# 5 Key Project Management Software Features | Capterra > Buying project management software? Look for these five project management software features rated as the most important and top products that offer them. Source: https://www.capterra.com/resources/key-features-of-project-management-software --- Project ManagementProgram & Project Management # 5 Key Project Management Software Features With Top Products That Offer Them Written by: Preksha Buttan Preksha ButtanAuthor Writer Experience I am a writer at Capterra, where I've been providing expert insights to help small businesses find the right software solutions since Janua... [See bio & all articles](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/pbuttan/) and edited by: Caroline Rousseau Caroline RousseauEditor Senior Content Editor Experience As a senior content editor, and formerly as a content analyst, at Capterra, I have been crafting, writing, and refining rese... [See bio & all articles](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/caroline-rousseau/) Published July 17, 2024 | Updated on November 19, 2025 11 min read Table of Contents - [1\. Multiple projects](#1-multiple-projects) - [2\. Project planning and scheduling](#2-project-planning-and-scheduling) - [3\. Task management](#3-task-management) - [4\. Commenting and notes](#4-commenting-and-notes) - [5\. Prioritization](#5-prioritization) Choosing the right [project management software](https://www.capterra.com/project-management-software/) starts with understanding the features that actually make your work easier. When your team juggles tasks, deadlines, and shifting priorities, the right set of features can help you plan better, stay organized, and move projects forward without confusion. Project management tools offer many capabilities, but not all of them add equal value. Knowing which features matter most will help you decide what your team needs and avoid paying for functions you’ll never use. To help you with your search, we’ve determined five key project management software features based on the ratings given by verified software users. We also include the three highest-rated project management software for each feature. ## 1\. Multiple projects The multiple projects feature helps you plan, track, and manage several projects at the same time from one workspace. It keeps your tasks, timelines, documents, and updates organized, which reduces the chances of mixing up information across projects. It also gives you a clear view of how each project is progressing, who is responsible for what, and where potential delays may appear. This makes it easier for you to stay in control, prioritize work, and move projects forward with confidence. ### What business problems does the multiple projects feature solve? The multiple projects feature helps the project managers solve the following challenges: - **Scattered project information**: When your project details sit across emails, chats, spreadsheets, or separate tools, you lose time searching for updates. A multiple projects view pulls everything into one structured space, making it easy for you to see what’s happening across all projects without jumping between platforms. - **Difficulty managing workload across teams**: Without a clear picture of who is working on what, you may overload some team members while others have room to take on more. This feature shows tasks across all active projects, helping you assign work fairly and balance workloads to avoid burnout or delays. - **Lack of visibility into project progress**: Managing several projects at once makes it hard to track status or identify bottlenecks. A central dashboard solves this by giving you real-time visibility into timelines, overdue tasks, and upcoming deadlines. You can act quickly, adjust priorities, and keep every project moving as planned. ### How users benefit from the multiple projects feature Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the multiple projects feature describing how it helps them: _“You can create portfolios to group related projects and view their progress together, automate repetitive tasks between projects to save time and reduce errors.”_ _“Being able to manage multiple projects at the same time prevents a lag in scheduling and allows our company to provide the needed services to our customers day after day”_ _“By using the multiple project tracking template, project managers can easily monitor the status of each project and compare progress across projects.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for multiple projects _Analysis performed November 2025_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Multiple projects feature rating 4.77/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Multiple projects feature rating 4.67/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Multiple projects feature rating 4.56/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 2\. Project planning and scheduling The project planning and scheduling feature helps you map out your work from start to finish so your team knows exactly what needs to be done, when, and by whom. It lets you set clear tasks, timelines, and priorities in one place, which reduces confusion and keeps everyone aligned. You can break large projects into smaller steps, spot possible delays early, and adjust plans as situations change. This gives you better control over your workload and helps your team stay on track. ### What business problems does the project planning and scheduling feature solve? The project planning and scheduling feature helps project managers solve the following challenges: - **Unclear responsibilities**: When your team isn’t sure who owns which tasks, work slows down and important steps get missed. A planning and scheduling tool fixes this by showing clear owners, deadlines, and priorities. It helps everyone understand their role and stay aligned as the project moves forward. - **Missed deadlines**: Deadlines slip easily when you can’t see how tasks connect or how long they may take. This feature gives you a structured timeline, a real-time progress view, and early signals when something is falling behind. You can respond quickly, adjust plans, and keep your project on track. - **Poor resource allocation**: Work becomes uneven when you don’t have a clear view of each team member’s workload. Some people get overloaded while others wait for tasks. A planning and scheduling tool helps you see everyone’s commitments in one place so you can assign work fairly and maintain steady progress across the team. ### How users benefit from project planning and scheduling Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the planning and scheduling feature describing how it helps them: _“Create projects and define their objectives, tasks and smaller tasks, set deadlines for them and track the progress of projects and tasks in real time.”