Enterprise projects can quickly spiral out of control. Transparency and a sense of ownership are the first victims in complex scenarios where a range of departments and stakeholders are involved. Enterprise project management software can help to solve those challenges. But which is right for you? These tools are very different and you have to pick carefully. To help you conquer these challenges, we’ve put together a list of the best enterprise project management tools.



Key Challenges in Enterprise Project Management

Before we dig into the specifics of the enterprise project management tools out there, let’s begin by looking at why these tools exist and the challenges that project managers need to solve.

1. Collaborating on multiple projects with multiple colleagues

One of the biggest challenges in any enterprise is fostering company-wide collaboration on a range of projects. This challenge requires keen coordination to ensure that each member’s time is well-utilized and that various tasks are prioritized in the correct order.



If a company fails to accommodate for true collaboration, they will find that:



The productivity will decrease.

The team members will become disengaged.

The quality of work will be damaged.

2. Working across departments with teams that are used to working with different tools

Another challenge that project managers must solve is ensuring cross-departmental collaboration in an environment where team members often use different tools.



If the company cannot guarantee coherent tools, they will find that they lose a lot of time doing essential tasks. They’ll also discover that friction develops on the team, which will further decrease productivity and the quality of output.

3. Improving departmental and cross-departmental processes makes them more transparent

Enterprise project managers must ensure that all processes are transparent and constantly improving. This strategy can help business grow in a predictable way, engage the team, and help them consistently deliver their best work.



If processes are unclear, businesses will find that their team can quickly become disengaged, so it’s very difficult to integrate new staff members.

Requirements for Introducing Enterprise Project Management Software

After settling on a potential tool, enterprises encounter hosts of challenges that will have to be solved to ensure the tool is as effective as possible. Here’s a closer look at those challenges:

1. Testing a new tool

It can often be challenging for companies to find the time necessary to test a new tool. There’s also this risk: If the wrong tool has been chosen, time and effort will be lost on acquiring knowledge that will not be adopted.

2. Getting buy-ins from the team members, bosses, and stakeholders

When implementing a new tool, one of the most difficult elements is securing buy-in from the team, bosses, and stakeholders. It can be very difficult to get team members to sign up and consistently use the tool in a predictable way, so project managers must have a keen strategy.

3. Satisfying the compliance rules of the legal department

In large enterprises, the legal department will have to play an important role in ensuring that the chosen tool is compliant with a range of established rules. These rules might determine where data is stored, how long it’s stored there, and whether the tool offers adequate security and protection.

4. Meeting the IT requirements for tools that integrate within a system

An IT department also plays an indispensable role in ensuring that tools can be integrated with existing systems. This department can assist with processes like single sign-ons and onboarding. Furthermore, the IT department can ensure that integrations are appropriately enabled and that the tool is scalable. The implementation of a tool is truly a collaborative effort, so IT is essential.

Best Enterprise Project Management Tools

Now we understand why enterprise management tools are needed, as well as the challenges of implementing them. So let’s take a closer look at these tools.

Filestage – The Review and Approval Specialist

Filestage is a cloud-based project management tool that makes it easy for marketing teams to collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to review, and approve digital content such as documents, images, and videos. This tool spezializes in making the content collaboration process 10x faster, which helps enterprises save significant amounts of time and money.

How Filestage solves key enterprise challenges

Reviewing marketing content across different departments quickly becomes a frustrating exercise that takes a lot of time and has the potential to reduce the quality of the final content. Filestage is the simplest way to get your stakeholders to collaborate on different digital content files (for example, social media copy, website videos or flyers).





Each stakeholder can leave specific comments on this content in real-time, reducing the potential for confusion. Let’s imagine an enterprise is working on a new corporate explainer video, for example. After the first version of the explainer video is created and uploaded to Filestage, Ben from marketing or Helen from legal could easily gain access to the most recent draft through a simple review link and leave her comments exactly where they need to be seen.





The tool is intuitive to use, ensuring that the entire team can give their feedback without you having to worry about the adoption of a complex tool. Filestage is by far the best way to cut through the noise and confusion of an enterprise company.



In terms of viability for enterprises, the tool offers the following features:



API

High security standards

Easy to set up

Single sign-on

Dedicated customer success support

Multiple teams with custom roles and permission management

A 14-day trial.

Review

“We save countless hours in every single project. The integrated to-do list makes it easy to process feedback. It’s just so intuitive.”

