Subject: Community Builder Based Project Management System (PMS):
-Note the date of original posting vs this post and you will see, it has been a minute since then. Sorry for the delay, life happens.
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Greeting readers, as you can see in the original post, I am looking for a project management system for managing a (several) YouTube Channel(s).Background: I have looked at and even purchased other Project Management Joomla Extensions. One extension in particular I will talk about later in the post detailing my bad experience with them; however this extension if it had worked properly would have been most of what I needed. To further expand on what I am needing, I will site applications that can be installed on desktop as well as companies that offer web/cloud versions.
This started by me in the General Request category of the Open Area Forum.
-This post was me being pissy because I was frustrated over an issue I was having that was unrelated to Community Builder. In my pissy mood, I came to the CB-Site because I needed to grab the latest downloads.I needed to do a clean install of my website because I was worried about vulnerabilities being created by the failed attempt to get the other (non-CB) extension working. Being logged-in for the first time in a while I checked the forums out of habit and saw the category I originally posted in. When I see a general requests area, I personally see that as a solicitation from the devs for new requests. My mood at the time plus the solicitation equals a place I can vent without being outwardly obvious. However, Krileon did not do what I expected. I expected to be told no outright, or no because of any number of reasons. Krileon stated, they are not looking to develop new addons until after the next major stable version of Community Builder (2.x to 3.x) occurs; however he did want to know more as some elements of a project management system are already present in CB-Addons; ie, GroupJive, each project to be managed could be a group. Since they are interested in hearing more about what I am needing, I have elected to type it all up and post it to the forums. I typed this in Microsoft word and was not quite prepared for the length I ended up with. I want to get you as much information as possible so please do not let the length be daunting, there should be very little fat here.
Here are some takeaways before we get started.
- I am not a software or web developer, I know this is not a matter of a few lines of code and there you go.
- I am assuming you know something about project management or take the time to look up the software I [put in brackets] below.
- If anything is confusing or unclear, please let me know and I will clarify.
- When describing what I am needing, I am going to type as if I have zero knowledge on CB or its current addons. Basically if it can be done already I havn’t figured it out, so explain things as if it is my first time seeing it.
All that clear as mud? Good, lets get started.
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I am needing a task tracker / project manager / work scheduler, that I can access via Windows Desktop, Android Mobile, and iPad Tablet, with a strong preference to being self hosted. An Extension to my Joomla+CB site would achieve that accessibility.This will start me being the only team member, but I would like to have a starting structure intended to be utilized by any number of people with different permissions and access. [Bonus: Way to monetize insider access via CB-Subs, to be described later; more bonus points if we can do time tracking for payroll.]
[ProjectLibre] was my initial choice for (windows) desktop project management because it is free, however it is not supported on my other devices (android phone, ipad tablet). Project Libre does offer a cloud-version which is accessible via browser. This option could work for me, however their support-staff did not reply when I asked about pricing. Their smallest cloud package requires purchasing subscriptions for three “seats”, even if you are a team of one. In order to use their cloud-option, I would have to pay up-front 3x the cost of what I am actually utilizing.
[Monday] and [Asana] are two web providers for this type of tracker but I was not all that thrilled with their free trials. All in all I wish I had an option that works with my Joomla website; then I could just host and maintain it all on my own. (Note: Asana is the one I am leaning towards until I successfully talk Joomlapolis into developing this new addon branch
xoxox )
This then lead me to [JoomProject] by developer [JoomBoost]. This software appears to do almost everything I need. After making my purchase and completing the installation, I never got it to work properly. After getting their support involved in troubleshooting, I had to give them very deep access to my site and server, which made me uncomfortable. Watching the logs of what they were doing seemed fine until the logs were cleared. That made me very uncomfortable… anyways, support stopped replying to my tickets so I said screw it and went looking for my next thing. If CB-Projects did everything this software says it will do, I'd be a happy customer.
[Microsoft Project] is promising, but out of the budget. I want something I can buy once, or at a reasonable price yearly. This monthly payment model that so many places have went to are ridiculous.
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Now I would like to describe “CB-Projects” as if I were commissioning it for myself. I figure the best way to tell you what I need is to tell you what I want.The software is installed on my site and configured. There is an obvious “front end” and “back-end” for the extension. After initial configuration on the back end, everything else is done on the front end. Management of teams should likely be handled on the back-end to assure no unauthorized user permissions get applied. I think there should be included a suggested best practices for managing access; for example, I am going to describe managing youtube channels, the software I am describing could be used for say, construction. A main developer, General Contractors, Sub-Contractors, all needing access to different things at different times; different people need to be add new users with new access permission while following rules to protect unrelated projects..
I would set everything up in CB-Projects with teams in mind. As I see it, these are my current list of teams based on Joomla User Groups: a Sub-group of registered will be Staff; under staff will be Talent/Host; Camera; Marketing (Sub-groups; Ads, Merch, Social Media); Editors; Subscribers [group for CB-Subs-feature to be described later]; Publisher, Scheduler/Planner.
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I need to start the process for the next episode. From my front-end dashboard I navigate to dashboard for the Cross Cut Crafting channel, I click new episode. The next screen I key in details about the episode, Title being required, things like release date can be added here. Now there should be a button "Build Project from Tasklist". I can select Leathercraft from the tasklist and it will prepopulate based on known dependencies (Like for the leathercraft example, before sewing comes dying or before we can shoot b-roll of the final product, we have to complete final assembly.
On my crafting channel; a Leather-craft video is 34 tasks if I broke it down into steps; that is everything from pre-planning, through final publishing. At the moment, I do everything, as soon as I can add a team, some of those 34 steps can be delegated to a dedicated team.
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Uh.. my A.D.D. motivation just f-ed right off and my creative writing ability with along with it,,. The no frills version of what I need, make the Community Builder Developed version of JoomBoost's JoomProject; (That actually f-ing works) then I want to also have an integration with CB-Subs to where I can sell insider access to in process projects as a fund raising mechanism. (permissions need to be discussed but that is a while thread we can get in to if you all take up this development path.
krileon
