On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 14:20:02 -0500, rpgoldman at real-time.com <rpgoldman at real-time.com> wrote: > >>>>> "John" == John T Hoffoss <john.t.hoffoss at gmail.com> writes: > > John> A coworker is doing an assessment comparing groupware solutions for a > John> client. They're currently using straight-up SMTP + POP3 clients. > John> Exchange is an option, but these guys are a non-profit and pretty open > John> source-friendly, so they're looking for open solutions as well. I've > John> found what seem to be the big two, eGroupWare, and OpenGroupWare. > > John> I'm wondering: are any of you using either of these? Are you using a > John> different groupware solution providing group messaging, calendaring, > John> etc. via a web interface? They would like this externally > John> accessible. > > We've been using TikiWiki for a similar purpose, with some luck, after > finding that PHProjekt was unbearably rigid. > > Calendaring in TikiWiki doesn't work very well in my opinion, and > there doesn't seem to be a good way to synchronize your personal > calendar with theirs. I'd love to find a solution that would synch > with my Palm, either directly or through evolution or kdepim as an > intermediary. > > We like the forums, file databases, and the wiki. > > At the time we got started, phprojekt seemed the best of the directly > groupware-y solutions, but since then OpenGroupWare and eGroupWare > have come along. We're a small organzation and not very rigid in > terms of process and who gets to see what. We were constantly trying > to break phprojekt, which was constantly trying to hide information > from people and let only the project lead see it... > > John> If you are using these, or another product, how would you rate the > John> setup on a difficulty scale? How much maintenance does the product > John> require? Would you say that once running, it's something someone with > John> less than a year of *N?X experience could manage? > > Set up was pretty easy. Maintenance pretty limited. But remember > that all these things need to have someone do the backup! Backup we can educate their admin. Telling him to install any of these would be difficult for him though, as he'd have to figure out how to migrate the existing system, setup/reconfigure their mailer, (he followed a generic walkthrough the first time, guaranteed) tie that into LDAP (Active Directory) or something similar, and then set Apache/PHP/etc. up. We'll of course help them with setup & configuration, but if documentation is cohesive enough, this guy may be able to manage it. And being non-profit, the more he can do, the more they save. Unfortunately, he's not a good admin, and his solutions/implementations tend to be default/poorly done/etc. In addition, he's very anti-MS, while at the same time, not good enough to provide (or configure well) alternates on his own that perform the job as well or better than MS products. A wiki would be a decent solution for them, but I don't think their staff is technically capable of utilizing this to it's fullest extent. I don't think they'll even use a traditional forum in any extended way. I believe they at most need standard groupware functions: email, calendar, notes, and tasks. Perhaps a 'project' item would be useful as well, but that would only be used by a handful of the managers, to track their own projects. And they all have their own method of doing that on their own as it is. John _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list