_ _“Allows for reminders, setting due dates and provides actionable notifications when things don't meet deadline.”_ _“For keeping a track, we have a visual project tracking with boards, lists, and calendar views that helps in managing deadlines as per priority.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for project planning and scheduling  _Analysis performed November 2025_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Project planning and scheduling feature rating 4.66/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Project planning and scheduling feature rating 4.56/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Project planning and scheduling feature rating 4.49/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 3\. Task management The task management feature helps you organize all your work in one place so you always know what needs attention next. It lets you create tasks, set priorities, add deadlines, and assign work to specific team members. You can track progress at a glance, break larger work into smaller steps, and keep everything moving without relying on scattered notes or memory. This helps you stay focused, avoid missed steps, and maintain a steady pace throughout the project. ### What business problems does the task management feature solve? The task management feature helps project managers solve the following challenges: - **Disorganized work**: When tasks sit across chats, spreadsheets, and email threads, you lose time trying to remember what needs to be done. A task management tool puts everything in one structured list, helping you stay organized and work through tasks in a clear, predictable order without missing important steps. - **Low accountability**: Work slows down when team members aren’t sure what they’re responsible for or how their tasks connect to the project. Task management fixes this by assigning clear owners and deadlines. Everyone knows what they owe and when, which improves follow-through and reduces repeated reminders. - **Difficulty tracking progress**: Without a central view of ongoing tasks, you can’t easily see what’s done, what’s pending, or what’s stuck. This feature gives you real-time visibility into progress so you can spot delays, adjust priorities, and keep the project moving instead of reacting at the last minute. ### How users benefit from task management Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the task management feature describing how it helps them: _“Task Management” helps a great deal in organizing issues by categories (eg product, nature, service) and save time in channeling tasks to the right departments and right people.”_ _“allows sales reps to effectively create, assign, track, and manage individual sales activities like follow-up calls, email sending, and meeting scheduling”_ _“Being able to manage my tasks and pullout the tasks even if it was created weeks or months ago. I was able to track all my projects and see the time I have worked on it.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for task management _Analysis performed November 2025_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Task management feature rating 4.72/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Task management feature rating 4.70/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Task management feature rating 4.63/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 4\. Commenting and notes The commenting and notes feature lets you store discussions and updates directly inside your project tasks. You can share context, tag teammates, ask questions, and record decisions without switching between chats or emails. It keeps all communication tied to the right task, which helps you reduce confusion, avoid back-and-forth messages, and ensure your team always has the latest information. This makes collaboration easier and keeps everyone on the same page as the project moves forward. ### What business problems does the commenting and notes feature solve? The commenting and notes feature helps project managers solve the following challenges: - **Scattered communication**: When updates live in different chats, emails, and documents, your team wastes time searching for context. Commenting and notes keep everything in one place, right where the work happens. You can revisit past decisions, understand the reasoning behind changes, and reduce miscommunication across the team. - **Slow clarifications**: Teams lose momentum when they must wait for information or track it down. Commenting helps you ask questions, share updates, and tag the right people instantly. Everyone sees the same details in one thread, which speeds up responses and keeps work moving without unnecessary delays. - **Loss of important context**: Without a record of discussions, it becomes hard to understand why a task was changed or who approved what. Notes preserve these details so you don’t rely on memory. Your team can check past comments, revisit decisions, and continue work confidently, even if someone was not part of the earlier conversation. ### How users benefit from commenting and notes Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the commenting and notes feature describing how it helps them: _“Because I work remotely and my team is spread across time zones - we do a lot of async work. Being able to comment, take notes, and even make those notes into tasks is huge! We can tag each other and it alerts us when we've been tagged.”_ _“Contributes by providing feedback, expressing opinions, and providing support. Which helps them improve their user content strategy. It facilitates interaction between content creators and their audience, promoting engagement and community building.”_ _“Adding notes and comments is as easy as selecting text and clicking a button. Very intuitive and the comments offer notifications so you can always stay up to date with activity on your deck.