According to PC World, Zoho is joining forces with Google to provide project management tools to both audiences. By using their Google login and password, users will have access to features like:
-Assigning tasks to people
-Setting milestones and meetings
-Sharing documents and running forum discussions and wikis
-Online group chat sessions.

 http://pwwbca.blogspot.com/2009/10/zoho-and-google-apps-join-forces.html

 Prince

Today our Zoho Projects customer has asked about how to link his Google Apps credentials with that of existing Zoho login.

View the below image depicting the Google/ Google Apps/ Yahoo! account.

More explanation on How to is given in the below SSO FAQ Page.

http://zohosso.wiki.zoho.com/Zoho-SSO-Help.html#gy8

Prince

Zoho and Google are competitors, offering a range of Web-based office applications and collaboration features that are designed to be an alternative to desktop suites such as Microsoft's Office. Both Zoho and Google have their strengths, however, and it appears some people are opting to use both for some functions, according to Zoho.

Checkout the full review at the below URL

Zoho Projects for Google Apps Review - Infoworld

Prince

Zoho Projects for Google Apps is now available in Google Solution Marketplace, checkout the below link.

Zoho Projects - Google Solution Marketplace

Checkout the announcement here.

http://blogs.zoho.com/general/announcing-zoho-projects-for-google-apps

How easy is it to use Zoho Projects into Google Apps ?

Short version: it's dead easy.
Long version: Here is a short video which explains the different possibilities for Google Apps customers to manage their project in Zoho Projects - all it takes is to login with our Google Apps credentials and off you go.

Prince

 Zoho Projects is a team collaboration and project management application that allows teams to plan, track and collaborate on everyday activities and big projects with external customers. With the new integration, Google Apps users can login to Zoho Projects using their Google Apps sign-in info. Users can then upload their documents from Google Docs to Zoho Projects directly. Any tasks, meetings or activities in Zoho Project will automatically bee updated in Google Calendar. And Zoho Projects gadgets can be embedded within Gmail, iGoogle and any other OpenSocial compatible sites.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/19/zoho-projects-now-integrated-with-google-apps

Prince

Watch the Project Dashboard 1 minute video.

http://www.zoho.com/projects/project-dashboard-video.html

Prince

P.S : In fact it is 1 minute 21 seconds in all.

Zoho Projects has integrated chat feature where the users can collaborate in a chat room under each project i.e chat tab. In addition to that project users can also do a one-to-one chat with other project users by clicking on the user photo in the Project Dashboard.

In Project Dashboard, users are displayed with photo and online status. If their names displayed in green then the user is online else offline

You can start one to one chat with the user by clicking on the photo

You can minimize one chat box and continue with the other. If any message is received in the minimized chat box then the chat topic at chat bar at bottom will blink and gets highlighted

One to one chat with another user

You can use smileys in your chat

You can start the one to one by also clicking on the photo next to each forum posts under Forums tab

You can also start the one to one chat by clicking on the photo of the user under Users tab. Under Users tab, on the left hand side, only currently online users will be listed. Click on the user link to start the one to one chat.

What an effective way to chat with your project users. Indeed very effective. Try out @ http://projects.zoho.com

Prince

Zoho Projects also has "Timesheet" tab in which project users can add their work log hours daily.

User can use the start / stop clock feature to automatically log the hours in their respective timesheets. Under "Tasks & Milestones" tab all the tasks of the project will be displayed. Next to the task assigned to that particular user a green clock icon will be displayed.

User can click to start the clock and can the clock again to stop the clock. Once the clock stops an entry in timesheet for that task will be automatically added by calculating the difference between the start time and end time as the hours spent on that task.

Screenshots will help my explanation better.

Green start clock will be displayed only for tasks owned by that user

Click on the Green clock to start your timer

Once the clock ticks, red clock icon and another clock icon gets displayed next to that task

You can click on the red clock to stop the timer. You can mouse over on the display clock to know the time spent on the task

After clicking the stop clock, timesheet entry is added automatically by calcuating the difference between start and end time as the hours spent on that task

checkout the damn cool feature @ http://projects.zoho.com

Prince

One more important tab in Zoho Projects is the Meetings tab. Meetings module is designed for scheduling team meetings, project status meetings etc.

You can schedule any number of meetings by filling the schedule meeting form which asks for Meeting title, Participants, Date, Time, Duration and Recurrence. Meeting can be a one time one or a recurring one (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly).

Meetings are displayed under two categories. Upcoming Meetings and Elapsed Meetings. Under each meeting you can add notes or the agenda to it. You can also associate documents to that particular meeting.

An upcoming meeting with notes and associated documents expanded

Elapsed Meetings with recurrence details expanded

Display of all upcoming meetings

Meetings get displayed in the project calendar

You can also view the meetings of each project user by using the select option

You can also add a meeting from Project calendar by clicking on the "ME" icon that will be displayed on hovering on particular date in the calendar

Meetings will also be displayed in users individual calendar "My Calendar"

Explore the Meetings module @ http://projects.zoho.com

Prince