This is crossposted from dogstar.org - Nonprofits and Web 2.0
This evening I continued to experiment with setting up a project and creating tasks using dotProject.
First observation - setting up your first task is rather confusing. The tab is buried deep.
First off, the software allows you to manage all kinds of companies. The tab set includes:
- Client
- Vendor
- Supplier
- Consultant
- Government
- Internal
- Not Applicable
All companies are set up with the same set of attributes. Adding a company is really easy. Once a company is added it will show you that there are 0 active and archived projects.
If you click on the projects tab, you'll have the option to set one up.
A project includes:
- A name
- An owner
- A company
- A division
- A start and target end date
- Target budget
- An actual budget (that is auto calculated)
- A production and staging URL
- Priority
- Short name
- Identifying colour
- A project type
- Status
- Import from another project
- A description
Once you have a project in place, it is time to head to the Tasks Tab. Right? WRONG. This is where things get confusing. Head back to the projects tab. Click on the project you just created. Up top you'll see the task tab.
Click "New Task"
- Add a Task Name and make it active.
- Add some details, dates, dependencies, and human resources
- Add a description
Once you know where to add a task it is super easy.
To add hours to a task, click on its "New Log" Adding time is pretty self explanatory. You need to place a date, progress into the task and the hours worked. Your progress may not match the hours you've spent on the task. Separating the two is a good idea. You can add a description of what you achieved. You can also email your time entry. Cost codes can be entered to match the hourly rate. You can flag the task as being a problem.
The next post will be covering actually managing a project now that the initial bits are in place.