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As companies grow, they tend to handle more projects, with main teams and subteams managing different projects. To keep everyone in sync and ensure they consistently deliver quality projects, organizations need a way to consolidate these various initiatives across the company. Project portfolio management software centralizes the management of an organization’s projects by helping managers determine which resources to allocate to a specific project.
SEE: Hiring kit: Project manager (TechRepublic Premium)
PPM tools help business leaders align organizational goals with teams’ efforts and provide a structured approach to managing the overall project portfolio, including resource allocation strategies, risk management and performance measurement. PPM helps managers determine which projects are meeting the organization’s objectives in order to make data-driven decisions about which projects to decompose or break into smaller tasks, how to allocate resources, and how to prioritize competing demands on those resources.
7 best project portfolio management software
| Software | Best for | Mobile app | Project views | Third-party integrations | Starting price per user |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planview | Project resource management and capacity planning | No | Gantt chart and kanban | Yes | Custom quote |
| Smartsheet | Reporting | Yes | Grid, Gantt chart, card and calendar | Yes | Free |
| Yes | Task tracking and capacity management | Yes | Gantt chart and kanban | Yes | $24.80 per month |
| monday work management | Value | Yes | Kanban, timeline, calendar, map and chart | Yes | Free |
| Asana | Small to large businesses and contractors | Yes | List, board, timeline and calendar | Yes | $24.99 per month |
| ClickUp | Customization | Yes | Gantt chart, table, timeline, workload and box | Yes | Free |
| Celoxis | All-in-one PPM and resource management software | No | Board, workload and work trend | Yes | $20 per month for the three-year plan |
The best PPM software for your enterprise depends on your unique needs, use cases and preferences. This guide analyzes the top seven project portfolio management software, including their standout features, pricing, and pros and cons.
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Planview PPM Pro: Best for project resource management and capacity planning
Planview PPM Pro, formerly Planview Innotas, enables project management office leaders to prioritize tasks, track workloads and measure performance. The tool centralizes project portfolio management to establish a single source of truth for all work and resources. Moreover, Planview includes the capability for managing project cost against budget across portfolios by providing comprehensive views into each project’s budget, actual and forecast.
With Planview, managers can measure the team’s performance and view key performance indicators to determine if the team’s efforts align with company goals. Planview also helps managers make informed decisions on projects and tasks based on resource availability, capacity and utilization to meet the organization’s current and future demands.
Pricing
Planview PPM Pro pricing information is unavailable on the vendor’s website. Potential buyers can request a product demo to learn more about this tool’s capability and receive a custom quote.
Standout features
- Integrations with Microsoft 365, SAP, ServiceNow, Slack, Workday and Oracle.
- Project planning and scheduling, including project phases, tasks and milestones.
- Project financials management, including in-flight expense tracking to help teams stay on budget.
- Variance reporting of performance measurement against baselines to determine the differences between forecasted and actual efforts.
- Optimized resource allocation and risk management.
- Planning and management support for project operating and capital expenses.
- Automated notifications for new and out-of-tolerance assignments.
- Time and expense management.
Pros
- Improves team collaboration.
- Promotes lean and agile work.
- Provides configurable ribbons and tiles.
- Offers time tracking and capacity planning capabilities.
- Includes analytics and reporting plus executive dashboard reporting.
Cons
- Users report that this tool is pricey.
- There is a complex initial setup process.
Interested in Planview? Check out these other top Agile project management software.
Smartsheet: Best for reporting
Project teams and managers familiar with spreadsheets will find Smartsheet easy to use due to its spreadsheet-style dashboard. Smartsheet allows users to create formulas, manage projects, track progress, automate manual processes and customize workflows.
Smartsheet’s project and portfolio reporting capability allows users to visualize and report on portfolio data with configurable widget-based views. Smartsheet automatically adds data from new projects to the team’s portfolio reports and dashboards. Project teams can also track projects, budgets and resources to ensure they align with the organization’s goals.
Pricing
- Free: No cost for one user and up to two editors.
- Pro: $7 per user per month, billed annually, or $9 per user billed monthly.
- Business: $25 per user per month, billed annually, or $32 per user billed monthly.
- Enterprise: Contact sales for a custom quote.
Standout features
- Captures and compares variances between planned and actual schedules.
- Integrates with third-party services like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, Box and Dropbox.
- Provides report grouping into logical categories or classifications.
- Offers grid, Gantt chart, card and calendar views.
- Automates repetitive tasks and processes.
- Benchmarks performance against expectations and goals to estimate value accurately.
Pros
- 30-day free trial.
- Highly customizable.
- Feature-rich.
- Excellent reporting capabilities.
Cons
- Smartsheet is expensive for small businesses.
- Users report that Smartsheet is infrequently slow when running large projects.
For more information, check out our full Smartsheet review.
Wrike: Best for task tracking and capacity management
Wrike is primarily a project management service provider with extensible PPM capabilities that help teams manage multiple projects and visualize and prioritize resources for a better workflow. The tool has a prebuilt, ready-to-use PPM template and project portfolio analysis capabilities. These features help teams manage multiple projects, track progress and manage resources efficiently. And Wrike’s collaboration features help teams collaborate, communicate and coordinate tasks.
