I was curious to here how people are handling client issue tracking and documentation. My company (Interactive Mediums) is launching a web service for external clients to connect to our SMS messaging platform, and I would like to set a web site for clients to track issues, read documentation, etc. I thought Trac or RedMine might serve this purpose well, but wanted to get your opinions.
> I was curious to here how people are handling client issue tracking > and documentation. My company (Interactive Mediums) is launching a web > service for external clients to connect to our SMS messaging platform, > and I would like to set a web site for clients to track issues, read > documentation, etc. I thought Trac or RedMine might serve this purpose > well, but wanted to get your opinions.
Jeff,
I'd like to answer this in two parts since you have distinct goals for these, which could be one application, but may not necessarily be required.
Documentation
Quick question: Do your clients need to be able to manage the documentation content themselves?
For development projects, we have historically created and hosted wikis (instiki, junebug) and provided our clients with access to them.
We're using Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com/) and it's working good enough for the short term. We're disappointed with some of the Interaction Design decisions made and are reviewing alternatives. Trac isn't very end-user friendly... and neither of Bugzilla. Obviously, a reoccurring pattern of developers trying to design interfaces for developers and non-developers. (see FogBugz for another example of a developer-designed application that doesn't win my heart).
Good luck, and I'm hoping that someone can point out at least one issue tracker that doesn't suck when it comes to user interaction. ;-)
Cheers,
-Robby
-- Robby Russell Founder and Executive Director
PLANET ARGON, LLC Design, Development, and Hosting with Ruby on Rails
> I was curious to here how people are handling client issue tracking > and documentation. My company (Interactive Mediums) is launching a web > service for external clients to connect to our SMS messaging platform, > and I would like to set a web site for clients to track issues, read > documentation, etc. I thought Trac or RedMine might serve this purpose > well, but wanted to get your opinions.
> Thanks, > Jeff
-- Cell: 808 782-5046 Current Location: Melbourne, FL
> JIRA for issue tracking and Confluence for document management. These > are both commercial products from the same vendor and both are very > good.
I have to disagree here as far as the user-friendliness of Jira goes. I find its UI very unpolished and unintuitive, resembling more a traditional enterprise software than something I'd like to use.
I haven't used Lighthouse much so I can't say anything about its interaction design decisions Robbie mentioned, but at least I know that Rick and Justin have especially put a lot of effort in its UI. The same doesn't seem true (to me) with Jira.
On 7/24/07, Jarkko Laine <jar...@jlaine.net> wrote:
> On 25.7.2007, at 6.48, Anthony Eden wrote:
> > JIRA for issue tracking and Confluence for document management. These > > are both commercial products from the same vendor and both are very > > good.
> I have to disagree here as far as the user-friendliness of Jira goes. > I find its UI very unpolished and unintuitive, resembling more a > traditional enterprise software than something I'd like to use.
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree then. :-) I assume that you've actually used JIRA extensively in order to make that judgment? I'm actually quite curious about specifics if you'd like to email me off list.
To put things in context: we use JIRA for a team of 10 developers and about 50 users spread across 5 decent-sized government projects, so in that context it works well. If you're freelancing or working with one other developer, then I would consider it overkill and would probably go with something open source (like redMine).
V/r Anthony
-- Cell: 808 782-5046 Current Location: Melbourne, FL
> On 7/24/07, Jarkko Laine <jar...@jlaine.net> wrote: >> On 25.7.2007, at 6.48, Anthony Eden wrote:
>>> JIRA for issue tracking and Confluence for document management. >>> These >>> are both commercial products from the same vendor and both are very >>> good.
>> I have to disagree here as far as the user-friendliness of Jira goes. >> I find its UI very unpolished and unintuitive, resembling more a >> traditional enterprise software than something I'd like to use.
> Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree then. :-) I assume that > you've actually used JIRA extensively in order to make that judgment? > I'm actually quite curious about specifics if you'd like to email me > off list.
I don't know if I can say extensively but I've used it with a number of (bigger) clients where the clients have used it as their issue tracking system. So all in all the contexts should be right on for Jira.
My complaints are not as much about the features as they are about the general design of the user interface. An example: the probably most important link on a project page, "Create new issue" is not only looking just like all the other links on the page, it is grouped together with "Release notes", a link that ostensibly has nothing to do with the first link.
So, all in all, nothing against its features, I just think they could hire a good UI designer or two.
I guess I am old school. We usually just give documentation in HTML form and Issue Tracking is done though emails the automatically get added to our Trac instance for that client.
> I was curious to here how people are handling client issue tracking > and documentation. My company (Interactive Mediums) is launching a > web > service for external clients to connect to our SMS messaging > platform, > and I would like to set a web site for clients to track issues, read > documentation, etc. I thought Trac or RedMine might serve this > purpose > well, but wanted to get your opinions.
