I Love Project Bubble
Around December of 2009 I was asking around various places for project management alternatives to Basecamp, and someone pointed me in the direction of a recently launched site called Project Bubble. Founded by Stu Green, Project Bubble is a project manager and invoicing tool. It allows you to clreate client lists, contacts, and assign tasks to other in your team. So far I’ve been completely happy with the application, and the best part? It’s free.
Look and Feel
I’ll say it, I love the design. I know most people are a bit tired of the ‘cute’ post web 2.0 style designs, but Project Bubble looks clean, crisp, and there’s very little visual clutter. There’s plenty of white (or rather,blue) space, and the text is extremely readable. Today, most web apps are black on white, so it’s nice to see some solid color.
The Meat
The flow for management is simple, you create a Client, defining their Name, Contact, etc. Once you have your client(s) list complete, you can create projects on a per-client basis. You choose the name, client it corresponds to, due date (if applicable), hourly/daily rates, and other members of your team that assigned to that project.
Once your project is set up, you define tasks. These can be assigned on a per-member basis, can have their own due dates, and are generally used for things such as completing logo revisions, proofread final drats, and so on. This is the magical To-Do list of your projects. Each task has a “Billable Time” counter, spanning days and hours, taht you can manually adjust, or using the on-site timer.
Cash or Credit?
In addition to keeping you on task and consolidating all of your work in one place, Project Bubble also has basic invoicing systems. You choose which email to send the invoice to, and it tallies up the project totals, attaches your contact information, and lets them know when and how to pay you. It supports Paypal, as wet as net 15 and net 30 payment options (for those that use them.)
Conclusion
So in short, Project Bubble is a free, working alternative to the major apps like Basecamp. If you want to learn more, head on over to the website. You can also follow Stu on Twitter, or check out his other work over at Haloweb.
Brandon Diaz is the creator of The Corrupted Canvas. He's a web designer with a pretty severe caffeine addiction. He's avid about many things including web standards, web development, various teas, and game design. If you'd like to get in touch you can find him on Twitter.