Wrike is available as a cloud-based, desktop and/or mobile app solution for businesses of all sizes. Aside from project portfolio management, Wrike offers additional project management features such as task management, subtask management, account-wide work schedules, personal work schedules, custom fields, workflows and statuses, and folder hierarchy.
Pricing
Wrike’s project portfolio management features are only available in the Business, Enterprise and Pinnacle pricing tiers:
- Business: $24.80 per user per month for five to 200 users.
- Enterprise: Contact sales for a custom quote.
- Pinnacle: Contact sales for a custom quote.
Standout features
- Over 400 third-party integrations, including OneDrive, Okta, Slack, Jira, Zoom and more.
- Advanced resource and capacity planning.
- Workflow automation to eliminate manual processes.
- Drag-and-drop capabilities.
Pros
- Enhanced collaboration, especially among distributed teams.
- Time tracking capability.
- Visual proofing capability.
Cons
- Complex initial setup process.
- Steep learning curve.
For more information, check out our full Wrike review.
monday work management: Best for value
With monday work management, teams can create customized workflows, automate routine tasks and easily collaborate on projects. The software can be used by teams of any size in any industry and is available on the web and mobile devices. monday work management provides users with many beneficial features, including time tracking, customizable templates, team boards, calendar views, and integrations with other tools and services.
Further, monday work management allows managers to allocate resources and prioritize tasks to meet the company’s objectives. Its PPM templates give stakeholders a high-level view of their portfolio information and overall health.
Pricing
- Free: No cost for up to two seats.
- Basic: $8 per seat per month, billed annually, or $10 per seat billed monthly.
- Standard: $10 per seat per month, billed annually, or $12 per seat billed monthly.
- Pro: $16 per seat per month, billed annually, or $20 per seat billed monthly.
- Enterprise: Contact sales for a custom quote.
Standout features
- Resource utilization and capacity planning.
- Advanced reporting and analytics.
- Over 200 templates available.
- Integrates with many tools, including Slack, Jira, Zoom and Google Drive.
Pros
- Built-in time tracking.
- 99.9% uptime service-level agreement.
- Self-service knowledge base.
- Budget-friendly.
Cons
- Limited reporting capabilities.
- The user interface may take time to learn for first-time users.
For more information, check out our full monday Work OS review.
Asana: Best for small to large businesses and contractors
Asana PPM helps project managers monitor their team’s initiatives, such as project status, progress and resource allocation, in a unified dashboard. Asana provides a comprehensive view of an organization’s project portfolio, enabling managers to prioritize projects, allocate resources and manage budgets more effectively.
With Asana, teams can track project progress, collaborate on tasks, and set up reminders and deadlines. It also includes a workload view, which helps managers identify team members’ capacity and balance their workloads.
Pricing
Asana’s PPM features are only available in its Business plan, which is priced at $24.99 per user per month when billed annually, or $30.49 per user when billed monthly.
Standout features
- Project views for timeline, list, board and calendar.
- Integrations with tools like Power BI, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack and Salesforce.
- Custom workflow automation.
- Project planning, task management, risk management and issue management.
Pros
- Short learning curve.
- Excellent collaboration features.
- User-friendly interface.
- Highly customizable.
Cons
- Asana can be expensive for teams looking for more advanced features.
For more information, check out our full Asana review.
ClickUp: Best for customization
ClickUp consolidates productivity, project management, work management, document collaboration and communication in a unified platform. It is designed to be an all-in-one platform that can be customized to suit the needs of various teams and industries, from small businesses to large enterprises. ClickUp provides stakeholders with extensive insights into all projects’ progress and reports on milestones.
ClickUp has over 15 customizable project views and an extensive template library for various use cases. The tool has over 50 native integrations, making it easy for teams to connect with existing apps in their toolkits.
Pricing
- Free Forever: No cost for 100MB storage and unlimited tasks.
- Unlimited: $5 per user per month, billed annually, or $9 per user billed monthly.
- Business: $12 per user per month, billed annually, or $19 per user billed monthly.
- Business Plus: $19 per user per month, billed annually, or $29 per user billed monthly.
- Enterprise: Contact sales for a custom quote.
Standout features
- Advanced task views, such as Gantt chart, table, timeline, workload, box, activity, mind map, list, calendar and map.
- Task dependencies capability.
- Natural language processing.
- Work in progress limits.
- ClickApp mobile application.
- Risk management capability to assess multiple projects’ performance against strategic organizational objectives.
Pros
- Self-service knowledge base.
- Highly customizable.
- Support for multiple assignees.
- Over 50 native integrations.
Cons
- Steep learning curve.
- Mobile app has limited project views.
- Free and unlimited plans lack two-factor authentication.
For more information, check out our full ClickUp review.
