Project Management + SCM for techies and non-techies? [closed] - project-management

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I've recently begun evaluating a few project management projects for the company I work for. It's the classic case - growing company looking for the right solution (meaning, free or really cheap). It's a combination shop - Windows, Macs, and Linux on the desktop. The tech savviness, of course, ranges from newbie to unix guru.
I have yet to find anything really close to a total solution. I don't expect to find one, but I am looking for suggestions/guidance/any sort of feedback based on people's experience.
What I'm looking for:
web based
methodology independent (not looking for an agile solution, etc.)
free or really cheap
document management
timelines and milestones
task tracking and assigning
reporting
source control
development wiki
I've looked at Trac, Projectivity, Basecamp, JIRA, RT, XPlanner, and SharedPlan. I've stayed away from Bugzilla due to previous unhappy experiences with it. None of these things really does everything - some are extendable, but I'd check here before going down that path.
Thanks,

Read through Edward Tufte's long-running Ask E.T. topic Project Management Graphics (or Gantt Charts). There is no consensus answer, but a lot of things have been evaluated.
link text

Trac - integration of tickets / wiki / commit-comments is great.
Caveat: installation can be PITA...

Check out Jira Studio. All of Atlassian's apps, hosted for you.
http://www.jira.com/
You get wiki/tracker/svn browser and more.

Have a look at Redmine, it's a Rails app. Haven't used it yet myself, but thinking about moving to it from activecollab. This applications seems to be evolved quite fast last year.

My experience of Jira (with Confluence for the wiki) has been rather good, although it is quite pricey the support people were very responsive and helpful. The place where I used that had svn for version control, and the two played together OK. On the other hand I found Xplanner to be a very odd app - really inflexible if you don't want to be doing XP, and surprisingly documentation-centric for an XP shop.

If you don't mind doing a bit of configuration yourself and have a windows server somewhere in your shop then you could set up your very own customized project management system in SharePoint.
* web based
* methodology independent
* free or really cheap
* document management
* timelines and milestones
* task tracking and assigning
* reporting
* source control
* development wiki
The source control system is not a part of SharePoint so it is really a question whether that requirement is paramount or not. But besides that you will have all of the above for free if you install WSS (comes free with a 2003/2008 server)
There is even a book from O'Reilly about how to set up a PMIS in SharePoint

One solution for the more visual of us would be to use Drupal 6x. with the Project and Subversion (now Version Control) modules. I prefer Joomla with ProjectFork, but until its modded with a repo browser, this will have to do.
Hope this helps.
http://drupal.org/project/project

I looked hard at Alfresco and Joomla.
None met my needs because I wanted the ultimate in simplicity. But, you seem to prefer having the kitchen sink included (while keeping it easy to use, I guess), so either one of these might be right for you.
Currently, I'm throwing together my own using Django, keeping only the project-deadline, forum and file-versioning concepts.

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Free alternative to Atlassian Greenhopper/PivotalTracker? [closed]

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I'm working with my brother on a website idea we have, and we'd like to use a tool to plan sprints and assign estimates to individual tickets.
Atlassian's JIRA+Greenhopper looks fantastic but costs $20/month and at this stage we're just validating our idea and would rather not spend money on a tool if we can avoid it.
Are there any free alternatives to these tools?
Taiga is 100% free and has all the features that comes with something like JIRA.
http://taiga.io/
It even has a burn-down chart! So that's a win!
Here's a site with a nice overview of what Taiga integrates with and real developer opinions on the tool.
http://stackshare.io/taiga
Trello is a good tool for creating task boards and tracking work for small teams.
https://trello.com/
I get this question a lot as a Scrum Trainer.
I strongly recommend Index Cards and a Physical Scrum Board. While it won't calculate time addition for you, that task is trivial and the 'information at a glance' that a Scrum Board offers is hugely beneficial.
If you absolutely HAVE to have an electronic board, try Visual Studio Online (TFS in the cloud) which, at present, is free for up to 5 users.
Another option (We use Jira) would be YouTRACK. http://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/buy/
It is free for up to 10 users and seems to offer pretty much the same functionality.
DISCLAIMER: I have never used YouTRACK on any level. IntelliJ is a great product though.
For Agile project management, I have used extensive Thoughtworks - Mingle
It's free for 5 users.
Another good alternative could be agilefant. Agilefant offers a free and open source product that can be downloaded and deployed into your own private cloud.
If you are looking open source project management, which you can host on your own, the following list could be useful:
ProjectLibre is a java based ms-project rich client alternative
LibrePlan is a rich client and based on these videos it seems like ms-project and includes hours spend by user on task, collaboration was not visible in the videos
OpenProject is a web based software with features such as issues, time lines (gantt chart), calendars, meeting notes and more
Redmine is a web based software using the Ruby on Rails framework that includes issues, work log, a wiki and a gantt chart and more.
You can also check TargetProcess (http://www.targetprocess.com/pricing/) it's free for 5 users
i use it for three months and it's very good
I used Trello (http://trello.com) and Mingle (http://getmingle.io) on two different projects. Trello is great for tracking tasks and collaborating for small team. My trello project team had 3 members, we were distributed. We also use Google drives to track unstructured information. My mingle project team have more than 10 people, and used it for years. Team love using it for standup on big touch TV and different roles (BA/QA/PM) like it because you have have your own workspace track different tasks and sometime build their own report).
IceScrum.
It's open source and you can run on your own server.
The best open source project planning in my opinion!
https://www.teamwork.com/pricing
"If you don't pay after the 30 day free trial you can still use Teamwork Projects free forever"
"We also have a Free Forever Plan with 2 projects and 100mb space"

