Hi, there!
Today, I would like to briefly describe concerning an issue which I am often asked about at visits on leads, that is, ‘What’s the difference between Questetra and project management tools?‘
That is, among people who are considering whether to introduce Questetra BPM Suite, I hear that they say;
* Is it capable of generating a Gantt chart?
* I want to see the progress at a glance…
It’s so hard! I am always wondering how I can provide proper information.
Various project management tools
First of all, there are various project management tools.
I cannot find software that is suitable in accordance with the contexts of the conversation with the customers (out of the list of Wikipedia).
So I asked specific product names to the customers. Then told me the name such as
and so on. A summary of functions that are roughly in common is as the following.
* Capable of managing who is going to do what until when, and how far it is progressed
* By managing above, it supports to a project proceed as planned
* File management
etc.
Background of the comparison
If they were satisfied with the features of « project management tool », OK, go ahead, use them. That’s it. However, if so, they would never consult me. There was something more to ask. What they really wanted was
That’s true. They claim that it is difficult to achieve desirable Workflow with the aforementioned « project management tools ».
They say they can realize a workflow by making full use of features of the tools such as;
* to take control of changing of the status of a ticket using authorities.
(in the range as far as my own investigation)
However, they rarely have features which are generally required for Workflow such as;
* to forcibly comply with business rules (for approval, etc.) (Not to deviate from the Workflow)
(Because of the rarity, they are going to select Questetra, I guess.)
Comparison of Workflow system and project management tool
I will dare to describe a summary of my result of the comparison in the figures below. Moreover, I took Questetra BPM Suite for comparison as a representative of Workflow systems.
Advantages: Capable of implementing work flexibly and updating information (Operation and information update is possible in asynchronous)
Disadvantages: Difficult to comply with business rules. (Possible to flow arbitrarily.)
Advantages: Compliance with business rules can be guaranteed (Work implementation/responsibility for information updating are clear)
Disadvantages: Flexible information updating and work implementation are difficult (Cannot update information unless the Process reaches)
Also, features provided by most project management tools such as;
* resource planning table
* schedule tables showing milestones
etc. are generally difficult to achieve by using a workflow system. are generally difficult to achieve by using a workflow system. Even though with Questetra, it can be partially realized using its monitoring feature, it is not possible to show in charts like Gantt chart or resource planning table. Even if I supposed it is « partially possible », I cannot tell my customers « It’s possible« , since it may be far different from what they are expecting.
Combining project management tools with Questetra!
If only with the comparison, it will end up with « So, which one is better? » or « What should I do? » Therefore, my recommendation is
to collaborate a project management tool with Questetra!
Questetra is provided as SaaS. Likewise, there are project management tools provided as SaaS. So, there is a possibility that their compatibility for collaboration is good if both tools are SaaS. Using APIs of each tool, you can expect easy collaboration. There is an actual case, for example, a collaboration between Backlog (Nulab) and Questetra.
In this case, you can achieve Workflow, while utilizing features such as Gantt chart and resource planning table that are unique to project management tools.
Specific cases of collaboration with Backlog
The followings are use cases of our customers published on our Website. (There are a few more companies in which utilizing the collaboration but not publishing that.)
Serverworks Co., Ltd.
Built a business system linked with cloud services such as Slack
Achieve labor-saving and quality improvement by utilizing API
Shanon Inc.
Full advantage in all business! Also for trail at the time of PrivacyMark update!
All employees utilize in all operations, realizing internal control and efficient asset management. Also automated by cooperation with such as Google SpreadSheet and Backlog.
aratana inc.
Business Process Improving, 128 times in 3 years
Always monitor the progress of all entrusted projects. In the development team, efficient delivery of business data from order entry to development has been realized by collaboration with Backlog.
Closing
Questetra is referred to as Business Process Management system. If we consider « projects » as « business processes« , these two tools (system) are ‘similar‘. Nonetheless, features that are emphasized are different between workflow systems and project management systems, so it is difficult to discuss over them equally. I recommend that you consider combining use after understanding the features of the two tools.
Incidentally, we are providing also a simple tool for combing Questetra with Backlog. As both services offer free trial service, why don’t you try them out?
backlog Add Issue
Adds an Issue based on its Project ID, Summary, Type ID, etc., and stores the communication log into Data Item respectively.
Please feel free to Contact us, whenever you have questions or you want to dig further.
