Review: Bantam – Todo Management

Bantam is a CRM multi-feature-application, which we use primarily for task management. We were looking for a todo-management-tool. We started using bantam, because it is fairly simple, we have the possibility to add tasks for someone else in our team, and can also see who has what tasks – and which are overdue :). As a nice addition we also use the dashboard to post work-related status-updates.

Feature Set

• tasks with:
  • project link
    
  • type
    
  • due date
    
  • assign to person
    
  • hidden / public
• tasks overview with different view points
  
• team messages
  
• dashboard
  
• contact manager
  
• deals
  
• projects
  
• files

For me, the major drawback is the superfluous stuff. I just want the task-management. I do not need “Messages” – for that I use email. I do not need “Contacts” – for that I would use the contact-manager of my email-client. Furthermore I do not see the need for “Deals”, “Projects” and “Files” in our company.
There is no possibility to add subtasks to tasks. The calendar can be integrated into the personal Google-calendar, which is nice.
The pricing can be found here – it ranges from $19 per month for a single user to $140 per month for unlimited users.
Feature Rating: 3/5

Design and Usability

The design can be confusing at times. But once accustomed, it is as simple. The buttons and what they stand for is not intuitive.
A negative aspect of bantam is that it is slow when switching between webpages or after making a drop-down-list selection.
I also found it in the beginning partly non-intuitive to create a new task with the properties I liked the task to have.
Design Rating: 2/5

Review: Toodledo - Lots of Features - Little Design

Toodledo is a poorly designed task organizer that comes equiped with a couple of interesting features such as scheduler and statistics.

Feature Set

• create a task
• folder
• due date
• repeat
• priority
• note 
• context 
• location 
• display and sort tasks in a list
• longtime goals 

In the Pro Version (15$ per year) or Pro Plus (30$ per year) of toodledo you have access to following additional features:

• scheduler (toodledo tells you what you should work on)
• task sharing with collaborators
• file upload
• statistics of tasks
• notebook for reference material
• history 

Overall the impression is, that toodledo attempts to do a lot of things and does not focus on one user scenario or user flow.

Feature Rating:  2/5
 
Design and Usability

The overall design is very crowded and poorly layouted. A lot of colors, shapes and links are visible without being prioritized in any way. I felt annoyed pretty fast and would not use toodledo on a daily basis. 
The performance was acceptable even though the page reloads inbetween different features had me waiting for a while. 

Design Rating: 1/5 

Overall Impression

Toodledo sure does have a wide range of features most of which are only available in the Pro or Pro Plus version. The design is rather annoying and does not help to get things done.

Overall Rating: 1/5