What sort of modules do you use for project management within Drupal

Posted by Jurjen de Vries on August 28, 2007 at 7:40pm

Hi PM group!

I wonder what sort of project management modules you are using within Drupal.

At this moment I'm testing:
- Project
- Case Tracker
- Node time tracker

If also found a worklog module, but they don't work on it lol
Later this week I'll write about those.

Hope other group members have great suggestions of other modules.

Comments

I wrote about what I use

Posted by christefano on August 28, 2007 at 8:59pm

I wrote about what I use at http://drupal.org/node/125225

well.

Posted by benovic on August 28, 2007 at 11:54pm

At the moment i dont use any PM Tools within Drupal. Next weekend we'll go into a closed alpha ohase for a new community site. the project team will use organic groups to organize and create the first content. But for the "Real" PM we use ActiveCollab (http://www.activecollab.com/) and egroupware (http://www.egroupware.org/).

All the PM related modules for Drupal (all i know of) are more ... aimed at software projects but not on projects in general. Basecamp (and its free clone, Activecollab) is one good example of an easy intuitive PM Tool. I dont even think it will be very complicated to implement something like this in drupal. A bit OG, a spoon CCK&views, maybe a grain node_reference ans user_reference and you'll all have it there. But i must say that i did not even try it yet.

viele Grüße,
Ben

--
http://aureli.us

yes, we have something like

Posted by criz on October 4, 2007 at 11:27pm

yes, we have something like basecamp, but in drupal, in developement. basically it is casetracker with og module, views and cck. furthermore we plan to have some more features like svn integration and detailed project/milestone reports.

Just a Note

Posted by rcross on August 29, 2007 at 8:07am

FYI - activeCollab is closing source and becoming a commercial application. Check out ProjectPier.Org for an open source version.

--Ryan

--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software

Yes please...

Posted by gwideman on September 5, 2007 at 11:07am

.. I'd love to see what you write up on these -- compare and contrast etc.

My take is that there's a wide spectrum of requirements in overall project management scenarios, and even in just the case-tracking subset there are sub-scenarios, revolving around different workflow requirements... and many of the efforts turn out to be too specific to a particular scenario and don't adapt well.

Top concerns of mine are:

--to be able to categorize/tag tasks sufficiently, generally calling for custom fields.
-- to be able to manage user permissions - who gets to see what, and who can post tasks for whom, particularly if clients get visibility into the system (this gets into workflow)
-- what states tasks can go through (again workflow and possibly custom fields)
-- being able to filter and sort tasks in a number of flexible ways without overwhelming search-spec clutter.
-- adequate facility for editing or commenting upon tasks, with corresponding surfacing of change activity in the summary task list.
-- some capacity to link to discussions or other site docs is good.

FWIW I've been looking at Flyspray (flyspray.org), but haven't investigated whether flyspray could use drupal login data or vice versa,

Graham

I think the Case Tracker has

Posted by wyn on September 6, 2007 at 3:26pm

I think the Case Tracker has the most potential of currently developed modules to become full-on project management software.

However, in true Drupal fashion, the interactivity with other modules is key. Two immediate examples come to mind:

1) Event.module vs. Calendar/Date API/Views/CCK (see this other group: http://groups.drupal.org/node/3598)

These two approaches to handling events and dates don't necessarily play along very well. I prefer the Calendar/Date combo, but event.module has been used as an integration hub for related modules (Timeline, Event repeat, Signup, RSVP, Event Views).

2) Timeline. This seems like a critical component of an project management software. As noted above, it currently integrates with Event, but getting it to integrate directly with Case Tracker seems beneficial.

Just some food for thought for my first post. I look forward to providing what help I can.

Modules

Posted by lauramba-gdo on September 7, 2007 at 4:02am

Jurjen- great question!
I too am eager to see how others are managing projects.

I teach Project Management at a University in Northern California. Drupal is an excellent tool for Project Management!

I find these Modules invaluable:
1) event - great for planning: http://drupal.org/project/event
2) book module with heavy use of taxonomy for PDNs (project diary notes) - best tool for risk management: drupal core
3) panels & views - to create a PM dashboard: http://drupal.org/project/panels & http://drupal.org/project/views
4) forums - great way to communicate with clients - eliminates he-said-she-said: drupal core

Just to name a few ..

Take a look at my demo PM site at: Project Manager Site.

"Life is a fast strange trip, good thing we all have seats" (author unknown)

Project management Drupal recipes

Posted by SamRose on October 23, 2007 at 4:46pm

I like lauramba's example above, and I think that the example of the way Drupal.org uses project to handle development of Drupal holds some promise for Drupal in the realm of PM. I have mostly been using activeCollab/Project Pier for PM, along with wiki, but I always like the idea of tools integrated into Drupal.

I am trying to figure out how to basically re-create activeCollab/prject pier in drupal, with existing modules. if I make any progress, I'll let you know...

Sam Rose
Social Synergy
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Sam Rose
Hollymead Capital Partners
P2P Foundation
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