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M2: Analysis of Comparable Project Planning/Management Offerings
M2 Section Summary: Collaboration
Copyright (c) 2000 Jim Salmons and Frank Castellucci
All Rights Reserved
Associated project: Specification Writing for Web-based Project Planning Software
Project URL: http://sohodojo.com/techsig/project-planning-project.html
sXc Project detail: http://sourcexchange.com/ProjectDetail?projectID=24 (SourceXchange is out of business.)
Project coordination: Sohodojo
Sponsors: Position open
Sponsors (M1-3): Opendesk.com and Collab.Net
Core Team: Jim Salmons and Frank Castellucci
1 Introduction
This document aggregates the feature and underlying model analyses of comparable products and services in the domain of the project specification requirements. During the comparables analysis phase, nine product and service offerings were examined.
1.1 Format and Key to Abbreviations
Each of fourteen sections of the Comparables Analysis Data Capture Outline has a Section Summary file such as this one. Section 1 of each data collection form is an Introduction statement explaining the project and the assessment. Section 16 is a reviewer profile. Since all data was produced by the core project team members, section 16 does not have a summary section.
In a Section Summary file, we aggregate the analysis data within each subsection of the raw data collection forms. Each data point from the raw assessment outlines is presented in the following alphabetical order and prefixed with the following identifying abbreviations:
Note: The HTML versions of the deliverable use bullet lists with more readable prefix identifiers than the two-character source identifier used in the text versions.
The aggregated section data in each Section Summary file is the last section of the file. In addition to the aggregated data, each summary file has an optional section for the capture of summary insights or comments.
1.2 Section Summary Insights and/or Comments
====== SECTION SUMMARY DATA ======
4 Collaboration
4.1 What is the interaction model? (Real-time dynamic views, publish/subscribe, email, user queries, etc.)
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
The Enact interactive environment provides a number of brower-based and desktop applications that support real-time, interactive collaboration between all Project Team Members, Contributors and other Stakeholders. The user types and the tasks they routinely perform are performed using one or more of the Enact components.
Enact Customized Workspaces User Type Tasks Component Executive . Viewing key project status
. Viewing project detailsActionView Contributors . Viewing assigned project tasks
. Viewing project status
. Updating task progress
. Communicating task progressActionTask Planners . Creating and editing projects
. Managing resources
. Assigning tasks to resources
. Tracking project status
. Reporting project status to managementActionPlan
ActionAdmineProject Express [ Full data ]
This is a server-based, real-time system supplemented by email notification messaging.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
The multi-user collaboration features are generally implemented with a 'file-locking'-style interaction constraint. Since FTS supports various complex task interdependencies, such a 'lock, change, release' model is almost inevitable (without resorting to some even more complex 'dynamic change conflict' resolution system.
AEC has done an admirable job of bringing FTS into 'the Internet Age'. By adopting the widely-used Internet collaboration protocols, such as TCP/IP, FTS has moved from an initially single-user client application, through its networked 'groupware' phase into its 'Internet-friendly' implementation today.
While there are features that encourage 'planning collaboration' and 'dynamic progress monitoring', it should be noted that FTS intentionally stays away from being a 'fine-grained teaming environment'.
ManagePro [ Full data ]
In Solo mode, everything is dynamic. In Teamware mode, shared access users of the same database have dynamic views on the data. (ManagePro handles all record-locking transparently.)
When using its 'mobile computing' database extraction feature, the user can have disconnected dynamic views. When the extracted database is merged for synchronization, conflict identification and resolution manages the mobile user's integration back into the master database.
The Multi-link mode implements a creative 'distributed database' feature which allows data to 'propagate' within and between multiple databases using a 'delegation/recipient/show-to' mechanism. In this configuration, database 'refreshes' manage the data linked across databases.
In all configurations, ManagePro is email-aware and can be configured to support a variety of common email transports. The email integration is useful for 'teaser' notification to connect Team Members as well as for communicating with 'disconnected' User/Stakeholders.
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
Real time dynamic views, e-mail, user queries, user defined icons for customized fields, user defined publish/subscribe web definition.Project Object Model access via Visual Basic, and COM development and addition to the framework.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
Opendesk provides the following:
- Sem-threaded group discussions
- Intranet News
- Real-time updates to static views
- Calendar sharing
SourceForge [ Full data ]
Real time views of project states (PHP with MySQL), publish and subscribe events for various tools in the environment, mailing lists, pre-canned parametric searches.
