Project and Task Management

Hi all

On the PC I use MS Project for large projects but is there anything quick and simple worth getting for the Mac to manage smaller one man band projects?

I dont need all of MS project features but I do need to enter multiple projects which each have their own task tree, the ability to add comments to tasks like a time sheet or log would be very helpful too. I don't need resource management, billing etc.

Any recommendations?

Thanks
Geoff

 

Additionally...

I have been using DOT Project (http://www.dotproject.net/) which I find very good but would prefer an OSX client app to something like this.

 

I'm really enjoying the products from OmniGroup - I use OmniFocus and OmniGraffle on a daily basis and have had good experiences with OmniPlan on multi-member projects.

All their products are compatible with similar MS products by the way.

 

and you have Merlin: http://www.projectwizards.net/en/products/merlin

AFAIK, Merlin and OmniGroup are the two best project management softwares on Mac...

 

Thanks both.

I just evaluated OmniFocus, OmniPlan and Merlin to see if I can add log entries to tasks (something I find very useful) but I didn't find a way.

I guess these packages assume the project manager isn't interested in the day-to-day activity of a task and that developers shouldn't be logging their work against a task.

What I can do at the moment is create a project, create the tasks for that project then while working on the tasks (myself or team members) we can add log entries to the task.

This allows a developer to look at a project's task list and know exactly what state tasks are in, as in..

Who is making log entries against a task
What are they reporting, are there any problems etc.

I find it an invaluable feature in Dot Project and get up to speed fast. its just I don't like using a web interface.

Ah well, thanks anyway. I did feel that both Merlin and Omni Plan were nice to use though with Merlin being very user friendly from initial install.

Thanks
Geoff

 

Just like to add that I did find the notes feature of a task in one of the apps (merlin I think) but this was just for simple text entry rather than a full log entry system that allows hours done, date of log, percent done, flag log entry as a problem etc

 

Not sure if this is anything you are looking for - but it seemed to work for one project I was a part of - and it's only $30.

http://www.garagegames.com/products/overlord

 

I recommend FogBugz ( http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBUGZ/ )

A lot of people assume it is just a bug tracker, but it goes far beyond that, and is very nice to use. You can get a 2 user free hosted FogBugz account, otherwise it's not very expensive for what it does.

There is also Jira ( http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/ ), if you qualify for non-commercial/personal use you can use it for free, same with non-profits, otherwise it's a bit steep.

Other than those, dotProject is pretty good.

-Jeremy

 

you could give projectx a try http://www.projectx.com/ , i dont if it supports the feature you are asking about, but they have a trial version
arthur

 

Thanks for the latest listings, i've evaluated them all today so far. Not bad too but I'm going to stick with dotProject for now. I guess you just get used to an app.

Cheers
Geoff

 

Quite lite compared to most of the things mentioned above, but we use http://www.pivotaltracker.com/

 

Paris, that app has the best UI of them all, its was very cutting edge and reminded me slightly of iGoogle, I was inspired so thanks.

Anyway, the top most requested feature in Pivotal is adding time logs to story cards which is a key area of what i need so its a no go at the moment.

Thanks anyway
Geoff

 

http://basecamphq.com/ - Basecamp may do what you require.
It's not free, however, and it has a rather dubious (IMO) policy of considering SSL security a premium feature.

 

Overlord is awfull, buggy and nowhere near done. We once used it but dropped it pretty fast again.

 

We used it to track goals and progress - I'm not sure of the current feature set really - just that for our light uses it worked well.

 

Should have specified better I think: You get considerably better solutions at $0
Overlord is nice but this half finished bug monster is definitely not worth any money.

if you want to save time and cash get a free unfuddle account. if you want more features, subscribe for a higher one.
Thats what I do and I've to say that I really love it.

Multiple projects, multiple developers, time tracking, issue tracking, notebooks, easy crosslinking and integrated crosslinking to the two SCM solutions (SVN / GIT) and their build versions.

and the best: it does not care about windows, osx or *nix

 

I had a look, SubVersion hosting is a nice feature but the downsides are the tiny space allocation, 512MB in their first paid plan is just not enough space when you consider models, textures etc..

