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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.
https://asana.com/ is the most pleasant issue tracking software I've used.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll probably get down-modded for this, but Sharepoint is a pretty capable tool for issue tracking
I was working at a non-profit that used MS Office as their primary authoring tool
We were able to license Sharepoint for a pittance and decided to support it on an enterprise level
My group used Sharepoint lists to track all work in progress, publish white papers and best practices, and produce new website for the organization (via Sharepoint365)
I would suggest that they speak with their software rep for MS apps and see if they qualify for discounted Sharepoint pricing
If their It department is unable to turnaround enough boxes for a Sharepoint farm quickly, then look at using Sharepoiint365 to get up and running and produce demonstration sites for further buy in form all parties
If there are any developers in the organization, see if they have active MSDN licenses because they usually are allowed to build out Sharepoint365 sites withing that license for no additional cost
Wherever You Go, There You Are
If you get down modded it will be because your post is unrelated to the GP you replied to, likely just to end up higher on the page.