Open source training & tutorials from experienced, passionate people
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You’ve decided there is a real need to keep various projects under control. All project nuances and resources can no longer be controlled by carrying all this information - In your head. Look no further than dotProject, it is a web-based, multi-user,
multi-language Project Management application. It is PHP and MySQL based, open-source, and completely free to use.
Start with our dotProject tutorial that explains what you can do with dotProject, especially how easy it is to setup and use. It has a clean and simple graphical user interface.
Move on to our dotProject tutorial that tells you where you can obtain the latest version of dotProject for download and how to install and configure dotProject so that it begins to work for you.
Our dotProject training is really all you will need to successfully install, setup and use dotProject for all your project management needs.
There is also a dotProject tutorial that teaches you how to skin your dotProject installation so that it has the individualistic look and feel that you want.
The way our tutorials are laid out within our dotProject training material is based on a standard Project Management approach. We are confident that you’ll constantly return to our dotProject training material whenever you need a refresher which we regularly update.
It’s core features include:
Do hop onto our Open source tutorial forum for a quick look while you are here. There are a lot of people who use it regularly, its lively and almost all of your dotProject queries would get answered quickly.
Also, remember that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, between 10:00am and 12:00am Indian Standard Time (i.e. GMT + 5.30) you can enter into live chat with Mr. Ivan Bayross a technical author who has written and published more than sixty seven books, and is still writing.
Whenever an individual ( or a group of individuals ) get involved in doing something the output quality of their work is often dependent on their ability to organize themselves and the processes involved in producing the output. If the number of processes being organized is small, then a simple book and pencil is quite sufficient.
If the number of processes to be completed, if a task has to be labeled as successfully completed is large then perhaps the need of a computer and an application that documents and perhaps controls these processes would be a lot more helpful.
When a group of people have gathered together to do something collectively having a group leader is a big help in co-coordinating their efforts. Having multiple leaders within a project team is a sure shot for disaster.
Imagine people building a house. Now imagine no project management. The house created would be shaky and it’s delivery subject to delays with a corresponding rise in costs.
Project management software is required for planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project’s goals and objectives.
Scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, communication, quality management and documentation or administration systems are some of the attributes controlled by the project management software.
You can extract:
Daily work executed Report
Hourly Summary Report
Task Summary Report
Tasks sorted by user
Tasks end date report
Tasks upcoming Report
Tasks Completed Report
Weekly Report
User performance Report
Allocated User Hours Report
Task List
Overall Report
Overdue
Project Statistics
The project manager has a detailed report of project progress. They can get project status in a flash.
Download the latest stable build of dotProject from URL http://sourceforge.net/projects/dotproject/
Open a browser window and enter http://www.google.com in the address bar and hit GO.
In the Google search window that opens search for download dotproject as shown in Diagram 1.
Diagram 1
In the Search results window Click on the sourceforge.net link as shown in Diagram 2.
Diagram 2
Click on Download Now! dotproject_2_1_3.zip as shown in Diagram 3. On clicking, the latest version of the dot project management zip file will be downloaded.
Diagram 3
A window pops up immediately as soon as you click on the button. Save the file on your local system and wait till the download process completes as shown in Diagram 4.
Diagram 4
The download process of dotProject 2.1.3 is successfully finished.
dotProject is a FOSS (Free Open Source Software) web-based Project Management application, designed to provide project layout, control and reporting functions. It is written in PHP. It is used to manage the day to day activities of project progression. The software license is BSN, GNU General Public License (GPL) which means it is free software provided as is with no warranty.
dotProject, internal company projects sit comfortably side by side with projects for external clients, providing monitoring and comparison of the volume of both chargeable and non-chargeable work performed by specific employees and suppliers.
dotProject enables you to create, track and maintain your projects online. It provides enterprise-level project management tools that include contact management, an email notification system, and an online system to create and manage projects.
It is easy to work with dotProject because it has clean and simple user interface. Its core features include:
dotProject requires a functioning web server with integrated PHP and MySQL support, and, of course, a web browser. Web server implemenations include:
LAMP: Linux+Apache+MySQL+PHP
WAMP: Windows+Apache+MySQL+PHP
WIMP: Windows+IIS+MySQL+PHP
Web Server
Apache (www.apache.org) is recommended to be version 1.3.27 or higher.
PHP
PHP (www.php.net) version 4.1.x or higher is required. PHP versions earlier than 4.0.x are NO LONGER SUPPORTED.
PHP needs to have the GD library installed to allow the Gantt charts to work. Use the phpinfo() function on your local (or hosted) system to see if this is compiled/installed with PHP.
MySQL
MySQL (www.mysql.com) version 3.23.51 or higher is recommended. You will also need an administration client for MySQL (such as MySQL Command Centre available from the MySQL web site).
Browser
You will also need a forth generation browser that supports style sheets and javascript (IE Version 5.5 or better, Mozilla 1.2, Netscape 7.x, etc). Many PNG image files are used in dotProject with alpha-transparency. Later versions of Mozilla and Netscape will render these properly. A patch has been applied to allow IE 6.0 to render these images also. However, earlier version of IE will not display the background of the images properly.
dotProject is a product completely crafted in PHP. It's built to dovetail into Apache2 perfectly.
It's install process is simplicity in itself.
The dotProject setup file downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/projects/dotproject/ is a zipped file. Extract the contents of the archive using Winzip or any other archiving tool as shown in Diagram 1
Diagram 1
During extraction, all the files contained in the archive will be extracted to a folder, named dotproject_{version_number} as shown in Diagram 2.
Diagram 2
If the archive was downloaded and extracted to E:\dotproject_2_1_3 i.e dotproject 2.1.3, there will now be a folder called BigBlueHat-dotproject-527fa57. All the contents of the file are contained in a folder named dotproject as shown in Diagram 3.
Diagram 3
Copy all the contents to the root of the folder and delete the BigBlueHat-dotproject-527fa57 folder as shown in Diagram 4.
Diagram 4
Create a folder named “errors”. Open the folder and create a text document file named errors.log in it as shown in Diagram 5.
Diagram 5
Rename the folder dotproject_{version_number} to dotproject as shown in Diagram 6.
Diagram 6
You are now ready to install dotproject on your local computer.
Dotproject is normally installed on your local computer within a folder that is controlled by Apache Web Server.
NOTE: The installation and configuration of Apache Web Server is given in another tutorial on this website.
The parent folder in which dotproject is installed on an Internet based host server is normally public_html. Hence your local computer should have a folder like E:\public_html.
NOTE: Normally the folder public_html is at root level. Not within another folder.
You can create E:\public_html using Windows explorer as shown in Diagram 7. Once E:\public_html is created, put the folder named dotproject within it.
Diagram 7
Now Apache Web server needs to be informed of the existence of E:\public_html\dotproject.
This is done by adding virtual domain codespec to Apache´s httpd.conf file.
The technique for doing this is described in the dotproject Virtual Domain tutorial on this website.
Which is the next tutorial in this series.
NOTE: The latest version of dotproject requires the extension php_mbstring.dll to be uncommented from the php.ini file located in C:\Windows as shown in Diagram 8.
Diagram 8
Please wait...