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If you’re a working project manager or a student who aspires to be a project manager, several applications will help you organize your tasks to optimize productivity.

Good news: free project management tools will provide you with the versatility you need to execute projects, collaborate with partners, and sustain project visibility—without costing a penny.

So, whether you’re working alone, in a smaller team, or on a Scrum team, here are the seven best free project management applications.

Why use Project Management Software For Academics?

Project management software can be beneficial for academics as it aids in organizing tasks, facilitating collaboration, managing time and resources, and generating progress reports.

With academic work involving multiple tasks and collaborations, project management software can help in tracking progress and ensuring that deadlines are met.

Also, the software can provide a visual representation of tasks and priorities, allowing academics to manage their time more effectively.

By enabling efficient resource allocation and generating reports on project progress, project management software can improve productivity and aid in project success.

Tip: Asana allows academicians to create tasks, assign them to team members, and set due dates.

What makes good Project Management Software For Academics?

A good academic project management software should include the following features:

  • Task Management: A strong task management system that enables the creation, assignment, and tracking of tasks should be included in the software.
  • Collaboration: The software should provide capabilities for team members to collaborate and access information in real-time, as well as the capability to allocate tasks to certain team members.
  • Time monitoring: The software should offer a system for scheduling that enables users to establish deadlines and generate project timelines.
  • Ease of access: The software must be accessible on a variety of platforms and gadgets, enabling educators to view data and communicate from any location.

Tip: Asana facilitates collaboration between team members, allowing them to communicate through messaging and chat, share files, and provide feedback on tasks.

How to choose the right Project Management Software For Academics

With the following ideas in mind, finding the appropriate project management for academics can become simpler:

Check to see if the program allows educators to collaborate with students.

An ideal project management application should allow educators to give students project work, share grades and performance evaluations with them online.

While searching for project management software, check for these features to ensure better collaboration between educators and students.

Examine the software’s capacity for integration.

The project management tool you choose should be able to integrate with any existing tools your institution may have in order to simply sync student data and maintain overall data consistency.

This is especially important if your institution already employs time tracking and attendance software for educators and students.

Check for mobile app usability.

A mobile app for project management solution will allow students and instructors to instantly access courses, monitor project status, view submission dates, and more.

Tip: Asana allows academicians to create project plans and timelines, outlining all the steps and milestones of the project.

Best Project Management Software For Academics

1. Instagantt

Best Project Management Software For Academics

Project managers also resort to Gantt maps to explain simply and effectively the priority list and the accompanying timetable to their team members.

One of the usable project management app hallmarks is that it can make Gantt charts prominently part of the framework.

This goal is the primary target of the Instagantt web app.

There is a standalone version of Instagantt and a version that combines with Asana, which is the next app on our list.

2. OrangeScrum

Best Project Management Software For Academics

OrangeScrum is a scalable and flexible project management system that combines Slack, Dropbox, and Google Drive.

The software Features include simple marking of billable hours, the ability to generate invoices, job tagging, categorization and distribution, and more.

There’s a free trial available.

Great stuff about this tool: OrangeScrum is one of the most flexible solutions on the market.

It is equipped with several organizational tools that can be integrated with big networks like Google Drive, and Dropbox—and is super versatile.

3. Asana

Best Project Management Software For Academics

Asana is a rare project management technique that prioritizes the team and the project manager.

Although other project management software options rely solely on simplifying management experience, Asana encourages each team member to use the software for their benefit through worker-centric features and a straightforward user interface.

Android and iOS smartphone applications are now available for Asana’s common project management tools.

Asana removes the need to go between a lot of different resources to keep the tasks coordinated.

This is achieved by combining with more than 100 other tech apps, including Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Office 365, Zapier, and TimeCamp.

But if your team wants a collaborative project management platform with very little ramp-up time, Asana is a great pick.

4. Zoho

Best Project Management Software For Academics

The Zoho framework includes more than just project management tools.

It also covers customer relationship management (CRM), IT management, event planning, accounting, and email.

Zoho Projects guides someone trying to do some simple project management, such as job formation, problem monitoring, or task tracking by Gantt charts.

Zoho may be a successful choice for organizations who wish to consolidate all their features in one place and can trust a third party to have an organizing forum.

Zoho Projects provides much of the standard functionality you can expect from project management applications and nothing more.

Zoho is an intuitive tool that ensures every step of the project is seamless, from the setup to finish. Zoho has also done a good job of tackling complex needs.

5. Trello

Best Project Management Software For Academics

Trello is a popular free project management program for visual project management.

Trello is an easy way to arrange the kanban board tasks.

And with a free package that allows unlimited boards and users, it’s a service that anyone can use.

Freelancers can use Trello to schedule their tasks on a personal board, and teams can use Trello to create a full project process with visibility at each point.

Trello can help you and your team monitor project schedules, assignments, and progress quickly.

Trello is the most easy-to-use project management platform on the market, with the list of features and the amount of simplicity it has focused on.

Trello is a simplified project management solution that relies heavily on its collaborative configuration.

6. Jira

Best Project Management Software For Academics

A common agile project management platform, JIRA integrates Scrum and Kanban boards to help agile schedule project work, track team success, and drive projects forward in real-time.

Project facilitators, also recognized as scrum masters, can quickly ask questions, enter forums, and identify relevant users to add to critical conversations.

Visual data reports help scrum masters collect valuable knowledge, while customized workflows and schemes support team coordination.

With JIRA, users get important information for their tasks that can be updated by team members if required to help them remain oriented.

The software also has a filtered feed of projects that you’re focusing on to keep crucial work top-of-the-mind.

Users will build, assign, transfer, and organize these tasks with a single tap on their phone or tablet.

7. Wrike

Best Project Management Software For Academics

The Wrike platform is remarkable for its versatility.

It’s a cloud-based collaboration and project management system that offers a host of helpful features and iPhone and Android smartphone applications.

Wrike has time management options, support for Gantt maps, sprint activities, and more.

One of Wrike’s best time-savers is the ability to transform email into a job efficiently.

Integrations are accessible on many common sites, including WordPress, Zendesk, Salesforce, Github, Adobe Creative Cloud, Zapier, and Jira, among several more.

It can integrate with common storage solutions such as Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive.

Microsoft products such as Outlook, MS Project, and Excel are also provided, as are Google services such as Gmail, Google Sheets, and Google Drive.

Great stuff about this platform: Wrike is one of the best-known project management software on the market and for a good cause.

It’s a well-rounded and robust program that maintains a degree of accessibility that almost everyone can learn.

8. LiquidPlanner

Best Project Management Software For Academics

The LiquidPlanner mobile applications are intended to help you handle your IT tasks remotely.

Android and iOS versions are available.

The LiquidPlanner app helps you monitor your project’s time and financial elements, including billable and non-billed costs.

Advanced analytical skills are built into the program.

There is a free trial of LiquidPlanner.

LiquidPlanner can monitor and document the work of many departments, including IT project management, product creation, and marketing.

The software provides a resource monitoring and management platform, along with drag-and-drop simplicity.

Project managers can envision resource distribution and team capability, forming results across the whole project portfolio.

Conclusion

Please don’t make the error of holding the staff on a job by email alone; it’s an unreliable and obsolete way to keep common tasks going along.

Any of these project management programs will be an excellent way to help keep your team involved and updated while you try to finish your tasks.