Robin. Y, Unicorn Pitch

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is an enterprise project management tool aimed at project managers. It can help these professionals develop a schedule, assign resources to tasks, track progress, manage budgets, and analyze workloads.

How MS Project solves key enterprise challenges

As a product from the world’s largest software provider, project managers can rest assured that MS Project can be adjusted according to the needs of their organization. It offers a range of prices, and the price vary from one tier to the next. This variety opens up the possibility for project managers to conduct limited testing.



From a security perspective, the tool also ticks all the boxes. Microsoft offers industry-leading security to its users, and the IT team will be able to easily manage integrations by using a range of quality documentation.

Review

“I like how robust Microsoft Project is. I can track costs, milestones, resources, due dates, etc., all within one project. I can honestly say it is a Microsoft product that works, and works well. There is a steep learning curve, which is one of its downfalls. Once you learn the software, it isn’t too bad, but another downfall is how ugly it looks when printed out.”

Josh R, G2 Crowd

Odoo

Odoo is a project management tools that aim to shape the future of work. The single app aims to help companies boost sales, integrate services, improve operations, build websites, and manage finances. A large library of 10,000+ apps makes it possible for Odoo to offer this one-stop solution.

How Odoo solves key enterprise challenges

As a multifunctional tool, Odoo offers some enterprise companies a one-stop shop for many business tasks, which helps prevent confusion when introducing new applications and processes. A cohesive tool also helps foster collaboration across departments.

Review

“I like the Dashboard, where one can get a bird’s eye view of the status of any task or activity that needs attention. Plenty of additional modules (called Apps) are also available on the Odoo Store. On the downside, it has a relatively big learning curve. Setup and initial configuration is crucial. [But it’s frustrating] that an invoice can only be created after a quotation, then an order. Also, recording expenses is cumbersome.”

Thabo P, Capterra

Mavenlink

Mavenlink is a project management tool that consolidates project management, time-tracking, and resource-planning into one central location. Billed as a modern collaborative platform, the tool elevates the operational and financial performance of service businesses.

How Mavenlink solves key enterprise challenges

This tool aims to unite teams in their pursuit of excellence by helping project managers share project goals and foster simple collaboration. By attempting to achieve total transparency, the tool also helps engage team members, despite their specific functions within the business.



Mavenlink also maintains a detailed library of documentation, which encourages adoption among diverse teams and reduces the frequency of errors along the way.

Review

“We’ve been using MavenLink for over a year now, and we are constantly learning new and better ways to utilize all the tools it has to offer.

However, it’s really difficult to see WHO is responsible for a task if multiple people are assigned to it. This is a problem when you are looking at a project and want to see who is responsible for what. Instead, you need to go to that specific task and read through the comments to see where it stands.”

Kendra S, Capterra

Monday

This visual tool for project management aims at simplifying the way that teams work together. Monday assists project managers manage workloads, track projects, move work forward, and communicate with the team. The tool also makes it simple for project managers to track the development of projects and dispense updates as necessary.

How Monday solves key enterprise challenges

Monday’s focus on visuals makes the tool accessible, and it could encourage adoption, compared to tools with non-intuitive and text-heavy interfaces. This focus on adoption is also enhanced by a simple onboarding process that’s as simple as sending an invitation email to the team.

Review

“Simple to use. Very visual orientated—looks good and is easy to understand. Can be tailored to any business model/process. New features are being released all the time. Many superfluous features for our business that are pushed frequently (though I appreciate other businesses would appreciate them). Would work great if it could collaborate/access online services like Dropbox/GDrive for file management, etc.”

Adam J, Capterra

ProjectManager.com

ProjectManager facilitates the planning and tracking of projects while it simplifies collaborations.

How ProjectManager solves key enterprise challenges

This tool offers a wide range of flexible project views. In other words, team members are able to adopt the view they prefer, which helps them accommodate preferences and encourages users to adopt the tool.



The free trial means project managers can encourage the adoption of the tool and run preliminary tests that will assess its viability. Also, this tool makes life simpler for the IT department, who can integrate a range of business applications.

Review

“I like the ability to create a fairly detailed project plan, including budgets and dates that are nicely mapped out in a Gantt chart. I find the reporting to be a bit challenging. I would like to see reports that are a bit more flexible and can filter in and out certain criteria. This product isn’t great [for managing] really long projects or challenging projects with lots of iterations.”

Jessica M, Capterra

JIRA

JIRA aims at making it simple for project managers to plan, track, and manage both agile and software development projects. It also make it easier to customize workflows, collaborate on projects, and release good work. This tool is available to teams of various sizes, as it offers flexible pricing structures that accommodate growing teams.

