“dotProject is a web-based project management application, designed to provide project layout and control functions. To understand dotProject, you need to understand what project management is all about. Project Management is about the structuring of a series of tasks and the schedule associated with those tasks, to achieve an outcome. The nature of those tasks and the schedules and any associated functions (such as project planning, contract negotiation, risk management, cost management and so on) will depend greatly on the nature of the projects that you can management. dotProject aims to provide the project manager with a tool to manage tasks, schedules, communication and sharing. But beware, dotProject will not be all things to all project managers – you may find that other FOSS tools are more appropriate to your particular requirements. You will need to do some investigation and testing to find the product that best suits your requirements. dotProject assumes that you understand the basic concepts of project management and what it is that you are trying to achieve in looking for a project management tool (dotProject.com).”
I have performed several installations of the dotProject project management system for use by my previous construction company as well as for my five of my clients. The first installation I did with dotProject was on my own stand alone server as a solutions to achieve real-time communication with the teams in the field. When you are operating internationally, the most difficult part is access to information in a timely manner. Schedule changes, document management, change orders, field manuals, and many other parameters that are integral to a smooth project flow are easily addressed with this system. I then wanted to see how Godaddy would treat the install. The install went quickly on Godaddy because Linux, Apache, PHP, mySQL are already already loaded. Creating the database, uploading the tar.gz file and unpacking it, running the install file from a browser, and configuring it to tie to the database that I created and the install was done in less than an 30 minutes with the base package. Installing additional modules and changing themes to meet the client’s needs and brand identity obviously took more time, however, it is still the most cost effective solution on the market.
Below are some screenshots of a typical installation of dotProject:
