PHP Collab
Fantastic web-based project management tool (a tip of the fur-lined toque to Evan for pointing me in this direction).
I cannot stress enough how good this application is. Don't be put off by the bad webpage that it is hosted at (it basically just uses phpBB forum software for the entire site) -- if you are looking for a web-based project management tool, this is it.
It's a PHP application that runs on Apache or IIS plus a database -- currently your choice of MySQL, PostgresSQL, or MS SQL Server. It is designed for a single company to manage multiple projects and clients, even including the ability to assign tasks to clients.
Email notifications keep everyone up to date, project managers will drool over automatic generation of Gantt charts, and innovative features like exporting projects to CSV files, exporting contacts to vCard, and calendar items as vCal -- the feature list keeps going and going.
And -- it even looks nice. You've got a "home" page where sections such as "My Projects", "My Tasks", etc. gather all the information specific to you in one place. A bookmarks section allows you to share URLs, or mark them as private and only share them with a select view.
For programming applications, it integrates with the Mantis bug-tracking tool.
Comments
Updates
does anyone know how to get phpcollab to send out updates on projects at the end of each day?
vacation tracking?
anyone knows how phpcollab tracks employee planned vacations? can there be an employee view and various group views of planned vacations?
Not so great
The shared calendar of phpCollab is really not that great. It is very much designed for project management, not more general calendaring.
Of course, I haven't used some of the newer versions, so YMMV.
dotProject
How does phpCollab compare with dotProject (www.dotproject.net)?
They have a lot of interesting project management features too (project and task management, events, contact lists, forums, etc). It is also Apache and PHP/MySQL(or postgreSQL) driven, and has GNATT charting.
GNATT ?
I think you mean GANTT ;-)
Farther along
Everything you listed is also available in phpCollab, except that phpCollab also works on IIS and MS SQL. phpCollab is much farther along than dotProject, after looking through the dotProject demo (disclaimer: I am now involved in helping with documentation and development of an invoicing module for phpCollab). The demo seems very slow...
One thing that really stands out for phpCollab is its ability to generate "project websites". Every project has an associated client organization, which in turn has "client users" associated with it. The project owner can selectively give access to certain client users, who can even be assigned tasks. What appears on the project website is controlled by a "publish" flag, which allows only selective items to appear for the client.
Rather than "resource" permissions, phpCollab follows a model of role-based permission. This seems to make more sense from a project management point of view.
Hope that helps. At some point, I'll get around to installing all of the PM-focused tools and doing a full review. My initial survey pointed to phpCollab as the best, especially with recommendations from other users.
further along ..... my thoughts
While some of the integration is further along in phpCollab.. (Mantis support is kinda there, but buggy and not totally integrated) dotProject has a more fluid interface, with phpCollab, you have to check boxes to make the options availible (such as to view a note) where dotProject has direct links (a huge timesaver) ... If i could get a nice mix of the two I would be much happier. the ability to build actual teams in phpCollab is nice, but the level of control for permissions in dotProject is way ahead of phpCollab.
If you are seriously looking to get a comparison between these two products, I suggest installing them both (It's clear that B. Mann here is pro phpCollab) and as a result has a bias opinion. You can also check out post nuke (not phpNuke) as a portal, with a few minor tweaks I managed to get Mantis, phpCollab, and dotProject EMBEDDED into it with the module support.
Just My 2 cents }:)
Direct link to demo site
The link to the demo site, so you can actually see what the application is like, is a bit hard to find. Here it is -- phpCollab Demo
php collab demo
the link doesn't work. not a good sign.