Collaboration Script/System/Solutions

[HalfEatenPie]

Inspired from

So whether it be personal organization purposes or working with a team, it's much easier to have a piece of software help you take care of all of that.  

We can categorize most of the current solutions into three "types"...

For Coding, for Business (non-coding), and for Personal use

What collaboration software/system do you use?  What does it categorize into?

Previously, I've used almost everything from JIRA, Google Apps, Tree.io, Trac, etc.  Most recently, I've been using Zimbra mostly as a personal organizer.  JIRA and Trac were too programmer-focused for my own needs.  Google Apps, while nice, didn't really let me self-host it.  Tree.io, I like but has so many bugs and issues it's just better to use a piece of paper.  Most recently, I've been using Zimbra and have been enjoying it a ton.  While it's most commonly used as a webmail client, it also supports documents, task management, contact list, and a calendar to help someone stay organized.  You can probably find similar stuff for RoundCube and Horde, but this solution really has been working for me.  I'm just hoping it's not the novelty of having this organized electronically that's working for me but actually being used for the long-term.  

So... what do you use and how?  

 

[bizzard]

Have tried GroupOffice earlier. It pretty well managed all our needs. My office moved to GitLab + Podio setup recently, since its mostly coding work. 

Using ownCloud with a bunch of plugins for personal needs, managing contacts, calender and files and syncing it over devices.

 

[Leyton]

We make heavy use of Trello at VersoBit for task management, time management, and project development.

Other than that, it's mostly the Google Apps suite (or whatever it's called now).

 

[HalfEatenPie]

We make heavy use of Trello at VersoBit for task management, time management, and project development.

Other than that, it's mostly the Google Apps suite (or whatever it's called now).

Huh Trello looks really interesting!  If it included like an actual time management system in the calendar (from this hour to this hour I was doing that) it'd be so much better...

Good call! 

 

[Leyton]

Huh Trello looks really interesting!  If it included like an actual time management system in the calendar (from this hour to this hour I was doing that) it'd be so much better...

Good call! 

It is a pretty awesome suite - there are lots of planned features upcoming, and one of those is time tracking on cards (how long spent on a task), and I believe that adding endpoints to scheduled cards will be part of that.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

It is a pretty awesome suite - there are lots of planned features upcoming, and one of those is time tracking on cards (how long spent on a task), and I believe that adding endpoints to scheduled cards will be part of that.

Haha yeah.  I know this is a SaaS but any possibility of looking into adding E-mail Mailbox support maybe? 

Also more of that husky.  I only saw two pictures of that husky fellow.  Do want. 

Related to the discussion on hand, I've been trying to install Open-XChange, but every single time I do I get side-tracked and then end up screwing it all up.  Anyone ever get the collaborative version of Open-XChange working?  Can you edit .DOC files with the collaboration version?  Can you edit DOCX in the collaboration version?  How is the Excel reader for that?  

 

[raindog308]

This field is so vast - everything from Asana to Zoho.  If it's document-oriented, lots of people use Sharepoint (and there are cloud-hosted options), Google Docs, Evernote, etc.

Funny, I was just looking at FosWiki the other day.  Looks very interesting - more robust than MediaWiki (or at least, more focused on group collaboration than publishing a global encyclopedia).  Forked from Twiki and I think the brainshare has moved to FosWiki.

I've been looking for something that is sort of Sharepoint + wiki, free, and Linux-based for self-hosting.  FosWiki might be it - attaching/managing docs in MediaWiki is awful.

Another option if you're focused on document management is Alfresco.  I've never used it (we're a Sharepoint shop) but it's open source, though Tomcat/Java-based and kind of heavyweight.  It's really repository-focused - i.e., you want to store, version, control, etc. documents, search for every document of every type that mentions something, etc.

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Ok so just putting this out there, @raindog308 every single time I somehow talk with you (right now spanning like three threads), you have great input to a discussion.  You rock!

Anyways, being a cheap individual (working on a second degree) who never had the opportunity to use the more Enterprise solutions offered by Microsoft and those other major software companies, is there any way to try out Sharepoint?  How is it in relation to Dropbox and Google Docs?

See, my favorite part of Google Docs is that multiple people can edit it at the same time from different interfaces.  My favorite part of Dropbox (I use Dropbox on a daily level, Google Docs on a collaborative level) is the uploaded document versioning in addition to how it's so easy to share documents, files, and folders to outside people.  

My favorite part about using Zimbra at the moment is the calendar that comes with it.  I used to love Google Calendar, but now ti's come to a point where I'd prefer everything to be self-hosted and managed by myself (while also being able to integrate with Google Calendar, probably via WebCal).  Zimbra lacks in the document department in addition to having a desktop application that (similar to Dropbox's desktop application) automatically syncs files (with versioning) to the remote server.  In all seriousness, this is probably why I'm thinking about moving from Zimbra to Open-XChange.  Because of the document system they have there.  I still haven't found a decent solution with similar-to-dropbox-esque-file-sync system, but I'll get there sooner or later (or a decent file control system).  

A wiki would also be a plus.

With this mumbling going on...  Is there any actual service (paid or free, SaaS or self-hosted) that does all this?  

