Overview

Djobu is being built as a product family with two major products.

ProjectXL is in development now. It is an Excel VSTO add-in designed as a fully standalone desktop project control system with integrated cost, schedule, budget, and performance management for one project at a time. It includes both a critical path schedule engine and a true rate engine for managing indirect rate allocation to direct cost objects.

Djobu Enterprise is coming later this summer. It is the Azure cloud system that will extend ProjectXL into project portfolio management, giving organizations the ability to manage and report on multiple portfolios tailored to their operating model using Azure cloud services and Power BI.

Built To Replace MS Project

ProjectXL is being designed as a true replacement for Microsoft Project, not as a companion utility or partial overlay. The goal is to give project teams the scheduling depth they need while removing the quirks, brittle workflows, and undesirable behaviors that have trained too many users to work around the tool instead of with it.

That means keeping the parts that matter, such as direct schedule control and familiar desktop workflow, while adding capabilities Microsoft Project never delivered in a coherent way: integrated cost, budget, performance, and real indirect rate allocation inside the same working model.

For organizations currently using Project Online, the timing matters. That product family is being shut off in September, and ProjectXL is being positioned as an option worth evaluating now, especially for teams that want better capability and a simpler user experience at a price point below a P3 license for Project Online.

See the MS Project comparison page for a more direct side-by-side view.

AI Assistance

The AI assistant in ProjectXL is being designed to help users understand how the system works, accomplish their tasks more effectively, and make full use of capabilities that go well beyond MS Project. Because ProjectXL is both more powerful and structurally different from legacy scheduling tools, the assistant is meant to shorten the learning curve by explaining workflows, surfacing best practices, and making the reasoning behind the product's design easier to understand.

The benefit to the user is straightforward: faster ramp-up, better day-to-day guidance, and more confidence using a serious project-controls system without giving up decision authority. The assistant is there to strengthen the user's judgment with insight and explanation, not to replace it.

See The Walkthrough

Summary descriptions do not really do ProjectXL justice. Visit the walkthrough home to get a more complete picture of how the product works and what it is designed to do.