Ten iPhone Applications for Project Management

Many business professionals including project managers are now embracing the iPhone, first touted by Mac enthusiasts and techies. Both the Blackberry and Palm brand of phones were almost exclusively used by companies because of their security features, which the iPhone lacked, until the launch of the iPhone 3G. Better security features coupled with the development of numerous applications, has catapulted the iPhone to the front of the business-user ranks of PDAs.

Developers are beginning to target specific users for their applications, and project managers are one such group. Collaboration, sharing, and communication are essential functions in project management and finding the right tools to support those functions can be tedious with the hundreds of application available on iTunes. I have put together a list of ten iPhone applications for project management.

Cisco’s Webex Meeting Center is a free application that allows users to attend web-based meeting via the iPhone. This application is a great tool for project mangers that are always on the go, but require multiple meetings and conferences with their project teams. The Webex iPhone application offers all of the same features of the web-based application. During a meeting, users have the ability to share desktops, view documents, and applications. In addition, you can see whom in attendance and chat with others attendees.

Busy, busy, busy-most project managers. Juggling multiple projects, with multiple team members can lead to a hectic schedule; the SmartTime application can help you stay organized. SmartTime helps you visually organize your tasks, events, and appointments into single view. The application comes in a free version and a fully loaded version for $9.99. The $9.99 version comes with backup and restore, email integration, and ability to create projects, which you can map to Google calendar.

Box.Net is one of my personal favorite applications, which has almost completely replaced my jump drive. Box.Net is a web-based service that allows you to upload and store your files from you Mac or PC to your BoxNet account. The iPhone application connects to your online account, from which you can view word, pdf, spreadsheet, presentations, images, and more. My favorite function of Box.Net is the ability to share and collaborate with others on a single document, multiple documents, or files – similar to Google Docs. With the free account comes 1 GB of storage and offers two upgraded versions at $7.95 and $19.95, with 5Gb and 15GB respectively of storage space.

If you prefer to keep your files out of the cloud, try FileMagnet. The file Magnet application, priced at $4.99 allows you to wirelessly transfer files from your PC or Mac. With File Magnet project managers can take their important presentations, or status reports on the road – or golf course. The application is simple to use, just open FileMagnet on your iPhone and your computer and the two will connect and copy files automatically.

Managing projects means managing multiple teams all of whom a project manager will have to contact at one time or another. The Contact Groups application help makes managing multiple contacts easier. The application is priced at $.99, but comes with robust features such as:

1. The ability to add multiple contacts to a group at one time
2. Send a single email to a group or multiple contacts
3. Search for contacts via a special search toolbar

If you’re a project manager that is spending too much time managing contacts, Contact Groups is well worth the $.99.

If you use BaseCamp for project management, then you will enjoy that Base Camp iPhone application – Outpost. Allows BaseCamp users to access their BaseCamp accounts from their iPhones. Outpost retains many of the same features as the web-based application such as milestones and To-do lists. Most notably Outpost supports offline usage and capabilities. Unfortunately, the application comes at a hefty $12.99 price tag and a low average user rating of 2 ½ stars.

Antecea Inc’s ezShare allows iPhone users to VPN into their company’s network and access all of your business files. ezShare can also be used to access files on a FTP server, home computer, Mac Time Capsule, and Google Docs -project managers will never have to worry about forgetting files with ezShare. Another useful function of the application is the ability to print any of the accessed files, regardless of location. The modest price of $4.99 is really a bargain for a project manager who is constantly on the go, but still requires easy access to a various files.