How JIRA solves key enterprise challenges

This tool is focused on empowering individual users to track their responsibilities and easily share their contributions with the rest of their team. In enterprise contexts, it can be invaluable at fostering collaborations and buy-ins.



Part of the Atlassian suite, project managers and enterprises can rest assured that their data will be kept safe and treated appropriately. Its integrations have a range of applications that will help reduce complexity for the IT department.

Review

“With Jira, you can designate tasks, have a scrum board, raise issues, fix bugs, and design new features. It works really well with bitbucket, and the users can report bugs. It is very bulky and not open-source. It is expensive to implement this.”

Akhil G, G2 Crowd

Oracle Primavera

This tool offers a suite of robust and easy-to-use cloud and on-premise applications. Oracle Primavera helps architecture and engineering firms prioritize, plan, manage, and deliver successful projects, programs, and portfolios.



The tool has applications that can assist with areas such as risk analysis, analytics, gateways, integrations, and portfolio management.

How Oracle solves key enterprise challenges

This suite of applications spans the entire project lifecycle, which ensures that transparency and visibility are guaranteed throughout the organization. The suite of apps also ensures that diverse and remote teams are able to enjoy a harmonized experience, which reduces the possibility of confusion.



A true enterprise solution, organizations can rest assured that Oracle is capable of providing the necessary security and IT integrations that will protect the integrity of the organization.

Review

“Primavera was developed by a team that understands construction. The software offers a variety of tools, from standard scheduling and critical path calculations to resource leveling. Primavera requires a decent amount of time allocated for training. And even then, the system is not exactly intuitive.”

Aaron G, G2 Crowd

Sciforma

Sciforma is a piece of enterprise-centric software for the management of projects and portfolios. This tool operates around three key pillars:



It helps project managers and team members plan and track activities.

It assists with the analysis and optimization of a project.

Top decision-makers can execute strategies based on analyses.

This tool is used by over 250,000 users, and it brings over 35 years of experience to the table. With an emphasis on usability, the tool aims at creating value and increasing efficiency.

How Sciforma solves key enterprise challenges

This tool is scalable and can adjust to the needs of a growing business. Users are able to access the platform via a range of devices and your processes and project management methodologies can be integrated. Moreover, It protects the data of organizations.

Review

“Sciforma has a sleek user interface that allows users to pin certain projects to their timesheet every week, hide less important / inactive projects, and annotate individual tasks with ease. Attempting to track working time down to the half-hour is both impractical and facilitates micromanagement when supervisors approve timesheets.”

Nicole-Marie H, Capterra

Workfront

Workfront aims at being a reliable platform for managing work in the digital age. The tool achieves this goal by helping teams connect through centralized projects, and simplified compliance.

How Workfront solves key enterprise challenges

This tool tries to solve the challenge of interdepartmental collaboration by offering different solutions for every department in an organization. For instance:



IT can rely on the tool for accurate information.

Product development can boost productivity.

Review

“This software works great to track your KPI’s and to update and monitor your progress on any assignments that are assigned to your and projects you are working on. It can be a bit complex at first, especially if you don’t have any training.”

Christopher M, Capterra

Wrike

Wrike is online project management software that gives project managers control over a range of tasks, and helps with managing projects.

How Wrike solves key enterprise challenges

This tool aims to reduce complexity by providing enterprise project managers with real-time reports and statuses that provide visibility across all projects. It also helps simplify planning, which allows project managers achieve success and turn strategies into actionable plans.



Some users state that while the design is effective, the UI will need an overhaul in the coming year given that it is somewhere unintuitive and difficult to navigate.

Review

“After using several different programs to track new products and customization projects, we have found Wrike to be a very efficient solution for our entire company. I would like to see different statuses saved in different folders. Instead, the status is changed, and it affects all folders globally. This has caused me some confusion or irritation at times.”

Gretchen, Capterra

Asana

Asana helps enterprise project managers organize and plan workflows and projects, which helps keep the projects on schedule and ensures that the team is focused on the goals, projects, and daily tasks that help a business to grow.



The tool offers a range of integrations, and it’s used in over 195 countries. Enterprises can benefit from this scale and adjust the tool according to their business’ specific needs.

How Asana solves key enterprise challenges

Asana’s business tier aims to help businesses control the work produced by their projects and teams. This benefit helps keep everything on track, and it gives enterprise project managers the ability to see how projects are developing in real time.



