Have you been busy as bee, struggling to keep up with all your deadlines?
What you need is a tool to help you out.
And that’s where Hive comes in.
Hive is a project management platform that can be used by marketing agencies, operations teams, and startups.
Several teams rely on Hive project management to manage tasks and streamline processes.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a delicious honeycomb dessert that boosts team productivity magically. 🍯
So, how effective is Hive project management?
In this article, we’ll talk about Hive project management, including its advantages and limitations. We’ll also highlight an alternative tool that solves Hive’s limitations to help your team be as productive as a busy bee.
This Article Contains:
Let’s bee-gin! 🐝
What is Hive Project Management?
Hive is a process and project management tool that’s suitable for teams of any size.
The software lets you share files, assign tasks, communicate, and invite external users to collaborate.
You can create and organize tasks for yourself and your Hive team using task deadlines, attachments, and labels. The app also has a cool feature that lets you approve files on the go with their mobile application.
What is Hive used for?
Most companies use the Hive platform for:
- Task management
- Note-taking
- Resource management
- Progress tracking
- Boosting workplace productivity
Hive is more beneficial for teams since you’ll experience the full functionality of the app’s productivity and collaboration features.
After all, bees are more productive when they work as a team.
4 Key Features of Hive
While Hive’s got a swarm of features, here’s what makes its users stick to the app like honey:
1. Flexible project views
Hive gives its users multiple project views to choose from, like:
- Gantt chart: see how long your projects will take and plan ahead
- Kanban board: perfect for agile teams to visualize their workflow
- Table view: see tasks using a simple spreadsheet
- Portfolio view: know which tasks were completed within specific projects, which projects have the same tasks, and identify overdue tasks
- Calendar view: organize your tasks by deadline
You can easily switch between views, and any changes sync across all of them. This way, your project team will have the most recent updates no matter what.
2. Hive chat
Hive’s native instant messaging feature lets you have one-on-one conversations or group chats with your members.
This way, you won’t have to dance like a bee to get your message across. 😛
With Hive chat, you can add messaging groups by departments or even automate your chat through integrations with Zapier.
You can also alert a coworker by dragging and dropping an action into the chat window and share files from your computer with ease.
3. Action cards
Ready to play some cards?
Hive action cards contain simple to-do lists, task priorities, attachments, and more.
They show essential project details for easy collaboration, such as:
- The assignee
- Due date
- Task status
4. Hive e-mail
Hive Mail lets you access your inbox, send new emails, and organize follow-up actions without leaving the Hive.
With Hive’s email functionality, you can:
- Link emails to existing actions
- Assign emails to yourself or colleagues
- Track progress and replies
- Reply or forward messages from your action cards
- Transform your email into an action card like Bumblebee’s transformation here
3 Benefits of using Hive for Project Management
Here are three advantages of using Hive as a project management platform:
1.Use Hive action templates to save time
Speed up tasks that are usually repeated throughout your projects and stay consistent with an action template.
Hive has templates for marketing plans, content calendars, onboarding, and more.
This way, you won’t have to do things over and over again like there’s a bee in your bonnet! 👒
2. Hive analytics and reporting for detailed insights
Hive analytics is a built-in reporting tool that helps project managers monitor team and individual performance.
Every account comes with 3 standard dashboards through Hive Analytics. You can also use their sample dashboards if you’re new to its features.
With dashboards, you can track project progress and see:
- Tasks completed by each team member
- The most productive days of the week
- Overdue tasks
Hive Analytics makes it easy for a project manager to know if the team is bee-having in the workplace. 😜
3. Hive Automations help streamline processes
Everyone has a few tasks that they have to do regularly.
Sorta like how each bee has one job to do.
That’s why Hive lets you automate repetitive tasks to help streamline your workflow.
After enabling Hive Automations in Hive Apps, you have access to the Automation hub. There, you can customize your workflow and decide which action cards are associated.
Move tasks to different projects, change an assignee, add a label, and apply a template.
