Wrike
Wrike header logoWrike header logo
    • For teams

      • Marketing

        Streamline proofing and reporting for seamless campaigns.

      • Creative & Design

        Create high-quality assets and get them approved in record time.

      • Product

        Accelerate your product process, from idea to delivery.

      • Client Services

        Exceed clients’ expectations with expert resources.

      • PMO

        Align strategy with execution and deliver results.

      • IT

        Execute initiatives, optimize workflows, and automate requests.

      • Operations

        Make work flow seamlessly with intuitive management tools.

      • HR

        Manage teams effortlessly with customizable HR features.

      • Legal

        Organize every file, case, and due date in one secure space.

      • Finance

        Centralize all financial tasks, from budgeting to invoicing.

      • See all teams

    • For industries

      • Technology

        Build solutions that matter, and deliver faster.

      • Consumer Goods

        Move fast with unified planning, delivery, and reporting.

      • Manufacturing

        Enhance operations, accelerate production, and empower teams.

      • Professional Services

        Organize clients, streamline projects, and automate workflows.

      • Finance

        Deliver better, faster financials with automations.

      • Healthcare

        Collaborate cross-functionally in a secure setting.

      • Education

        Unite multiple disparate teams, departments, and colleges.

      • Construction

        Streamline building projects, from scoping to invoicing.

      • Media & Entertainment

        Choose one powerful platform for fast-paced work.

      • Agencies

        Centralize client work, boost creativity, and increase profitability.

      • See all industries

    • Workflows

      • Campaign Management

        Make marketing magic with end-to-end campaign management.

      • Product Lifecycle

        Watch your product lifecycle flow, from concept to customer.

      • Client Service Delivery

        Get ahead of the competition with faster client services.

      • Project Management

        Plan Agile projects, track deadlines, and deliver results.

      • Project Portfolio Management

        Manage your complete portfolio, from strategy to results.

      • Creative Production & Content

        Create, collaborate, proof, and approve all in one place.

      • Resource Management

        View team workloads and reallocate tasks to avoid burnout.

      • Workflow Management

        Use custom statuses and automate your team workflows.

      • Event Management

        Design, execute, and monitor flawless events.

      • Task Management

        Organize incoming requests and eliminate repetitive tasks.

      • See all workflows

    • Explore Wrike

      • Take a Product Tour

      • Book a Demo

      • ROI Calculator

      • Customer Stories

      • Start with Templates

    • Features

      • Dashboards

        Fuel better, faster, data-driven decisions with powerful analytics.

      • AI

        Learn about powerful AI and automations with Work Intelligence®.

      • Automation

        Define and trigger automated workflows to eliminate manual efforts.

      • Gantt Charts

        Interactive project scheduling across teams.

      • Proofing

        Streamlined proofing and collaboration in one place.

      • Custom Item Types

        Tailor work items to fit your specific workplace.

      • Project Resource Planning

        Plan and allocate resources for timely delivery.

      • Project Views

        Get the full picture with customizable, intuitive project views.

      • Kanban Boards

        Instantly view project progress and create customized workflows.

      • Dynamic Request Forms

        Custom forms powered by conditional logic.

      • Approvals

        Keep approvers in the loop from start to finish.

      • Cross-Tagging

        Unparalleled visibility across multiple work streams.

      • See all features

    • Platform

      • New! Visual collaboration

      • Book a Demo

      • Start with Templates

      • Wrike AI

      • Integrations

      • Security

      • Mobile & Desktop Apps

    • Workflow-Powered Collaboration

      Sync with multiple teams to keep work flowing across your organization.

    • Industry-Leading Security

      We're dedicated to safeguarding data beyond industry standards and ensuring secure collaboration.

    • Pioneering AI and Innovation

      Put the power of data and AI to work for your organization.

    • Invested in Customer Success

      We support customers at every step of their journey from pre-sales to onboarding with 24/7 support.

    • Boundless Configuration

      Customize your workspace to suit the unique needs of every team in your organization.