There is a level of confusion among users when it comes to pricing, and the tool can quickly become very expensive within enterprise settings.

Review

“Asana has been such a big part of my business in the past. I have used it for launches, setting up business operations, setting up content calendars, [and] managing big teams. I don’t like the board view. I don’t like that if you set it up in the list view; you can’t switch back to board view and vise versa.”

Lupita S, G2 Crowd

Celoxis

Celoxis is a solution that’s designed to help teams plan, track, and collaborate online. In other words, users get access to enterprise-class features, reports, dashboards, and a range of customization options.



Billed as a complete project management solution, this tool helps with resource management, project financials, collaborations, custom workflows, dashboards, and reports.

How Celoxis solves key enterprise challenges

In terms of solving IT-related issues, the tool is able to seamlessly integrate with over 400 popular business applications. A simple API makes it possible for the tool to integrate with a range of in-house software, which protects established working methods and processes.

Review

“Celoxis has a great reporting structure and flexibility in creating your own custom fields. Celoxis is also real-time data, so there is no back button if you delete something or the ability to restore a previous version. Since I am using this tool globally, I would like to see more workspace-segmented admin features to control what is seen by each region throughout all reports and tasks.”

Stacie M, Capterra

Clarizen

Clarizen is software that helps project managers manage work, automate processes, and foster collaboration across their enterprises. Reportedly, the tool intends to deliver more than traditional project management software to drive focus, increase effectiveness, and expedite responses.

How Clarizen solves key enterprise challenges

By placing an emphasis on the collection of data, the tool aims to solve the challenge of collaboration and visibility across a large organization. Automated workflows also help reduce the amount of chaos experiences in an organization, which both delights team members and boosts productivity.

Review

“The tool offers A LOT of functionality. As I’m not a system administrator, I am not aware of everything that Clarizen can do, but whenever our admins unleash a new feature, I’m always excited by it. I feel like there is a lot more to discover, and sometimes, things are not consistent. For example, in some views, I can hide the right-hand vertical “space” (or menu) and in others, I can’t.”

Maria S, Capterra

Other Enterprise Project Management Tools

There are a wide range of alternative tools available on the market. Here’s a closer look at those options:

Workzone

Workzone aims to offer a more robust solution than entry-level tools. It also offers better usability to project managers, compared to complex tools such as MS Project.

LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is an online project management solution that helps project managers do their jobs, and it ensures that the team does the right work at the right time.

Orangescrum

Orangescrum is simplified enterprise project management software for teams of all sizes. The open-source enterprise edition with multiple features like Gantt chart, Kanban view, recurring tasks or project and task templates helps you improve your team’s productivity.

Targetprocess

An agile project management tool, Targetprocess aims at helping software development teams accelerate product delivery at every level of the enterprise.

Entry

Entry is all-in-one software for project managers and help desks. It offers a combined system that helps IT departments achieve success.

SAP Project Management

SAP Project Management acts as a centralized way to help project managers coordinate the full project lifecycle, which boosts profitability and optimizes resources.

Huddle

Huddle empowers project managers to coordinate tasks, projects, and documents within secure client portals. This tool is customizable, and it can be adapted to diverse needs.

Genius Project

Genius Project delivers a flexible and configurable portfolio that helps project managers boost business processes. This tool also offers powerful reporting and built-in security.

VersionOne

VersionOne is dedicated to agile lifecycle management that will help project managers scale their agile activity in a faster, easier, and smarter way. This cohesive solution aims to offer value throughout the entire process—from idea to delivery.

Smartsheet

A work execution platform, Smartsheet helps project managers move ideas and make a quick impact. This tool assists with planning, capturing, managing, and automating, workflows.

Innotas

Aimed at maturing organizations, Innotas is IT software for project portfolio management (PPM). This tool boasts a secure, cloud-based solution that makes it easy to collect, prioritize, and execute projects.

InMotionNow

InMotionNow is workflow management software that’s aimed at marketing and creative teams. By helping teams stay ahead of the game, this tool can increase the output of a business.

Twproject

As fully featured web-based software for project management, Twproject gives project managers full visibility and control over their projects, which makes it possible to track progress, deadlines, worklogs, and costs in one place.

Project Portfolio Office

This online project management software allow project managers to execute their projects and portfolios anywhere at any time. So Project Portfolio Office makes it possible to plan, manage, execute, and report on those projects.

