Project management is a critical aspect of any business, but it's often challenging to keep track of timelines and ensure that deadlines are met.
Traditional tools can be limited in their ability to provide visibility into project progress and resource allocation, leading to missed deadlines and wasted effort.
By the end of this guide, you'll understand how various project timeline tracking tools like Motion, Asana, Trello, Toggl Plan, and Teamwork can help you streamline your project management processes.
You'll gain insights into their features, pricing, pros, cons, and best use cases, enabling you to choose the right tool for your team's needs.
The best project management timeline software
- Motion for automating workflows and ensuring on-time project delivery
- Asana for task management and team collaboration
- Trello for simple Kanban-based timeline tracking
- Toggl Plan for small, fast-moving teams and efficient time-tracking
- Teamwork for professional services organizations
How I evaluated these tools
As someone with experience in project management for marketing teams, I have a deep understanding of the challenges teams face in keeping projects on track.
To thoroughly evaluate these tools, I focus on several key criteria that are essential for effective project timeline tracking and management.
This included assessing the quality of the timeline visualization, the ability to manage tasks and dependencies, resource allocation and capacity planning features, reporting and analytics capabilities, and overall ease of use.
I also reviewed user feedback on both G2 Crowd and Capterra and took into account the feedback from project management tool influencers.
Selecting the right project timeline tracking tool for you
Below, we wanted to share some must-have features that we believe all project timeline tracking tools should include.
- Comprehensive views: multiple options when it comes to visualizing task and project completion, including Gantt, Kanban, dashboard, table, calendar, and more
- Resource allocation and scheduling: the ability to assign tasks based on team capacity, availability, and skill sets is crucial
- Workload visualization: views and alerts that clearly show who's overloaded and who has bandwidth
- Capacity planning: features that help forecast future resource needs and ensure you can meet project deadlines.
- Time tracking: the option to log hours against tasks to compare estimates vs. actuals and optimize workloads.
- AI support: the ability to automate the scheduling and rescheduling of tasks based on priority levels, due dates, and time to completion
How do project timeline tracking tools work?
Of course, you've likely heard of project and task managers.
However, many of the options on the market lack the deep visualization you need to understand your project's status. This is where a tool with deep views, resource management, and specified workspaces can really help.
The best project timeline trackers showcase a detailed and customized layout so that stakeholders and team members can easily access the status of a project, task, or milestone in one specific view.
This should also include dependencies, blockers, estimated time to completion, due dates, detailed notes, and more.
The best project timeline tracking tools at a glance
Best for automating workflows and ensuring on-time project delivery
Motion
Motion is a next-generation project management platform that effortlessly blends and displays your tasks, calendar, and team collaboration needs.
One of its most loved features is the fact that it uses AI to intelligently schedule your work based on your actual availability and priorities.
What's awesome about Motion is that it truly understands the three core elements of project management: workload, visualization, and time.
Standout features
- AI-powered scheduling to automatically assign tasks based on availability
- Predictive insights to foresee potential deadline misses
- Matches workload with team capacity and availability
- Customizable project workflow templates
- Visually appealing views like Gantt, Kanban, dashboard, table, and more
- Custom workspaces to separate different teams and projects
What I liked
Motion takes a unique approach to project timeline management by leveraging AI to automatically schedule tasks and assign them to the right team members based on their availability and the project's priorities.
This eliminates the manual effort involved in creating and maintaining timelines, while ensuring that work is optimally distributed and deadlines are met.
Another standout feature of Motion is its predictive capabilities.
By analyzing the current workload, resource availability, and project dependencies, it can accurately forecast potential deadline misses weeks or even months in advance.
This allows teams to proactively adjust their plans and allocate resources more effectively, preventing costly delays and missed deadlines.
I found Motion's calendar-based interface to be incredibly user-friendly and intuitive.
Tasks are seamlessly integrated into team members' existing calendars, making it easy for everyone to stay on top of their assignments without having to learn a new tool.
This simplifies adoption and ensures that the tool becomes an integral part of the team's workflow.