WebProject [ Full data ]
WebProject provides a plethora of collaboration facilities, including:
- Project Discussion boards
- Task level annotation and threaded discussions.
- Real time Chat
- Event notification via e-mail
- Reporting
- Voting
In addition, each project has a Web Page space for general presentation and limited support for content (documentation) management. Access to the various collaboration facilities can be controlled on an individual basis by Administrators and Leaders.
X-Community [ Full data ]
As a web-based service, the system is most fruitfully used interactively on a live connection. Email notification and messaging supplements this interactive access.
4.2 When used in project planning mode, is team communication supported?
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
Each Task has a Notes field which maintains a log-like text area which can be used for informal Team Member discussion. Users given access to Draft ActionPlans (an Enact Project) can participate in collaborative project plan development.
While Enact is web-based, it has a bit of an 'enterprise' bias (as its name appropriately reflects). There is a strong assumption that users will interactively log onto the Enact Collaboration Server, through a variety of scaled interfaces, using a Java-based browser, Java desktop application or through 'Viewpoints' which are HTML project-status websites served by your HTTP web server. Email is relatively peripheral to Enact. A general User can't, for example, easily toggle an email notification or teaser for status changes or progress updates. There are lots of times when you know a little 'email double-up' communication greases the wheel of distributed collaboration.
New to this release, a Project Manager can be designated for a Project. This user is automatically notified by an email message when the end dates for tasks are manually recalculated. These emails help Project Managers track changes to project costs and dates. The Project Manager and project manager email address is listed on the Project Manager panel of the Plan Properties dialog box.
eProject Express [ Full data ]
Yes. The system provides easily accessible checkboxes to allow the project planner to send assignment and change notifications to task assignees. Once a task is created, it is live in the system and the Task Creator and the Task Assignee can write 'progress notes' against it. When completed, email notification is sent as determined by the Task Creator at task creation time.
There is a 'Messages' facility that works like a project-specific BBS which facilitates communication between team members.
But bottom line, this is 'ruthlessly simple' project planning. A project is essentially a Task List with associated documents, messages and people.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
Yes, but again, the 'team' here is more correctly thought of as 'the planning team' rather than the overall 'project team'.
FTS supports a variety of configurations which allow flexibility in collaboration. For example, the FTS application can run in 'server mode' allowing multiple users concurrently access or users can designate 'shared directories' where multiple users can concurrently access a project file (without having an initial 'primary server' running.
Full networking configurations support multi-level password protection and file locking, etc. The built-in license key management system makes it easy to add and control licenses users.
When accessing a project concurrently, a 'pen' tool is shared among the concurrent users. When you have the 'pen' you have write access. Relinquishing the pen unlocks the project file and lets somebody else gain write access.
When used in 'sharing' mode, views are dynamically updated although the 'single-writer' rule is always in effect.
ManagePro [ Full data ]
Not applicable in the Solo configuration, although email interaction could be easily used as a 'collaboration channel' by the User during project planning.
In the Teamware configuration, collaboration is the norm. You can think of a Project as a collection of related Goals within the Goal hierarchy of the ManagePro database. This collection can be a branch of the hierarchy, or you can associate a group of goals using a field value, such as a user-defined 'Project Name' field. Goals, then, are the composite elements of a 'project breakdown'. Goals can have notes, to do items and progress reports attached to them. In Teamware mode, this makes for a fine-grained, goal-oriented team collaboration environment.
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
Yes, communication is supported throughout the entire suite. With extensions for e-mail, annotation, and htmp/asp pages. Collaboration at the task level can be accomplished through defining additional attributes of the task, and rules associated with the events that can be generated when the content changes. The rules would/could include the ability to send as a message through e-mail, auto-accept/deny, and so on.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
As there is no project planning capability, this is not applicable.
SourceForge [ Full data ]
The Task Manager model used by SourceForge allows tasks to be annotated with comments. There is no notification capability to alert anyone to changes.
WebProject [ Full data ]
WebProject offers multiple ways to collaborate from the Project Planning task perspectives, of these there are two (2) options specifically designed for issues support: Project Pinboards and Task Discussions, and Chatter.
