Slashdot Mirror

If you can afford it, Jira and WIki from Atlassian (Confluence) are the best out there. If not, i would go with Redmine or Trello. You should also give asana a try. Here's a list that will guide you through what's out there: Freedcamp - Free - https://freedcamp.com/ - Online, doesn't log time directly on the task Velocity - Free and Paid - http://velocity.pm/ (Online) Time Tracking Brigthpod - Free (2 Projects) Paid - http://www.brightpod.com/ - Specify tasks, log work Asana - Free and Paid - https://asana.com/ (Online) - Doesn't log work Moovia - Free (2 members) and Paid - https://site.moovia.com/ (Online) Time tracking, Does not specify tasks Producteev - Free and Paid - https://www.producteev.com/ - Online, Does not specify tasks, doesn't log work Stepsie - Free - http://www.stepsie.com/ - Online, Does not specify tasks, doesn't log work Trello - Free - https://trello.com/ **** SELF HOST Redmine - Free - http://www.redmine.org/ Projects, wiki, issues Chili Project - Fork of Redmine Basecamp - close source - user friendly Open atrium (drupal) - not good issue tracking Collabtive - http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/ Kforge - https://pypi.python.org/pypi/k... ClockingIT - http://wiki.clockingit.com/ Assembla (SaaS Agile) Harvest (SaaS User Friendly) FreshBooks (SaaS) - Not open source - Time tracking invoicing Project Pier - Free - http://www.projectpier.org/ Trac - Free - http://trac.edgewall.org/ 2 plan - Free - http://2-plan.com/ MyCollab - Free - http://community.mycollab.com/... (Self hosted) Manage Yor Team - http://www.manageyourteam.net/ (Self hostes) Kanboard - Free - http://kanboard.net/ (light and self hosted) ProjecQtor - Free - http://www.projeqtor.org/ Task Coach - Free - http://taskcoach.org/ Task Juggler - Free - http://www.taskjuggler.org/ DotProject - Free - http://www.dotproject.net/ Project.net - Free - http://sourceforge.net/project... GanttProject (like MS Project) - Free - http://www.ganttproject.biz/ OpenWorkBench - Free - http://sourceforge.net/project... Codendi - Paid - http://www.codendi.com/ Egroupware 2014 - Paid - http://www.egroupware.org/star... - Atlassian Confluence and Jira - Trial and Paid Britix24 - Trial and Paid - http://www.bitrix24.com/ ProofHub - Trial and Paid - https://www.proofhub.com/ iCoordinator - Paid - http://www.icoordinator.com/en... FengOffice (like MS Project) - Trial and Paid - http://www.fengoffice.com/web/ Bugzilla - Bug tracking Mantis - Bug tracking *** Task Management Task Freak! - http://www.taskfreak.com/

Have a look at:
Open Workbench
http://www.openworkbench.org/

Dotproject.net
http://www.dotproject.net/

Also, a plug for dotproject. Works very well for project managing. Your phb will love the gantt charts too. It's browser based, so you don't need to get roped into special client-side software (Korganizer, Gnome, etc).

I use dotProject: http://dotproject.net/

It's not exactly an application or linux only, as it is a web app, but it is free and open source. And it allows many users to input into a process. Currently our project manager manages everything with MS Project using some of its features. This type of product allows managers (or at least in our case) to offload some of the updating to the workers since they can log their own progress.

I've used a few other web app managers but dotProject seemed to have the most features. Not exactly a piece of cake to configure, but it is quite powerful.

Not too sure what your requirements mean to you, but dotProject (http://www.dotproject.net/) has good task separation for multiple clients. It's really project management software so you may find the ticket tracking a little weak, but it's functional enough for many tasks. Tasks are assigned to projects and project are assigned to companies, but tickets are assigned to users. It does track time usage and billing rates and you can attach documents to tasks and create task logs. I think it's pretty slick, though development seems a little slow. The interface is also a little 'quirky' until you grok the flow.

It seems to me that the poster might benefit more from a project management system than a trouble ticketing system. I'd see if dotProject would do the trick. It does have a rudimentary ticketing module to assist interaction with customers, too - FWIW.

checkout http://www.dotproject.net/ while basic tracking can be accomplished with a pencil and paper if you wish to use a tool, then you might as well consider this opensource php based product. It's easy to use, not intrusive, so you can focus on programming and if you get in the habit of using it you end up with a nice trail of documents and notes which might come in handy. Works best for me when i have to juggle a few projects and don't want to lose track of where I left off on anything. -ali

dotProject is pretty good. Allows you to filter the display of entries, and if you'd combine that with a few user accounts that have access to each other's stuff it'd probably do the trick.

Check out dotProject. I just found it the other day, seems quite powerful. Plus it's free. :)

I've been dealing with a similar problem and came across dotproject, which looks like it would fit your needs. Allows for tracking companies (internal and external), projects, tasks, files, tickets, contacts and has a calendar.

http://www.dotproject.net/

Features Include

* User Management
* Email based trouble Ticket System, (Integrated voxel.net's ticketsmith)
* Client/Company Management
* Project listings
* Hierarchical Task List
* File Repository
* Contact List
* Calendar
* Discussion Forum
* Resource Based Permissions

I evaluated dotproject not too long ago. The initative to implement it at my company got sidetracked, so I can't comment on actual usage.

