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Ask Slashdot: Issue Tracker For Non-Engineers?
purplie writes My non-technical spouse is an analyst in a small county government department, a handful of people plus some contractors for projects. Their project/task management is mouth-to-mouth, sticky notes, and emails, and it's driving them crazy. I want to suggest something like an issue tracker. It would have to work for tasks both large (year-long investigations) and small (arranging catering for a meeting). The issue trackers I'm familiar with are too software-development-oriented, or make too many assumptions about your 'agile' religion. Are there any good options for non-engineers? They use mainly Windows and have iPads. I don't like web-based tools, but that might work better for them because they don't have administrative privs on their machines. Something that also incorporates a wiki might be nice. There will be resistance if it's not really easy to use.
Redmine is pretty flexible and has worked for us across multiple disciplines.
https://asana.com/ is the most pleasant issue tracking software I've used.
Consider Trello. It's not strictly an issue tracker, but it's very good for this sort of thing and already popular outside of software circles.
Trello is easy to use
I'd recommend Atlassian Jira. It's quite flexible in its use. Not much more else to say past that. To my knowledge, it's used by everyone in my company, from devs to artists to audio engineers to business people.
https://basecamp.com/ (of Ruby on Rails fame)
It's not feature rich and that's what makes it simple. However, it's a good stepping stone to help you realize what you value in issue tracking software because you'll start realizing what your organization is missing like full-text search, prioritizing, status fields, etc. and you'll start compiling a list of requirements for evaluating your next issue tracking software if and when you outgrow Basecamp.
Trello.com
Intuitive. Web-based. Supports groups. Can get very detailed (charts of progress, etc), or kept incredibly simple (task lists).
I have used Trello for the coordination of issues for a large-ish project with coders, project managers, and general business people, it works well, very drag-and-drop-y, nice card metaphor.
JIRA is still the best option in my book. Also be sure to check out the Service Desk version of the software!
https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/service-desk
Maybe frequent contributor Bennett Haselton can chime in with a thorough review of common trackers?
set up spreadsheets for each issue and use the cells to track progress
Our Manufacturing Engineering department has over 20 Named technician users and uses Track-It! to do exactly what you're asking. They love it to death. It's expensive costing 500 USD per Named technician license (perpetual though) and an initial base fee of 1000-2000 USD for Track-It! itself. The IT department also uses their own Track-It! installation as well. It's great for reporting (with customizable reports using an included license to Crystal Reports), asset tracking, ticketing (with the ability to "assign" tickets to others, set due dates, expected completion dates, time monitoring, custom fields, etc), training courses and history, and more.
I will not name this Company, but we have manufacturing plants in several foreign countries.
You may want to consider kayako, not free but relatively feature complete, and has a wiki, meant for trouble ticketing and helpdesk type situations, so may be a decent fit. it is web based and runs on an AMP (Apache MySQL PHP) software stack,
Your solution has to work on Windows and iPads, but you'd rather not use a web-based product? I guess it's possible an app that does what you want with robust Windows and iOS clients exists, but I wouldn't count on the "robust" part if I were a betting man. That's coming from someone who runs Outlook an a Mac, so I'm admittedly jaded when it comes to claims of cross-platform compatibility.
I've used Redmine in the past. Web-based, open source, pretty easy to use. Some of my colleagues hate it, so YMMV, but worth a look.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
You don't want issue tracking - you want task scheduling and task completion methodologies. The non-engineer have schedules to fulfill which are usually not associated with a deliverable but a task. If there's no deliverable, there's no bug, no feature, i.e. no ISSUE. So tracking issues loses the focus. Issues aren't always tasks in trackers and that's why those are so tied to code, since they mold issues to whatever a release date/agile software development needs.
Unlike issues, tasks always translate to effective actions to undertake someplace, sometime, with someone, for whatever reason.
Post-its are still used nowadays because they do their job representing tasks, and their physical form, order or the fact it is in the trash can imply its relevance, priority, date/time-frame and status. Tell her to keep using tools she's comfortable with, but customize a variation of KANBAN for her team's specific needs. And then maybe decide if a web platform or a physical board make more sense in her context, and the learning curve is acceptable. Post-its + a board or Trello are a good place to start.
