Posted by RichRoth at Apr 30, 2004 3:06:26 PM
Software to track deadlines/projects?
Dear Hidden Tech members,

I was hoping that some of you may have had experience with an automated program to
help a small business stay organized (e.g., track projects and deadlines with
multiple users) that you could recommend. I hope that one already exists somewhere
in Microsoft Office and is on my computer so that there is no software cost to me.
I am open to all ideas. A firm I am working with just missed a significant deadline
and I'd like to help them with getting organized.

Any input or suggestions would be much appreciated.

J. Lyn Cutler
Environmental Consultant
stoweboarder@att.net

Posted by RichRoth at Apr 30, 2004 3:07:44 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
Take a look at the dotProject.net Free Software project. It's web based
and uses MySql and PHP so it would probably run fine on that PIII you have
in the closet gathering dust.

Here's the demo site:

http://www.dotproject.net/demo/

user: admin
password: admin

I haven't used it, but I know people that have and really like it. I took
a quick look and it handles projects, tasks, trouble tickets and more.
You will probably only need a subset of it's functions.

If this looks useful but you would like help installing it, let me know.

Regards,

--
Mark Bucciarelli, www.hubcapconsulting.com
GNU/Linux user #266,902 at http://counter.li.org

Posted by RichRoth at Apr 30, 2004 3:09:15 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
There's a good article on using Excel for scheduling software projects at:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000245.html

The same simple techniques should work for any small-ish project that
can be broken down into subtasks and that doesn't have a lot of tricky
dependencies.

"Gavin Andresen"

Posted by RichRoth at Apr 30, 2004 3:10:22 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
Hello All,

My company, Positronic Design, has developed a PHP MySQL system for doing
just what you describe. We developed it for internal use and now offer it as
an adjunct to our web hosting service. You can host a domain just for the
system, or piggyback it onto your regular web hosting service if you use our
company for that.

It can also be run on a secure server for additional security (but at an
additional cost).

It is a series of password protected but cookie activated (for retained
login) web pages that manage all aspects of a busy office. It has a complete
contact manager, job tracking system, messaging system, time tracking
system, and tickler system all built into an easy-to-use web site.

It can be used from any web-enabled computer and can be logged into and out
of with ease. It runs on the internet as a private intranet and is available
live to all team members no matter their type of workstation or physical
location.

We are still working on our public demo but I can arrange a private showing
at our offices for anyone who is interested.

We are still officially in beta test mode so we are offering licenses at a
fraction of their normal cost, i.e. $10 per month for an up to 10 seat
license with additional seats just $1 per month. Our target price for this
software upon official rollout is $10 per month per seat, with discounts
after 10 seats. Hosting charges are additional, normally $20 per month for
standard and $35 per month for secure server hosting.

The system works great, and can even drive an LED scrolling signboard. We
have it do that in our office. Important messages scroll by repeatedly until
they are marked as Done in the system.

This system has really helped my company a lot and we make sure to bill for
all our time and not let stuff slip through. We have about 15 active users
(seats) on our internal system and it works like a charm.

Happy to talk to anyone about it. Please give me a call if you have any
questions or would like to arrange a private demonstration.

Be well,

David Caputo
President
Positronic Design

800.472.3765

413.587.0011

http://www.PositronicDesign.com

Posted by RichRoth at Apr 30, 2004 3:11:25 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
All,

I checked out the dotproject demo. Looks pretty nice. I like using hours
to measure tasks (using days and weeks as input is essentially meaningless).
What I couldn't find there was an assignment of employees/resources to
tasks, so the planner could identify bottlenecks, gaps and
over/under-commitment. (Might not be a problem for single-worker or
one-worker/one-project situations.)

Last year, after trying out every free and low-priced project scheduler I
could find, I broke down and sprung for Microsoft Project. It's expensive
and you can't possibly figure out how to use it without a book like
"Microsoft Project Inside Out"; but I've used it successfully for accurate
software project scheduling -- and for figuring out where to cut features to
make a deadline.

(I've also used raw MS excel, but it is brutal to update when things
change.)

I can provide some tips on the scheduling process itself -- I'm not sure
what forum it should go in. Seems like "Business:tips" (doesn't exist
currently) rather than "Technical: General". Suggestions for a forum
category?

John Broglio

Posted by hubcap at Apr 30, 2004 6:49:57 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?



I checked out the dotproject demo. Looks pretty nice. I like using hours
to measure tasks (using days and weeks as input is essentially meaningless).
What I couldn't find there was an assignment of employees/resources to
tasks, so the planner could identify bottlenecks, gaps and
over/under-commitment. (Might not be a problem for single-worker or
one-worker/one-project situations.)
John Broglio


Hi John,

I took a quick look and saw that you could assign employees to tasks. Click on the tasks icon, then the pencil to the left of a task name. In the lower right corner of the screen that displays you see a list of available resources, which you can assign to the task.

The task view has a filter combo box where you can choose to just look at the tasks that are assigned to you.

Another Free Software project that does project planning is Task Juggler (http://www.taskjuggler.org), which also looks pretty good. To run this, you need to be running a KGX desktop (KDE/GNU/Linux) or Mac OSX.

Regards,

Mark

Posted by RichRoth at Apr 30, 2004 6:59:30 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
We are using Outreach - web based, more at:
http://outreach.sourceforge.net/

Have not compared with others suggest here, I thought we compared with those we could find -- so might have in the choice.

Posted by lamplight at Aug 16, 2005 8:34:10 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
Just as an fyi:

I have been using Outreach Project Tool as well for a while. I recently updated to mysql 4.1 (from 4.0.x.something) and OPT does not work as yet with 4.1 or higher (so i would imagine you can forget about mysql5). for what its worth i think opt is great and look forward to this issue being resolved. If youre a php programmer i believe its only a matter of how the date (timestamp) variable is stored according to the project maintainer on sourceforge. I may be doing some of the editing if I can get some direction from him (and if theres not 2 million occurrences of it in the code .

Posted by jhamson at Apr 26, 2006 3:59:47 PM
Re: Software to track deadlines/projects?
Ever look at Basecamp ? http://www.basecamphq.com/