CentralDesktop

Full Review

Central Desktop is an online collaboration tool, which inherently has some overlap with project management. The app runs through ‘workspaces' which can be used as online meeting points for companies and teams, or to manage projects.

I started off making a sample workspace, but I didn't limit it to a project per se. The tabs that show up in a workspace are pretty typical, and can be added/removed as desired. I limited my workspace to files and discussions, tasks, milestones, time, calendar, and people. Since the purposes are self-explanatory, I'll briefly talk about the experience.

Files and discussions are really nice, it's easy to upload files in bulk, and all files have unique comment boards. You can also make online documents, and have comment boards based around links - two great features for collaboration.

Tasks and milestones work together, and it's possible to create multiple task lists for a milestone. It's not possible to make sub-tasks or detailed hierarchal processes - again a reminder of how CentralDesktop is more collaboration than project minded. It is a nice task feature though, and supports email notifications and time tracking.

The calendar is nicely done, but more importantly is very compatible with iCal, google calendar, etc. All tasks and milestones show up on the calendar and are labeled differently, so it's pretty easy to use. But there's no GANTT feature, which dedicated project managers might find disappointing.

The pricing scheme for Central Desktop is a confusing matrix because there are so many variations. The plans most suited for small businesses and startups are Team Plan 1 ($25/month) and Team Plan 2 ($49/month), which have 3 and 10 workspaces respectively. Still, take a look at the matrix on the site if you're considering Central Desktop because there are a lot of options.

The struggle between collaboration and project management is tough, because the two ideally go hand in hand. CentralDesktop isn't the best thing out there for project management, but it is better than most for pure collaboration. It has things like web conferencing, but completely lacks support of contact lists (outside fellow workspace users), or flexible to-do list hierarchies.

The Bottom Line

Central Desktop is a pseudo project management app posing as a collaboration tool. It's good at collaboration, but isn't sufficient as a project management app. Since collaboration is usually a means to reach a certain goal, this deficiency is a major problem. For those times when you just need pure or casual collaboration, the best suited apps are like online water coolers (like Harvest CoOp). The project management designed approach to open collaboration doesn't work for me, which is what Central Desktop attempts. I'd rather have a solid project management tool or a more open collaboration tool before Central Desktop, so I'm not recommending this application.

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