Open Source Client-Based Project Management?

Question

For quite some time I've been searching for a web-based, open-source project management program that I can run on my rented space at Dreamhost to track client projects. dotProject seems nice, but I've never figured out how to create projects that only certain people can access. I'm usually working on two or three projects at a time for different clients, and would like to be able to allow access for each client to their project but not others.

So, first of all, can anyone point me to how to do this in dotProject, and baring that, can anyone recommend an open-source solution to this problem?

Answer 1

for dotProject, you need to assign permissions and roles to the user.

Edit a user by clicking the yellow padlock in the user list.

Give him the role 'Role requiring permissions to be set' in the roles tab. This tells dp that the user doesn't have access to the defaults. Instead he only has access to the things you give him permissions for.

For to the user's permissiosn tab and add 'allow' permissions of 'Access, Add, Delete, Edit and View' to the project you want him to be able to access. You might want to give him access permissions to 'non admin modules' which is a catch all for most of the modules.

Alternatively you can give permissions to a user based on Company instead of project. Then, they will have access to all projects that are assigned to that company. That might make admin of this system easier.

I think you can assign the permissions to a user role, and then assign that role to the user thus skipping the task of assigning permissions to each one. I can't remember if I got that to work though.

There's a few pages on the web describing how to get it going, including the dotproject wiki.

Answer 2

For a very small team of developers, the easiest for clients to understand, access, use, etc. is Google Docs. It might sound kind of lame on the surface, but creating a project spreadsheet is a great way for clients to get real-time updates on what you're working on. It has everything you need from file rollbacks, read/write perms, the ability to collaborate on the document in real time, chat, and since i haven't used it for almost a year, I would guess that it has many more features now.

My 2p. Best of luck, Jeremy

Answer 3

Try netOffice Dwins. netOffice Dwins is an internet-enabled system for use in projects that require collaboration over the internet. Those organizations, such as consulting firms, that rely on a division between firm-side and client-side information will benefit most from use of netOffice Dwins. The system is divided in two parts which we will call "Internal Project Site" and "Client Project Site." The project team, excluding the client, has access to the Internal Project Site. On the Internal Project Site, users fall into several categories: Administrator, Manager, and User.

Answer 4

I think projectPier can do that but I'm not really sure. Open source are not really reliable in terms of functionality. I think they only have the basic features like time tracking and basic management of projects. If you are really looking for better functionality, I think you should resort to try paid ones. Have a look at this blog for some lists of project management software. You can check its features so you can compare them at each other.