What I disliked
It's hard to find something not to like about Motion.
But one dislike worth noting is that currently, there aren't any features that allow users to bulk-add tasks.
However, the Motion product team is working on this and should have a solution ready by the end of 2024.
Additionally, Motion currently lacks some advanced features like custom reporting and in-depth analytics, which may be a limitation for teams that require more detailed project tracking and analysis.
Best for task management and team collaboration
Asana
Asana describes itself as an enterprise work management platform that connects company-wide goals, strategic initiatives, and work execution in one place.
Most people know of Asana because of its project management capabilities.
With Asana, you can track work from start to finish, so every team stays in sync and on schedule to hit their goals.
It's also a fairly approachable tool and fairly easy to learn.
Standout features
- Deep views like Kanban, list, timeline, calendar, or Gantt chart.
- Connect work to company goals. See progress in real-time, update stakeholders, and keep the company on track.
- Create milestones to showcase and mark important points of completion within your project
- Deep integrations with major tools like Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Outlook, Slack, Google Drive, and more
- Advanced security measures and administrative controls
What I liked
Asana is a well-rounded project management solution that emphasizes collaboration and communication.
With multiple project view types, such as boards, Gantt charts, Kanban, timelines, and calendars, you can slice and dice your tasks in whatever way makes the most sense for your team.
I also appreciate how easy it was to create repeatable templates for common workflows and scale them across my organization.
Additionally, Asana's analytics and reporting are highly praised.
A custom dashboard allows you to access stats like the number of tasks your team has, what percent are overdue, how many will be due within the next week, etc.
What I disliked
Asana doesn't have deep enough abilities to take and store notes, manage your calendar, and even track time.
These are necessary features to see success in project management. Another potential downside is Asana's pricing structure.
While the platform offers a free plan for small teams, the more advanced features, such as portfolios and workload management, are only available in the higher-priced tiers.
This can make the tool-less accessible for smaller businesses or teams with limited budgets.
Best simple Kanban-based timeline tracking
Trello
Trello is a task management tool that creates a shared perspective on any project.
It's best known for its interactive Kanban boards and simplistic approach.
Trello is best for individuals, small teams, and those looking for a simple and intuitive Kanban-style task management tool.
Standout features
- Detailed Kanban board layout
- Easy drag-and-drop interface
- Automated timeline view
- Unlimited free integrations
What I liked
Trello's simplicity and ease of use make it a great option for teams that prefer a more visual and straightforward approach to project timeline tracking.
The tool's Kanban-style boards and cards provide a clear overview of tasks, their status, and assignees, making it easy to understand project progress at a glance.
One of the standout features of Trello is its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, which allows users to easily move tasks between different stages of the project timeline.
This flexibility makes it simple to adjust priorities and timelines on the fly without the need for complex rescheduling or rearranging tasks.
Additionally, Trello's integration capabilities with various third-party tools and services make it a versatile platform that can be tailored to fit specific team needs.
For example, teams can integrate time-tracking tools or communication platforms to enhance collaboration and productivity.
What I disliked
While Trello's simplicity is one of its strengths, it can also be a limitation for teams that require more advanced project management features.
The tool lacks native support for features like Gantt charts, resource management, and in-depth reporting, which may be essential for larger or more complex projects.
Another potential drawback is Trello's lack of built-in time-tracking capabilities.
While this can be mitigated by integrating third-party time-tracking tools, it can add an extra layer of complexity and potentially increase the overall cost of using the platform.
Best for small, fast-moving teams and efficient time-tracking
Toggl Plan
Toggl Plan is a simple, visual way for agencies and internal teams to balance team capacity and project workloads.
With Toggl Plan, project managers can plan, track, and deliver team projects without the last-minute rush.
It recreates the simplicity of an Excel sheet in a web-based, multi-user environment.
Standout features
- Visual timeline and Gantt chart views
- Team workload distribution
- Identify time conflicts with the Google Calendar integration
- Track team members’ estimates and actual time to completion
What I liked
Toggl Plan's strength lies in its visual approach to project planning and management.