    • Effortless Scalability

      Add new teams or adjust to rapid growth seamlessly with Wrike’s scalable platform.

    Why Wrike beats the competition

    Find out why 20,000+ of the world’s top companies choose Wrike to manage their workflows

    View comparison
    • Go deeper

      • Resource Hub

        Top assets on productivity, collaboration, and more.

      • Wrike Blog

        Latest news and best practices on project management.

      • Educational Guides

        Guides and tools to unlock better work management.

      • Webinars

        Join our live or on-demand sessions to do your best work.

      • Customer Stories

        Explore Wrike’s case studies for key insights on customer success.

      • Developers

        Connect and build integrations with easy-to-use APIs.

    • Upskill and Connect

      • Training & Certifications

      • Help Center

      • Wrike's Community

      • Premium Support Packages

      • Wrike Professional Services

      • Partners

    Introducing Wrike + Klaxoon

    You can now add Klaxoon’s infinite whiteboard to your Wrike subscription and work management toolkit

    Request a demo
  • Enterprise
  • Pricing
Contact Sales
    language-selector
    English
    Dansk
    Deutsch
    Español
    Français
    Bahasa Indonesia
    Italiano
    Bahasa Melayu
    Nederlands
    Norsk
    Polski
    Português (BR)
    Svenska
    Русский
    日本語
    한국어
    中文 (简体)
    中文 (繁體)
Log in
Wrike header logoWrike header logo
Wrike header logoWrike header logo
Menu
Guide overview
  • 1. Project Management Basics
  • 2. Project Management Methodologies
  • 3. Project Management Life Cycle
  • 4. Best Project Management Software
  • 5. Team Collaboration Tips
  • 6. Agile Methodology Basics
  • 7. Agile Project Management Tools
  • 8. Project Management Frameworks
  • 9. Resources
  • 10. Glossary
  • 11. FAQ
    • Advanced Terminology
    • Methodologies
    • PM Software Features
    • Basic Terminology
    • PMI
    • Professional Development
    • Tools
    • Agile Project Management
Guide overview
  • 1. Project Management Basics
  • 2. Project Management Methodologies
  • 3. Project Management Life Cycle
  • 4. Best Project Management Software
  • 5. Team Collaboration Tips
  • 6. Agile Methodology Basics
  • 7. Agile Project Management Tools
  • 8. Project Management Frameworks
  • 9. Resources
  • 10. Glossary
  • 11. FAQ
    • Advanced Terminology
    • Methodologies
    • PM Software Features
    • Basic Terminology
    • PMI
    • Professional Development
    • Tools
    • Agile Project Management
  1. Project Management Guide
  2. FAQ
  3. PM Software Features

Why Should I Use Scheduling in Project Management Software?

9 min read
Artem Gurnov
Artem Gurnov Director of Account Development, Wrike
See Wrike for PMO

Why Should I Use Scheduling in Project Management Software?

Without a project schedule, it’s incredibly difficult and time-consuming to keep track of what needs to be done by when and which resources must be utilized. A schedule is a timetable that outlines the start and end dates of all your project tasks and milestones that need to be accomplished.

Tasks within your project schedule will have dependencies, meaning that if the completion data changes on one activity, it will have a cascade effect on other activities. For example, while building a house, if you are late pouring the foundation, it delays almost every task that needs to follow.

Project management software enables you to efficiently build and maintain your schedule. It allows you to shift deadlines and have all attached project tasks automatically rescheduled correspondingly, saving you from having to make manual task-by-task changes.

Advantages of project management software scheduling

Without project management software scheduling, you’re forced to manage task and milestone interdependencies separately. Every time one date changes, you must manually alter the date of all impacted tasks and milestones. This process is both time-consuming and at high risk for manual errors.

In addition, a schedule needs to be monitored and updated regularly. By assigning resources and progressing the percentage of work completed, you can use a project schedule to monitor whether your project is on track or not.