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for commenting and notes _Analysis performed November 2025_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Commenting and notes feature rating 4.63/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Commenting and notes feature rating 4.52/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Commenting and notes feature rating 4.41/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 5\. Prioritization The prioritization feature helps you focus on the tasks and projects that matter most. You can rank work by urgency, importance, or deadlines so your team always knows what to tackle first. It gives you a clear view of high-impact tasks, helps you avoid spreading your attention too thin, and ensures you spend time on the work that moves the project forward. With priorities set, your team works with more direction, makes fewer last-minute shifts, and stays aligned on shared goals. ### What business problems does the prioritization feature solve? The prioritization feature helps project managers solve the following challenges: - **Unclear focus**: Teams lose time when they’re unsure which tasks deserve immediate attention. Prioritization tells everyone what to start with, what can wait, and what needs quick action. It keeps your team aligned, reduces confusion, and helps you move forward with a clearer sense of direction. - **Frequent context switching**: Jumping between tasks slows down progress and increases errors. A prioritization feature reduces this by giving you a defined order of work. Your team can concentrate on one task at a time and follow a logical sequence, leading to better output and fewer interruptions. - **Wasted effort on low-value work**: Without clear priorities, important tasks get buried under routine work. Prioritization ensures high-impact tasks rise to the top so your team spends energy where it counts. It helps you stay focused on business goals instead of getting pulled into work that doesn’t move the project ahead. ### How users benefit from prioritization Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the prioritization feature describing how it helps them: _“With the critical path of a project, you can clearly know the key or highest priority activities, which allows you to focus the efforts of the project resources on them and guarantee the success of the project.”_ _“Especially in complicated workflows, the many different options for filtering information in a base (and create various filtered views of the same data), allows me to prioritise based on different factors - and switch between views to remain agile.”_ _“I love prioritization features for its flexibility and visual appeal. The platform allows users to customize and visualize their workflows, making it easier to prioritize tasks. The ability to assign deadlines is such a stress reliever.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for prioritization _Analysis performed November 2025_ Error Could not fetch Product Information #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Prioritization feature rating 4.66/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Prioritization feature rating 4.50/5 #### Device Compatibilty * * * Looking for Project Management software?Check out Capterra's list of the [best Project Management software](https://www.capterra.com/project-management-software/) solutions. ### Was this article helpful? * * * ## About the Authors [### Preksha Buttan](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/pbuttan/) Preksha Buttan is a writer at Capterra. She provides insights to help small businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing more than 550,000 Capterra user reviews and nearly 48,000 interactions between Capterra software advisors and buyers. [### Caroline Rousseau](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/caroline-rousseau/) After three years of building surveys, analyzing data, and writing her own research, Caroline has been a senior content editor since 2022. Her previous experience as an analyst converged into a skill set that allows her to help her peers develop and produce compelling content about today’s business matters. ### RELATED READING - [Choosing Project Management Software? 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Here’s what AI has to do with it](https://www.capterra.com/resources/your-pm-team-is-switching-tools-faster-heres-what-ai-has-to-do-with-it/) - [What Buyers Look for in Inventory Software vs What Users Rely on Daily](https://www.capterra.com/resources/what-buyers-look-for-in-inventory-software-vs-what-users-rely-on-daily/) - [6 Steps to Building a Business Case for Project Management Software](https://www.capterra.com/resources/6-steps-to-building-a-bulletproof-business-case-for-project-management-software-with-free-template/) - [Project Integration Management: What it is and how PM software supports it](https://www.capterra.com/resources/project-management-software-for-project-integration-management/) - [Securing Your Project Management Software in the age of AI](https://www.capterra.com/resources/project-management-software-security-ai/) **Key features**: To identify the key features of this article, we asked users to rate, on a scale of “low importance” to “critical,” how important different features are for project management software. The features showcased are those that the highest percentage of reviewers rated as “highly important” or “critical” over the past two years (as of November 12, 2025). **Feature eligibility**: To be included in the set of features considered, a given feature had to have at least 200 user ratings within the past two years (as of November 12, 2025), of which at least 20% must indicate the feature is “critical.” Eligible features were determined from two sources:  1. Our research team’s review of public information about project management software usage, definitions, and associated features. 2. Reviewers’ indication of the features they use for project management. **Product selection**: To identify the top-rated products per feature, we evaluated user ratings for products that offer each feature. For a given product, reviewers rate each feature on a scale of one to five stars. A given product had to have at least 20 user ratings (between November 2023-2025) for the feature in question to be considered. **Review excerpts selection**: Review excerpts are passages extracted from longer reviews written by verified reviewers. We obtain these excerpts by applying an algorithm that considers factors including, but not limited to, length, sentiment, topic coverage, and thematic relevance. Excerpts represent user opinion and do not represent the views of, nor constitute, an endorsement by Capterra or its affiliates. Excerpts are not edited for clarity or grammar.