Headquarters: San Diego, California.
Security features: The enterprise plan offers workspace permissions for guests, members, and admins, plus a custom role creation option. Further, it has SSO for centralized access control, SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR and Privacy Shield compliance, and an AES-256 bit encryption with periodic automated penetration tests and yearly through a third-party provider. They say they have the highest levels of uptime but no guarantee on a percentage.
Integrations: ClickUp has 1000+ native and third-party integrations. These include Dropbox, Slack, Google Suite, Loom, Clockify, TimeCamp, and much more.
Price is available upon request.
monday.com
Publicly listed company with an enterprise-grade platform.
User interface: First, monday.com has a colorful interface that has a good design, is easy to navigate, and offers powerful, customizable dashboards. Then, every button on their navigation menu is clearly labeled, and their profile button has miscellaneous items where you’ll find anything that’s not on the menu. Finally, each project is arranged in a browser-like view where items are arranged in tabs that sit at the top of your screen.
Time in the market: The company was founded in 2012. A decade after, they have raised multiple investment rounds and are a publicly traded company operating under the stock symbol MNDY. Headquarters: Tel Aviv.
Security features: The enterprise plan offers workspace permissions for you to control specific actions in a workspace by user role. Further, it has SSO for centralized access control, SOC2 and HIPAA compliance, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and hourly 256-bit encryption and backup.
Integrations: monday.com can be connected to 5000+ apps through Zapier and native integrations located in their ‘apps marketplace’ module inside the platform.
Price is available upon request.
The 10 Enterprise Work Management Software Summary
| Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wrike Project management tool that is easy to learn and has reliable security features to protect your data. | Free plan available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
| 2 | Trello Atlassian project management solution with 99.99% uptime. | Free trial + freemium plan available | From $6/user/month | Visit Website |
| 3 | Asana Unicorn startup turned top enterprise project management platform. | Free plan available | From $10.99/user/month | Visit Website |
| 4 | Toggl Plan Tool for scaling businesses that can’t afford an enterprise-tier plan. | 14 days free trial | From $8/user/month | Visit Website |
| 5 | ProjectManager.com Alternative to Microsoft Project offering 99.999% uptime for their tool. | 30-day free trial | From $16/user/month | Visit Website |
| 6 | Hive Easy to learn friendly interface, yet enterprise-ready with minimal downtime. | 14-day free trial | From $16/user/month | Visit Website |
| 7 | Planview Clarizen Roadmap views and dashboards to support your enterprise strategy at the price of a steep learning curve. | Free trial + free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
| 8 | Adobe Workfront Enterprise-ready work management platform seamlessly integrated with Adobe products. | Free demo available | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
| 9 | ClickUp Great data protection compliance and serious competitor in the space despite being a young company. | Freemium plan available | From $9/user/month | Visit Website |
| 10 | monday.com Publicly listed company with an enterprise-grade platform. | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- Smartsheet
Project management software you can use as an upgrade to Excel.
- Celoxis
A user-friendly interface with on-premise licensing.
- Rocketlane
Enterprise collaborative customer onboarding platform.
- LiquidPlanner
Project management software with predictive scheduling.
- Genius Project
PM tool with powerful reporting and built-in security.
What Do You Think About This Enterprise Work Management Comparison?
I hope you found this analysis useful, and it can give you more information that is relevant to your search for the perfect tool.
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