Planning is a cornerstone of any business, to be able to identify what work needs to be completed, who needs to do it, and how long it should take them allows you to identify resource issues, plan for scaling, and determine if you’re actually making money on a project.

In the past I’ve used MSProject, Excel, multiple whiteboards (it started with a single whiteboard, then scaled up to 3… when we started to run out of wall space), BaseCamp, and none of the above.  Currently we’re using ClockingIT, the first benefit of this application is that it’s free… yep, that’s right, no cost, just like that apache server you’re using.

ClockingIT was developed by a married couple in Oslo, Norway.  Like Apache, the source code is available, should you desire to do some development work on it yourself, and contribute to the community.  So what does it do?

• Time tracking
• Milestones
• Task Dependencies
• Timeline and activity log
• Notifications - email & RSS
• Multiple language support
• Individual user security settings
• Integrated wiki

What about the concerns?  Well, the server that they host it on is based out of their employers ISP, this could be an issue should their employer no longer be their employer.  Again though, you can take the source code and install it on your own server should that be a major concern for you.  Another concern is the development cycle.  What happens when you identify an issue that is important to your business?  Well, in our experience, if it’s been something that improves the product, it gets in there fairly quickly.

So far, for us, ClockingIT has provided everything that it said it would, at a price that anyone would like.

Filed under: Administration on Monday, February 4th, 2008 by Simon Heseltine |
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