You can also set up recurring tasks for things you need to do daily, weekly, or monthly, like a team meeting or a client call. This way, you’ll constantly be reminded of those tasks without having to do anything!
6 Limitations of Hive Project Management (with Solutions)
Look, Hive is a decent process management tool, but it’s not buzzworthy.
Here are some stinging limitations of choosing Hive for project management:
(Click on the links to jump to a specific drawback)
2. No document collaboration features
Here’s a closer look at each limitation and how you can solve it:
1. Limited project views
With Hive, you get some essential ways to view a project:
- Status view
- Team view
- Calendar view
- Label view
- Gantt chart
- Table view
Unfortunately, these aren’t enough for a large team that’s working on a complex project or managing an entire enterprise workflow.
Wasp do we mean?
Hive doesn’t offer creative teams a space where they can map out project ideas.
On top of that, they don’t have a dedicated view where teams can manage workloads. So some team members will have a lot of free time on their hands, while others do all the heavy lifting.
Don’t worry. ClickUp is here to save the day!
ClickUp is one of the world’s highest-rated productivity and project management software used by highly productive teams in small and large companies.
With a whole hive of features, ClickUp’s got everything that both in-house and remote teams need to run projects from start to finish.
From helping you manage team performance to collaborating with clients and other stakeholders, ClickUp’s the queen bee of project management. 👑
Here’s how ClickUp beats Hive at its own game:
ClickUp solution #1: tons of project views
ClickUp Views offer a large variety of project views for all your project planning and management needs.
Some of these views include:
- Box view: know what people are working on, what they have done, and who needs more tasks or has too many
- List view: quickly filter, sort and, group tasks in this view
- Mind Map view: visualize your project plan by using existing tasks or create a free-form mind map for anything you can imagine
- Workload view: see your team’s capacity and manage resources with ease
- Timeline view: view your tasks linearly, and group them by assignee, priority, tags, custom fields, and more
- Form view: collect information and automatically create tasks from form submissions
- Map view: identify your next job location, real estate listing, construction site, delivery address, and more
- Chat view: have project discussions with your team or create weekend plans alongside work
And there’s even more!
No, we’re not pollen your leg.
For maximum functionality, ClickUp also offers a Calendar, Table, Activity, Kanban, and Gantt chart view!
2. No document collaboration features
Hive doesn’t offer any real-time document collaboration features.
You can only share files with teammates, but you can’t work on them simultaneously.
So you’ll probably have to use emails for document collaboration, which is like sticking your hand in a beehive.
Why?
You’re bound to run into a painful experience filled with lost documents and miscommunication.
And creative teams don’t have time to waste. They need a space where they can work together in real-time.
ClickUp solution #2: work alongside your team in real-time
Docs in ClickUp are the perfect place to create onboarding documents, meeting minutes, notes, brainstorming, and more!
Your Docs can contain an unlimited number of pages, and you can share them with individuals or attach your Doc to a view so that sharing permissions are inherited from that view.
This collaboration tool also lets everyone in your Workspace comment, edit, and work on tasks simultaneously with collaborative editing.
Teamwork at its finest!
Don’t worry, you won’t be bamboozled by a swarm of comments and edits like this:
Why?
ClickUp Collaboration detection informs you when someone is viewing or editing the same Doc as you in real-time.
3. Can’t track your goals
Hive doesn’t offer a dedicated goal tracking feature.
However, you can break down your action cards into sub-actions to help lay out the steps you need to cover to achieve your goal.
But a simple to-do list with a few subitems isn’t gonna motivate you to work towards your goals. Additionally, they can’t track your progress in real-time.
ClickUp solution #3: set and track goals
Goals in ClickUp are high-level objectives that you can break down into smaller, easier to achieve targets.
Once you complete a target, you’re a step closer to crushing your goal.
But how do you know if you’re making any real progress?
After all, if your goal is to write a book, writing a word a day kinda does count as progress. 🤷
Don’t worry. ClickUp displays your goal progress in real-time to help you understand precisely how much progress you’ve made and when you’re likely going to achieve your goal.