Project Pinboards and Task Discussion
The two components are presented in a single dialog box with discussion topics presented in the top half, and the relevant messages around a discussion shown in a threaded view in the bottom half. Because the Gannt chart and Project Pinboard can be open at the same time, WebProject utilizes a model view controller (MVC) metaphor and will change the Project Pinboard context as you select different tasks in the Gantt chart.
Chatter
Chatter provides a virtual meeting room for real-time exchanges. Chatter sessions can be either Chaired or not, where chairing a meeting allows the Chairperson to determine which topics are to be discussed, and which chat members have the floor. Topics can be taken from the Project Pinboard, or defined at the time of chat. Discussions can be marked persistent which allows for later retrieval for continued discussions, or viewing by other users. There is no limit to the number of simultaneous Chatter sessions.
X-Community [ Full data ]
See the MS Project assessment for more on this dimension. Since the X-Community service is tightly integrated with MS Project for its project planning and management features, the X-Community capabilities are essentially those of MS Project.
Supplementing this MS Project feature-set, the 'Business Center > Whiteboard > Notecard' model supports fine-grained commenting, search tagging and simple tasking.
The X-Community service CAN be used without MS Project integration. In this case, users are limited to attaching simple Tasks to Whiteboard and Notecard objects.
4.3 When used in project monitoring mode (more modest a target than project management), how is team member interaction handled? ('project-manager -centric' or peer interaction; is there an ad hoc issue management facility, etc.)
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
As stated above, Enact presents a 'total immersion' teaming environment which is best used when all Team Members and Stakeholders have convenient and fast connections to the Enact Collaboration Server. When everyone involved and interested in a project has a good connection to the Collaboration Server and appropriate client software, Enact provides a dynamic multi-project action-oriented working environment.
eProject Express [ Full data ]
Again, the current Express service is very basic. While the underlying assumption is interactive browser-based access, the user has handy checkboxes (with 'usual case' selections made) that provide team member email notification. There is usually a choice to 'copy yourself' with email confirmations and notifications.
Tasks have a very simple 'progress report' comment thread that allows the Task Assignee and Task Author to post messages back and forth.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
FTS has a very extensive, though cleanly intuitive, 'planned, revised, actual' progress tracking feature-set.
Again, the granularity is oriented toward a 'project manager and team leaders'-centric model rather than full-bore individual Member-oriented collaboration model. But this is 'core value' design-point within FTS.
The reviewers impression is that small team projects could adopt an 'all Generals, no Soldiers' approach where Task assignments at the 'leaf-level' could be assigned to the 'Manager' who is also the 'Doer' of the Task. On larger project, such 'drilling down' to 'Team Member as his/her own Manager' would lead to a 'complexity explosion'. For example, the collection of assignable Managers is maintained as 'pop-up list item' entries rather than as 'Person/Role' records which show up in a Task's Manager assignment field. Considering the dynamic nature of team member assignments during the lifecycle of a project, such an overly simplified underlying model would get out of hand if it was used in too fine a grained approach.
ManagePro [ Full data ]
In the Solo mode, ManagePro is appropriately 'project manager'-centric. However, this should not imply that team communication and collaboration is not recognized and encouraged. Just the opposite. In the Solo mode, ManagePro works as a 'communication and coordination facilitator' for the Project Manager (the Solo User). Email together with on-screen and printable report views help the Project Manager plan, execute and follow-through on team communication.
The Progress Report subsystem is an effective ad hoc issue management facility.
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
There is a support bridge through MS Outlook messaging and collaboration client which facilitates interaction for team members.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
As there is no project planning capability, this is really not applicable. But, there is a to-do list where you can enter personal tasks with due dates and priority. It appears that if the task is due, a small icon blinks in the lower corner of the screen until you delete the task, or change the date to the future.
SourceForge [ Full data ]
Collaborations are relevant to the tools being used in SourceForge:
Tool Collaboration Forums for new messages Reply to message, forum can be monitored enabling e-mail notification Mailing Lists E-mail based interchange Bug Tracking Add comment to entry, changes made can be posted to e-mail Task Manager Add comments to entry Support Manager Add comment to entry, changes made can be posted to e-mail Project News Add news items to project page WebProject [ Full data ]
In addition to the e-mail and chatter facility WebProject provides two facilities that address higher level of collaboration focus: Project Message Boards and Web Boards.
Project Message Board
The Project Message board can be used to discuss higher level issues such as project issues and risks. Like the Task Discussions, message topics are threaded and presented in a tree view.
