Online Project Management and Planning Tools

Question

I am representing a construction developer firm and I am looking for a tool to easily manage my contractors' progress and their payment. Currently I am using Microsoft Project and Microsoft Excel to keep track of all the work progress, claims and whatnot. It is a very tedious progress for me.

Note that I am not talking about software project management tools.

I am looking for an online project management and planning tool which is similar with the venerable Microsoft Project. The tool should have the following standard project management features and functionality:

1. Gantt chart
2. Task Dependency
3. Progress indication and % of completion and all the things that a real project management has, like start date, due date and so on.
4. Cost entering and projection
5. It should be easy for our users to attach photo, provide description in conjunction with their progress of completion.
6. Our construction developer firm will be the "superuser" who can see all the progress of all projects, made by our users--consists of contractors and sub-con ("normal users"). Our users can only see the projects that are related to them, they can't see other users' progress, of course.

The tool should allow the normal users to key in the two components for the above data; one for planning and one for actual progress. This is important because as construction developers, we need to plan ahead ( and hence we require our contractors to key in start date, due date, projected cost etc before a project starts), but we also understand that the construction works get delayed from time to time due to all sorts of reasons( therefore we need to have to allow for our users to honestly update their percentage of completion, due data, start date, estimated cost etc ). Thus, we need the planning data and the actual data to compare, so that we can decide whether a project is overrun or not.

My requirement is that, I prefer a web-based tool because it allows our users to update their progress easily. In this sense, Microsoft Project is not really desired because it is a desktop tool. However, I would not reject Microsoft Project Server but I am not too sure about its extensibility.

I understand that some of the functionality are implemented in existing package, but not all. Therefore I would prefer a

1. Open source package ( Like redmine) that I can easily customize and extend. I can get software developer man power to do the necessary customization work.
2. I can self-host on somewhere over the Internet.

Is there such a tool?

Answer 1

if you prefer a tool with the easy management of a PM-Server, a Webclient and a Desktop Version, try Merlin 2, Merlin Server, Merlin Web for free.

Answer 2

I would humbly suggest taking a look at my company's product, Roadmap. I believe it supports every feature that you've mentioned.

Answer 3

I would suggest you take a look at Liquid Planner and at AtTask. I have used both, personal I love Liquid Planner and believe it would work very well for your use case but both tools are very robust (just in different ways).