There are dozens user-friendly project planning tools out there designed to help you plan projects effectively. Here’s an excursion into some of the things such a tool should do for you: Resources and resource measurement are pivotal for sound project planning. Resource loading reports are especially useful in allocating resources as your project plan is taking shape. In addition, some solutions offer resource loading by role. Check out good resource management software. Gantt charts are often referred to as 'project monitors’. It is for good reason, as they make it easy for a PM to view at a glance the whole project structure on a timetable. Gantt charts in a project management tool can be found here. Project planning consists of a number of stages. One is to have the project spread out on a (interactive) Gantt chart, second is to work out dependencies, if any, between activities, third, to allocate available resources using a resource loading report, fourth, to find a critical path, etc. Let us introduce a modern project planning tool that allows you to do all that and more effortlessly and effectively. Project consists of activities, such as tasks, requests and issues. Activities can have dependencies, such as Start to Finish, and more than one at that. With a hundred project activities at hand, tracing all the dependencies can be a mind-boggling challenge. Check out how activities treated in this project management software. You bill your clients for work your team do. Time tracking through keeping time logs is a vital thing for any project. Good software should allow an easy way to both log time, and view time logs history. Visit the page of a time logs section overview of a project management solution. Reporting is important in any undertakings involving line of command. Good project planning software must offer a broad scale of reports, the wider the better. Ideally, in a viable software solution, a versatile report generator should be available with wide customization options. Check out reports section in the Easy Projects project management suite. A calendar is one thing a good project planning software tool cannot do without. The calendar is the place to set a timetable for activities, or create group events, such as meetings of your team. Days-off, meetings, memorable events are just a few things that get into a project calendar. Project management calendar is as vital as time tracking or else you’d never know where you were as you are planning your projects. Check out an overview of the calendar section in a project management solution.