The first step to managing projects is to create one, which you can do from several pre-designed templates, from scratch or with AI. If you choose to use AI, GanttPro provides plenty of sample messages, but you can also simply write a single description. Additionally, you can create a project by importing a file from Excel or Jira. However you do your project, you can customize it to meet your team’s needs and preferences.
For example, I explained to the AI that I needed to manage an editorial team that covered consumer technology and related topics. In just a minute, I had a project with different tasks for writing news articles and planning an editorial calendar, complete with roles like copy editor, editor-in-chief, and copywriter, all ready to customize.
Projects in GanttPro shine when using the Gantt chart view (Credit: GanttPro/PCMag)
GanttPro’s default view is, as you would expect, a Gantt chart, but you can switch to board or list options. The menu at the top of the project interface includes tabs for Calendar, Dashboard, Workload, and People. Whether you want to see all your tasks in a spreadsheet (in list view) or take a look at the overall progress of a project (in the Dashboard tab), the interface neatly encompasses all that functionality.
Each project has tasks that you can customize. In the project list view I created earlier, tasks include fields for assignee, name, start date, status, and time stamp. I added fields for editor, priority, and team with just a few clicks. You can click on a task to add dependencies, attach files, leave comments, view details, write descriptions, and more. If you want to attach subtasks to tasks, simply click the ellipsis next to a task. Just keep in mind that if you don’t use the Gantt chart view, the subtasks don’t have clear visual links to the parent tasks.
GanttPro supports time tracking and workload management. Within tasks, you can manually add the time you spend on them or start a timer to automatically track them. Open the time tracking tab in the left menu to see how much time you spend working overall. You can also assign workloads to tasks by clicking the assigned field of a task. This allows you to assign a team member’s total time (and daily time), which you can track in the workload tab.
Missing features: automations, billing and more
Unlike many project management applications, GanttPro does not offer invoicing, form creation, invoicing, or review. If you rely on these features, you’ll need to look for a different project management solution or invest in standalone services that focus on those needs. These aren’t necessarily essential features for project management, but most competing apps include at least some of them, so GanttPro’s omission of all of them is disappointing.
GanttPro also lacks automations and does not integrate with IFTTT to help close the gap. Many project management applications support automations in the form of “If this, then that” rules. You can use them, for example, to send a notification to a manager every time someone marks a task as completed, among many other things. Depending on your workload, automations can be essential and save a lot of time. If you want or need automations, GanttPro is not a good choice.
AI features are also noticeably absent in GanttPro. As mentioned above, you can create projects with AI, which may be a better way to get started than creating everything from scratch or working with a pre-made template, but that’s all GanttPro offers. Other project management apps have AI agents, AI assistants, AI automations, AI text and image generation, and more.
