I was in search of a good project management system 16 months ago. And I am searching for one again!
I reviewed more than two dozen task / time tracking / project scheduling / collaboration systems this time too. The requirements are the same as last year. Something simple, usable and effective. Something that ties the different processes together. This time, we want it to support partners/contractors as well. This time, we would like to integrate the communications too.
As of now, I have three solutions in my shortlist:
- activeCollab – has good set of features, and will allow any customizations I want
- devShop – handles the main problems in software development – estimation errors, distractions and confidence score
- Intervals – superb tracking of time, and good features overall
And then, I want to hook it up with Openfire / Spark / Red5 for communications / conferencing.
Am I looking for too much? Not sure why I can’t find a system that solves my problems!
What do you use?
Hey Nirav!
I’m not exactly sure what you are looking for in a Project Management system. But i’ll have a go anyway…
It sounds like you are wanting something like 37Signals’ Basecamp combined with Campfire, at least for the communications part. As for the video conferencing part, i’m stumped. Worst case maybe you could run your own streaming server?
Regarding your proposed solutions, there is only one which i have tried – ActiveCollab. I’m not sure if you were referring to the paid version or the old open source version, but i thought both were good.
I should also point out that there is a fork of the open source version of ActiveCollab called ProjectPier, though apart from a few bug fixes and new themes, it is mostly the same. There is also my fork called RailsCollab, which is re-write using Ruby on Rails, which supports a few extra features such as time tracking and S3 support.
Looking at your original post on this, some things reminded me of another 37Signals product, Backpack. Although it is more of a collaboration tool than a project management tool, it does support reminders and a shared calendar, amongst other things.
So perhaps you are looking for multiple solutions that can easily be combined together?
Hi Nirav,
What i get from your previous post is that u need the following features in your project management tool.
* Simple
* Accessible – easy to bring up the app and use it
* Shared – team usage, collaboration
* Process Adherence – automation as much as possible, workflow templates
* Reminders, Followup – automatic, Escalation
* Email / Thunderbird / Sunbird / iCal Integration
You will get all of these in the free version of BaseCamp.
The free version allows you to manage 1 project with unlimited users, but doesn’t include file sharing (well u don’t need one & if you need you can use ur ftps and links as messages).
If you have more than one project per PM, you can signup for more a/cs and use the RSS to see the updates in any RSS reader.
There is no better tool than BaseCamp.
And o ya, you can integrate Campfire in ur Basecamp a/c too. Now this is also free.
I’ve also been using Basecamp for a couple of years and love it – can’t imagine running our company without it (or Campfire). For a video conferencing solution – we use ooVoo (a client of ours) which allows 6-way video chat. We also use backpack as an internal communication tool – basically our intranet.
Basecamp is not going to work for me! We use it for over a year. It’s good, but it’s got very limited capabilities. I am looking for something bigger, better yet easy!
I am going to write up a list of things I need! Let’s see how it goes then!
Use Sticky Note+ Trac + SVN + Human approach.
1. Determine tasks at start of week.
2. Put it on Sticky Note.
3. Stick Sticky Notes to white board, which has week or 2 week defined along with persons attached to project.
4. Put sticky note tasks in Trac milestone, create tickets for it.
5. Assign tickets to related milestones.
6. Code into svn, Documentation into wiki.
7. Client can check progress by tickets, code and milestones.
8. IRC for communication!
This was Comat’s way to work, I think this works fine if team is small (3 to 9 people).
Thanks for including Intervals on your shortlist! I am glad to see you’ve mentioned its time tracking capabilities. We’ve spent a lot of time getting the time tracking just right, and have plans to improve upon it even more.
Good luck on your final choice, and please don’t hesitate to email us if you have any questions.
-John