Microsoft Teams alternative for managing projects: when to switch to a dedicated tool?
Teams is great for communication. But running projects across channels, Planner, Excel and SharePoint scatters information. Here is what Gladys brings, and how to use it alongside Teams.
3 min read
Microsoft Teams has become a fixture in many organisations: chat, video meetings, team channels, shared files. For day-to-day communication, it is an effective tool.
The problem shows up when you try to run projects in it. You create a channel per project, add a Planner tab for tasks, an Excel file for the schedule, a SharePoint folder for documents… and information ends up scattered across several tools.
Gladys does not do video conferencing. If your meetings happen in Teams, keep it for that: Gladys takes care of your projects, and the two work very well together.
What goes wrong when you manage projects in Teams
- Decisions get lost in the channel's conversation thread
- The schedule lives in a separate Excel file, rarely up to date
- Nobody has an overview of all the organisation's projects
- You don't know who is overloaded, or where the budget stands
- Preparing the steering committee means consolidating everything by hand
Quick comparison
| Need | Teams (with Planner) | Gladys |
|---|---|---|
| Day-to-day communication | Chat, channels, video meetings | A discussion for each project, @mentions on tasks |
| Task tracking | Planner: board, lists, due dates | Kanban, list, calendar, mind map, subtasks |
| Planning | Depends on the tools you add | Gantt with dependencies, milestones and reference milestones |
| Steering several projects | No native portfolio view | Portfolios, dashboard, multi-project Gantt |
| Workload and budget | Outside the tool (often in Excel) | Workload per person, timesheet, Budget view |
| Reporting | Consolidated by hand | Excel and PDF exports, PowerPoint reports from your templates |
| Vendor and hosting | US vendor | French vendor, hosted in France |
The whole project in one place
Discussions inside the project
Each project has its own discussion. Comments and mentions stay attached to the tasks they concern: it is easy to find who decided what.
Documents next to the tasks
Files are stored in the project's document area, with co-editing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.
Built-in steering
Progress, milestones, team workload and budget update from the tasks. The dashboard is always ready for the steering committee.
A sovereign solution
Gladys is built and hosted in France.
Teams and Gladys, together
Many teams keep Teams for instant communication and meetings, and use Gladys for everything project-related:
- Teams for quick exchanges, calls and video meetings;
- Gladys for tasks, schedules, project documents, workload and budget tracking, and portfolio steering.
And with the Gladys MCP connector, your AI assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Le Chat or Gemini) can query your projects or create tasks for you, with your permissions.
Bring your Planner plans into Gladys
- 1Export each Planner plan to Excel.
- 2Copy the tasks into the Gladys import template: one sheet for projects, one for tasks.
- 3Import the file: projects, tasks, owners and dates are created in one go.
- 4Invite your team members and group your projects into portfolios.
Frequently asked questions
Does Gladys completely replace Teams?
No, and that is not its role: Gladys does not do video conferencing. It does, however, replace the channels + Planner + Excel combination for managing your projects.
Are team members notified of updates?
Yes: in-app, email and mobile notifications when a task is assigned to them, when they are mentioned, or when a discussion concerns them.
Can we start small?
Yes: start with a pilot project and its team. Other projects can follow over time.
I'm interested and would like to know more about the solution