Web Board
Accessed through the documentation management facility, the Web Board is an enterprise wide discussion, information, issues, and news facility. The Web Board is implemented as part of the enterprise Web Page and Documentation structure.
X-Community [ Full data ]
Collaborative communication is facilitated by 'message threads' associated with the Whiteboard and Notecard objects. This association helps to focus team communication around the 'work product'-centric model of the current offering. While there is no explicit issue management and polling features, the messaging associated with Whiteboards and Notecards can be effectively used to raise, discuss and resolve (informally) issues related to a Project.
4.4 What are the 'key indicators' used to keep project team members and stakeholders informed of the state of the project?
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
ActionPlan is the Java-based, Gant-timeline style visual editor component of Enact. Projects plans can be quickly built with this tool. The default view provides graphical timeline visual queues of the state of a project. The tabular section of the ActionPlan view shows slack, effort, duration, key dates, percent completion. New to this release is a Critical Path highlight feature.
ActionTask is Java-based client browser/app viewer which serves as a User-specific, customizable Task Assignment viewer to coordinate the User's participation in whatever projects the User is participating in. Color highlights, text attribute changes and list sorting are used to reflect priorities and deadlines. As integrated as the Enact system is, it is surprising that there is no convenient way to 'pop-to' an assigned task within an ActionPlan view from the ActionTask list.
One of Enact's strengths is in its easy-to-use tool for project managers to build project-specific status-reporting websites which dynamically maintain and present updated views on the project for Team Member, Management and Partner (Stakeholder) users. A dynamic HTML-based project website is called an Enact Viewpoint. The Viewpoint editor makes is easy to build web-based status reports on a Project.
ActionView is a Java-based client browser/app viewer which manages access to a Viewpoints that the User has been given access to. A two-panel display gives a quick global overview of all the Projects a User is monitoring. The top view lists the Viewpoint link, a link for sending the Project Manager an email note, last updated date, and a 'red-yellow-green' top-level status. When one the top-panel list items is selected, the bottom panel presents a convenient summary view which gives a project summary, narrative status report and a table of Project Milestones listing milestone date and the milestone's current status.
eProject Express [ Full data ]
The task list has elementary task status filters; 'All incomplete tasks', 'All overdue tasks', 'All completed tasks', etc.
When creating or editing tasks and document resources, the user is given the opportunity to have email notifications when the task is changed or document updated.
This is a very entry level service at this time. Since the project are currently little more than simple task lists, there is limited need for state-aggregating 'key indicators'.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
FTS excels at time-oriented visualizations of a project plan. Indeed, there are those who have described FTS as a 'specialized drawing program on steroids' that knows a lot about project planning/management dynamics rather than describe it as a project management tool with good visualization tools.
FTS is _extremely_ rich in timeline and report formatting features.
One of the most intuitive and powerful 'key indicator' features of FTS is its 'planned, revised, actual' progress monitoring subsystem. They have refined an interface for capturing and visualizing this 'core project dynamic' that is very impressive.
NOTE: Rather than 'grow through complexifying', the AEC folks have developed a companion product, Details, which is strong on project status assessment and reporting. This product is on its Version 3.0 level of maturity. Details appears to be positioned as a stand-alone product with optional, complementary interfaces to FTS. If we have the bandwidth, the sXc24 core team would like to assess the Details product as well.
ManagePro [ Full data ]
The default database configuration maintains a start date and due date for Goal/Subgoal items. The goal hierarchy can be viewed with a 'timeline' panel that graphically reinforces the mapping of goals to 'project elements'. ManagePro can filter and highlight Goals on 'time-context' filters such as 'past due', 'today', 'this week'.
Goals also maintain a 'Status' field which is associated with Progress Reports. A color-coded, hierarchical 'roll-up' Goal Status view gives a useful alternative view to the more conventional timeline view.
A Priority field allows sorting and filtering that takes priority into account along with date and status values.
A color-coded matrix view, the People Status Board, provides effective indicators relating People to Goals, Progress Reports, Feedback, Review, Recognition and Commitment collaboration exchanges.
