KanbanFlow - Review 2022 - Carr Fromeannown

KanbanFlow is an online, collaborative kanban app with a handful of neat and unique tools, but just as many interface quirks and frustrating feature omissions. Information technology has one of the everyman prices I've seen amidst the best kanban apps, which may make it a skilful option for teams on a budget who can overlook everything this app doesn't get correct and embrace what it does. Amidst kanban apps, which is a subset of project management software, Asana is PCMag's Editors' Choice. A few other competitors score higher than KanbanFlow and are also worth considering.

Pricing and Plans

KanbanFlow offers a free tier of service that comes with limitations and a paid Premium programme for $five per person per month, with a slight discount if y'all pay annually.

The limitations on the KanbanFlow Free account come mostly in the form of missing features, but at that place are a lot of them, and they are severe. For starters, you tin't attach files, and you don't become a search tool. Y'all likewise don't go a calendar, and you tin can't connect your KanbanFlow business relationship with any other service, non even email or an online storage solution like Box or Dropbox. More avant-garde features are missing, too, such as the ability to generate a report of time spent on tasks, only I'd expect them not to be included in a free version.

The complimentary business relationship does include a few unusual tools that you don't typically find built into kanban apps at all, such as a stopwatch timer and a Pomodoro timer (as in the Pomodoro Technique used for focusing and increasing productivity). Even with those little perks, KanbanFlow Gratis is by far the nigh restrictive gratis tier of service I've seen in a kanban app.

KanbanFlow Premium adds everything that's missing from the free version and throws in a few more tools that are geared toward business and administration uses, including swim lanes, the power to run a number of reports, forecasting tools, and access to revision history.

KanbanFlow Premium costs $5 per person per month or if you lot prefer to pay annually, $54 per person per year, which is extremely depression compared with other kanban app prices. Volerro costs $7.99 per person per month for its Business Teams business relationship, and information technology's also considered to be on the low stop of the price spectrum. Trello, ane of the almost popular kanban apps, charges $119.88 per person per twelvemonth, equivalent to $ix.99 per person per month. (Several services don't offering a monthly payment option at all. I've calculated both the almanac cost and the monthly equivalent to make it easier to compare the prices.)

Editors' Selection Asana costs $eleven.99 per person per month for a Premium account, with a discount if you lot pay annually that brings down the cost to $119.88 per person (equivalent to $9.99 per person per month).

On the high end are LeanKit and Zenkit. Leankit charges anywhere from $228 per person per twelvemonth to $588 per person per year, equivalent to $19 and $49 per person per month, respectively. Zenkit costs $348 per person per yr, equivalent to $29 per person per month.

Another kanban board app that some organizations may already have is Microsoft Planner. Planner comes included with some Role 365 accounts. Information technology's non the best kanban app because it'due south low-cal on features, only if y'all already have it and only demand a very simple app for organizing work and ideas, it'due south a fine pick.

Setup and Features

Setting upward an account with KanbanFlow begins simply. You demand cipher more than an email address and company proper name to start a free 14-twenty-four hours trial of the Premium service. The app opens with a few prompts to show you the ropes, which you won't need if you've used whatever kanban app previously. By default, you lot get an example lath chosen My Start Board with a basic to-practise, doing, washed organization, the standard columns that explain how kanban works.

I skipped the dummy board and instead created a few boards of my own. Every bit I got rolling, I realized KanbanFlow never asked me to invite collaborators to join my boards. Curious. To add collaborators, I had to first enable collaborators to be allowed into the workspace in a new page with administrative controls for the lath, and then add together them as well from an administration page, all of which was unusual.

Once I figured out how to invite more people by email, I explored other options on the administrative controls for my boards and account. They include very elementary editing processes, such every bit changing the name of the board. Unremarkably, I'd wait those kinds of controls to just be built into the board from the board view. In nigh kanban apps, you change the name of the board by clicking on the name of the board, not by opening a separate page.

Other than having a totally separate folio for lath assistants, the other core features work as expected. You create a carte du jour for your board and add as much or as picayune detail to it equally needed. Rearranging cards is a affair of dragging and dropping them. Each bill of fare can have a due date, assignee, clarification, comments, attachments, labels (like tags), a color coding, time estimates, a list of subtasks, and more. When you desire to flag a colleague, you can apply an @ sign before his or her name, and the system will transport an alarm to that person. Alerting people as to your communication with them may sound elementary, but in that location are no @ mentions in Microsoft Planner, Volerro, or an open-source alternative called Taiga.