Again, without project management software, updating and maintaining the schedule becomes time-consuming and at risk for errors.

When your project schedule resides within cloud project management software, you can easily share it for collaboration and communication. Team members can access it to update their own progress, leave comments on tasks, and monitor what work is coming up next for them. Stakeholders can quickly see how the project is doing without asking you for information or relying on an old, stale report.

Here are several other functions that project management software scheduling provides that are difficult or impossible with a manually created schedule:

Resource loading

Resource management is the process of planning, scheduling, and allocating your project resources in a way that maximizes efficiency.

Project management software with resource management functionality but without scheduling functionality would only do half the job. You could see who was assigned to which tasks, but not what was coming up next or how much work each person was assigned overall.

Resource loading as part of project management is about optimizing your resources. Scheduling allows you to continually monitor who is assigned to what work and when. This ability means that you can effectively balance workloads and prioritize project tasks in a way that optimizes your schedule without overworking your team.

For instance, imagine one of your project tasks finished a week early. You will likely want to reschedule the following tasks, so you’re not just wasting a week. But what if two of the resources you need for the next task are already completely tied up with another piece of work?

You could choose to leave them be, rearrange their work schedule, or even replace them on one of the tasks with other resources. But without the high-level view of your resources that a schedule provides, it becomes difficult to know what the right call is.

With project management software scheduling, you can also play around with the different options to see how each one impacts other tasks and resources, as well as the project timeline overall.

Conflict management

Schedule conflict management is an ongoing activity for project managers. As the initial schedule is created and as tasks are progressed and completed, you need to monitor and manage potential conflicts. There are two primary types of conflicts that can appear:

  • Resources being overallocated
  • Broken or missing dependencies

As we just discussed, resource conflicts can be managed by using project scheduling software that includes resource management.

Successful management of broken and missing dependencies requires its own toolset. For instance, what if a task is scheduled to be completed after its dependent milestone? Resource management wouldn’t show you this. A schedule in a spreadsheet wouldn’t be able to notify you of the issue either.

But project management software with a conflicts monitor can identify “broken logic” within your schedule so that no deliveries or deadlines are missed.

For instance, when a task is scheduled to be completed after its dependent milestone, there’s broken logic in your schedule. After all, if the task isn’t completed in time, you can’t achieve the milestone.

A conflicts monitor feature will display conflicts within a dashboard widget.

There are four types of potential dependencies between tasks:

  • Finish-to-Start
  • Finish-to-Finish
  • Start-to-Start
  • Start-to-Finish

For instance, in a start-to-start relationship, one task can’t start until the one before it begins. This type of dependency is useful when you can begin a task before the preceding one is completely finished.

Imagine you’re publishing a book. In a finish-to-start relationship, the book would not go to the editor until the draft was fully completed. To condense the schedule and smooth out resourcing, you could instead use a start-to-start relationship where editing can begin much earlier. After all, once the author moves on from one chapter to the next, the editor can begin editing.

But the more varieties of dependencies you add into a schedule, the harder it is to monitor conflicts — unless you have project management software that can keep track of which tasks have which dependency types and can see when one of them is broken.

Project integration

Project management software enables you to manage multiple project schedules in an integrated manner. This functionality is important because if two different projects have interdependencies, changes can impact the other.

For instance, if one project is running two weeks behind and you need one of their resources next week for your other project, there’s now a conflict. But without a way to see the big picture and how these projects integrate, you may not even be aware of the conflict until it’s time for the resource to begin work on your project.

An integrated project schedule gives you a bird’s-eye view of every project within your company and how they all inter-relate. An integrated project schedule also helps unify schedule creation and reporting. When project managers can see how each other’s projects are planned and structured, they can identify best practices and move toward a common standard.

This commonality helps speed up the creation of future projects by enabling the creation of templates. It also allows stakeholders to receive consistent views and reports across the organization.

