Zoho Projects - Tips & Tricks to Increase Project Management Efficiency

These Zoho Projects tips and tricks will make you more productive.

Switch between projects as you work

Zoho Projects is known as a 'Project Portal', a single place where you can go to access all of your project information, for all of your projects. Use the project selection menu at the top of the screen to easily switch between projects as you work.


Search documents and forums.

Zoho Projects allows user to search documents and forums from the search box displayed on either of these modules. See the tip below about using search tags.




Add relevant search tags on your project documents.

"Tags" are keywords that relate to an article or document.  When adding documents in Zoho Projects, make sure you add relevant tags, separated by commas, as this will make searching faster and more accurate for your users.

Upload documents directly from email.

Us the standard email address to send documents to your portal via email. This makes it very convenient for customers or team members to email documents such as user guides, spec diagrams etc directly to the online project portal.

Add tasks for each requirement in your scope documents.

If you have a scope document, split each requirement into a separate task, in a relevant milestone.  This might take some time at the start of the project but it will save time in the long run as it help your team understand their tasks as well as track the progress of the tasks (and thus the project as a whole).  It will also highlight duplicated or incorrect requirements and prevent requirements 'leakage' and increases in scope.



Use the Notes function on project Tasks.

More often than not, tasks need to be discussed.  You can use the Notes function on the Tasks to discuss matters related to that specific task.  Remember to assign a task to yourself as well as the owner if you want to receive notifications on their replies via email.

Use Forums to discuss scope & issues, associate Forums with project Tasks.

Forums are a great way to discuss project matters as they allow you to refer to discussion later on and prevent leakage of requirements as well as keep a track on project issues, testing results and so on. If a certain Task relates to a discussion going on in a project Forum, then associate the Task with the Forum so you can easily switch from one to the other.

Use the portal with your clients.

Focus on getting your clients to use the tool.  Why?  After a short time they will see the benefits, they will see their questions being answered and they will see the tasks being updated through the project and all project material being collated in one place. Also, by sending them a link to the portal each week, or by setting them up with an RSS feed on project activities you will reduce admin time as there will be no more need for those time consuming project reports you used to make in Word or Excel!  


Move items from one milestone to another.

For example, testing tasks or that shift to Phase II, out-of-scope requirements that are required in a Wish List milestone... find the Task, click the “Move…” icon and select a new milestone.  There's no need to add it again.

Zoho Projects has RSS feed functionality for all project notifications. This means whenever someone on the team adds something to the project , your RSS feed will be updated. Alternatively, get your tasks - across all projects - emailed to you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis so you never forget what you're supposed to be doing.

Create a Project Wiki

In most projects it is necessary to create user manuals, process guides, diagrams, images, text based documents or even videos related to the project.  There's no need to do this with multiple attachments, use Zoho Projects Wiki function and keep the project documentation in one location.



Use to-do lists to track time.

Track the time it takes your team do do their tasks. Bill clients for accurate time based projects. Track support time and so on. To the left of each Task you will see a small click icon, simply click it to start the clock!  You can also add time for work done using the Timesheet Report.

Keep it “for the team's eyes only.”

Keep milestones and tasks and thus task notes private from the client by selecting a milestone as 'internal'. Only 'external' milestones are visible by the client user(s).




Customise the tabs for the specific project.

If you have a project where you want team member to carry out minimal functions within the portal then show or hide the tabs in that project depending on what you want them to do.




Talk directly to your team, or to the client.

Zoho Projects is fully integrated with Zoho Chat, another on line business solution from Zoho. Use the Chat tab to create chat groups and hold project discussions, or, get your question answered immediately by chatting directly to the relevant person. How?  Go to the on the project Dashboard tab, scroll to the project member list and simply click the project team member or client icon to start chatting individually.

Post forum comments via email.

When you receive a message or comment notification by email regarding a new forum posting by a team member of the client, simply click “reply” in your email software, send the email, and the comment will be posted to the online project forum. No need to login just to reply to forums!

Join the huge Zoho Community!

By using Zoho Projects online project management solution you are not only opening up possibilities to increase the efficiency of your teams, you are joining a huge community of Zoho users!  Need help? Ask the community!