Free Web project management tools

[Ernest Perez]

Fellow list folks,

Project management (PM) software is rightfully regarded as a  easy and handy way
to manage complex projects, especially those involving many players. Add to this
the Web's functionality of negating cross-platform issues and covering distances
"at a single bound," and we're getting better, yet. And finally, what if it's a
Web freebie? Wow? Great for libraries, professional societies, regional groups,
whatever!

Here at the Oregon State Library, we're starting to use OnProject.com, a
subscription Web PM package. It gives us bigger project capacity, sufficient
user-logon "seats," great email notification & reporting, etc. It also solves
the cross-platform and versioning problems of a Mac/Windows organization. (And
it's really cheaper than buying & maintaining & networking multiple seats of
desktop PM software.)

For PM help on a smaller scale, like for departmental or professional
association use, you might find it helpful to try out some of the freebie
versions...

* Intuit Quickbase, at <http://www.quickbase.com>, is powerful, flexible,
easy-to-use, and quite capable of heavy-duty planning efforts. It's free for up
to 3 projects, 3 MB of storage, and auxiliary file storage of 2MB. Of course,
they hope you'll upgrade. $14.95/month buys you capacity for 15
databases/projects, with 20MB and 15MB of project/file storage; $49.95/month
buys you 50 project capacity, 100MB and 125MB of storage. (BTW, the folks at
Intuit aren't exactly amateurs; they were the folks who developed a product
called Quicken.)

* "iTeamWork" is a bit simpler, but also a bargain at Free. It's at
<www.iteamwork.com>. Not as sophisticated, many fewer bells&whistles, but it
still makes coordinating multiple tasks and people a lot simpler.

Both of these Web software products maximize the leverage of email and automatic
reporting. It's also convenient to be able to see "what's going on" from
whereever you can get a Web entry.

I hope these may prove of use to some colleagues. For that matter, how about
your patrons/customers?

Cheers,
-ernest
-----------------------------
Ernest Perez, Ph.D.
Group Leader,
Oregon State Library
250 Winter St. NE
Salem OR 97301-3950
ernest.r.perez at state.or.us
503-378-4243, xt 257

Oh, yeah. No ownership or personal interest...blah blah blah....