For this review of dotproject I have basically worked off the criteria specified in The search for project management software.
First thing that annoyed me, rather than directly effected the experience, was that it was still using a table based layout. Now, I know that a lot of online software (especially older open source stuff) uses legacy table based layouts, but im suprised that the big projects with lots of support stick with it. CSS just makes your life so much easier.
Actually using the software is pretty easy to pick up but i found myself asking questions like - Why do I have to go into an existing task to create a new task? Or an existing project to create a new project? Surely it would be simpler for everyone to simply link to these functions from the main pages. (see the retraction in the comments)
I also felt there was simply too much functionality, when the software is this comprehensive it should be ‘componentised’ so that you can decide to only have the stuff implemented that you actually intend to use.
It’s not all bad, the email notifications are good – simple and direct text with links back to area concerned where the action was taken that triggered the email in the first place - very intuitive. I also liked that you can have parent and child tasks.
This is when i struck bugs! Two of them, and both showstoppers if i didnt have the magic of google to help me get around them. Gantt charts wouldnt work at all, but this was fixed by grabbing 3 files from the latest CVS and doing this (from the error message) - JpGraph Error. You are trying to use locale (en) which your php installation does not support. Hint: Try to use ‘ ‘ to indicate default locale for this geographic region. How is that for an insane error message, was i supposed to put in a space or two ‘‘’. Turns out a space was the right way to go.
I didnt expect much from online Gantt charts, but i did find the interface pretty limiting compared to Microsoft Project.
And, what may be the final showstopper, for me anyway, is that it doesn’t display a list of free resources for a given time period - how do i know who is available to assign the next round of project tasks to?
If anyone has any suggestions on project management software that will meet my needs, please let me know. In the meantime i will continue on my merry way looking at project management software as it comes along.
I’m a core contributor here, so I’m biased. Unfortunately, the Gantt bug made it into a release. The Resource Management is on the drawing board for the 3.0 release.
Next, you don’t have to go into an existing anything to create something new. In the upper right hand corner of every page, there’s a nice little dropdown which allow you to create a Company or Project and then viewing any Project will allow you to create a Task.
In the meantime, my company is leading the way on developing some UI alternatives. The entire system has been “Smartified” and the next step is converting it to nice divs.
Thanks for the comments Keith. Apologies for missing the -new item- drop down, now that i know its there it is very useful. I look forward to the Resource Management, because as I said in the article, that is one of my core requirements.
Thanks for the update. Glad to see it.
Also, as a result of the Gantt chart item and numerous others (many related to templating and default behavior), we are working to put together a 2.0.2 (2.1?) release in the next month or so. Hopefully that will address a few more of your concerns.
Have a good one.
I read the following post about Dreamhost. Has anyone gotten dotproject to work in their hosting environment? I’m having problems viewing and creating tasks. Everything else seems to work fine.
Cheers.
cant help you im afraid - try posting to Keith Casey’s blog at http://blogs.caseysoftware.com/