Each time you complete a target, your progress increases in percentages automatically.
4. Can’t assign comments
Hive has a commenting feature that lets you drop comments on action cards, and you can address comments to specific people.
However, you can’t assign a comment to a teammate.
The problem?
Assigned comments make sure that no comment is ever forgotten, so no tasks slip through the cracks.
Without assigned comments, comments that require action will get easily lost in the hustle and bustle of project management, leaving you feeling like this:
Don’t worry, Bumblebee Man, ClickUp’s got the perfect fix!
ClickUp solution #4: an all-you-can-do comments feature
Each task you create in ClickUp will have a space for comments.
You can even edit, assign, and reply to comments. Threaded comments keep your conversations organized so you can always refer back to them.
You can also assign a comment to a teammate if the comment requires action. This way, they’ll have to complete the task and resolve the comment once it’s done.
Worried you might forget about a comment?
No problem!
ClickUp lets you turn any comment into a reminder. Once you have, the reminder will be found in Home and appear on the date you select.
5. No rich editing in messages
Hive doesn’t offer rich text editing in messages.
Although bold and italic are supported, you still can’t add bulleted lists, numbered lists, strikethroughs, code, quotes, and more.
Don’t get us wrong. We’re all for beauty being in the eye of the bee-holder, but being limited to basic text makes it difficult for teams to communicate messages clearly.
Not to mention it’s just plain boring! 😴
ClickUp solution #5: rich text editing
The rich text editing toolbar in ClickUp gives teams fantastic ways to customize the details they give to their teammates.
When communicating with teammates, you can:
- Add checklists
- Paste a URL or type “##” to refer to a task
- Use four bold heading types
- Paste images
- Site quotes
- Create code syntax
- Include popular languages like Javascript, Python, CSS, Java, and HTML
You can also spice up your text with colors and add as many emojis as your 💛 desires.
6. Hive’s expensive cost
Hive offers a Solo plan for free, but that caps out at 2 users. Unfortunately, if your team includes more than queen bee and one worker, Hive’s cost is un-bee-lievably expensive, starting at $16/month per user.
And what’s worse is that some essential project management features, like timesheets and Hive analytics, are only available as add-ons, which cost between $4–$6/month per user.
To get all the add-ons, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium plan.
ClickUp solution #6: a powerful free plan
ClickUp offers users a Free Forever Plan with unlimited user support. 😍
Here’s what else you get in the free plan:
- 100MB storage
- Unlimited tasks
- Unlimited members
- Two-factor authentication
- Privacy and sharing
- Time tracking
- 100 uses of Custom Fields, Proofing, Gantt charts, and more
- 50+ native integrations
And if you want to upgrade to a paid plan, ClickUp offers an Unlimited Plan for just $5/user per month.
Psst… keep in mind that you get unlimited access to ClickUp for the same price of each of Hive’s add-ons! 👀
Here are even more reasons why ClickUp is the ultimate project planning tool:
- ClickUp Notepad: jot down ideas, notes, and more. You can keep your notes private, If they’re none of your team’s beeswax 😉
- Proofing and annotations: speed up feedback and approval processes by assigning comments directly on task attachments
- Task Dependencies: add “blocking” or “waiting” dependencies between tasks, so your team completes tasks in the correct order
- Reminders: choose to be reminded from five minutes up to three days before your task is due
- Email ClickApp: send and receive emails directly within ClickUp tasks
- Powerful integrations: integrate ClickUp with software like Basecamp, Jira, Slack, and more for easy project management
Time to Leave the Hive 🐝
Hive offers some great process management features, but we’re not sure what all the buzz is about when it comes to productivity and team collaboration.
The app lacks a ton of critical features that are present in robust free project management software like ClickUp
ClickUp not only lets you automate over 50 actions, but it also gives you several useful project management features like task relationships, Dashboards, recurring task checklists, and more!
Get started with ClickUp today to experience a project management tool that’s sweet as honey! 🍯
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