Meet Productive Our New Project Management Tool

At Primal Space, we are committed to continually improving our workflows and ensuring our clients receive the highest level of service. In line with this, we’re excited to announce that we’re transitioning to a new project management tool—Productive.

As our agency grows, we recognise the need for a more robust and dynamic system to effectively manage projects, tasks, and client communication. Productive will replace our previous method of tracking progress via Google Sheets, providing a more streamlined and efficient experience for our team and clients.

You may remember that we recently shared a post about the best project management software. We’ve been doing our due diligence and comparing the best systems on the market before finally settling on Productive as our project management system of choice. We truly believe it’s the best overall for the needs of our agency and our clients.

In this post, we’ll walk you through why we’ve chosen Productive, highlight its key features, and provide a step-by-step guide to help you navigate this new tool.

Why We Chose Productive

As an agency, we’re excited to embrace Productive as our new project management solution, bringing all aspects of our workflow into one cohesive platform. With Productive, we can manage all projects, including sales, in a single, organised space, allowing for better oversight and planning. The integration capabilities with essential tools like Xero, Slack, Google Drive, and Google Calendar streamline our operations, making collaboration and resource management more seamless than ever.

Productive’s robust timekeeping and timesheet recording features ensure precise tracking of our team’s efforts during every stage of your project whether that’s an e-commerce website design, routine website maintenance or  SEO services. While task automation simplifies repetitive processes, saving valuable time. We’ve also customised client views, so you can easily access the information you need whenever you need it. Whether it’s generating project reports for internal review or sharing updates with you, Productive delivers clear, actionable insights.

Email notifications keep everyone—both within our team and our clients—informed at every stage of the project. For rapid project setup, the project duplication feature is a game-changer, allowing us to replicate successful templates in minutes. On top of that, the platform’s custom financial reports give us a detailed view of project budgets and expenditures. Should we ever need assistance, Productive’s quick customer support and extensive documentation ensure that we’re always up and running efficiently. These features collectively enable us to manage your projects with greater precision, transparency, and efficiency.

Benefits of Productive

There are many benefits of using project management software. From enhancing efficiency, improving team collaboration and allowing for detailed reporting. While Google Sheets served us well for many years, we identified several areas where a more specialised platform could enhance our project management processes and improve our overall agency operations. These include;

1. Centralised Communication and Collaboration

Productive allows us to keep all project-related communication in one place. No more jumping between email threads, chat apps, and spreadsheets—everything is centralised for your convenience.

2. Task and Project Tracking

With Productive, you can easily monitor the progress of your project. Tasks are clearly defined, assigned, and tracked, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. You’ll always know the status of each aspect of your project, which enhances transparency.

3. Time Tracking and Budget Management

One of the standout features of Productive is its built-in time tracking and budget management tools. This ensures that all tasks are completed on time and within budget, providing you with accurate and up-to-date financial tracking for your web development projects.

4. Resource Planning

Productive’s resource planning features allow us to allocate team members efficiently, ensuring that the right people are working on the right tasks at the right time. This helps us optimise our workflow and deliver projects faster.

5. Comprehensive Reporting

Productive offers powerful reporting tools that give you a clear overview of your project’s progress, financials, and overall performance. You can generate customised reports that provide the insights you need to make informed decisions.

Getting Started with Productive

Now, let’s dive into how you, our valued client, can get the most out of Productive. Below is a step-by-step guide to help you navigate the platform. However, you can also find more detailed tutorials within Productive Docs, their online resource.

1. Accessing Productive

Login Details: You will receive an email invitation to join Productive. Simply click on the link provided in the email, which will direct you to the account setup page. Follow the prompts to create your login credentials and personalise your account settings. This quick and easy process will give you immediate access to your project dashboard, allowing you to start managing your tasks and budget right away. Be sure to check your junk/spam folder for emails from Productive, and add this mailbox to your safe sender list [email protected].

Dashboard Overview: Once logged in, you’ll be greeted by your dashboard. This is your central hub where you can view ongoing projects, assigned tasks, and recent updates. Your dashboard will look something like this:

2. Navigating Projects

Project View: All your digital projects with Primal Space will be listed under the “Projects” tab. Click on a project to see all related tasks, team members, and progress updates. Learn how to navigate the projects sidebar within your Productive dashboard.

Project Details: Within each project in Productive, you can access a comprehensive overview of all the relevant information. This includes specific details such as deadlines, task descriptions, and the team members assigned to each task. You can also view any associated files, notes, or communications related to the project, ensuring that you have all the information you need at your fingertips. This centralised view helps you stay organised and on top of every aspect of your project, making collaboration and tracking progress more efficient.

