In the world of freelancers, I’ve heard of several great options for project management apps/software. Apparently the most popular is Basecamp. I took Basecamp for a 30 day test drive. It’s clearly a great tool for project collaboration with clients, but as a WordPress user I couldn’t help but feel like I was sitting on the most customizable project management tool I could find.
At first I thought it would be easy for me to find the perfect app for what I wanted, which was a simple page where clients could go to view and edit tasks and see progress. I tried CollabPress and Ndizi and WP Project… nothing was a good fit. I didn’t want my clients to have to log in as a user. I wanted to receive email notifications when a task was added. I had very specific ideas about the look, feel, and functionality that I expected. Well, needless to say, after quite a few installations and exploring the features of each one, I decided to create it myself. I’m not talking about creating my own app, but more about putting pieces together to fit my vision.
You can create your own project management site to suit your specific needs, but here was my process and the steps I took:
I started by creating individual pages for each client. I chose a page template in my theme specifically for my client pages so that I could add certain elements to the sidebar that would be used for all clients. When configuring each page, I plan to password protect each page. This option can be found on the right hand toolbar under the “Publish” heading, there is a visibility option which is set to “public” by default, but can be edited to be password protected.
As the creation of these pages evolved, I realized that the possibilities were enormous. I stumbled upon this tutorial that explains how to install Dropbox Uploader on your page. It took a bit of time, but now customers can upload files directly to their page within my site, and the files are automatically added to my Dropbox folder. This eliminates the need to share Dropbox folders and force customers to sign up if they aren’t already signed in. (As a side note, I was only able to add the script to the sidebar after the installation of the PHP Code Widget plugin.)
The next addition to my client’s page was a comment box for project communications and notes. I already use the Discus comment system, so I decided to add a comment box to the sidebar using the shortcode [commentbox] in a text widget. My hope is to reduce the number of emails in my inbox piling up and getting lost in a sea of messages only found after needlessly wasting time searching my inbox for specific emails. You know what I’m talking about!
Now for the gist of the page and the reason I started this project to begin with… I needed a process for task submission. After searching for a to-do list plugin, I ended up creating a form in Google Drive with the following fields: task description (paragraph text), priority (multiple choice), assigned to (multiple choice), and desired completion date. . Separate forms must be created for each client so that tasks are funneled into individual spreadsheets. Once the form has been created, you can find the option to embed in the “More Actions” tab. Take the iframe code, paste it into your WordPress page, and now you have a task submission form. Within the spreadsheet settings, you can choose to receive an email each time a form response is received. If you need to send customer notifications, you must first choose to share the spreadsheet from the dropdown menu under the archive tab. Once they have accepted, you can choose to email collaborators at any time with the option to attach the spreadsheet or simply notify them of the tasks assigned to the submission form so that customers can see a list of tasks at any time. tasks and their status. . For projects where time is tracked, I’ve added a field for this and used the sum function in Google Drive so the client can see an up-to-date count of their time to date. You can visit Google’s support page for more detailed tutorials on how to create and embed forms and other documents.
In the spirit of Google, I also created a Google Calendar for each client and embedded it on the page so clients can see any important deadlines or events at a glance. More guidance on using Google Calendars in this feature can be found here.
Other additions I plan to add to the pages are links to important documents like our contract and policies and procedures, copies of invoices, and a link to PayPal to pay invoices. I’d also like to play around with the styling of the iframes to make everything a little prettier and more consistent with the style of my site, but in the meantime, I’m really excited to use this central area to communicate with my clients AND stay organized. . So far I am satisfied with the functionality of all parts and I look forward to the evolution of the page as it grows and learns over time.
I really hope this is of some benefit to you and feel free to comment with ideas and questions or tell us about your own systems for project management and client communications.
As always, good luck to you in all your business endeavors!