Project-Open

Project-Open leverages open-source models to offer cost-effective business solutions to service-based organizations. The core team is supported by a collection of IT experts with years of experience in the field.

Daptiv PPM

Daptiv PPM is an adaptive solution from Changepoint. The tool offers project managers a unique approach to their project portfolio management activities. A flexible and easily configured solution makes it easy to maximize PPM capabilities—when and where they’re needed.

Planview Enterprise

Planview’s resource management solutions make it possible to coordinate the people, resources, and business capabilities that are necessary to implement a strategy. The tool breaks down silos while integrating portfolios and offering executive-level visibility throughout the organization.

Kanzen

Kanzen is a piece of visual project management software makes the most of online Kanban boards. It offers an intuitive interface that provides projects managers with clarity that helps improve the productivity and performance of a business.

EPM Live

EPM Live is a work management and PPM platform that’s based on Microsoft’s SharePoint. By expediting the successful delivery of products and optimizing resource utilization, this tool aims at helingp projects and businesses prosper.

Workamajig

Workamajig helps project managers improve operations, enable efficiencies, and increase collaboration. The tool is primarily aimed at advertising agencies and in-house creative teams.

ReQtest

This cloud-based tool assists with the management of requirements, tests, and bugs. ReQtest has end-to-end project management capabilities, and it prides itself in offering an intuitive, user-friendly experience.

Zoho Projects

This online software for project management helps project managers efficiently create and manage projects. Zoho Projects offers integrations and Gantt charts, which helps project managers plan, track, and collaborate on projects.

Hive

Hive helps businesses move faster by empowering teams to manage projects the way they work best. The ability to switch between views facilitates flexibility, so members can easily access Gantt charts, Kanban charts, calendars, and tables.

Omnifocus

Omnifocus is a to-do app that’s available for Mac and iOS devices. It aims to help businesses accomplish more by giving team members the power to take control of their daily to-do lists.

ProWorkflow

ProWorkflow makes it easy for project managers to assign staff, track time, and reschedule projects. It also makes quoting and invoicing very simple while offering a host of features, such as free setup costs and unlimited projects.

TIEMCHART

The goal of TIEMCHART is to power businesses with online project management software and offers insights that will help project managers make informed decisions. Since project managers can have complete control over tasks, they can achieve optimal results and effectively deploy resources.

Teamwork Projects

This project management software helps professionals who want to deliver great results. Teamwork Projects lends a helping hand to the planning, collaboration, and delivery of projects.

Easy Projects

This software helps with time-tracking, budgeting, and resource-planning. Easy Projects places all projects in one place, which creates cleaner spreadsheets, emails, and whiteboards.

Comindware Project

Comindware Project is low-code software for business process management and workflow management. This tool aims at helping project managers change the way they manage projects.



CA Project and Portfolio Management

This tool aims at helping project managers play a role in growing businesses, rather than just running them. CA Project and Portfolio Management helps achieve this goal by generating strategic roadmaps for continuous planning.



InLoox

InLoox successfully helps more than 50,000 users around the world plan, manage, and collaborate on projects. Personal workflows and team collaboration tools help teams reach their goals more quickly.



Deltek Vision

A range of firms use Deltek Vision to run profitable businesses. The tool increases project profitability, as well as time and resource management. It also has a streamlined setup and rapid deployment, which helps boost results.



Ares PRISM

Project managers can use Ares PRISM to manage the entire project lifecycle. This software solution offers quick implementation and robust scalability to match the growth of organizations. By enhancing visibility and control, this tool empowers teams.



BVDash



BVDash is cloud-based project management software that’s designed to help teams successfully complete projects. This user-friendly solution is based on the needs of users, which helps them stay ahead of project updates and prevent red flags.



BrightWork



BrightWork is project management software that’s based on SharePoint gh real-time dashboards that help project managers initiate, plan, track, and report on projects.



HP PPM

HP PPM helps project managers overcome a range of challenges by providing visibility into strategies and operational demands. By providing critical information in real time, project managers can make better decisions.



Eclipse PPM



Eclipse PPM helps project managers supercharge their performance by driving execution, management, and project prioritization, which helps improve resource utilization, communication, and collaboration throughout the entire team.



Planisware

Planisware helps project managers navigate portfolios, resources, programs, and costs, which helps increase visibility throughout the team and provides decision-making support via analytics.

Conclusion

We hope you’ve found this comprehensive analysis of the best enterprise project management tools to be useful. The landscape is diverse and competitive, so it’s worth investing enough time to find the tool that’s right for the needs of your organization.