Project management software

[Richard Conyard]

Does anyone know of any good project management software?

We've been looking at various pieces of software, but as of yet unfortunately we've not found anything that really hits the spot.

Requirements are:
Web based
Integrates with Outlook
Flexible
Notes and history
Splits clients and projects

[Coding Monkey]

I assume you've already tried Basecamp (http://www.basecamphq.com/), but as I don't have Outlook, couldn't say if it fits all of the criteria.

[Richard Conyard]

Looked at it briefly, it seems rather limited for what we are after.

At present we are looking at either in order of preference:
a) Finding something that fits our needs (thus the post)
b) Migrating our existing intranet to a combination of sharepoint, project and the new MS CRM offering doing the gluing ourselves
c) Making the changes to our existing intranet so it does what we want
d) Say !"£!$ it and continue as we are

[Coding Monkey]

I have used Basecamp, and can say it's really not a bad piece of software (I say "have", cos using 3rd party web development software is against all my ethics). There's nothing particularly complicated about it that I couldn't develop in a few days, but it works well.

In your case, it's employees time taken to develop the system, which costs and could be used for another profit making scheme, so you'd probably want to look around more.

[confused]

microsoft project ? not cheap though

[Richard Conyard]

MS-Project is good for planning, but falls down a little in day to day running of projects and those projects that flair up from time to time.

As per cost, for the right piece of software I'd be able to break some arms to get the money, but it would have to be the right piece of software.

[KM-Tiger]

You might take a look at OpenGroupware (www.opengroupware.org) which includes a project management section. Although I use OpenGroupware everyday for email, calandar and contacts, I've never actually used the Project bit as it's not needed in what we do. It's Opensource and free, though you will need to pay licence fees for the Outlook connector.

There used to be Knoppix CD with it on, but that seems to have disappeared, but you can buy a CD for 85 Euros. Or if you have a Linux server, installation is pretty easy now, certainly the deb packages.

It might not be what you want, but probably worth a look.

[Astaroth]

Whilst I work in business projects rather than IT (and they tend to be more "strategic thinking" type and so even less structured) I must say I have never found "project" software that useful. When we do decide to use something we always use MS Project but I can go 2 or 3 projects without going anywhere near Project - it is a powerful tool but takes a lot of practice to get the most out of it.

[james.hill]

The leading open source package for this is dotproject.

Unfortunately it doesn't integrate with outlook right now. If you find that it's perfect for your needs other than this limitation, then I can look at getting the outlook integration working.

If you'd like a look at it, I can install a copy on one of my servers for you.

Cheers,

James

[DavidHorn]

I second Tom on Basecamp - it's a wonderfully versatile bit of software. If you need more CRM, they're introducing a CRM solution in the coming weeks too.

http://urlx.org/37signals.com/6c55