Project Management/Tracker software - to replace Redmine [closed]

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I am using Redmine and as a free software it is more than good.
But I'm facing some problems now and I'm looking for some system to replace Redmine.
Main disadvantages from my point of view are:
hard installation - My version is 1.3.1 (installation process was pain in the #$$), now when I want to upgrade to 2.. I can see in the site that this will be pain too
not so stable - (using stand-alone nginx server) there are some problems like sometimes cannot upload files until restart passenger, stopped working two times (passenger process missing for some reason) etc
my last attempt to set-up a plugin was unsuccessful
I'm not Ruby developer and it's hard to maintain the Redmine - I'm pretty not sure what are the security issues, how to use Redmine with already installed SSL on one of the domains (port 80) etc
So I'm looking for a new system (preferred /but not mandatory/ option to be NOT SaaS) with these features:
Required:
Project management
Bug Tracking
Possibility to generate Invoices (as a plugin is cool too)
User friendly interface
Good to have:
openID login
not necessarily free (but for a reasonable price)
if it's not SaaS - to be PHP based, not Ruby, Python, Java etc
I have some experience with Assembla, Pivotal, Yodiz and Mantis.
Yodiz interface is too complex and not clean for me.
Mantis is like from the past (looks like the first tracker ever)
Pivotal is not so bad, but I think is best for issues tracking only (not project management, invoices etc)
Assembla.. very little experience, only for SVN
I know there are lots of discussions, the problem is that many people liked Redmine for some reasons that are totally opposite of my opinion.
I'm spending some time last 2 days to review most popular trackers, but with no success so far.
I'll try "Trac" now, but will be glad if someone share it's experience with this popular Trac problem - multiple projects. :)
Thanks!
I would suggest to take a look at assembla. It is not for SVN only - you can use git / svn / mercurial tools or even add external github tool.
Project management for assembla recently got much better (with implementation of Planner and Cardwall) and new improvements are planned.
If you track your hours in commit messages or web interface, it is very easy to export the working hours (to generate an invoice)
After some research I found needed software.
FengOffice seems to fit my requirements very well.
community version (free)
self hosted (2 minutes installation)
written on PHP
very good UI - I like the way it's organized, AJAX UI is very good implemented in this case
cool features
.. etc
I don't have more detailed impressions, but it looks really promising.
The current Trac version (1.0) does not natively provide multi-project support, although there is some discussion about that topic in the Trac wiki. But since Trac 0.12 there is a plugin SimpleMultiProjectPlugin that extends Trac with the feature 'multiple projects in one installed Trac instance'.
A good description of what that Trac plugin SimpleMultiProjectPlugin exactly provides can be read here or on the plugin wiki page (see link above).

How to manage project for free? [closed]

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I was asked to manage and develop a project. The client does not really care if I hire people who would do it or I do it myself. Thus, I've decided to be more manager than developer.
Are there any (free / low cost) web projects that could help me to communicate with each "sub-developer" outta there on Internet?
What I expect is to have similar project as basecamp, however sub-developers wouldn't know about each other because I would be communicator between them. It's possible that basecamp includes this kind of service, but I am not going to pay to every possible similar service to know this.
If you have some real-life experience with this kind of problem I'm about to encounter, please, write it here.
Thank you
As many open source projects found, trac is a good fit - lightweight project management with integrated subversion interface:
Trac is an enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects. Trac uses a minimalistic approach to web-based software project management. Our mission is to help developers write great software while staying out of the way. Trac should impose as little as possible on a team's established development process and policies.
It provides an interface to Subversion, an integrated Wiki and convenient reporting facilities.
Trac allows wiki markup in issue descriptions and commit messages, creating links and seamless references between bugs, tasks, changesets, files and wiki pages. A timeline shows all current and past project events in order, making the acquisition of an overview of the project and tracking progress very easy. The roadmap shows the road ahead, listing the upcoming milestones.
Both trac and subversion can be used from anywhere on the Web, using one of the free or low cost providers (for some references, see TracUsers).
I'd set up sharepoint if i were you. It's perfect for handling projects and talking to members. Also set up a couple of mailing-lists where you all can easily communicate.
Good Luck
I would suggest looking at Assembla, it has issue tracking, version control and Trac support all in it - and it's free.
It is possible that you can do this with the free version of AceProject.
There are quite a lot of software available to manage projects easily, here I'd suggest you to check out ProofHub - https://www.proofhub.com (heads up - I work there). It allows you to capture both the full picture and a detailed snapshot of your plans and progress. The Gantt charts and task management feature provide clear picture for you to understand what is being worked on and what needs to be done. You can track task dependencies on your Gantt chart to see the progress of your projects. Here's how it looks:
ProofHub Overview

