Choosing your first project management system can be a daunting task, at least it has been for me. There are just so many choices out there both free and paid.

Lately, there has been a lot of buzz around FreelanceSuite. For those of you who do not know what FreelanceSuite is, it’s a fairly new project management system that lets you keep track of projects, tasks, deadlines, invoices (clients can even pay online through the FreelaceSuite interface!), and much more. You can even mass mail all of your clients in a (text) newsletter type format.

FreelanceSuite has a full demo of their product online. I played around with the demo and loved it. I found that it was not only easy to pick-up, but simple enough for my clients to grasp with out a through explanation. That was HUGE for me. The interface was also attractive (which is always an added bonus). After a month of indecisiveness, I finally bit the bullet and purchased it for $69.00 this past weekend.

1. Purchase, Download, and What You Get

All in all, FreelanceSuite was very easy to purchase. After you create a user account, the product is purchased through PayPal. (Luckily, I already have a PayPal account, so this wasn’t an issue for me). After payment has been received, you’re kicked to your account area and can download FreelanceSuite immediately to your desktop. You are also provided with a product key. With your purchase of FreelanceSuite, you also get 6 months of free support.

2. Installation

Buckle your seat belts, because this is where it gets ugly. I have never, ever had so much trouble installing a program to my server in my entire life. FreelanceSuite uses an encoder called ionCube. Ever heard of it? Yeah, me either. It’s also all in PHP. This is bad for me, because I don’t know PHP — so if something goes wrong, and it’s PHP related, I blow my help whistle and start yelling for the lifeguard.

Luckily, 6 months of free support came with the purchase of FreelanceSuite. So just 10 minutes after I purchased the product, I created a support ticket and submitted it. It went something like this:

Me: Hi. I literally just purchased your product and am having issues installing it. It shows my server is having issues with the ionCube. Can you help?

Peer Ben-David: Our code requires ionCube. Make sure you have the latest encoders at http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php. If this doesn’t resolve the problem, contact your web host.

Hold on right there Peer Ben-David! You’re going to send me to a link that makes NO SENSE (to me) what-so-ever, to fix a problem with YOUR software? THEN if I can’t figure out what’s going on, I have to contact MY web host to help me with YOUR product? That did not sit well with me at all.

Needless to say, after two days, the problem was still not resolved. The FreelanceSuite Staff did not help me beyond this point. All the drivers I had were already up-to-date. They either had no idea how to fix the problem or they were just too lazy.

Thankfully I have an AMAZING hosting service (Omnis Hosting if you’re in the market). I poked around their support section, and by a stroke of luck, was able to find the solution to my problem. But that took about a day of tinkering with different things on my end, which in all honesty, was really frustrating.

3. The Program

On day three, I was finally able to get down to business. I added my first client with ease and input her email address, name, and phone number. Easy as pie! I added her project, “E-Commerce Website”, and I was even able to add a description to it. I then added two tasks to that project, “Website Mock-Up” and “Coding Phase”. I was able to add descriptions and deadlines to these tasks. Once I finished setting up a real live project, I logged in from the client side to see what my client would be viewing.

To my absolute amazement, clients are not able to see the tasks I create. All the client can see is the project. So if my client were to log in today, all she would see is that the E-Commerce Website is in progress and has a due date of January 1, 2009.

Are you serious? That’s it? How are my clients supposed to monitor the progress of the tasks? Isn’t that the whole point of the of a project management system?! In the task area I was allowed to input a description, due date, percentage completed, and even attached a mock-up design. How on earth is that not available for a client to view?! Again, I went back and contacted support.

Me: Hi there. Can client’s view the tasks I create? It’s important for me that they be able to track the progress of their project.

Neran Ashkenazi: Hello. In order to send something for the client, you’ll need to add a submission: manage projects -> project -> add submission -> send to client. You’ll be able to send text and files for the client to review and approve. 

Me: No, that’s not what I asked. Can a client view tasks I create?

Neran Ashkenazi: Tasks are for inner management and a client can’t view them. So far we didn’t receive requests from our customers for this feature.

What the hell? Not only do these people not listen, but really? You didn’t receive ANY requests, at all, for clients to be able to track their projects? Somehow, I don’t believe that.

So… in order for a client to view project progress, a new project has to be created for every part instead of a task. This is insanely cumbersome. This means I have to create a project for the website as a whole, one for the mock-up, one for the coding, and then one for whatever else needs to be done on top of that. When you create a project, you can’t mark it a percentage done. Then every time you create a project, you have to go through the whole process of: is the client’s invoice paid or unpaid, what client belongs to this project, etc. It’s a huge time waster. Doing it this way, just so the client can see it, will mean you could essentially have dozens (or hundreds) of unorganized projects running wild in your dashboard. This was a deal-breaker for me.

4. The Conclusion

Overall, I feel that FreelanceSuite is too new to be purchased. It is still in it’s first version and was only launched this year. The only pro I found about the software was that it was easy to use. Customer support does responds very fast, but not with very good information.

Sadly, when I requested a refund, the FreelanceSuite Staff was no where to be found. The slowest I ever heard from them was four hours later. It’s been a day since I requested a refund, and I’ve received no reply. I’m honestly a little worried I will not get my money back at all.

5. The Moral of The Story

What did I learn from this? As great as a demo is, it’s not a true test of a product. I also learned that I should have stuck with my original project management system, Project Pier, which is totally free, and customizable. Sometimes paid doesn’t mean better.

If you want to try out FreelanceSuite for yourself, I recommend the 14-day trial, which I accidentally overlooked when I purchased my product this weekend. You can choose this option when you go through the motions of actually trying to purchase the product.

If you have any questions about the product, I’d be happy to answer them in the comments section. Good luck!

Posted in Design, Freelance, Product Reviews |

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