Project management tools for research teams, compared

The short answer

There are three kinds of tool in this space, and they solve different problems. Research office systems such as Worktribe and Elsevier Pure run bids, approvals and awards for a whole university, and are bought by the institution. General project and resource tools such as Smartsheet, monday.com, Asana, Microsoft Planner, Float and Resource Guru are sold per user to any team, and none of them knows what a grant is. Spreadsheets are what most groups use in between.

AllocBoard is built for the gap: the research group itself, managing staff effort in person-months and budgets across its grants, priced per group rather than per user, and used alongside the university's research office system rather than instead of it.

How we compared them

Each tool is judged on what decides it for a research group: who can buy it, whether it can hold each person's effort across several grants as a percentage or in person-months, whether budgets live in the same place, where the data is hosted, and whether the price is published. Every claim about another product comes from that vendor's own website, help documentation or listing on the UK government's G-Cloud catalogue, and is linked under Sources. Where a vendor's public material does not describe a feature, we say so rather than claim it is missing. Prices exclude VAT and are as published on 21 October 2026.

AllocBoard

Built for the research group running the grants. Allocations are held in person-months, per person, per project and per month, including partial allocations, and anyone over 100 percent across their projects is highlighted automatically. Budgets, expenses and reporting periods sit on the same timeline as the people, with budget forecasting that projects final spend with a confidence band, and on the Group and Portfolio plans every project is re-scored for budget risk every 24 hours.

It is priced per group, by the number of research staff it manages, not per user: Solo for up to 5 research staff, Group for up to 20 and Portfolio for up to 50, at £166, £291 and £416 a month billed yearly, paid by card or by invoice with a purchase order number. Data is hosted in the UK, there is a data processing agreement for university procurement, and it imports Worktribe exports and spreadsheets. Every plan starts with a free 30-day trial with no credit card.

Best for: a research group, or a manager looking after several, who needs staff effort and budgets across grants in one place.

Worktribe

A research and curriculum management platform for universities, bought as modules: Pre-Award, Post-Award, Timesheets, Ethics, Contracts and others. It costs bids to the institution's methodology, including full economic costing on the TRAC structure, prices against a funder database, tracks live expenditure against budget through the finance system, and handles budget transfers and no-cost extensions. Its timesheets are built to meet UKRI and European Commission requirements, and its G-Cloud listing gives the UK as its data location. An independent consultancy, citing a UCISA survey, calls it the most frequently implemented research management system in the UK.

It is sold to institutions and set up with them, so a research group cannot sign up for it on its own, and its price is not published; the G-Cloud catalogue lists Worktribe Research at £8,550 a licence a year without saying what a licence covers.

Best for: a research office running pre-award and post-award for a whole university. If yours already uses it, AllocBoard imports its project exports and sits beside it for the group's own planning.

Elsevier Pure

Elsevier's research information management system, the university's record of publications, projects and awards, used by over 500 universities, institutes and funders. Its Award Management module covers application workflows and post-award delivery, renewals, additional funding and outcome reporting. Elsevier's public material does not describe budget tracking or effort allocation by person.

It is licensed per institution; the G-Cloud catalogue lists it at £51,656 to £250,000 an instance a year, with data held in the European Economic Area.

Best for: a university's system of record for research outputs and awards, rather than a group's day-to-day planning.

Smartsheet

A spreadsheet-like work management grid with Gantt charts and reports, sold per member to any team. Its Pro plan is capped at 10 members, so a larger group needs Business, at £15 a member a month billed yearly; contributors and guests are free, so only people who edit need a paid seat. Business includes workload tracking with percentage allocation. Capacity planning and budgeted against actual costs come from the Resource Management add-on, for Business and Enterprise, which is priced by quote. Data is hosted in the United States, the EU or Australia.

Best for: teams that think in spreadsheets and want them structured, with Gantt charts on top.

monday.com

Flexible boards for any kind of team work, sold per seat from three seats. The workload view, which colours people who are over capacity, needs the Pro plan, at £17 a seat a month billed yearly; resource planning and capacity management are on Enterprise. Its pricing page lists no budgeting feature. Data is hosted in the US, the EU or Asia Pacific, and only Enterprise keeps it solely in the EU.