> Thanks, > Jeff
-- Myles A. Braithwaite Monkey in your Soul - http://miys.net/ my...@monkeyinyoursoul.com
We have been using Unfuddle ( http://www.unfuddle.com ) for issue tracking on three projects for close to a year now and have been very pleased. It is very user / client friendly. On the downside, it does not have integrated documentation or wiki.
Is anybody currently using RedMind? It looks like this app has come a very long way since we were looking last year. According to their change log, they have had 6 releases since the time we were looking at issue tracking applications including a fairly large release last week. It looks like they are almost as robust as Trac with a much more user-friendly design. I would be interested to hear the pros / cons of that app.
<my...@monkeyinyoursoul.com> wrote: > I guess I am old school. We usually just give documentation in HTML form and Issue Tracking is done though emails the automatically get added to our Trac instance for that client.
> > I was curious to here how people are handling client issue tracking > > and documentation. My company (Interactive Mediums) is launching a > > web > > service for external clients to connect to our SMS messaging > > platform, > > and I would like to set a web site for clients to track issues, read > > documentation, etc. I thought Trac or RedMine might serve this > > purpose > > well, but wanted to get your opinions.
> > Thanks, > > Jeff
> -- > Myles A. Braithwaite > Monkey in your Soul -http://miys.net/ > my...@monkeyinyoursoul.com
Hi, We are using redMine for some of our projects. Even if it's 0.5, it's quite stable. But it's really _not_ user-friendly (yet). Query filtering, ticket status management, ... can be improved a lot.
Thanks Robby, you pointed out a requirement that I had in my head that isn't really necessary - that the documentation and issue tracking be integrated within one application.
Lighthouse looks to be able to easily solve our needs, and we can definitely post a wiki for documentation. I will let you know if I find anything else that does a better job.
As for documentation, we've been using MediaWiki internally to track technical documentation, as well as our product requirements and road map. I think that will look into a more of an user friendly wiki like junebug for client documentation.
Thanks, Jeff
On Jul 24, 10:38 pm, Robby Russell <ro...@planetargon.com> wrote:
> > I was curious to here how people are handling client issue tracking > > and documentation. My company (Interactive Mediums) is launching a web > > service for external clients to connect to our SMS messaging platform, > > and I would like to set a web site for clients to track issues, read > > documentation, etc. I thought Trac or RedMine might serve this purpose > > well, but wanted to get your opinions.
> Jeff,
> I'd like to answer this in two parts since you have distinct goals > for these, which could be one application, but may not necessarily be > required.
> Documentation
> Quick question: Do your clients need to be able to manage the > documentation content themselves?
> For development projects, we have historically created and hosted > wikis (instiki, junebug) and provided our clients with access to them.
> We're using Lighthouse (http://lighthouseapp.com/) and it's working > good enough for the short term. We're disappointed with some of the > Interaction Design decisions made and are reviewing alternatives. > Trac isn't very end-user friendly... and neither of Bugzilla. > Obviously, a reoccurring pattern of developers trying to design > interfaces for developers and non-developers. (see FogBugz for > another example of a developer-designed application that doesn't win > my heart).
> Good luck, and I'm hoping that someone can point out at least one > issue tracker that doesn't suck when it comes to user interaction. ;-)
> Cheers,
> -Robby
> -- > Robby Russell > Founder and Executive Director
> PLANET ARGON, LLC > Design, Development, and Hosting with Ruby on Rails
I introduced Jira and Confluence to a past company and while those are great products for large teams with lots of projects, I feel that they're a bit heavy weight for our needs.
Cheers, Jeff
On Jul 25, 8:27 am, Jarkko Laine <jar...@jlaine.net> wrote:
> > On 7/24/07, Jarkko Laine <jar...@jlaine.net> wrote: > >> On 25.7.2007, at 6.48, Anthony Eden wrote:
> >>> JIRA for issue tracking and Confluence for document management. > >>> These > >>> are both commercial products from the same vendor and both are very > >>> good.
> >> I have to disagree here as far as the user-friendliness of Jira goes. > >> I find its UI very unpolished and unintuitive, resembling more a > >> traditional enterprise software than something I'd like to use.
> > Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree then. :-) I assume that > > you've actually used JIRA extensively in order to make that judgment? > > I'm actually quite curious about specifics if you'd like to email me > > off list.
> I don't know if I can say extensively but I've used it with a number > of (bigger) clients where the clients have used it as their issue > tracking system. So all in all the contexts should be right on for Jira.
> My complaints are not as much about the features as they are about > the general design of the user interface. An example: the probably > most important link on a project page, "Create new issue" is not only > looking just like all the other links on the page, it is grouped > together with "Release notes", a link that ostensibly has nothing to > do with the first link.
> So, all in all, nothing against its features, I just think they could > hire a good UI designer or two.
