Manage your Projects Efficiently

A mismanaged project can lead to over-budgeting, extended deadlines, and even project failures. There are many software solutions for project management, and their complexity ranges from standalone desktop versions for single users to server-based ones for the entire organization. 

Proficient is one such server-based project management software from a Trivandrum-based company called IBS Software. It has all the components needed for planning, monitoring, executing, and controlling all sorts of IT projects. The server runs on a Win NT/2000 server machine with Oracle as the backend database. On the client side, it requires an Oracle client, Office 2000 and an executable file. Alternately, the software also provides a Web-based interface, thereby making it easily

accessible from anywhere on the network or the Internet. For this, it can work with any standard Web server. 

Proficient has five basic components. There’s the Program Manager module, which allows you to create and view all the work for the entire financial year of an organization. Since it offers overall control, it’s for people involved in all the planning work–account managers, CEOs, line of business managers etc. The module allows things like cost-benefit analysis, approving and base-lining work program, specifying cost, schedules, accountability, projected revenues and resource requirements. 

The second module is the Project Manager, meant for managing the individual projects. All projects can be managed from the same interface, and can be accessed by the project manager as well as the team members. It allows one to form team structures, and delegate roles and responsibilities. It also allows effort tracking by monitoring the workload and progress. 

The other three modules are Resource, Quality, and Commercial managers. The resource manager is for optimal resource utilization by doing things like forecasting the resource requirement for current and future projects. Quality manager ensures process compliance, automatic generation and storage of project documents, etc. The commercial manager, among other things, helps to formulate and track commercial and contractual terms. 

Proficient has a lot of features, and mentioning all of them is beyond the scope of this article. Some interesting ones include automatic e-mailing on schedule thresholds, do timesheet filling, etc. You can also define the resource calendar as per your company holidays. There’s a chat facility for individual projects allowing team members to interact even when they’re far apart. There’s also a ‘minutes of meeting’ tracker. Overall, a useful software. 

Price: For basic 5 user license: $4500 (Minimal); $5000 (Maxima); $5750

(Ultima)

Contact: IBS Software Services, Trivandrum. Tel: 0471-416159

Anil Chopra in Trivandrum