3. Managing Tasks

Viewing Tasks: Within each project in Productive, tasks are organised into a clear, easy-to-navigate list. This layout allows you to quickly see who is responsible for each task, its current status, and any upcoming deadlines. You can also filter or sort tasks by various criteria, such as priority or due date, ensuring that you can always focus on what matters most.

Creating Tasks: You can seamlessly create tasks for our team directly within Productive as part of your project workflow. Alternatively, you have the convenience of creating tasks via email, which will automatically be added to your personalised Productive dashboard for easy tracking and management. This flexibility ensures that you can manage your tasks in the way that best suits your workflow, whether you’re at your desk or on the go.

When creating a task we’ll require you to include the following information.

• Title for your task
• Task description
• Assignee
• Priority

Please find an image below of what to include as an example:

Communicating Through Tasks: If you have questions or need to provide additional information, you can comment directly on a task. This keeps all communication about that task in one place, making it easy to follow the conversation. You can find a full list of open tasks under the Tasks tab. All changes or updates to a task will send out an email notification.

4. Tracking Progress

Milestones and Deadlines: Productive enables us to set clear milestones and deadlines for projects, ensuring that every phase is well-defined and on schedule for you our clients. Whether that’s setting up a digital marketing campaign or embarking on a large Magento e-commerce build, you can easily view when specific deliverables are due and monitor the progress towards their completion.

Time Tracking: You’ll also have visibility into how much time has been spent on each task, giving you insight into the efficiency and resource allocation of your project. This detailed tracking also helps in identifying any tasks that may be consuming more time than anticipated, allowing for timely adjustments to help meet project deadlines.

5. Budget Tracking

Budget Overview: The Budget section in Productive helps you track the financial progress of your projects, whether under a retainer agreement like SEO or PPC marketing or an ad-hoc project. Navigate to this section to see an overview of your budget, including total allocation, spending, and remaining balance. The budget is broken down by tasks or phases, allowing precise tracking of costs throughout a project.

Expenditure Monitoring: As tasks are completed, the budget updates in real-time, helping you monitor expenditures and ensure alignment with your financial goals. This is especially useful for retainer agreements, where ongoing website support impacts the overall budget. Regularly reviewing this section allows you to spot potential overspending early and make necessary adjustments, whether reallocating funds or modifying task scopes. Effectively using the Budget section ensures your project stays on track financially, maximising the value of your agreement with us.

6. Document Access & Notifications

Notifications: Stay informed with notifications in Productive, which can be customised to ensure you’re only receiving relevant updates to your project or role. You can set alerts for key milestones, budget changes, task completions, or any specific project updates you need, helping you stay on top of your project’s progress without being overwhelmed by unnecessary information. Learn how to set up notifications.

Docs: All relevant project-related documents can be found in the Projects Docs tab, These include links to proposal and specification docs, change requests and upsells. As well as project status reports and either links or the actual docs for project contracts and T&Cs which are all accessible to you within the Productive interface.

7. Reviewing Reports

Accessing Reports: At any time, you can review reports related to your project. These include time reports, budget summaries, and task progress. Simply navigate to the “Reports” section in the dashboard.

Customising Reports: If you need a specific report, we can generate one tailored to your needs. This ensures you have all the information you need at your fingertips. Simply get in touch with our team via your Productive dashboard to request customised reports for your project.

8. User Support

Contacting Primal Space: If you ever run into any issues or have questions about using Productive, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. We’re here to help you navigate this new system and get fully set up with Productive.

Help Center: Productive has an extensive Help Centre filled with resources to support you in using the platform effectively. It provides answers to common questions and detailed guides on various features, helping you navigate the software with ease. Whether you’re looking for step-by-step instructions on specific tasks or troubleshooting advice, the Help Center ensures you have the information you need to maximise your projects. Additionally, it includes video tutorials and FAQs to further enhance your understanding of the platform.

Our Productive Project Management Tool Conclusion

We believe that Productive will greatly enhance the way we manage projects at Primal Space, ultimately leading to better outcomes for you, our clients. By centralising all aspects of project management—communication, task tracking, budgeting, and reporting—Productive allows us to deliver your projects more efficiently and transparently.

We’re excited about this transition and look forward to working with you through Productive. If you have any questions or need assistance as we make this change, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We appreciate your patience while we get accustomed to this new software and transfer over our existing project management systems to the Productive platform.

Thank you for your continued trust in our digital agency. We’re committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for our team and our clients.

If you aren’t already a client with Primal Space and you’d like to discuss a digital project, please submit your requirements and a member of our team will be in touch.

Additional Resources

Here are some further resources to help you navigate the features of the platform and your user dashboard.

• Help Centre – https://help.productive.io/en/
• YouTube Channel – https://youtube.com/productive-tutorials/