I’ve been developing web software for over a decade now. As a result, I’ve had the opportunity to use quite a few project management platforms. I’ve even homegrown a couple along the way. The last several months, now that I am back to freelancing again, I have started using openGoo. The openGoo application is based on ActiveCollab’s last open source version, and it is a significant improvement both in functionality and form. It uses the EXT javascript library, which is a fantastic javascript UI, though it is a bit slower than others. Current stable release as of this writing is 1.3.1, and I’ve used it every day for the last month and a half with only very minor issues… which are expected in any open source project of this size. All of your projects are organized into ‘Workspaces’, with the ability to organize sub-workspaces as well. Security is fairly granular, allowing for user / group permissions at the workspace level. OpenGoo has the following modules included:
Notes
I use this primarily to keep track of workspace specific notes like login information, IP addresses… stuff like that.
Email
I have not used this yet because it is still in beta, but it enables you to check your email from within openGoo as a client. I can’t wait until they get all the kinks worked out!
Contacts
Pretty handy for keeping track of the folks who are involved in projects, though it would be nice if it integrated with existing CRM or contact systems. I use SugarCRM quite a bit, and so having to double enter contact information is a pain. You can import contacts and companies from a .csv file.
Calendar
openGoo comes with a very good calendar that integrates across all of the projects that you’re involved in so that you can see at a month / week / day view what you have going on. Really snazzy.
Documents
I use this in order to keep track of files and documents specific to the workspace / projects I’m working on. If a designer sends me a .psd file to slice up, I’ll put the original .psd file here. Any requirements documents will also go here. Content related to websites, customer agreements, etc…
Tasks
Probably the most used module within openGoo, you are able to assign tasks to any user, attach time to tasks, start date, due date, priority, milestones, and even tags. The task dashboard allows you to see what is current / past due at a glance, for all workspaces, all tasks, all users. There are also several sort options.
Weblinks
I don’t use this very often, but it is basically just a repository for links related to the workspace / project.
Time
Time reporting within openGoo needs some work. It is actually a bit buggy, but the way that time is assigned to tasks is actually very smart. I am looking forward to what they do to resolve the issues with the reporting functionality. For now, I export all of our time out of mySql using a small php report I wrote.
One of the things that I really enjoy about openGoo is that they have a very fast development cycle. I started messing with it at version 1.0 about 3 months ago, and they are already on 1.4.0 rc2. I’m amazed with how quickly they have been moving through releases. The community is a little weak / inexperienced, but the staff who are working on the project are very good about answering questions in the forums. This is huge for an open source project that is used for commercial purposes, especially for something as important as project management.
I’d like to see how they handle the billing capability within it though… right now I’m not so happy with the fact that it does not allow you to set per workspace billing rates or per service rates either. All billing rates are based on the user performing the work. This also does not take into account your actual cost as a development firm. The way that they handle accounting within openGoo is not the greatest, but I think that they will improve upon it.
All in all, openGoo is one of the best collaborative platforms I’ve used in a long time.