Central Desktop
Monday, June 16th, 2008Central Desktop is a hosted online project collaboration and management tool. It is easily the best tool that I’ve tested and I’ve chosen it for a couple of our company projects.
The layout and intuitiveness are excellent. From a user’s perspective there is a very clear division between personal tasks, calender entries, etc. and those related to group projects. Likewise for administrators there is a clear distinction between global administration, project administration and administrators’ own tasks, calender entries, etc. This division seems so simple yet has been lacking in other tools that I’ve tested.
Central Desktop comes in two main flavours: Team & Corporate. Both offer more of less the same project level features. The Corporate Plan adds SSL security, tagging, customisation options, API access and more disk space/user/workspace options. It also allows administrators to distinguish between internal users and external users. The main advantage of the latter is that company specific information can be shared with internal users only. I’m not sure that this is incredibly useful feature but we’ll see.
The main features available for project collaboration/management are:
Forum
- Multiple category levels
- Rich text editor for discussion topics
- Attach files to discussions
- Post to a forum via email
- Etc.
Blog
- Create categories
- Rich text editor
- Attach files
- Etc.
Document Management
- Nested folder structure (multiple levels)
- Upload files or create documents using online editors
- Add web page snapshots and links via browser plug-in
(haven’t found a way to add these manually, which is a little odd) - Versioning with check-out/check-in system
- Document status determines what actions can be performed
- Various upload options (single file, multiple, drag and drop)
- Etc.
Tasks
- Multiple categories
- Assign tasks to team members
- Etc.
Calender
- iCal feed
- Add meetings directly into Outlook
- Invite others
- Etc.
Team Contacts
- Contact details for each team member
- Create customised listing views
- Etc.
Custom Tabs
- Tabs can be created for any page. This is an incredibly useful feature and allows for extensive customisation, certainly when coupled with the “create your own databases” option
Create your own databases
- A wonderful feature that allows you to build as many databases as you like. You simply create your own list of fields using the built in templates (text, two line text, drop down list, upload, etc.) and click “create.” It is that easy! You can then add the new database as a custom tab.
Most of the above features also have a range of communication options: subscriptions, notifications, RSS feeds, emails from within the system, etc.
I’ve only touched the surface of what is available in Central Desktop. The nicest thing about the tool is that it offers a good level of customisation (design and features) for administrators, yet the interface remains clean and simple to use. This is not an easy balance to strike and Central Desktop should be congratulated for this.
The tool does have a few drawbacks:
- Firstly, it is only available as a hosted solution. This was and still is a problem for me. The first couple of projects that I’ve created do not need a very high level of security but I’m wary of using the tool for more sensitive projects. The optional “security pack” doesn’t address my concerns and in any case security should be built in to these tools and not sold as an option!! With hosted tools what I’m mainly concerned about is the integrity of the provider. I want to see systems in place that ensure that their employees cannot access my data. A check box in the administration system and a privacy statement is not enough… I’d also like to see some third party companies offering security audits for such SaaS providers.
- Secondly, the rights management for users is not fine grained enough. If I take the database feature as an example. Users without Edit rights can still modify database fields. This shouldn’t be possible and goes beyond collaboration and into administration.
- Thirdly, adding new users is too difficult. The emphasis is put on users to create their own profils and manage their own passwords. I would prefer to allocate passwords and have the option to allow a project manager to edit team profiles. The latter can in fact be done but this involves giving this user the rights to manage company information as well….very strange!!
These few problems aside, the is a great system and is a long way ahead of the competition. It’s no wonder that they’ve just received another 7 million dollars in venture capital!
Before closing my short review, I should also mention that plug-ins are also available for online meetings and salesforce.