The tool's calendar and board views make it easy to understand project schedules, task assignments, and team workloads at a glance.
The drag-and-drop interface further simplifies creating and adjusting timelines, making it a highly intuitive and user-friendly tool. One of the standout features of Toggl Plan is its ability to manage team capacity effectively.
The tool provides a clear overview of each team member's availability and workload, allowing project managers to distribute tasks evenly and avoid overburdening or underutilizing team members.
I also appreciated Toggl Plan's integration with the Toggl Track time-tracking tool.
This seamless integration eliminates the need to switch between multiple applications, streamlining the process of tracking time spent on tasks and ensuring accurate billing and reporting.
What I disliked
While Toggl Plan excels in visual planning and managing team capacity, it must improve in certain areas.
One notable limitation is the need for more task dependencies, making managing complex projects with interdependent tasks more challenging.
Additionally, the tool's reporting capabilities are limited, making it difficult to generate comprehensive project reports or analyze data in-depth.
Best for professional services organizations
Teamwork
Teamwork is a project management platform specifically built to help professional services organizations profitably manage client projects.
It claims to be the only project management platform built for client work.
Standout features
- Run projects from start to finish with easy-to-use templates
- Track time to understand where your team is spending their hours
- Track capacity, reassign tasks, and avoid bottlenecks
- Access a variety of views like lists, Kanban, tables, Gantt charts, and more
- Create custom budgets, set rates for each team member, and quickly track dollars spent on each project
What I liked
Teamwork's decision to specialize in client-facing teams has allowed them to create a product that is truly unique.
It gives its’ users exactly the type of accountability they need to deliver projects on time and on budget.
Teamwork users also appreciate its collaboration features (i.e., sending budgets, proposals, roadmaps, etc., for clients to review) and resource management functionality.
Finally, users find the UI clean and uncluttered and report that it is easy to learn and use.
What I disliked
Teamwork's free plan has limitations on the number of users and projects, which may not be sufficient for larger teams or organizations with complex project requirements.
Its mobile application lacks some of the features that are loved in the desktop application, like workload planning and time reporting.
Why Motion is the best option
While there are a ton of great options on this list, we believe Motion is the best project timeline tracking tool for teams.
We'll get into the finer details below, but this is mainly because Motion acts as a project manager, personal assistant, and calendar organization tool.
The fact it can be proficient in so many different areas, allows it to be the best tool for capacity planning, prioritization, visualization, and more.
Project workflow templates
One of Motion's standout features is its Project Workflow Templates.
If your work involves repeatable processes, these templates are a lifesaver.
They automatically create and assign tasks, schedule them on your calendar, and move the project forward as tasks are completed.
No more manually juggling who's doing what or tracking progress—Motion handles it all seamlessly.
The unique value of Motion lies in its ability to automate repetitive workflows and complicated Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
With Project Workflow Templates, you can bid farewell to the headache of managing intricate SOPs manually.
AI-powered task scheduling
Simply add your tasks, deadlines, priorities, and any blockers, and Motion's intelligent algorithm will schedule them on your calendar, taking into account your meetings and availability.
If, for some reason, you are unable to complete a task, Motion's AI will automatically reschedule it for the next best time.
It's like having a personal assistant who understands your team schedule and ensures your team gets everything done on time.
Collaborative project management
With features like task assignments, Kanban boards, and team collaboration, you can easily manage projects and ensure everyone is on the same page.
But what sets Motion apart from other project management tools is its seamless integration with AI-powered task scheduling.
Motion takes into account not just your schedule, but also your team members' availability and workload, ensuring that tasks are assigned and scheduled in a way that maximizes productivity and minimizes conflicts.
Try Motion for free
If you're tired of spending more time managing your work than actually getting it done, it's time to give Motion a try.
With Project Workflow Templates, AI-powered task scheduling, and collaborative project management features, Motion is the ultimate productivity tool for tech-savvy professionals and teams.
Don't just take my word for it—start your 7-day free trial of Motion today and experience the difference for yourself.
