Tools for Managing Software Outsourcing Partners Share: Adamo Digital Co., Ltd Date Published 17 March 2020 Categories Blog Reading Time 5-Minute Read Software outsourcing benefits many companies. However, co-operation cannot be successful if companies fail to manage their partner. When working with a software outsourcing company, businesses face challenges in working culture, communication or information sharing which prevents outsourcing productivity. Thus, it’s necessary to use some management tools to keep business tasks on track. This article will provide some useful tools to manage IT software outsourcing efficiently. There are three groups of tools: popular tools, business tools, and free tools Popular Project Management Tools Skype Skype is the most popular channel. It’s free and available all around the world. Therefore, it’s suitable for global co-operation. Skype integrates chat, group chat, file attachment, and video call. However, you can’t share an over 100MB file through this tool. Skype is perfect for meeting and discussing, but not for document sharing. Google Drive Drive is a popular Google project management tool, easy to use for everyone. Google Drive allows you to save work tasks in an unlimited size. Also, you can do your work in different platforms such as word, excel, PowerPoint, etc. Moreover, you access the file on Google Drive to track your partner’s workflow, comment and discuss with team members. However, you have to pay a fee if your Drive size is over 15GB. Business Project Management Software LiquidPlanner LiquidPlanner is a predictive project management software inspired by social media. This tool’s features remind you of some of the most popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Thus, LiquidPlanner is a good choice for both enterprises and outsourcing partners because of its friendly interface and simple. Organizing and scheduling are the key features of this tool. LiquidPlanner’s schedule feature shows you how long each task will take and arranges them in priority order, and then, predicts when the project is finished. LiquidPlanner has both web and app versions so users can easily access documents, comments, manage time and track workflows across the world. PassPack PassPack’s strengths are safety and security. Passpack simplifies the accessibility of the team safely by giving your team passwords with strong encryption and administrative controls. This tool allows you to share information and track workflows securely, especially in programming outsourcing or software testing outsourcing process. PassPack’s PINS and security codes are stored all in one place along with your private data and keep you organized. When the co-operation is over, you just need a click to turn off access. To use PassPack, you need to pay from $18/year to $480/year, depends on your demands. Wufoo Wufoo solves all problems related to contract when outsourcing. Generally, you have a lot of documents of all kinds. This tool not only creates and distributes forms from a location but also tracks responses, analyzes data and exports them. Moreover, Wufoo allows you to design your theme which makes you feel comfortable to interact. Like PassPack, Wufoo provides different choices for different purposes: Starter ($14.08/month): customize branding, send a confirmation email and automate workflows Professional ($29.08/month): collect payments, create unlimited forms, add additional users and secure forms Advanced ($74.08/month): increase max entries, users, file storage and API requests Ultimate ($183.25/month): all features in advanced Intuit Online Payroll In terms of payment, Intuit Online Payroll is a good choice for businesses sending money to the software outsourcing team when projects complete. On the outsourcing partner side, this tool provides each team member a separate account to check their payment. On the company side, this tool provides a payroll structure for accurate management and analysis of budget commitments. Intuit Online Payroll guarantees the transparency of payment – the key success of every outsourcing software development project. Human Translation Tools Generally, companies choose foreign outsourcing partners because of some benefits. Thus, English is a very important factor. However, sometimes you may struggle in working with a team member who is bad at English, especially in a field that witnesses a lot of specialized words like IT. A human translation tool like Babylon is essential. It can translate many languages within a short time. Other translation services include Trados, Systran or Google Translate, etc. Free Project Management App World Clock Meeting Planner It’s hard to arrange a meeting time for all project members who have different schedules, especially foreign partners. World clock meeting planner solves time difference problem by finding the best meeting time for your team across different time zones. The simple interface allows you to enter the time and the city easily. Yammer Owned by Microsoft, Yammer is like an internal social media for your team. You can connect to all team members for group meetings and decision making. Thus, you easily collect all the information you need and track your partner’s workflows. Moreover, members can chat, post or share information on Yammer for study and discussion purposes. This tool also allows you to create a public group and a private group. These above management tools contribute to limiting or removing some obstacles when running outsourcing software development projects. Each tool owns different functions to fit with different projects. You can choose one of these above or collaborate many tools for your purpose. Once both sides run the project smoothly, they can co-operate in other long-term outsourcing projects