On Monday, Michał, owner of a seven-person agency in Poznań, is looking for the client's approval on a project change. The brief is in Trello, the conversation is in Slack, the file is on Google Drive, and the client's reply is in Gmail. If you too open four tabs just to answer one question, check whether one program instead of several tools could put your work in order and how to work out the cost of that change.
One matter in four places costs more than four logins
The cost of splitting a single decision across conversations and files is the time lost looking for it. When you're searching for the arrangement that applies, you first have to guess where someone wrote it down.
On Tuesday, Michał's agency client approves the dark background for the site by email. Magda notes the mock-up deadline in a task, Marek confirms the scope of work in chat, and Ola uploads the design to the drive. Two weeks later, the team has nowhere to check which version is approved. None of these tools has to work badly for the team to lose context.
A new person gets access to several places, but doesn't automatically get the history of decisions. It's the same with search: the words "website quote" could mean the subject of an email, a file name, or a message. That's why, before changing programs, you need to settle a simpler rule first: where the team writes down arrangements concerning a single matter.
One program instead of several tools: what fits in Task Manager?
In Task Manager you can bring together day-to-day work on tasks, conversations, your schedule and notes. Mail, Files and Automations can also be part of this window, but only in the Pro plan. A Workspace is a work space for a department or project, with access for assigned people.
| What you keep separate today | What you'll find in Task Manager | Option |
|---|---|---|
| Tasks and their due dates | Tasks and the Board, where workspaces form the columns | Standard and Pro |
| Team conversations | Chats assigned to workspaces and conversations within tasks | Standard and Pro |
| Work schedule and absences | Calendar with tasks, events, reminders and absences | Standard and Pro |
| Personal notes | Notes, which you can share with selected people | Standard and Pro |
| An email inbox | Mail supporting IMAP (the protocol for receiving mail) and SMTP (the protocol for sending mail) servers | Pro |
| Files used in your work | Files with folders for workspaces, tasks and chats | Pro |
On screen you have three columns: workspaces on the left, the list of tasks and chats in the middle, the open thread on the right. You don't need to close the conversation to see the name of the task next to it. See how the three-column layout works.
A separate example from the Task Manager screen: on Wednesday, Ola opens the task "Website project". Below the conversation she sees a list of four work items, two of which are already ticked off; a bar shows "2 of 4 done", and the completed item is signed with the name of the person who checked it off. It's a small detail, but it removes the question "who decided this was done?" from the next meeting.
Mail and Files sit alongside your work, but mail doesn't become shared
In the Pro plan you can read mail and open Files without switching to separate apps. Connecting an inbox, however, doesn't share the correspondence with the team: it's visible to the inbox owner, not to the task's other participants.
On Thursday, Ola opens the email "Quote request - company website" and replies from her connected inbox. Task Manager sends the reply through that inbox's SMTP server; SMTP is a way of sending mail through the server handling the account. If Ola turns on showing mail threads in the "Everything" view, she'll see them on the main list alongside tasks and chats. They remain her private mail.
Ola can link an email to a task to move between them more quickly. It's a navigation shortcut, not a way to show the email's content to colleagues. If Magda needs to know the client's decision, Ola has to pass it on within the task. Each authorised person connects the shared company inbox on their own account.
Files solve a different problem. Every task and chat has its own folder, where attachments from the thread end up. Ola can also save email attachments from the correspondence menu in the folder Mail / inbox / thread subject. She then opens Files alongside the conversation and drags the document she needs onto the message. Check the access rules for Files before assuming a workspace folder is automatically shared: a file uploaded there stays private until you share it.
One window won't replace every program in the company
Task Manager brings the team's work together around cases, but it won't cover every specialist need in a company. It has no built-in video calls, voice calls, CRM with a sales pipeline or accounting module, so you keep separate tools for those tasks.
The same goes for a drive used to send clients public links. Sharing in Files works between people using the application, within the limits of their access to the workspace, task or chat. You send a document to a client outside the application by email as an attachment, not as a public link to a folder. In Files, a single uploaded file can be up to 100 MB.