We use these at work and they tie in together nicely. Jira= issue tracker, Confluence= wiki
I'm not crazy about them but they get the job done.
RT is very flexible, though there's a bit of admin overhead to get everything set the way you want it. Email integration works well, and on the user side, it is quite easy to use.
https://www.bestpractical.com/rt/
Well, there's project management, like Microsoft Project, and then there are issue tracking tools - my favorite is OSTicket (http://osticket.com). Web based - easy (for Linux users) to setup and simple for end-users to use, and it's free.
OpenAtrium is an open-source intranet-in-a-box, its v2.0 version making use of Responsive Design to support all devices, and includes calendaring, an excellent issue tracker, RSS reader/publisher, and can be customized for all kinds of unique purposes (or not).
www.openatrium.com
It is the issue tracker used by the current White House for its issue tracking and collaboration purposes.
http://www.kavehmoravej.com/bl...
https://developmentseed.org/bl...
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Requires some technical knowledge to setup, but it's great for non-technical audiences trying to do project management.
https://www.openproject.org/
We use Jira at work, it has a nice amount of different plugins for boards. So it's not just a tracker for software. Great when used properly, but needs some training from an educated person who's done it before.
I've successfully managed to trick a bunch of psychologists into using redmine for issues management. These guys are the epitome of non-techies.
Jira, you don't like web tools why? You didn't say why, I assume its the crappy interface but Jira's interface is pretty good. Used it several times on several projects.
https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/
Maybe something like Tracks
or any of the other pre-packaged issue trackers from turnkeylinux.org
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
Give Jira a look over, it might lean a bit more to developer mind set, but is one of the best issue/task tracking systems I have used. Atlassian also makes additonal products that are just a good, the in app help system is very good, and their user support is great very helpful.
They have a low cost 10 users for $10 bucks, which is full featured and not a water down demo version. The products are offered either on-prem or hosted.
There are already a lot of suggestions for which particular package to use, so I'll contribute my thoughts.
I've used RT. It worked.
The main feature that helped me move my (financial services) office from word-of-mouth to proper tracking is that RT supported submitting issues by email. We already used internal email extensively for other workflows, so it was easy for me to convince people to send an email to <project>@tracking.<domain>, and they'd get an emailed response showing the ticket number and a link where they could follow the progress.
RT let me run different projects (which in my case usually meant only 1-3 people) separately, and each project had nice charts showing how many open issues they had to work on. Managers loved that, because they could see who was overloaded and by how much. Each user was also able to create their own dashboard to display when they logged in, so they could get a to-do list first thing in the morning.
For each project, I could modify what information was needed when a ticket was created. Almost the entire ticket form was customizable, so that was adapted to the project needs. For our financial advisors, they had simple forms with a customer name and a description field. Traders had buy and sell forms with security symbols, amounts, account numbers, et cetera.
I haven't been in a position to manage very many trackers, so maybe these features are standard-issue. Maybe something else will work for you, but like it said, RT worked for my needs.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Around these parts the county uses Numara FootPrints for just about everything, from IT issues to infrastructure projects.
https://www.drupal.org
https://www.drupal.org/project/pm
Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
Trello is a nice tool and I used it with a group for a while. For my new projects I use asana. It has mobile apps and a very easy to use web interface. It is essentially lists (goals, evaluations, etc) with discussion attached. I find it easier to work with than trello when you have more than just a few projects for the group. I haven't tried trello in a year or so, maybe the higher level organization is better now. Asana is free for small teams (15?).
My company uses Jira to track issue, both technical and nontechnical. It is very flexible and customizable.
in a similar situation and i was liking the setup of roundup - anyone have any stories about that one?
I personally like Trello which is what is being used in Stack Exchange (makers of Stack Overflow and its ilk) http://blog.stackoverflow.com/...
We are an online company: we’ve been remote from day one and still to this day over half of the team (aside from sales) works from home. The only way to make that work is to keep the nexus of activity online: in chat rooms, Google Hangouts, Trello boards, etc. This keeps everyone on equal footing, whether you’re in the office or working from home.
The article was the one that introduced me to the tool and I am impressed by it. Though it still needs some explanation of how to use it. I suggest you look at Kanban but don't mention it as a methodology etc... just explain how to group the work and be done with it.