To add time tracking (the feature I need the most) costs $50 per month, thats just too much.

Thanks anyway
Geoff

 

SVN + Models = very bad idea

Asset repositorying is something which is definitely MOGs playfield. Already filehamster + team plugin works great (and offers part of what you need but you need a network drive to have it working on a team) but if you are a commercial developer with a small to larger team then the real MOG might definitely be worth a trial.


I wouldn't see $50 as much. Having to host an own server or renting a dedicated server for this purpose will definitely cost you more and that without taking the administrative and support effort into consideration. That you will have to implement the cross handling just nails the coffin, at least to me.
Especially the crosslinking is a very powerfull feature to save a lot of time and double work. Especially that you can directly refer to notebook, issues and SVN commit versions (which will show the commit notes) makes it very powerfull.
Also the issue report generation capabilities are pretty nice as it effectively allows you to filter and sort the issues as you require it at the moment.

I only have the $10 on my personal subscription right now as I have no need for time tracking, as I use iRatchet for time tracking and invoice creation.

But should I have a team that I need to control I will definitely go with Unfuddle for the source code repository and the whole management aspect.

Only assets will definitely never happen through SVN. To troublesome and complicated for efficient artists work.

 

I am actually in the process of designing a project management system in my spare time (which I may not have much of soon when the game project I am evolved in takes off).

First off I don't know why you would want something that is a desktop application where with a web based application, it will work on on major platforms (since 99% or OS on regular computers run FireFox).

I also agree there are alot of system out there that or ok for simple management (like overload, basecamp, unfuddle) and then there are some that are more details (like dotproject) but have ugly interfaces or are still now detailed enough (at least for me). That is want made be at least start to design (and I have also spent very little time on build a basic template) a project management system that has everything that I would want. Here is a list of the features I am planning:

• 
  Support multiple projects
  Ability to inner linking of projects (meaning Project A with Project B under it)
  Issue tracking for projects (this would include different types like tasks, bugs, enhancements, feature requests, etc...)
  Ability to inner link issues (meaning Issue 1 with Issue 2 under it where issue 2 needs to be completed in order for Issue to be completed)
  Ability to group a set of issues in containers (for organizational purposes so I could have a project for a game and then have issue containers for inventory system, dialog system, combat system, etc... that I -can put issues into)
  Types and statuses should be global of directly links to features (more of an internal structure thing)
  Track who is in charge of certain things like project, issues, milestone, milestone details, issue containers, etc...
  Track when and who created certain things like project, issues, milestone, milestone details, issue containers, etc...
  Be able to track if the user is an internal employee
  Be able to refresh user data the is generated on login
  Track user login/session information
  Be able to assign multiple positions to a user for different projects (so someone might be the lead programmer for Game A but only a tester for Game B)
  Be able to assign urgency and priority to issues
  Track milestones for projects and any number of details assigned to the milestone
  Be able to assign issues to milestone details
  Be able to track time spent on issues (which then leads to time spent on milestone and projects automatically)
  Be able to track the completion dates of issues, issue containers, milestone details, and milestones
  Be able to track all activity of any component (projects, issues, milestones, etc...)
  Be able to assign notes to any component (project, issues, milestone, etc...)
  Be able to track meeting and meeting attendance and allow meeting to assign and component as topics (so I can say Project A in the focus of the meeting or Issues 123, 124, 130 are the foucs of this meeting, etc...)
  Forums per project
  Wiki per project
  Resource management (documents, images, etc..., just not source control)
  Use user positions as the permission systems

If you guys want to give your input on something I did not mention that you would love to see in a project management system, that would be great.

Two things that I thing would be cool but don't plan on implementing in the first version (If i ever get it built) is integrated SVN access (and I don't see a huge benefit to being able to access source code from the project management system) and Gantt charting (which I agree does help to visualize things but not 100% needed).