Celoxis: Best all-in-one PPM and resource management software
Celoxis is all-in-one enterprise-level PPM software that offers project planning, resource management, task tracking, time tracking, budgeting, collaboration and reporting features for optimized project portfolio management. These features help businesses of all sizes plan, manage and track projects from start to finish.
Celoxis offers fully featured resource management capabilities to maximize team utilization and project performance. It enables managers to allocate tasks based on skills, roles and availability while considering employees’ time zones and work shifts. Celoxis also offers a comprehensive suite of real-time dashboards, reporting capabilities and customizable workflows to help managers measure, analyze and optimize team performance.
Pricing
Celoxis offers two deployment plan options: Cloud and On-Premises. Pricing information for the On-Premises plan is available upon request. For Cloud plans, customers have the option to purchase either monthly plans or yearly plans, with a minimum requirement of five users for all plans:
- Cloud monthly: $25 per user per month.
- Cloud yearly: $22.50 per user per month.
- Cloud 2-yearly: $21.25 per user per month.
- Cloud 3-yearly: $20 per user per month.
Standout features
- Intake management capability automatically captures and ranks project requests from web forms, emails and other sources.
- Resource management features optimize distributed teams’ resources and analytics.
- Customizable portfolio dashboards allow users to monitor schedules, margins and other custom metrics.
- Project accounting provides profit and margin tracking, revenue forecasting and custom financial KPIs.
- Third-party integrations with QuickBooks, Slack, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and more provide a more unified PPM solution.
Pros
- Time tracking.
- 30-day free trial.
- Multilevel approvals.
- PDF option for exporting reports.
Cons
- Celoxis lacks a free plan.
- Cloud user storage space is limited to 2GB per user.
See how Celoxis compares to our list of the top 10 project management software.
What is PPM software?
Organizations use project portfolio mangaement software to manage their projects and project portfolios. With PPM software, companies can prioritize projects, allocate resources, manage budgets, and track KPIs and objectives and key results toward strategic goals.
Project portfolio management solutions provide a centralized project management platform, allowing organizations to standardize processes and workflows. This can help to increase efficiency, reduce duplication of effort and ensure projects are aligned with organizational goals.
PPM software is designed to help organizations optimize their project portfolios, ensure alignment with strategic goals and achieve better outcomes from their project investments.
What are key features of project portfolio management software?
Project portfolio management software provides analytics and dashboards to help managers and stakeholders gain insights into project performance and make informed decisions. Its features include project tracking and reporting, financial management, collaboration, and communication. Other key PPM features include:
Portfolio dashboard
PPM tools often provide a dashboard that displays an organization’s project portfolio overview. It offers a real-time snapshot of the portfolio’s health, including KPIs and OKRs, such as project status, resource utilization and budget, plus forecast versus actual baseline.
With this feature, project stakeholders can identify and address potential issues, looking at resource constraints and breaking down large projects to increase success rates.
Resource management
PPM tools typically offer resource management functionality, which allows organizations to plan and allocate resources across multiple projects. Given resource constraints, this feature helps ensure resources are not under- or over-utilized and project timelines are realistic.
Resource management functionality also allows organizations to identify and address resource conflicts before they become critical issues.
Project prioritization
PPM tools often include functionalities to help organizations prioritize projects and programs based on strategic goals, available resources and other criteria.
Project prioritization enables stakeholders to make data-driven decisions about which projects to pursue and how to allocate resources. Organizations can maximize the value of their project portfolios by prioritizing projects based on strategic goals and objectives.
Risk management
The best PPM tools include functionality to help organizations identify, assess and manage risks associated with projects and programs. When potential project risks are identified and addressed early in the project life cycle, there is an immediate increase in the project success rate.
SEE: 10 best resource management software for 2023 (TechRepublic)
However, if risks are not properly managed, they could delay delivery, cost the team more money and affect the team’s overall performance. PPM risk management functionality enables organizations to monitor and mitigate risks throughout the project life cycle, minimizing the impact of unforeseen events.
Reporting and analytics
The ability to make data-driven decisions about project selection, resource allocation and other strategic initiatives is essential for the overall health of a company. With PPM reporting and analytics features, organizations can identify trends and patterns in project performance, enabling them to track KPIs and measure the success of their project portfolio.
Reporting and analytics features provide valuable insights that are needed to enhance individual projects and project portfolios.
How to choose project portfolio management tools
Choosing the right PPM tool is crucial to your organization’s project portfolio management success. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting a PPM tool:
- Alignment with organizational goals.
- User-friendly interface.
- Integration with other tools.
- Availability of project tracking and reporting, resource allocation and scheduling, risk management, and portfolio analysis features.
- Customization and flexibility.
- Vendor support and training.
Ultimately, the best PPM solution for you depends on your company’s requirements.
How we evaluated the best PPM software
When we evaluated the best PPM software, a few criteria were considered. As a baseline, we evaluated software features to ensure each solution offers project portfolio management capabilities. We also reviewed the cost of the software, the ease of implementation and use, and customer service and support. Finally, we considered the reviews and ratings each solution has received.
Read next: The 7 best construction project management software for 2023 (TechRepublic)
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