I love that KanbanFlow has piece of work-in-progress (WIP) limits that you tin set for columns. Limiting the amount of work in whatever given phase, or assigned to any given person or squad, is common when using kanban to manage the workload, only those limits are sometimes nil more than rules teams employ to themselves and tin can't enforce easily. KanbanFlow lets yous lock down WIP limits. If yous attempt to assign more than work beyond the limit, you can't. Leankit and Taiga offer tools to fix WIP limits, besides. Many other kanban apps don't accept this feature.

KanbanFlow's standout feature is its timer. The built-in timer lets you record time spent on job, and when yous acquaintance a task from your board to the timer, information technology automatically adds data to a time log for that task.

The timer has a Pomodoro Technique setting as well. The Pomodoro Technique, popularized in the 1980s in a book of the aforementioned proper noun, purportedly increases focus and productivity by having y'all work for a ready amount of time, usually almost 25 minutes, and then take a curt break of about 5 minutes. You lot echo this cycle iv times and and then accept a longer break. The timer in KanbanFlow has settings for the work-break bike, every bit well as one for the longer suspension. The app as well pushes notifications via your browser to alert you lot when a work or break phase has concluded.

While many other work-management apps for concern utilize include timers, I accept never seen ane before with the Pomodoro Technique specifically baked into information technology. Frankly, I'm surprised at this, because over the years, having seen a number of knock-offs of the technique that never use the verbal proper name, I've gathered that whoever owns the intellectual property for the Pomodoro Technique cracks downwards hard on unlicensed use.

Reports are strong in KanbanFlow. You tin generate reports that evidence all kinds of breakdowns, such every bit time spent on task by person, or a table showing the number of tasks per person and their stage, that is, a line item for each member of the squad showing how many tasks are in progress, washed, or not even so started.

The interface has other conveniences, likewise, such as the power to change the color of each card and to evidence a legend at the bottom of the screen noting what each color means. But the interface has weaknesses, too. Uploaded files don't announced in thumbnail or preview anywhere, not in the lath view and not fifty-fifty when you open the detail console for the carte. Y'all have to fully open them in a new window to see them. Their missing presence in board views will be noticeable and painful for teams that work on a lot of visual cloth. Also, the colour-coded menu that appears at the bottom of the screen shows every color available, even ones that you accept decided not to utilize.

I mentioned that there are no thumbnails or previews of uploaded files. As a result, at that place are no prototype or PDF markup tools, which tin exist a existent assistance to teams that hash out visual material. It's rare to find PDF and paradigm markup tools in kanban apps, but Volerro has them.

Besides missing is the ability to create a custom field in a carte du jour, a feature that Zenkit and Wrike both offer in their paid plans. With these, your team can enter very specific information that only applies to your organization'due south tasks.

Apps and Integrations

KanbanFlow only runs in a spider web browser. There are no downloadable apps. That said, KanbanFlow does have a mobile browser version and then that the app appears reformatted to fit the screen size of tablets or mobile phones.

If you need to integrate KanbanFlow with another service, it does support a decent range of options, including electronic mail (and so that y'all can add together new tasks via email) and online calendars. For uploading files, you tin can connect to Box, Dropbox, and Google Drive.

For many other integrations, you lot can use the app'due south API and webhooks to build custom connections. If your team doesn't have a dedicated programmer who tin can set up up integrations using the API and webhooks, another selection is to use Zapier, a third-political party service that connects online apps and services that may not be able to talk to each other natively.

A Mixed Bag

KanbanFlow has just every bit many strengths every bit weaknesses. The app is competitively priced, and the Pomodoro timer makes it stand out from other similar apps. The interface is wonky, nonetheless, with settings that should exist easily accessible buried amongst administrative controls. Teams that piece of work on a lot of visual materials will lament the lack of thumbnails and previews for uploaded files.

Amid kanban apps, the Editors' Option remains Asana. Fifty-fifty though information technology didn't start out every bit a kanban app, information technology'south still 1 of the strongest options for teams, with extraordinary flexibility and a mount of tools at your disposal. Volerro is some other splendid choice, as are Wrike and Leankit.