Best for: teams that want one visual board for every kind of task, and are happy to build their own structure on it.

Asana

Task and portfolio management, sold per user. Workload, in hours, points or percent, starts on the Advanced plan, at US$24.99 a user a month billed yearly; workload across a whole organisation and capacity planning are on Enterprise. Budgets come from the Timesheets and Budgets add-on, licensed per user. Data residency is available on Enterprise, in the US, Germany, Japan or Australia, with no UK region.

Best for: teams whose work is mainly tasks and deadlines, with workload as a secondary view.

Microsoft Planner

Microsoft's task planning, included in Microsoft 365 in its basic form, which many universities already license. Planner Plan 1, at £7.70 a user a month billed yearly, adds a people view for resource allocation and workload balancing, and Planner and Project Plan 3, at £23.10, adds effort tracking per resource and the Project desktop app. Microsoft's plan comparison lists no budget features. Its data residency documentation places basic Planner data for UK tenants in its Europe region.

Best for: a university that already lives in Microsoft 365 and Teams and needs shared task lists more than grant budgets.

Float

Resource scheduling for professional services and agency teams, billed per scheduled person, with free guests. Even its Starter plan, at US$7 a scheduled person a month billed yearly, schedules in percentages and tracks project budgets and budget burn; project expenses are on Pro. It is priced in US dollars, hosted in the United States, and built around client work: rate cards, billable hours and margins rather than funders and reporting periods.

Best for: an agency or consultancy scheduling people across client projects.

Resource Guru

Resource scheduling from a UK company, billed for every person in the account whether they log in or not, with GBP invoicing on request. Bookings are made in hours, with clash management and leave management; its help documentation does not describe percentage bookings. Reports, project rates and budget tracking start on the Blackbelt plan, at US$6.65 a person a month billed yearly. Its security page names Google Cloud as its host without stating a region.

Best for: scheduling people's hours and leave, with clashes caught before they happen.

Spreadsheets

Excel or Google Sheets, usually already paid for through the university. Nothing in a spreadsheet knows what a person, a grant, a reporting period or a funder's rule is, so every check is a formula someone wrote and every report is rebuilt by hand, and the more grants and people a group has, the more of its time that takes.

Best for: one or two grants and a handful of people, where one careful person can keep it all in their head.

Which should you choose?

If you run a university's research office, you want Worktribe or a system like it, and you probably already have one. If your team's work is mostly tasks and deadlines, Asana, monday.com or Microsoft Planner will serve it. If you schedule people's hours on client work, Float or Resource Guru is built for exactly that.

If you are a research group, or look after several, and the hard part is keeping each person's effort and each grant's budget true month by month, none of the general tools knows what a grant is, and the research office systems are not sold to you. That is the gap AllocBoard is built for. Its prices are on the pricing page, and the case for it in your department is set out in the business case for research project management software.

Sources

Every claim about another product is taken from the pages below, checked on 21 October 2026. Vendors change their plans and prices; check the current page before you buy. AllocBoard is our product.

• Worktribe, home page

• Worktribe, Pre-Award

• Worktribe, Post-Award

• Worktribe, Timesheets

• UK G-Cloud catalogue, Worktribe Research

• Research Consulting, Systems for research management (31 July 2024)

• Elsevier, Pure

• Elsevier, Award Management

• UK G-Cloud catalogue, Elsevier Pure

• Smartsheet, Pricing

• Smartsheet, Resource Management

• Smartsheet, Resource management allocation

• Smartsheet, Data residency

• monday.com, Pricing

• monday.com, The Workload Widget

• monday.com, Data residency

• Asana, Pricing

• Asana, Portfolio workload and universal workload

• Asana, Timesheets and Budgets

• Asana, Data residency

• Microsoft, Planner plans and pricing

• Microsoft, Data residency for other Microsoft 365 services

• Float, Pricing

• Float, Privacy policy

• Resource Guru, Pricing

• Resource Guru, Booking types

• Resource Guru, Security