RationalPlan
Download and Review
| Developer: | Stand By Soft Ltd. |
| License: | Shareware / Free to try |
| User Rating: |   (18 votes) |
| Official Website: | www.rationalplan.com |
| Platform: | Windows, Mac, Linux |
RationalPlan Review
RationalPlan is a project management software solution by Stand By Soft Ltd. It is a cross platform project management program which is available for three popular operating systems including Windows, Mac and Linux. There are two editions of RationalPlan: RationalPlan Multi Project and RationalPlan Single Project. Multi Project version is designed for users who want to keep in one hand projects with shared resources or dependencies between tasks that do not belong to the same project. And the single project edition is designed for users who have the projects that are completely independent – no shared resources, no interdependencies.
The program provides simple and easy to use interface with guide along the planning process. You can quickly navigate from one section to other including create WBS, schedule tasks, define resources (human & equipment and materials), assign resource, level resources and define additional costs for tasks. The software provides five views features including WBS View, Gantt Chart, Resource, Task Sheet and Resource Sheet.
The trial versions for all platforms are available to download and try. The trial version has all the functionality of the full version but it limits your projects to no more than 20 tasks. You can use it for an unlimited period of time.
The program is also available for educational version with discount and cheaper price which can be purchased and used only by students, educational institutions and non-profit organizations and has the same features as regular version.
User Experience with RationalPlan Software
To add more useful information for other users, if you ever experience using the RationalPlan program, I encourage you to write a short review about your experiences with software and share it in the following section:
March 21st, 2010 11:48 am
The RationalPlan interface is nice and clean. It’s bright and uncluttered and enables you to get to all of the features, stages of project management from the one screen. There are lots of elements that can be brought on the screen which can just as easily be hidden. So you are able to get the depth of information as well as simple overviews.
The data exports are ‘limited’ to excel. though if you have a handle on Excel you can run all sort of reports and filters to get only the data you need to communicate.
The collaboration features are a bit limited. While you could work off a network drive, once a user if on it all are locked out. I’ve not used this but have been advised. And I know that it will be a big problem for us. Though being able to share and monitor resources across the whole organisation would be valubale.
You can also send tasks information to ‘Resources’ (ie. people and things) by email. Which means it just pops into their existing work flow / communication channels. These emails also have ical attachements that can open in outlook and other caledar programs.
The MultiProject feature allows resources to be shared and assigned between projects and it can generate gantts that show you how different projects lookin relation to each other.
You can attribute prices to People and Resources and as the are assiged to work and progress work, the costs are accrued. And you can also ‘level resources’, to ensure that each person or resource is not over or under committed.
It doesn’t have loads of bells and whistle but If we ever graduate to the likes of MS Project, it would be because Rational Plan proved the genre’s worth as a vital business tool.
July 11th, 2010 3:31 am
@rob We have just launched RationalPlan Project Server which is in Beta and freely available for everyone. This should solve your collaboration needs since users will now have the possibility to concurrently access project data. They will no longer work with files but rather using a server.