When stakeholders have six different-looking reports from six different projects, it takes more time to understand what they’re seeing and difficult to compare reports and combine them into one comprehensive picture. But with project management scheduling software, they can gain one consistent overview of all projects whenever they wish.

 

Further Reading

blog post

4 Ways Not to Use a Gantt Chart in Project Management

blog post

5 Most Common Mistakes in Managing Multiple Projects: Project Schedules (Part 3 of 5)

blog post

Project Management Basics: Beginner's Guide to Gantt Charts

PM Software Features 5 questions
What Are Critical Success Factors in Project Management? Why Should I Use Filters & Search in Project Management Software? Why Should I Use Live Support in Project Management Software? Why Should I Use Free Trials in Project Management Software? Why Should I Use Training Resources in Project Management Software?
Artem Gurnov

Artem is a Director of Account Development at Wrike. He previously held the role of Project Manager, overseeing a team of customer success managers (CSMs). Over the years of building teams and scaling business processes, he has successfully deployed multiple projects, from automating client outreach to setting up work prioritization tools for sales reps and CSMs.

Basic Project Management
  • Project Charter
  • Project Management Stakeholders
  • What is a Project?
  • Work Breakdown Structure
  • Project Objectives
  • Project Baseline
  • Project Management Scheduling
  • Project Management Work Packages
  • Project Management Scope
  • Scope Creep
Advanced Project Management
  • What is PERT?
  • S-Curve
  • Network Diagram
  • SMART
  • Risk Management
  • Cost Estimation
  • Feasibility Study
  • Monte Carlo Analysis
  • Project Integration
  • Cost Management
PMI
  • Milestones
  • PDU
  • PMI Project Management
  • What To Do With Certification
  • Certification
  • Become Certified
  • PMP Certification
  • Best Certification
Software Features
  • Critical Success Factors
  • Capacity Planning
  • User Role Access Permissions
  • Time Tracking
  • Budget Tracking
  • Request Forms
  • Work Assignments
  • Version Control
  • Dependency Managements
  • Project management Milestones
Tools
  • Project Management Software
  • Project Management Tools
  • Project Management System
  • Gantt Charts
  • Product
    • Product tour
    • Pricing
    • Templates
    • Apps & Integrations
    • Task Management
    • Gantt Charts
    • Wrike Status
    • Security
    • Wrike API
    • Compare
    • Features
  • Solutions
    • Enterprise
    • Marketing
    • Creative
    • Project Management
    • Product Development
    • Business Operations
    • Professional Services
    • IT Management
    • Students
    • All Teams
    • All Use Cases
  • Resources
    • Help Center
    • Community
    • Blog
    • Webinars
    • Interactive Training
    • Support Packages
    • Find a Reseller
    • Google Project Management Tools
    • CA Notice at Collection
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Leadership
    • Careers
    • Our Customers
    • Events
    • Newsroom
    • Partner Program
    • Collaborate - User Conference
    • Wrike Engineering
    • Contact Us
  • Guides
    • Project Management Guide
    • Professional Services Guide
    • Kanban Guide
    • Agile Guide
    • Remote Work Guide
    • Scrum Guide
    • Marketing Project Management Guide
    • Collaborative Work Management Guide
    • Digital Marketing Guide
    • Return to Work Guide
    • Product Management Guide
    • Go-to-Market Guide
    • Goal Setting Guide
  • Latest in Wrike Blog
    • Free Google Sheets budget template (Excel included)
    • How to create and manage a project calendar to deliver projects on time
    • Work breakdown structure template (WBS) for project management
    • Project organization: Your ultimate guide
    • How to write a business requirements document (Plus template)
    • Stay productive anywhere: A deep dive into the Wrike mobile app
    • From good to game changing: The power play of human instinct + AI speed in 2025

Subscribe to Wrike news and updates

Stay informed with the latest news and updates by subscribing to our marketing emails.

  • App Store
  • Google Play
©2006-2025 Wrike, Inc. All rights reserved. Patented. Privacy Policy. Terms of Service. Cookie Preferences