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
Top to bottom reporting, views, drill downs, triggers, visual indicators, costs overun analysis. Project Managers can send "status requests", with guided field definitions to team members. Higher level stakeholders are provided with an action oriented view of project information, clear summaries of all projecs across the enterprise, with stop light indicators that provide real time status at a glance. Time and budget views allow development managers to see how projects are performing. For individuals, defined to the system as users, custom defined portfolios can be accessed which allow dynamic filtering and grouping of project/task/resource information.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
The Group Discussion
SourceForge [ Full data ]
There is no "indicator" as to the overall state of a SourceForge hosted project. instead, individual areas and sub-elements have state based on the toolset to which they belong.
Tool Key Indicator Defects Bold typeface used if greater than 30 days Tasks Bold typeface used if task is still open beyond projected completion date Support Entry Bold typeface used if greater than 15 days Project Summary Contains instrumentation as to the open and total counts of the individual tool area. WebProject [ Full data ]
- Planned versus Actual hours reporting
- Availability versus Allocation reporting
- Budget versus Actual Cost reporting
- Full featured Gannt Chart (see 10.5 for details)
WebProject appears to have addressed facilitating collaboration as a fundamental requirement of the system, to the point that collaboration is the focal point of most of the tools and facilities.
X-Community [ Full data ]
Again, the MS Project integration gives X-Community a 'two-tier' level of use. When used with MS Project, the project management status reports and views are those of the MS Project plug-in (using Project Central).
When used 'raw' with elementary tasking associated with Whiteboards and Notecards, Tasks maintain a percentage completion attribute.
4.5 Does the product or service's concurrency features facilitate or hinder team member collaboration?
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
The Collaboration Server Workspace facilitates real-time collaboration among project team members. The ability to build large projects from import-linked sub-projects and the ability to grant access to all tools for any user makes for a highly participatory project planning and management environment.
eProject Express [ Full data ]
Again, the simplicity of the current offering sets an overall limited expectation. The eProject.com folks have done of good job of designing a 'balanced set' of tools/features in this initial Express release. While it is not rocket science, the features are well thought out. For example, the Document file sharing system provides privacy permission setting, 'opt-in' email change notification, and helpful file descriptors and folder storage.
The Task/Person model is very elementary. The features are so basic, that 'concurrency conflicts' are of limited concern here.
The Messages facility and the Documents storage system, encourage project-based team communication.
The Calendar tool/feature suffers the same weaknesses that ANY web-based calendar has; connection speed latency, HTML rendering limits. Here the features are so limited that the Calendar system does not do much to facilitate teaming. It is more of a 'Project Event Notice Board' than a multi-user calendaring/collaboration system.
One clever feature for Windows-based Outlook and Outlook-compatible address books and calendar products, the Event and Person/User displays have graphic buttons to 'download' event and contact records into the Outlook calendar and address book, respectively. While it is a 'bonus' feature for Windows Outlook users, the eProject Express platform is _not_ dependent on Outlook integration.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
Paradoxically, it is some of both. On the one hand, you could make a case that the 'people/team-member'-less project is an over-simplification. But to the extent that user/adopters understand its strengths and weaknesses (more 'intentional blindspots' than weaknesses), FTS can be a 'just right' solution which manages to get a lot of 'real world' project planning and management features into a packages solution which is flexible and easy to use.
User/adopters should NOT, however, think that the FTS collaboration features are tuned to a 'peer team member' level. In organizations where such 'command and control' of 'project planner/manager, team leaders and minions' is the established culture, FTS would be a good solution. In organizations with a high degree of fine-grained teaming, there could be a bit of a 'square-peg, round-hole' affect to consider.
ManagePro [ Full data ]
Not applicable to the Solo configuration.
In the Teamware mode, ManagePro encourages dynamic collaboration and communication. In addition to all the status communications, file attachments are maintained for Goal, To Do and Progress Report items which help associate work requirements with the documents needed to perform, fulfill or communicate with regard to the goals, tasks.
Whether in Solo or Teamware modes, using mobile computing extraction and synchronization and using the Multi-link features introduces a reasonable extra level of user interaction complexity.
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
Fully facilitates the team member peer and management collaboration.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
The most useable collaboration feature, Group Discussion, hinders team collaboration. There are no sorting or display options. The feature incorporates a hard to navigate drill down interface.
SourceForge [ Full data ]
It is a reasonable facilitator.
WebProject [ Full data ]
All users are required to login to the system for access, at which point the user profile accessibility controls are used to allow/deny access to various aspects of the project as defined by the Administrator. In addition, the tool implements a two phase commit model by which changes in the user space must be committed to the server to become part of the project.
