|
Open-source project collaboration tools still face challenges in functionality and usability, but they do offer a number of useful features and can meet many basic collaboration needs, depending on the project and organization. Here’s a roundup of several open-source collaboration suites to consider. As organizations initiate large-scale projects across diverse teams or outsource work to overseas suppliers, the need for collaboration increases. Project collaboration software helps distributed project teams work together by accessing a single repository of information. The collaboration domain includes a wide variety of features from document management, workflow, instant messaging and project management. Project collaboration software supports file sharing, schedule management, issues discussion, and financial tracking.
Without project collaboration software, project managers must rely on email and static websites to share project information. The interaction is a one-way street, and it doesn’t allow team members to interact or update the project. Collaboration software improves the project management experience by supporting two-way communication and information-sharing between team members. Common project collaboration suites provide document management, discussion boards, project calendars, and task assignments. Project sponsors can access the collaboration software to determine the project status and project team members can view assigned tasks and provide updates without relying on status meetings or email.
Since the collaboration domain includes a wide variety of tools, it can be difficult selecting a specific package. Commercial software vendors also bundle collaboration, workflow and project portfolio management modules into similar offerings. Documentum's eRoom, for example, can be used for basic content management or it can be used to support team member collaboration with document version control, polls, team calendars and threaded discussions. Other project management collaboration suites include MS-Project 2003 Server with Project Web Access, Niku Clarity, and Vignette Project Delivery.
This article focuses on specific open-source project management collaboration suites that aid project management processes. Open-Source adopters will find over a dozen project management collaboration tools. dotProject, phpGroupWare, Project/Open and phpCollab are just a few of the open-source tools available. Table 1 lists common open-source solutions and related links. An extensive list of open-source and commercial collaboration packages can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collaborative_softwareOpen-Source Product | Links | dotProject | http://www.dotproject.net/ | phpGroupWare | | Project/Open | | phpCollab | | iTeamwork | | Horde | http://www.horde.org/ | phpProjekt | | WebCollab | http://webcollab.sourceforge.net/ | Tutos | |
Table 1: Open-Source Project Collaboration Software
dotProject is a leading open-source project collaboration suite. dotProject supports multiple companies and related projects. Tasks are entered against projects and appear in the project’s Gantt chart. A project calendar keeps track of key events, milestones and the occasional team picnic.
The file and contact management in addition to the forum and a trouble ticket support system make dotProject a worthwhile project management suite. Issue, risk, and change management can be supported using dotProject’s trouble ticket management component. dotProject’s provides better usability than its peers and the overall look and feel provides an intuitive view of the project data instead of loosely coupled tools found in other packages.
phpGroupware includes a project management module that tracks projects and jobs at a high level. Individuals can record time against jobs within a project and track overall project costs. phpGroupware supports a team calendar, address book, online chat, discussion forums, to-do lists, and file management. Similar to dotProject, phpGroupware includes a trouble ticket system that can be configured for issue, risk and change management categories. phpGroupware also includes different themes based on the user preferences. The "idots" theme is one of the more user-friendly themes that users can select to navigate the various modules.
Consulting organizations and advertising agencies should consider the Project/Open suite of project collaboration packages. Project/Open is an open-source project management system that provides several solutions for consulting companies, advertising agencies, and language translation organizations. The company provides 80 to 90 percent of the common project management tasks found in corporate enterprise resource package systems.
Project/Open provides collaboration, discussion forums, file storage, customer relationship management, timesheet management, project accounting, human resource management, and a variety of reports. Project managers, consultants, and senior managers have access to different views of the data. An individual can view all the hours billed to a specific project and project managers can view time spent by all the project team members. The screen design isn’t as flexible as dotProject or phpGroupware, however, the project portfolio management and human resource potential make Project/Open worth consideration.
phpCollab is scaled down project management collaboration solution. The modules are displayed as a simple list with collapsing menus. Projects, tasks, discussions, team members, file management, and notes are support in the tool. Gantt charts are not easily viewed unless a report is generated. Teams seeking basic project collaboration with a low learning curve will find phpCollab useful. Projects with greater complexity will benefit from more advanced open-source project collaboration solutions.
Some organizations may not want to implement a full open-source project collaboration solution. Horde provides a variety of individual tools for specific project management function. Horde’s Kronolith calendar provides a web-based calendar for users and groups to read, create or edit existing entries. Mnemo is a note manager that allows users and workgroups to share or store private notes. Nag is a multi-user task list that can be shared with multiple teams. Trean is a website bookmark manager that can be used to store key project links for project team members to reference. Finally, Truba is the address and contact management system that links into an existing company directory.
Open-Source Choices and Challenges
With over a dozen open-source collaboration packages available, selecting one for a specific project can be a project in itself. Evaluating and selecting an open-source package is similar to commercial software package selection without the marketing vaporware. Measuring the organization's project management requirements against each packages' modules will help narrow the list of candidates.
Perspective users can test drive some of the open-source solutions at http://www.opensourcecms.com. Opensourcecms.com allows users to try the open-source software before the users download and install the solution within their company. The project collaboration tools are located in the Groupware folder in the CMS Demo Menu.The open-source project collaboration tools still face challenges in functionality and usability. In order to successfully manage large-scale projects, open-source tools need to provide better integration with project scheduling tools like MS-Project or Open Workbench. Building a work breakdown structure using a website is painfully slow compared to desktop scheduling tools.
All the open-source packages reviewed lacked any dedicated issue, risk, or change management modules. The packages provided trouble ticket modules and forum discussion boards that can be used to support some of these processes. However, commercial project management collaboration tools already incorporate these features into their product. The open-source community will need to address these gaps if they are expected to effectively compete with commercial project collaboration software.
Depending on the project and company, an open-source project collaboration suite may be a perfect fit. Other organizations will favor commercial software packages based on their needs. Project managers are encouraged to experiment with these open-source technologies and determine which products best supports their project management needs. The majority of open-source collaboration tools provide a demonstration site to help perspective users in their evaluation. Open-source adopters are encouraged to visit the sites listed above and take a test drive of the latest features open-source has to offer.
This article was written by Andy Makar and originally published at Projects@Work
|