In relation to sharepoint, what does Microsoft Sharepoint have to bring to the table that makes it a more attractive alternative?  Is it because it's so well integrated with Windows and it's other services?  

 

[DomainBop]

currently using (all open source):

OpenProject <--Ruby on Rails / PostgreSQL < --installed on a 2GB Xen VPS <--project management, wiki, calendars, meetings, project document management, etc <-- features

Alfresco (Community Edition) <--Java  / PostgreSQL<-- installed on an i5-3570 w/8GB RAM dedi <-- ECM: document management/image management/records management, collaboration etc

Oodo (formerly OpenErp) <-- Python / PostgreSQL <-- installed on same dedi as our Alfresco install <-- ERP/CRM used for the things Alfresco and OpenProject don't do

 

[splitice]

I use Trello, both when working with contractors and for one of my current projects. Its a bit basic, but its very quick to use which mitigates allot of the problems (miss-use and lack of use due to programmer lazines) that plague alot of other systems.

 

[raindog308]

Ok so just putting this out there, @raindog308 every single time I somehow talk with you (right now spanning like three threads), you have great input to a discussion.  You rock!

Aw...

Anyways, being a cheap individual (working on a second degree) who never had the opportunity to use the more Enterprise solutions offered by Microsoft and those other major software companies, is there any way to try out Sharepoint?  How is it in relation to Dropbox and Google Docs?

It's a web interface to a file system, really, with some other stuff thrown in.  There's a ton you can do with it, but of course then you need a Sharepoint admin.  Some things we do with it:

• It's the major collaboration tool we use, so we have thousands of sites (I work for a company with 25K employees).  You go to a site and there are documents, calendars, etc.  Pre-2013, you'd click on a Word or Excel or Powerpoint or whatever doc and edit it in your PC's copy of Word/Excel/Powerpoint - in 2013, you can do that in a web-based version of those products (or on your PC).  The saving back is directly to the web site so there's no save local/upload cycle.
• There are a variety of add-ons such as wikis, forms, etc.
• Microsoft has really pushed the "publishing" side of it, and if you use their BI tools you essentially are putting Sharepoint in front of a SQL Server Database and building queries, so you go to a Sharepoint site and there are charts/graphs, you can use controls and it refreshes in an ajaxy way, etc.  Various options for layouts, pages, etc.
• Of course there are all sorts of controls, permissions, etc.  It all ties into Active Directory, etc. as you'd expect.

I've seen some people do pretty cool stuff with it, but my perception is that setting it all up is non-trivial and needs a Sharepoint team.  As a user, I can request a site and set up the pages, etc. but I wouldn't have the first clue how to install the product on a server, etc.  Microsoft offers hosted Sharepoint as part of its Office 2013 online suite.


It really depends how deeply into the Microsoft ecosystem you are.


It's not that far off from Google Docs - richer in many ways, though it doesn't have the group-edit-a-doc-at-once capability.  

In relation to sharepoint, what does Microsoft Sharepoint have to bring to the table that makes it a more attractive alternative?  Is it because it's so well integrated with Windows and it's other services?

Yep!  With all the good and bad that entails.  

In other lives I've gotten a ton of mileage out of wikis for documents, either edited in the wiki or attached (though this seems to always be a little rough).  It's when you want to do something other than hyperlinked text things become difficult:

• programmatic inputs (pulled from some other site/database)
• forms
• presentation logic (i.e., spreadsheet-like pages)
• calendars
• tasks
• etc.

 

[DomainBop]

It's a web interface to a file system, really, with some other stuff thrown in.  There's a ton you can do with it, but of course then you need a Sharepoint admin.  Some things we do with it:

• It's the major collaboration tool we use, so we have thousands of sites (I work for a company with 25K employees).  You go to a site and there are documents, calendars, etc.  Pre-2013, you'd click on a Word or Excel or Powerpoint or whatever doc and edit it in your PC's copy of Word/Excel/Powerpoint - in 2013, you can do that in a web-based version of those products (or on your PC).  The saving back is directly to the web site so there's no save local/upload cycle.
• There are a variety of add-ons such as wikis, forms, etc.

Alfresco does all of that.

my perception is that setting it all up is non-trivial and needs a Sharepoint team. As a user, I can request a site and set up the pages, etc. but I wouldn't have the first clue how to install the product on a server, etc.

Alfresco also shares Sharepoint's newbie unfriendly administration and installation features.  There is more of a learning curve required than installing and administering a simple product like a forum script or SolusVM.  On the plus side, Alfresco community edition does have an install script for Debian which eases much of the install pain.

 

[raindog308]

Well forget foswiki...the installation guide (part1!) was so ridiculous that I stopped reading halfway through.  I guess those guys have never heard of an installer.

http://foswiki.org/System/InstallationGuidePart1

 

[Jonathan]

For internal code projects I like Gitlab.  It's very light on actual project management and more obviously about git but it does have issue tracking, discussions, milestones, wiki, etc. all in it so we make use of it even for some non-coding stuff.

 

[wlanboy]

For internal code projects I like Gitlab.  It's very light on actual project management and more obviously about git but it does have issue tracking, discussions, milestones, wiki, etc. all in it so we make use of it even for some non-coding stuff.

Looks like I have to try Gitlab.