It's on sourceforge and at http://www.dotproject.net/

I looked at dotproject for a while. Never used it in a real world setting, but others have.

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

I think that you could have managed yourself better. I work for a company that is growing rapidly. So, we get new VPs all the time who do the same thing. I operate under the philosophy that as the head of (or the entire) IT department, I need to manage my department too - not just the tasks given to me. If people are asking about the status of projects constantly, set up a project management web site such as this one (it's the one I use). If they don't want to look at the pretty Gantt chart on the web, print it out every morning so that you can just hand it to them.

Sure, this kind of stuff takes time, but IT is a service to the other departments (we don't make money for the company, we make efficiencies for the departments), so you must act like everybody is the customer. If the customer demands frequent status reports, then that's what the customer gets. You will slow down because of this, but you are actually making yourself look more professional, and the customer will be happier.

If you start getting backed up, simply say, "if you want that done in the requested amount of time, I'll need to hire an employee to help me out." Trust me, I grew a 1-person IT department to a nearly 10 person IT department in two years. We'll be adding another soon.

I just got done installing dotproject open-source groupware for Opera Columbus. After some tough negotitation, I won the contract (no contract really, they just hired me). They already have hosting with another provider. The provider wanted X to developed web-based project management; I serisouly undercut them with an application suite that was already ready. I had to do some user training, but that's about it for the hard part.

What I recommend is taking very little of your $1000, buy some cheap web hosting, and setting up some open source groupware. Spend a little bit more of that $1000 on printing manuals or throwing together a nice presentation -- charts and graphs, with binders, etc. Physical things, such as paper, will show people that you have an investment in what you are doing, and aren't just talking. They will have it to refer to later when they can't remember what you said. It shows stability and lastingness, that you will be there.

Be selective with the open sources packages, find the stuff that's 1. finished, 2. polished, and 3. easy to use for a non-techie. I highly recommend dotproject; the only problem is that it lacks printing.

Then, setup free demo accounts for users. Give them 30 or 60 day trials. Expect to spend some time training. Offer to do the initial setup, such as user accounts, etc. The people who use it and like it will gladly pay for the setup.
You can charge either
1. recurring fees for stuff you host. If you chose this, be prepared to go the extra mile for support when the thing crashes in the middle of the night.
- or -
2. a larger, one-time setup fee for setting it up on their hosting providers. Be sure to specify rates for future support of the application if you do a 1x set up fee. Here is where you clean up when they need you.

Pick a minimum price you want, and always present something higher. That gives you room to negotiate. Geeks hate negotitaion, business people love it. Be prepared for it. Be prepared to walk away from deals where they want too much; those people are users and they will expect you to work for them 24/7 for way too little money. It's just not worth it.

It's a little overkill for my shop of 5 (we use dotproject instead), but DCL is a pretty powerful web-based project/ticket management system with nice reports.

http://dcl.sourceforge.net/

PS If anyone knows an OSS MS Project replacement that can do all this stuff, please speak up. I've been dying to replace it for ages, but it's a really good fit for this particular problem space

DotProject is almost there, still in beta tho but ive been using it for a few weeks and its perfectly usable.

For the "Screen Savers" crowd (and I watch, so I don't mean that to sound condescending), most of these suggestions aren't gonna cut it. You're talking about people who are (A) primarily Windows users, (B) not sysadmins for a living, and (C) are generally of the "weekend techie" variety. Sure, they have Palm Pilots, they may crank out some HTML for their personal web page, and they may even hack together a little "My Grateful Dead Tapes" database in Access or FileMakerPro. But Mastering Regular Expressions? Linux Admin Black Book? Show them only the CLI? I think Chris is smarter than that.

These aren't all people who are going to compile their own kernel or debate the merits of different file systems over their beer (though some are in that crowd)... taking the usual l33tist attitude of "You don't need no steenkin' GUI, just build from source using the command line" approach is going to turn people off and drive them away -- defeating the purpose of "spreading the word".

In terms of books to recommend, take a look at Linux for Windows Addicts or Add Red Hat Linux to Your Windows Desktop In A Weekend. I've not looked over the latter in person, but the "Addicts" book is one that I read through myself a year or so ago when I wanted to start doing Linux development (after developing Win32 software for several years). It's great for taking general desktop/workstation concepts and tasks you know from the Windows world and explaining how they work or are dealt with in the Linux world. For me, it took me past the initial hurdle after installing Red Hat, firing up Gnome, and thinking "Where to next?".

As for OSS, in general... find some useful apps or utilities, ones that would "show well" on television, and highlight them. Evolution (an Outlook clone) is an easy choice. Churn through SourceForge for others... some that come to mind are the Horde project (web-based PIM, mail client, and more), or dotProject (web-based project management and collaboration tool). There's no shortage of these types of things that could be set up inside of an hour or two, show well visually, and show the useful and usable stuff that's out there in the OSS world.