Digite’s headquarters are located in Mountain View, California. It was created as a collaboration between two companies.
The goal was to create a tool that would allow people to collaborate and meet the needs of a trend they already recognized in 2003, that is, distributed teams.
Abhinav Praneet is a Senior Solution Specialist at Digite Inc. “It’s no PPM tool trying cover everything under one umbrella.” Digite instead places itself in the Application Lifecycle Management area. This gives you a complete view. This allows you to integrate and control everything from one workspace.
Here is an example of a expense report:
Digite’s early versions were simplified versions of the current version. Praneet says that Digite’s user base has increased over the years and that customers have been vocal about the things they need to do their jobs. The company now employs 120 people around the globe and has offices in Mumbai, Bangalore, and on-site consultants in France and Germany.
This global approach ensures that the international is always in focus. Exchange rates can be set. You can set exchange rates. While price and cost are shown in US dollars, you can view the figures in Sterling or Euro, Rupees, Brazilian Reais, or in Rupees.
You can only view calendar entries that are in the US format, which means the month is first. Praneet suggests that the date be displayed alongside the day.
He says, “As project manager, you don’t need to struggle to create them from scratch.” After the system administrator has set it up, many templates and reports are available to you in just a few clicks. He explains that you can pre-plan many things for yourself as a project manager. Or as a member of a team. You can save everything as a template so you just have to take it. He gives an example of a customer who was able to cut down their start-up time by 40%. He says that before Digite, they had difficulty getting projects started and getting them working.
It is also LDAP-compliant, so you can set it up for single-sign on if your company has that.
It has great collaboration features that allow people to work together on the same project. You can view the assignment view to see both the items you are currently working on and the ones that will be coming in the future. All your tasks are in the Inbox, regardless of whether they are short-term or longer-term assignments or just attendance at a meeting. Digite pulls together tasks based on meeting minutes and project plans, and flags them as red if they are past due.
“Project workspaces are where all the action takes place,” EUR Praneet states. “You don’t need to be part of a particular project to become a Digite user.” A ghost resource gives access to the project workspace to stakeholders. Individuals can be invited by the project manager to join the project team and gain access to the workspace.
Praneet states that they tried to logically separate it into different modules. The menu structure is tab-based and each tab has a left-hand menu that shows what you can display on the main screen. He explained that the idea was to provide granular controls to allow you to define access rights based on the role or input of a person to the project. The interface has tabs that cover My Work, Financials and Portfolio. It can also be customized in terms of graphics or colors.
This is the demo interface with tabs at the top.
Digite is a better looking tool than I’ve seen. Praneet, however, is quick to point out that the financial functionality is limited. I don’t believe so. It allows you to estimate financials