Groupware Resource Evaluation

Project Management To Support Collaborative Efforts

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JWPlatt
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by JWPlatt »

opensourcecms.com is a nice software trial site I discussed in this post:
viewtopic.php?p=1642#p1642

All packages are reset (wiped) every four hours.

I sense that unlike other resources here, there is no strong leader in this category and that if there were one, it would have made itself known. But if you can find one strong contender with a history of stability and support, we'll put it up for testing.
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rarified
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by rarified »

I'll be happy to install either or both of your suggestions Jeff if you want to lead further examination of them (and perhaps help to encourage other vested parties to do so). Let me know if they're worth setting up an evaluation installation.

_R
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Mac_Fife
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by Mac_Fife »

I looked at both StreberPM and Collabtive and didn't like either much, probably because they're both very similar. I'll concede that I only gave them a very cursory look, so maybe I wasn't digging deep enough, but the things I felt were wrong were:
  • No GANTT chart view of the project
  • No (obvious) way to link tasks (create dependencies)
I can't remember which way round it was but one of the tools let you set a start date and a duration, while the other only gave an option of setting an expected end date. You could probably work with the former if you had a GANTT so you could see the "logic" of the project, but the latter is just useless.

I'll reiterate though: Maybe I missed something.
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JeffLewis
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by JeffLewis »

I found another one that leads away from a business perspective a bit, and more twards a team of people working on a project: http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/de ... eGroupWare

It has a TON of features, more than what is needed. It has a gantt chart (or however it's spelled) but comes packaged with an out of date version it seems. It also looks as though it has the capability to put a website up through it as well, which may or may not be a nice extra feature. I like it, except it almost seems to try and be too many things at once, though, they're all done to a good extent as far as quality goes.

I also enjoyed flyspray, on the same site. Though, it doesn't have the chart that seems to be what folks want, I think it has the right set of ability to track a project and its tasks without just setting a deadline for it.
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by Mac_Fife »

JeffLewis wrote:I found another one that leads away from a business perspective a bit, and more twards a team of people working on a project: http://php.opensourcecms.com/scripts/de ... eGroupWare
Didn't actually work when I tried it. I could create a project OK, but repeated attempts to add milestones or to add "elements" didn't do anything :? I couldn't really see how you added tasks to the GANTT, so wasn't able to tell how well the linking worked. The "Help" seems a bit lightweight.

I'm guessing the issues are some anomoly of the installation on opensourcecms, rather than an intrinsic failing in the software. Yeah, there's a load of stuff in there we don't need, like another wiki and a file manager, but the good part is that these are easily disabled through the admin panel and the icons (eventually) disappear off the toolbar.
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by rarified »

The usual offer applies -- if there is sufficient interest (especially since the demo site didn't appear to work for Mac) I'll set up an OU-specific demo implementation.

_R
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by JWPlatt »

I'm interested. Tally 1 for me. ;)

Thanks for the usual offer!
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by JeffLewis »

Mac_Fife wrote: Didn't actually work when I tried it. I could create a project OK, but repeated attempts to add milestones or to add "elements" didn't do anything :? I couldn't really see how you added tasks to the GANTT, so wasn't able to tell how well the linking worked. The "Help" seems a bit lightweight.

I'm guessing the issues are some anomoly of the installation on opensourcecms, rather than an intrinsic failing in the software. Yeah, there's a load of stuff in there we don't need, like another wiki and a file manager, but the good part is that these are easily disabled through the admin panel and the icons (eventually) disappear off the toolbar.
The only thing I found broken when I had messed around with it was the gantt chart. otherwise I was able to add stuff to projects OK. It seems like that site runs on automatic refreshes of the data, so it may have just errored.
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by JWPlatt »

In the interests of moving this along - things are awfully quiet - how do you folks like the idea of putting a sample project definition on the wiki which could be applied to the current evaluations? We would have to do the work, of course, but if one person creates the wiki page, then someone else adds a few pieces of an outline, then others flesh it out a bit, that might be tolerable to all our otherwise busy lives.

This project definition could then be applied by whoever has some spare time to spend on any of the evaluations. Pick one part of the outline and implement it in one of the evaluations. Eventually, we'll get them all filled out and have an apples to apples comparison between them.
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Re: Groupware Resource Evaluation

Post by rarified »

That's not a bad idea. I started some small outlines on a couple of the systems but never was working from a single pattern. The trick for me was to get motivated to go back several times and flesh things out. Perhaps with several of us working on it we can keep momentum up.

Do you have a particular "type" of project in mind? Presumably something germane to OU such as a collaborative age construction? Or a programming project?
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