Archie - CIO-for-hire
It's not really an issue tracker, but I use it for tracking issues and features during build cycles.
It's *super* easy to set up and add items.
Basecamp! https://basecamp.com/
There's an interesting analogy in Stack Exchange, the offshoot of Stack Overflow. While many Stack Exchange sites exist for a wide ranging array of topics (physics, electrical engineering, statistics, parenting, etc.), I've found that the others basically don't work. The questions often don't get answered since the community is way smaller than Stack Overflow, and they are often answered in unhelpful ways with opinions rather than expert suggestions. I think non-engineering tickets would linger for too long, lack widespread adoption, and be 'resolved' with wishy washy opinions.
In short, I don't think it would work! Engineers are a special breed.
Have her try Scrumy (scrumy.com) It's a simple web scrum based issue tracker. Very simple and she can set up a free project space to test without buying.
Happy wife happy life? Or whatever the gender neutral version of that saying is.
Depending on exactly what the needs are, I'd recommend looking at both project management software and software aimed at helpdesk sorts of things. Google for those, and you'll find an endless list. On the project management side, you'll find things like Trello, Asana, and Basecamp. For helpdesk-related things, you might look at things like Desk.com, Zendesk, or Autotask.
On both of those fronts, there are tons and tons of competing services. There's not really a "best" solution as much as "the one that gives me the features I want at a good price." There are also some open source options if you want to host your own.
Because his wife is involved and anything making more productive and less stressed is good for him. Plus, there the chance of more sex if that is achieved. So quit hating and help a brother get laid.
Check spicworks.com it is a Ticket tracking system and free to use.
asdf
It varies from organization to organization. As such, solutions need to align with both the workflow and tasks. You've described the tasks, but not the structures of the workflow. It sounds as if both are very broad and ad-hoc.
I'd start by forming an inventory of tasks and who does them, followed by modeling the data inputs and outputs that drive the (currently undefined and unspecified) processes in the organization and then move on to the processes. After you have a handle about the range of these items, you map the workflows, processes, tasks, and data associated with the same into whatever system you use to base your management. At least that's how you'd do it "right" . And you do know that people get paid for this sort of thing, mkay? My rates are somewhere between $175-250/hr. for this sort of thing (because it's fucking boring).
Or, not wanting to do heavy lifting? Use someting VERY general - suggestions for Trello and/or spreadsheet sound OK for this sort of thing, especially if the documentation load is low.
Or you can Ask Slashdot - the lazy geek's choice for finding misinformation.
That is all.
We've been using Plain Ticket for some time, and it might just fit the bill for your needs. It's generic, meaning it's not sotware-development oriented, you can customize it to have as many projects, or categories as they call it, and the web app is usable on desktops and mobile devices. The system also integrates outgoing and incoming email, meaning you can create and follow issues by sending emails to the system directly.
They're located at: plainticket.net, and they provide a free-trial, you could give it a shot.
My first semester under my university's co-op program I was a human issue tracker. People would contact me with issues and I would track them in an excel spreadsheet. I would then follow up with various stake holders to track the progress on each item.
Thinking back on it, it was strange. I spent my college internship acting as a manager...
Depending on the volume of issues, this doesn't have to be a full time job. One person just needs to be the point of contact, document, and follow up on the items.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Have to say M$ SharePoint is fantastic from the user perspective for things like this, though from an administrative perspective it's a nightmare, so finding something SaS may be a better idea. Hosted SP via Ofice365 may fit the bill.
Example here of SP issue tracking: http://www.lynda.com/articles/sharepoint-issue-tracking-app
Personally I'm fond of Jira, but I don't think it fits your requirements.
I use MavenLink to track projects for non programmers (artists on m games, mostly). It's pretty straightforward--you pay a monthly fee per user.
ralphbarbagallo.com
That said - most engineering organizations have documented a process and adapted one of many tools to support this process. Sounds like in this case they don't even know what the process is - heck, everyone probably does their own thing so there is likely to not even be a process.
