How to Create Task Management Software

Source: Project Management Institute

In this article, we’ll talk about different use cases when custom development might be a better option, compared to out-of-the-box solutions, answer some of the main questions you might have regarding the development, and give you an extensive set of functionality you can add to your software.

So, if you find any of the aspects mentioned above relevant to you or simply want to learn more about the development — welcome!

💼 Custom Development vs. Ready-to-Use Task Management Software

Even though there are multiple out-of-the-box task software options, companies still build custom software to manage their tasks and projects. Let’s take a look at in what cases custom development might be a better option.

# 1: Functionality 🔧

Providers of task software tools like Trello are trying to reach as many teams and companies as possible with their products. Thus, it’s quite hard for them to provide a personal approach. That’s why you’re not likely to get a solution fully tailored to your business needs.

Additionally, their focus on a wide audience results in such products having a predetermined set of generic features for fixed pricing options — and you might not need all of them. Unfortunately, paying only for some isn’t an option in most cases, so you’ll have to buy a whole package.

Having functionality that you won’t use isn’t cost-effective. It can also make the software bulky, which significantly damages the convenience.

Plus, such companies use shared servers for software. Meaning that there’s a higher risk of bugs and system breaches. It might also decrease the product’s performance since the load on shared services is normally high.

If you’re building a custom task software, you can add any security feature, comply with any regulation, and choose any server type.

Use Cases Summary 📝

The main difference between custom task management software and out-of-the-box ones is that you have no control over the second option’s functionality, UI design, tech stack, or performance. You have to go with what’s offered.

If you need some modifications, you most likely won’t be able to add them. So, if you don’t find what a provider offers sufficient, you should consider building a custom solution.

❓ FAQ on Task Management Software Development

Some of the development aspects might be confusing when starting custom development. Especially, if you haven’t got an opportunity to discuss all the details with your development team.

So, in this section, we would be your software developers and go over some questions you might have just so certain processes become fully transparent.

How to Integrate a Task Management Software with a Currently Used Solution?

Some of you might already have a custom product. So, if you’re wondering whether it’s possible to integrate your future software with it and if it is, how to perform such an integration, let’s cover these questions.

Multi-factor authentication can consist out of:

• A password system like passwords for logins, codes for one-off access, etc.
• CAPTCHA tests.
• Biometric authentication. It can include face ID, fingerprinting (quite complicated for web-based software), voice recognition, retina scanning, etc. It’s not that easy to integrate biometric security features for web products. Yet, we definitely recommend you to talk about it to your software developers — they can help you find a solution or an alternative.
• Security questions about each employee like the first pet’s name, or nickname at school.
• Phone and/or email verification.
• Security tokens — small devices that contain an owner’s data. An owner will be provided with access by scanning the device.
• Digital signature & others.

⚙️ Top Features for Task Management Software

In this section, we’re going to talk about the features you might need to implement in your task management software.

This set of features is quite extensive so as to cover direct task software “duties” and some of the related functions. So, if you think you won’t need a certain feature for your software, it’s no problem.

# 1: Team Management 😀

For task management software, team management flow can be useful in many ways: it shows necessary information about each employee (duties, department, working hours), helps to determine whom to assign to each task to, allows better communication, and generally makes the workflow more transparent.

For example, it can be infographics (graphs, charts, tables) with the workload of each employee so as to care for their mental health, see if any of them have been recently overworking, better understand whom and when to assign the tasks to.

Plus, it can be useful when completing projects. This way, you can overview how to adequately allocate human resources for the right balance of efficiency and project completion pace as well as your employees’ well-being.

🤖 Tech Stack for Task Management Software

Instead of writing the code for certain features from scratch, you can enable them using pre-written codebases from 3rd-party providers called APIs/SDKs:

• Calendar: Google Calendar, Nylas, Zoho.
• Internal Communication: WhatsApp API, Sendbird.
• Desktop Notifications: iZooto, Sendpulse.
• Emailing: SendGrid, Gmail API.
• Payments: Braintree, Stripe, Solarisbank.
• Document Management: Folderit, Legito.

💰 What Affects Task Management Software Development Costs

To plan your budget for the development more or less precisely, you should definitely include these cost components into the estimation:

• Potential number as well as the complexity of features.
• 3rd-party integrations if there will be any.
• The design.
• An hourly rate/fee for your software developers.
• Specific rates and characteristics of the industry you’re running your business in (like regulatory compliance requirements).
• Scope of the software. That is, how many people will use it? Approximately, of course.

💡 Takeaways

Taking all that we’ve talked about in this article, task management software can be a game-changer for your business with the right approach. But what is the right approach anyway?

So, to get as much benefit from integrating task software into your workflow as you can, you should:

1. Ingrate the software step by step. That is, try not to introduce the whole product to your employees at once. For example, once you have the basic functionality, you can offer them to try it out. And that brings us to our next recommendation.
2. Listen to your employees’ feedback. They’ll be the most active users after all. So, if they won’t find it convenient, an efficiency boost isn’t likely to happen.
3. Another important thing is not to rush the process. It might surely take time for your employees to adjust to the new software. So, if it means that you need to spend a couple of hours providing an onboarding process, then we recommend doing it.
4. And last but not least — you shouldn’t be a newbie when introducing the software to other employees. We’d recommend you to try and be the guide for them since when seeing you actively and, most importantly, confidently using it, they’re more likely to adjust to it quickly.

If you need any help with the development or have some questions, feel free to reach out to us. We would be happy to help you!