by AEC SOFTWARE
Platform:
Windows NT / 98 / 2000 / Me / 95, Mac, Linux, Unix2 used & new from $36.01
(Visit the Best Sellers in Project Management list for authoritative information on this product's current rank.)
Whether you need to schedule a day's worth of activities or plan a multiyear project, FastTrack Schedule makes it easy to organize tasks, meet deadlines, and achieve project goals. Your rich, colorful time lines clearly communicate project details, and they make the perfect addition to any presentation, report, or Web site.
If you don't need the scheduling muscle of Microsoft Project, consider FastTrack Schedule 6.02. It creates colorful Gantt charts you can print or post to the Web.
FastTrack can also autolink new tasks to the last task you entered. It provides a great shortcut for quickly entering dates. And FastTrak now supports OLE and VBA for scripting and macro writing.
FastTrack has some limitations, however. There's no resource leveling, there's only one level of undo, and when you enter actual hours worked on a task, the program thinks the task is complete.
If you need histograms, customizable columns and extensive control over Gantt charts, FastTrack is worth considering. Still, it's $100 more than IMSI's more full-featured TurboProject (see review in this issue).