Try this
Step 1: Determine how you want issue tracking to work
Step 2: Get everyone to follow this process without bringing in a tool, your process will change during this step
Step 3: Document the final process from Step 2
Step 4: Bring in any tool that can be lightly customized to support the documented process
Note the hopefully lightly customized part above... Yes there is probably work to do here, regardless of what tool you choose. Most likely you want to pay for the tool that will require the easiest/lightest customization - it will be cheaper than trying to get a tool for free and using a small team to massively customize it.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Something that also incorporates a wiki might be nice.
Jira and Confluence integrate well, and have the support of a company and large installed base behind them for future development.
There will be resistance if it's not really easy to use.
Joel Spolsky also made a point about formal issue tracker adoption, in that it doesn't have to be all or nothing (Strategy 2) from the get-go.
I actually just implemented Trac at the company I am with. They were in a similar state for their issue tracking (mouth, emails, sticky note, short bursts of development with potentially very long intervals between software releases). I did a little research and ended up with Trac http://trac.edgewall.org/ It comes with a wiki, issue tracking, integrated source control (if you want it), easy searching/reports, plugins, SVN plugin, and it's open source. It is a web-based system so keep that in mind.
/. the same question months ago before I landed on Trac. Hope this helps. Good luck!
Installation was easy as well. You can set up yourself (perl, apache, mysql, etc.) Or you can use Bitnami to install a fresh instance https://bitnami.com/stack/trac... there is plenty of documentation to get an instance installed and configured fairly easily. For non-techies the Bitnami installation is huge because "out of the box" it works fairly well. Configuring will take a little know how but once that is done it's smooth sailing.
We just released it to a wider audience of our customers and the feedback has been well received. It took a little time for me to setup but within a few days it was up and running behind SSL and authenticated to our active directory with LDAP. Anyone on our network can easily log in and the permissions are set up as a per project basis (each user is assigned to a project group that can view/edit wiki,tickets of their associated project group).
It has only been a short time since we released it so there still might be some growing pains but it so far has help us get away from change requests in word documents and email.
Funny enough, I was about to ask
I have used python based 'Trac'. Bitnami Trac is an easy to install distribution of it:https://bitnami.com/stack/trac.
I like Fossil for small projects. Includes tickets and a wiki as well as version control. I don't know how accessible it would be on an iPad but I've played with the Android version a bit. http://fossil-scm.org/index.ht...
I always use and recommend QuickBase for ad-hoc tracking solutions. It is both simple and powerful. It is not free but has a free trial for you to try. It is web-based / SaaS but honestly I would not go any other way in your case. This greatly simplifies management and support, and generally supports any platform (windows, ipad, etc) that has a modern web browser. I have also heard good things about Base Camp, another web-based solution.
mouth-to-mouth?
With tongue? With good-looking females? Can I work there?
Only I can judge you.
I was at Cisco when a group of coworkers tried to implement an email-based ticketing system where the resulting email thread becomes the ticket. A full-featured ticketing system would take up too much time from what little time they had. They never got it to work properly and went back to regular emails to track issues..
When I mentioned this incident to recruiters, they couldn't wrap their minds around the idea that an email-based ticketing system could save more time than using a full-featured ticketing system. These people never had to wait for Remedy to recover from a network pause or a crash. I gave up trying to explain this to them and stopped mentioning it in my interviews.
Setup a synology server and use the community app OS ticket. that would be the easiest thing to do. If you want to go cheaper then setup your own Xpenology server with the same OS ticket.
My group utilizes LiquidPlanner, been on it for the past 2 years. Their support is responsive and it seems to scale well. Good email notifications, dashboards, task tracking, and dependency linking.
I've had luck with Basecamp in the past.
https://basecamp.com/
Happy spouse, happy house?
Happy wife happy life? Or whatever the gender neutral version of that saying is.
There is no gender neutral version. Men don't have PMS, and don't feel a need to make everyone around them just as miserable as they are.
We use Tom's Planner (tomsplanner.com) for our software development scheduling - might want to look at it. Yeah, it's web, but it's pretty easy & might do what you need.
Muad Dib
I've been using Allthing.io for a while as a bug tracker and it works pretty well. It's a bit more like a personal organiser you can share than a dedicated bug tracker. Easy enough to use.
Well, why not? If you want to cover that kind of diversity in platforms, you are going to be using a web tool...
