This is the first in a series of posts on project management (PM) tools for PDAs. In this post, we look at Twiddlebit’s Pocket Plan and their Plan for Windows.
Note that the company also provides PM tools for SonyEricsson, Motorola, and Nokia phones.
Of the PDA PM tools that I have used, Pocket Plan is the most powerful. It has many features normally found only in high-end desktop project management tools: Gantt Charts, Resource Graphs, Filterng Capabilities, and more. You can actually use it to manage complex projects with multiple resources.
The following screenshot shows a Gantt Chart view of a sample project:
You can edit the project directly from this view (by tapping on and holding down on an item until a context menu appears), or you can do the same with the Task View, which is shown in the following screenshot:
As shown in the following screenshot from the Windows version of the tool, you have complete control over Task Details, Resources, Dependencies, several Custom Fields, and Costing and Notes information. You can also readily track the status.
Note that you can control the same information with Pocket Plan, but it is just easier to show the screenshot of the Windows version because it doesn’t involve my having to scroll through items as in the Pocket version.
In the preceding screenshot, the item is set as a “Work & Rates” item. It is also possible to set it as a “Rates & Dates” or “Work & Dates” item. Several types of constraints are also possible: As soon as possible, As late as possible, Fixed end, Fixed start, and so on.
I mentioned that you can also track the status of an item. This is illustrated in the following screenshot (again from the Windows version):
The following quote from the help file of the Windows version illustrates some of the file sharing capabilities of these two tools:
By default Plan creates files with a “.PLN” file extension. In the case of Plan for Windows and Pocket Plan (for Pocket PC and Handheld PC), the file formats are the same. Files created by Plan for Windows can be used with Pocket Plan and vice versa.
Plan for Windows can also read “.MPP”, “.MPD” and “.MPX” files used by Microsoft project. Plan can create “.MPD” and “.MPX” files if you wish to transfer the data back into Microsoft Project.
Although it has been at least a couple of years since I’ve fooled with any Microsoft Project files, my recollection is that I was indeed able to import the ones I had into Plan for Windows. I can’t recall what version of Microsoft Project that was: it was likely the version before Office 2003. Hence, I can’t personally testify to which versions of MS Project files can currently be imported into Plan for Windows.
What’s the bottom line? These two tools (you can use either or both) are powerful, and if you really need a tool to help with managing complex projects, these are worth checking out. It has been a while since I have had to use a tool of such power to help in managing my projects, but it is good to know that the capability is there.
