Backlog

Project management and collaboration are crucial aspects of any business; proper implementation of these allows teams to improve productivity. Using software like Nulab’s Backlog allows teams to have access to improved visibility of the primary aspects of a project to help achieve increased productivity among the different development teams that use the solution.

Backlog is a project management software that’s more suitable for use by programmers than for general use. This solution allows users to visualize their daily timelines and workflows through Gantt charts and propose and compare changes to projects, as well as being able to comment on requests. Backlog also offers integration with Git, SVN, Typetalk, Cacoo, Redmine, and Jenkins and compatibility with both iOS and Android devices.

Backlog Features

Backlog allows businesses to improve their productivity using several key features necessary to make project management easier. Among these features are the following:

Project and issue management

Teams will be able to quickly assess the progress of their projects and edit plans with just a few clicks. Management is even made easier using Backlog’s Gantt charts, boards, and burndown charts, which are essential to quickly visualize timelines, manage boards, and see any more pending work.

Backlog’s Gantt charts allow users to see and edit a project timeline. The Gantt chart itself can effectively help stop problems before they happen, plan work, and edit plans to make quick changes using drag-and-drop functionality.

The boards and burndown charts are also instrumental for improved productivity since management will be easier and teams will be able to see what tasks need to be completed and how much time is left to finish them.

Subtasking

Backlog allows for subtasking or splitting parent issues into smaller issues to allow for easier time tracking, task delegation, and large project management. It becomes easier to organize and manage issues that are assigned to specific personnel instead of assigning a large project to a team and not immediately knowing which person is responsible for a specific task.

Using the subtasking feature allows teams to sort child issues from the Status column in the Issue list. Sorting is possible by choosing “Not Closed” or “All.”

Bug tracking

Backlog allows teams to easily create and organize custom workflows that can be used to track bugs and issues. Through the custom workflow, users can stay organized by nesting child tasks under parent tasks, creating custom categories according to the workflow, standardizing issue creation through templates; setting up automatic issue creation through email, tracking every version update, release, and other related milestones, and notifying key people about any updates.

Backlog allows teams to capture every detail of their projects and prioritize what matters most. It becomes possible to manage bugs alongside projects, making management more seamless since there’s no need to look for a different solution to meet this need.

Code management

Development teams will be able to manage code and documentation alongside projects using the built-in code management feature in Backlog. This is possible through integrations with Git and SVN to have access to their repositories. Backlog users will also be able to create wikis to make project knowledge available and editable to all permitted personnel; keep related files in one workplace; verify changes; leave inline comments; manage pulls, merges, and branches; and have IP address control to manage access to a workplace.

Jira and Redmine importer

Users of the Jira and Redmine software will be able to import data into Backlog in just a few steps. Because Backlog Migration for both is still in beta, it’s advisable to create a new project before importing data into existing projects.

Backlog Business Benefits

Backlog allows businesses to effectively manage projects by tracking bugs, issues, and subtasks. This software has plenty of benefits for end-users that lead to improved productivity. These benefits include the following:

Easy to use

Setting up and using Backlog is easy, to the point that even people with no training can start using it quickly. The interface is intuitive and clean, and it makes it easy to manage projects, track updates, and resolve any issues present.

Improved productivity

Thanks to Backlog’s features on project, issue, and code management, teams will be able to have improved productivity since they’ll have an all-in-one solution that they can effectively use to see the progress of existing projects. It becomes easier to track issues and assign certain people to manage them through the subtasking feature.

Teams can use different issue classifications and priority levels to prioritize certain projects and tasks instead of getting swamped by several projects with no clear distinction of importance. Because Backlog itself is an easy-to-use solution, teams will have minimal to no downtime when training other people with it.

Easy migration from other project management tools

Should businesses want to change the project management tool they’re using, they’ll have the option of importing data from the previous application into Backlog. This option is available to former Jira and Redmine users.

Migration from Jira or Redmine to Backlog takes only a few steps, and the only thing to keep in mind is to create a new project first before importing the data directly. This is because the import feature is still in the beta phase, and problems might occur when directly importing into an existing project.

Unlimited users for most paid plans

Subscribing to the Standard plan not only gives users Gantt and Burndown charts and issue templates but also allows for unlimited users. The Starter plan only allows a maximum of 30 users, but the Standard allows for the flexibility of assigning an unlimited number of users to the software.

On-premise solution

Backlog offers both cloud-based and on-premise project management solutions, with the latter being able to give full control of data, users, security, updates, and permissions to the end-user instead of relying on another company’s cloud-hosting service. Some businesses like to have more control so they won’t experience downtime if Backlog ever experiences a problem with hosting.

The Backlog Enterprise plan lacks some features that cloud-based plans have, but businesses will have more customizability with storage and access control. Using the Enterprise plan will require businesses to have their own server on-site, which means that they will need to worry about equipment maintenance.

Backlog Pricing

Backlog comes in five subscription plans with varying features, benefits, and use cases depending on the plan. The Free plan is free forever and allows a maximum of 10 users with limited features; the Starter plan costs $35 per month or $350 per year and allows a maximum of 30 users; the Standard plan costs $100 per month or $1,000 per year; the Premium plan costs $175 per month or $1,750 per year; and the Enterprise plan starts at $1,200 per year for 20 users and can go up to $180,000 per year for 10,000+ users.

All plans are cheap and offer good features for the price. The Free plan is very limited, while Starter has more usable features, which makes the latter even better to use for small businesses. Additionally, the difference between Starter and Standard is marginally greater while still being competitively priced. The pricing for Enterprise is different from other plans since it’s meant for on-premise private servers, unlike the cloud-based plans.

Backlog has both a free version of the software and 30-day free trials of the different paid plans.

Conclusion

Backlog project management software is a versatile platform to manage projects, track bugs and issues, and subtask to prioritize certain tasks. The usability of the platform varies per plan, and it arguably starts becoming a great platform from the Standard plan onwards due to the unlimited users and additional features for management.

Smaller businesses can settle for the Starter plan when managing a small number of projects that don’t exceed five. The available features are still useful for growing businesses, especially since subtasking is already available in the Starter plan.

Backlog is a great software for many businesses, especially when they’re coming from either Jira or Redmine and want to change solutions. The importer allows for seamless migration, and using Backlog afterward is easy enough to get started on. The most notable downside of the platform is arguably a business opting for the Free and Starter plans when they have many different projects to manage due to how limiting they can be.