Before you can manage a project, you need to create one. Projects exist within the context of Spaces on Wrike, so you’ll need one of those, too. You can create custom Spaces or choose from a wide range of templates. It’s possible to customize Projects with different workflows, which you can create yourself or pick from a premade list. I recommend starting with Space templates and premade Project workflows.
When you open a project, a menu at the top of the screen lets you add views (board, calendar, chart, files, Gantt, resources, stream, table, and time log) that appear as tabs. Views have different functionality. For example, you can see your tasks in the Gantt or table views, while your time sheet entries populate in your time log view. Although Wrike’s overall interface can be overwhelming, projects feel more focused. They limit the number of elements you can interact with, so adding, editing, filtering, and sorting tasks is easy.
I created an editorial Space with different projects for features, news, and reviews, using the Content Operations Space template and the premade Content Workflow. My projects came with columns for assignee, date, name, and status for tasks, and I added columns for editor, priority, progress, and time spent from the list of available options. However, you can also create custom columns. Once my larger structure was in order, I added tasks (complete with the information necessary to populate columns). Adding subitems to a task takes only a click when the task is open. Setting up the basics of a workable management system can be done in just a few minutes.
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If you subscribe to the Business plan or higher, Wrike offers time-tracking and workload-management features. Time tracking is straightforward: You can manually enter how much time you work in the Timesheets tab, or start a timer within individual tasks to automatically track your time. From the Workload tab, you can get a bird’s eye view of how your entire team spends their time, allowing you to more efficiently distribute tasks without overloading any one person.
Form creation and proofing tools are available, too. Wrike’s form creation feature requires at least the Business tier and focuses on intake and third-party requests, so it’s nowhere near as robust as a dedicated form-building platform. But it works fine for its purpose. Wrike’s proofing abilities also require at least the Business plan. You can proof a wide variety of different file types, including videos.
Wrike lacks a dedicated billing system, but you can still connect third-party services and keep track of invoices by setting them up as requests. Then, you can use Wrike’s time-tracking features to track how much time someone spends on a request for billing purposes. This can work well for smaller teams that handle simple client work, but it’s not a match for Teamwork’s more robust billing and invoice management capabilities.