There are also limits that are less obvious at first glance. The AI Assistant won't read text from a scanned PDF, because the program has no OCR, meaning no text recognition on images. It also won't read an old, binary DOC file. If you're counting on email reminders sent while the application is closed, the server needs CRON set up, meaning a task run in the background. Reminders within the application itself don't require this.
So treat "one window" as a place for working together on cases, not a promise to remove every other item from your company's list of programs.
After three years, compare whole bills, not monthly labels
Compare the cost of a Task Manager licence, optional update renewals, hosting and any AI use against your current subscriptions over the same period and for the same number of people. This is a method of calculating, not a ready-made comparison of competitors' prices; the starting price alone doesn't show the full expense.
A separate agency is planning access for 12 people on Monday. For a team like that, the Classic plan fits; if it also needs Mail and Files, it chooses the Pro variant. The licence costs 3,990 PLN. The price includes 12 months of updates, and after that you can keep working on the version you own without renewing. If you pay for renewal for two further years, the combined cost of the licence and those renewals comes to 6,384 PLN. This isn't a mandatory three-year cost, but one option that keeps updates going.
Add to the bill for the Task Manager licence and your current subscriptions the costs that are easy to overlook. Task Manager runs on your own hosting, so hosting costs too, even if the company already pays for it. The program works without AI; when you turn on the AI Assistant, you settle usage directly with your chosen model provider, on your own key. Only then put the sum of your actual invoices for your current tools next to that bill, instead of guessing other companies' plan prices. Follow the licence calculation for 12 people.
Start with one project, not with moving the whole company
The simplest way to test whether the change makes sense is on a single project where context often gets lost. For two weeks, keep the tasks and the conversation about them in one workspace, and leave the other tools where they are.
On Friday, Michał can set up a "New website" workspace, enter the three current tasks, and ask the team to record new decisions about those tasks in their threads from now on. He doesn't need to connect Mail or move files over straight away. Let him note how many times over two weeks someone asks "where's the decision?" and how many times they find the answer without searching other tabs. If you need a steadier pace, use the first week with Task Manager plan.
For the test you need your own hosting with PHP 8.1+ and MySQL or MariaDB; ordinary shared hosting is enough. The installer runs in the browser and guides you through five screens. Tomorrow, list the places where the last closed case in your company is sitting, and pick one project to try. Then open the Demo and see what a conversation held alongside a task looks like.
Frequently asked questions
Will Task Manager replace Slack, Trello, Google Drive and Gmail all at once?
Not all of them: Task Manager can bring together tasks, a board and team conversations, and in the Pro plan also mail and Files. It won't replace voice and video calls or sharing files via a public link with people outside the app.
What do I get in the Standard plan, and what in Pro?
Standard covers tasks, chats, workspaces, Calendar, Board, Notes, Notification Centre and access to the optional AI Assistant, while Pro adds Mail, Files, Automations, AES-256 encryption and the RAG knowledge base. RAG helps the AI answer based on selected knowledge sources; PWA, meaning installing the app in a separate browser window, is available in both plans.
Can I automatically move data from Slack or Trello?
Task Manager has no documented import from Slack or Trello, so don't build your rollout plan around that feature. Start with new tasks and conversations in a single project, leaving older arrangements in your existing tools.
How much does one program instead of several tools cost for 12 people?
In the Classic plan, Pro variant, a licence for 12 people costs 3,990 PLN and includes 12 months of updates. Renewing afterwards is optional; add hosting and any AI provider fees to your calculation, and on the other side your actual subscription invoices.
Will the team see my mail once I connect my inbox?
No, the inbox stays private even from the administrator. Linking an email to a task gives a shortcut to the thread, but doesn't show its content to the task's other participants.
Sources
The Task Manager Team - we write about teamwork, AI in business and keeping tasks organised, using examples from Task Manager, software installed on your own server. Task Manager has been developed by Blue Creation Group (Piotr Łącz) since 2013 and is used by organisations including Neonet, the Military University of Technology and Polpharma - read customer reviews. We check our articles against the user guide and the latest version of the software.