PPM - Project Portfolio Management [closed]

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What is your company solution for PPM (managing projects, demands, timesheets, etc)? And what is your experience with it?
I'm trying to know about the tool prespective and not your company's particular business process.
Regards for you all!
Roadmap http://www.ppmroadmap.com/ takes the same, lightweight approach as Basecamp and applies it to PPM. In fact, Roadmap supports real-time integration with Basecamp. It's reasonably priced and easy to use.
In our company ms project standard is used for managing projects, demands, timesheets, etc.
I've used microsoft project gantt chart for project scheduling and tracking, it serves the purpose very well. You can download ms project trial version from microsoft website. You can get more details on ms project at this link.
We use Microsoft Great Plains, and hate it! We also use Siebel Service for defect tracking... and hate it!
A while back we implemented Mantis, an open source bug tracking tool for a small project that needed customers to access it (all our corporate apps are internal-access only). Mantis has been so successful we have 3 teams using it and resisting moving to using Siebel.
We also use dotProject for project management - its good, but I'm not sure its quite as good as more expensive Project tools.
So, my experience has been that the open source, web based tools are very good (eg OrangeHRM, WebERP, vTiger), very useable, (and free), and they do a perfectly good-enough job. The commerical apps can sometimes be complete pants.
For Visual Studio teams, Microsoft's Team Foundation Server is getting much better...2010 provides much more syncing and task hierarchical mgmt then 2008 and 2005 before, but still not a fully healthy PPM solution out of the box...if you have the skills, create an entire process template for your org and really get the power out of TFS. Kudos to msft for the 2010 version and the much improved MS Project 2010 product...I'm in the middle of evaluating this myself.
#task is awesome even in its standard edition suite - expensive, but allows total tracking, mgmt, dashboard, timesheet, doc mgmt, etc, etc, etc right out of the box on a SAAS model.
Basecamp has become the trendy adaptation to the PPM problem. I've used it some with clients, but would love to trial it for myself soon.
In our organization we use Microsoft Project 2010 for project portfolio management. It is used to gain visibility & control across all projects & teams, helps enhance decision-making, improves alignment with business strategy, helps maximize resource utilization and managing projects by enhancing project execution. Definitely recommend it.

Alternatives to MS project server [closed]

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I manage a small group and I'd keep my work breakdown in project. However, it's difficult to provide my team with an adequate view into the project and ability to report on their progress. I looked at MS Project Server (the sharepoint webpart) but it's an expensive proposition.
Has anyone had any experience with any other tool (commercial is fine) that helps team view and report on their work as managed by MS Project? FWIW, I have looked at OpenProj and it appears to be a decent solution for viewing project files on the desktop. Anything web-based, keeping in mind that I'd like people to report on their work not just view their work.
**A good web based hosted Project Management software that suits my EPM needs is called valleyspeak project server, which I found at www.valleyspeak.com. One of the main reasons why I like the software is the fact that I could continue to work in Microsoft Project 2007 while sharing my Microsoft Project plans with my teams.
Because it is a hosted service, I did not have to buy expensive software or deal with installation and maintenance headaches. The functionality that I have with valleyspeak to manage my geographically dispersed teams works well for me.**
Not exactly the tool rather technology, but i lately start reading about scrum and find it interesting and useful.
As "llya" suggested before maybe you should have a look at scrum as a methodology.
But on your question here you have some really good web-based alternatives:
acunote works pretty well also, and is web based and free for small teams.
The one I personally use trac
scrumworks
Here are a few open source apps to look at:
Joynet Connector
http://joyent.com/connector/
Clocking IT
http://www.clockingit.com/
RedMine
http://www.redmine.org/
You can host them your self, but the first two do offer hosted versions
Jason
You could try Work Bench.
Take a look at www.ibnportal.com
Take a look at Projec.to online Microsoft Project viewer. It allows to upload MS Project files (.mpp), view them online, and share with others via browser, apart from Microsoft Project.
Disclosure: I'm one of the developers of this service.
Daptiv might be worth a look. http://www.daptiv.com/
Try InTask Professional (www.intaskrnd.com) - fast, cheap, tons of features, multi-user multi project, frequent updates. really good piece of software. alternatively you can try basecamp but it's much more expensive...

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