X-Community [ Full data ]
I'll defer any comment on the MS Project features of this offering. The flexible Web Drive file sharing and the Whiteboard/Notecard 'work product model' facilitate and encourage team collaboration.
4.6 Security features
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
A basic user log-in-by-password procedure protects access to the Enact Collaboration Server through its client views. A separate Collaboration Server Admin Console is provided to allow convenient Server admin control. The Server admin view has full access to the User account management system as well as to a data Backup facility and Server start-stop functions.
When used in large-scale, distributed configurations, Enact seamlessly uses a built-in or external LDAP directory service to manage User and other resource access.
eProject Express [ Full data ]
While the Express feature set is quite basic, the system designers have done a good job of providing flexible security in this release. The Documents storage system supports access permissions by Person/User.
Task can be designated public or private.
Events can be set with restricted access by Person/User.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
There is a flexible, multi-level password protection scheme that gives project planner/managers a high degree of flexibility in implementing a project management methodology. Used in conjunction with its flexible reporting features, the project planner/manager has 'no-access/read-only/read-write' access control.
These 'view level' controls however are very much related to a conventional 'user access control' mechanism rather than related to a 'stakeholders/roles' nature of the underlying project model of FTS.
The built-in user license control system is more about license-purchase compliance than it is about project role-view access.
ManagePro [ Full data ]
ManagePro maintains access control as part of the People records within the ManagePro database. The database administrator access to access control settings for each Person/User that determines what information the Person/User can access of whether and whether they have change rights, etc.
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
Before users can access project data, they must have an account on the Project Central server. Accounts may be setup by the project administrator or created automatically when the project manager sens the user a TeamAssign message. The project administrator oversees account management, adding and removing users from projects, assigning users to groups and roles, and determining what data will be available to each users. To ensure security, Project Central support both Windows NT Authentication and its own authentication scheme, which uses username/password pairs maintained by Project Central. Using both is the default behavior.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
All users are required to login to the system for access, at which point the user profile accessibility controls are used to allow/deny access to various aspects of the intranet as defined by the Administrator.
SourceForge [ Full data ]
All SourceForge users must log in to be allowed comment, posting, annotations, etc. The project administrator can limit the visibility of the tools to only those that are designated as team members. The project administrator can limit the accessability of project objects on a per team member basis.
WebProject [ Full data ]
The developers of WebProject have provided a thought out collaboration model in relationship to project management and participation. This is a must have minimum example for anyone considering a serious Project Management development effort.
X-Community [ Full data ]
X-Community uses 128-bit SSL connections for encryption and privacy. In addition, X-Community is an active member and supporter of Truste. Privacy and Security are a prominent feature of the X-Community offering. For more see:
4.7 Reviewer Comments
Enact Enterprise System [ Full data ]
The recent addition of the optional email notifications to the designated Project Manager is a good addition to the Enact system. Enact would benefit from a generalization of this feature into a per-User personalization feature.
eProject Express [ Full data ]
For a simple offering, it is well-thought out. Document sharing is strong. The Calendar and Task List features are currently of limited utility. But given this 'kick-off' release, eProject.com is one to watch in this marketplace.
FastTrack Schedule [ Full data ]
None
ManagePro [ Full data ]
None
Microsoft Project 2000 and Project Central [ Full data ]
Microsoft has provided a very flexible and powerful framework for cusomtization to extend the collaboration functionality to any direction the enterprise desires. This is the theme throughout the Project 2000 and Project Central system.
Opendesk.com [ Full data ]
There is a way to go before the collaboration features of OpenDesk can be considered really useful beyond simple communications. The author has a running dialog with the developers for feature enhancements and additions in this regard. OpenDesk will benefit from the resulting RFP for this project.
SourceForge [ Full data ]
The current implementation suffers from a lack of continuity between the project, tools, and the stakeholders. The Task Manager seems the likely place for more collaborative tools, but sadly lacks any. Functionality is being added to "patch" some of these problems but lack the "feel" of coherinse throughout the project.
WebProject [ Full data ]
The developers of WebProject have provided a thought out collaboration model in relationship to project management and participation. This is a must have minimum example for anyone considering a serious Project Management development effort.
X-Community [ Full data ]
None
DOCUMENT HISTORY
Version 0.9 - Draft
Version 1.0 - Final
### end of sxc24-m2-02sect-comparables.txt (Version 1.0) ###
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