Teambox: An Excellent Open Source Collaborative Project Management Solution


While there are approximately 3 million project management apps (I’m guessing. I lost count around 102,463), TeamBox manages to stand out from the crowd by being both open source and focusing heavily on collaboration.

While many hosted web-based project management apps focus on collaboration, few of them are open source. And while there are quite a few open source project management apps, few focus heavily on collaboration in a way that’s designed for virtual teams.

Teambox has both of those covered.

Dashboard

When you first log in, the main focus is on all recent activity and comments made by other team members. Teambox allows you to ask questions, make comments, attach files, and delegate tasks all from the Dashboard — making it easy to see an overview of not only what’s happening but also everyone’s and every task’s status.

 

Task Management

Teambox’s Task Management page is very “social network-inspired” (think Facebook and Twitter). Teambox makes it easy to assign tasks to people, assign due dates and (of course) leave comments.

 

Charts, Reports, and Calendars

Teambox makes it easy to view what’s due when, along with who’s responsible for what in whatever form is easiest for you to visualize — either Gnatt charts, reports, or on a calendar. You can either view the calendar straight in Teambox, or sync it to your personal calendar or smartphone. In addition, you can log time tracking on the calendar.

 

Whiteboards

Whiteboards are great for collaborating with a team. You can post useful links, information you constantly need to reference back to, or start sketching out a formal document (such as a proposal). Teambox’s Whiteboards are incredibly intuitive — I rarely had to reference the formatting help section my first time using them.

 

Conversations

In addition to being able to comment on tasks and collaborate on Whiteboard, Teambox also allows you to have “Facebook-style” chats to brainstorm and discuss ideas that aren’t specifically task-related.

 

Email Intergration

Teambox allows you to both respond to comments through email, along with creating or updating the status of a task using project “short codes.” Very handy if you live in your email inbox.

Mobile

Mobile is a huge consideration when it comes to project management apps and Teambox has you covered. Simply go to the Teambox website using an iPhone, Android device, or Blackberry and you’ll see a mobile-optimized version.

Pricing

Teambox offers a free plan, but it’s pretty limited: 3 projects and 50 MB of storage. In addition, Teambox also offers a few additional features for companies with over 100 employees, such as unlimited projects and company branding starting at $3/user.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a complete, open source, project management solution with heavy collaboration features that can work for a single freelancer environment all the way up to a corporate setting, Teambox is definitely worth checking out.

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Leslie A. Joy is a marketing assistant, process manager, analytics geek, and blogger, along with being a social media strategist for DSGNR Unlimited. You can find out more at her site, Social Media Mercenary.

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