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Github's issue tracking system is damn good, and you can give it a fairly simple, configurable interface via Huboard. Set up an empty private github repo (private repos are not free but they're very affordable) for your issues, get a huboard (also not free, also cheap-as-chips) account, and away you go.
I know, I know, you said 'non engineers', and you think I'm mocking you, but that's not the case. While it's true that I'm using this solution to track issues for a technical project (and git repo), I've had a couple of fairly non-technical people lodging issues via huboard without problems for over a year now. It just works, and it's damn easy.
One awesome side-effect is that since it's tracking github issues, you can also use github's issue tracker if you are a technical person, so e.g executive level people tend to use the huboard interface (or they reply to the emails they get from github), and I tend to use the github interface. Everybody is happy with it.
I don't know all the details about your specific needs but I think that huboard is probably configurable enough that you could make it work for you. I would certainly recommend at least checking this combination out - it's cheap and works well. If you contact huboard they might even give you a free trial so that you can properly check it out, or it might even be free for public github repos, I forget exact details. But the huboard guy was very reasonable to deal with in my experience when I set it up.
emails, thats all. its a rough world in realxz
Sifter is simple, no nonsense issue tracking with unlimited users. I've used Trello (not very good for issue tracking, or conversation threads) Basecamp (a piece) and Sifter has been the one I stuck with.
Simple interface, alarms for tasks. I use it in my dental office.
Request Tracker by Best Practical is quite powerful, although it can be a real pain in the butt to get installed due to Perl.
https://www.bestpractical.com/...
Roundup is probably the best today - not too complicated, only a couple concepts to remember - handles Web, Email, Command line submissions and searching. http://roundup-tracker.org/docs/features.html (very customizable, python based)
OneAndZero in the golden GPL days, best web user interface - but like all things "they had to improve and commercialize it" the new versions are awful. Most people run screaming with their hair on fire from it now.. and the people prying version 1.8 from their cooling almost dead hands.. are back on Oxygen and lifesupport.. there is life "After" OneAndZero
Notecards and a recipe box are unbeatable. Super low cost, near infinite storage capability.... can backup with a copier or scanner if you simply must have an electronic copy after the task is completed.
cheap, durable, easy to use... and no silly PC mucking up the works.... so no OS decisions and don't have to worry about becoming obsolete... even if they change the card size.... you just buy a different size box.
This sysadmin put one together for his users.
If they don't feel the need, then why do they do it anyway?
TaskBoard
Taiga (leaning towards lightweight project management/"scrummish" stuff)
PinItToMe
TeamBins
Loomio (decision making tool)
There are a few more, but these are the ones that come to mind.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
My experience is that it doesn't matter how easy a tool is to use for non-techies. The most important thing is to get everyone on the same boat. Everyone who is involved in this small company needs to be open to change. Most tools that are proposed above will work, but the biggest problem will be educating the people who will have to use the tool. Not only a one time education, but also a couple of full time coaches (people from the company) who keep on insisting on using the new workflow, who can give advise on how to use some features.
Even non-techies are able to learn to use complicated tools. But just 'give' them the most efficient, user-friendly, time saving software system, and they will refuse to use it because it's change. Education and a full time follow up for the next weeks/months so you are sure that everyone is using the software is they key to get success with your system.
It's like those people who double click on links or use the search bar to look up Google, type over text from websites instead of copy / paste, it's not more efficient, but they will not change their behavior.
Now who said governmental analysts were boring? Perhaps this explains why nothing ever gets done? Personally, I prefer mouth to ear communications and will even settle for word-of-mouth, but whatever floats your boat...
I implemented youtrack (https://www.jetbrains.com/youtrack/) about 2.5 years ago at the furniture manufacture where I work to manage many different processes within the company. It's easy to get started, customize, and introduce to non-engineers because it's web-based. I highly recommend it.
I've used LeanKit before for basic workflow tracking. I was too cheap to pay for premium features though.
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/
Software is like sex. It's best when it's free.
I recommend Trac also. Have used it for multiple projects for years. Haven't used it with mobile devices though, so can't comment on that. Probably works just fine.
Only someone on slashdot could make speaking to another human being sound so horrible.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
We just use a google spreadsheet or a normal spreadsheet on a NAS to track issues at my work. Issues number, issue title, desciption, status, personal responsible, etc...