I'm Really Not Qualified

Tue Nov 6 15:19:41 CST 2001

  With such a unique needs what you are going to end up doing is finding
  something that is close and having to write extensions to meet the needs
  you require.  Or start from the ground up and build your own.  Those are
  the only two solutions out there for such as you put it "different company
  with different needs".

  Maybe you should think about hiring the Al Tobey/Ben Carlson consultants. 
:)
  Special needs consultants, guns for hire, technology is our slave!

  Ben Carlson

>From: "Brandon Gohsman" <brandon at squareonedesign.com>
>Reply-To: <brandon at squareonedesign.com>
>To: "Perl Mongers" <grand-rapids-pm-announce at happyfunball.pm.org>,   
>"Albert P Tobey" <albert.tobey at priority-health.com>
>Subject: RE: I'm Really Not Qualified
>Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 14:32:55 -0500
>
>Thanks for the info.
>
>Yeah, I've actually already setup PHP Groupware as an option. Unfortunately
>it has two strikes against it: One is the aforementioned lack of PDA 
>support
>(although a group is working on a Palm conduit for it) and the other is 
>that
>its calendar would have to be rewritten to accommodate all of our 
>scheduling
>idiosyncrasies.
>
>I've spent a lot of time at SourceForge.net looking at various scheduling
>tools but I keep running into the same limitations. We are such a small
>company with such unique scheduling needs that there just isn't a general
>tool out there to accommodate us. But I'm open to any short-cut out of the
>hole I'm in.
>
>This is the price one pays for being "different".
>
>Brandon Gohsman
>Square One Design
>560 5th Street NW, Suite 301
>Grand Rapids, MI 49504
>
>T 616.774.9048
>F 616.774.8003
>E brandon at squareonedesign.com
>W http://www.squareonedesign.com
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-grand-rapids-pm-announce at pm.org
>[mailto:owner-grand-rapids-pm-announce at pm.org]On Behalf Of Albert P Tobey
>Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 1:24 PM
>To: brandon at squareonedesign.com
>Cc: Perl Mongers
>Subject: Re: I'm Really Not Qualified
>
>As usual, I'd like to point you to one or two open source options for
>this project, since we all know that if you deploy exchange, you'll
>never be able to get rid of it.  Trust me.
>
>http://www.phpgroupware.org/index.php
>
>You mentioned PHP, right?  Well, here's a PHP tool.  It doesn't have a
>PDA syncronization app, but I think I saw that it does iCal, so that
>might be enough.  (you can import iCal into most desktop PIM apps).
>Also, a search on www.freshmeat.net will show a few addon modules for
>this package, indicating at least some degree of extensibility.
>
>http://www.tutos.org/homepage/index.html
>
>Another one.
>
>Searching freshmeat shows quite a few, these two are just a couple of
>the more advanced OSS products.  Some of the closed applications look
>nice, too.  I'm not sure, but last I checked, Netscape had a nice
>application for groupware based on their directory server.
>
>http://www.bynari.net/
>
>A company creating an Exchange/Outlook competitive product that likely
>costs less, but doesn't run on Windows.  Darn.
>
>Just my obligatory OSS/Anti M$ plug.
>
>-Al Tobey
>
>
>
>
>On Mon, 2001-11-05 at 13:50, Brandon Gohsman wrote:
> > Hey everyone,
> >
> > This is not Perl related so feel free to bail at this point.
> >
> > Still here? Cool. I have undertaken a fairly large project for my
> > company (because no one else here wants it) for which I am really not
> > qualified. For lack of a better term, I am setting up a sort of
> > groupware for our company of 13 employees. There will be no chat clients
> > or crap like that. The primary function of this will be a better
> > calendar/scheduling system than we are currently using with more robust
> > project scheduling tools.
> >
> > Back Story:
> > To date, we have been using FileMaker Pro for anything and everything
> > that is database related. We do time tracking, estimates, correspondence
> > and scheduling in it. Our environment consists primarily of Macs (since
> > we are a graphic design house) and a handful of PC's. So far, FileMaker
> > has allowed us to do what we needed to do and do it across the two
> > platforms and do it inexpensively. But we now want it to do much more
> > and it simply isn't capable of keeping up.
> >
> > My company does print design as well as web/interactive design. Print
> > design is much more scheduling intensive due to the various stages of
> > production. A typical print job includes loose color proofing, film,
> > plating and offset printing. It may also include embossing, folding and
> > assembly, etc. A different vendor may be responsible for each stage of
> > production. You can see how a simple letterhead/business card project
> > can quickly become a management nightmare if you aren't on your toes.
> >
> > Part of the problem with all of this production craziness is that our
> > production manager and project leads are running all over the place as
> > details and problems are developing in their jobs. We all have cell
> > phones and PDAs but they are pretty useless at the moment because they
> > don't link up to our data. FileMaker has one tool called FileMaker
> > Mobile for getting FileMaker data onto a handheld, but it does not
> > support multi-user databases and several other features. Basically, it
> > is useless to us.
> >
> > So, one of the solutions we looked at was Microsoft's Exchange Server.
> > It will do about 80% of what we want right out of the box, which leaves
> > me either having to write the other 20% and find a way to glue it to
> > Exchange, or just start at ground zero and build our own solution from
> > the ground up. So here is where I am at the moment:
> >
> > I am planning to install Microsoft's Small Business Server suite, which
> > includes Exchange, SQL, etc. This instantly gets me syncability with
> > handheld devices through Outlook (as well as cross-platform support) and
> > covers the majority of the functionality we need. The one major thing
> > that Exchange doesn't do (at least not out of the box) is robustly
> > handle project scheduling in a way that is useful to us (job numbers,
> > people involved on a project, shifting an entire schedule ahead a week,
> > etc.). It also has to be able to print reports that match our graphic
> > standards and other correspondence materials.
> >
> > To get the scheduling and production management tools that we want, I am
> > using PHP and MySQL to build a web-based module. This is where things
> > get icky because I need to somehow link it to Exchange using PHP's LDAP
> > or something similar so that data can be synced onto the handhelds as
> > well as edited, created, deleted, etc. and then reconciled (safely)
> > during the next sync. Multiple people may be making changes to the same
> > project at the same time; some on a PDA, some from a workstation.
> >
> > Has anyone in the group ever had to deal with this sort of scenario? I
> > can handle setting up Exchange and building the online tools that we
> > need. But I have no experience with LDAP or Active Directory so getting
> > my custom app to work and play nicely with Microsoft just might kill me.
> > My day-to-day job is that of web/interactive designer so I don't usually
> > deal with anything beyond the scope of a website or whatever I can cram
> > onto a CD. Being a web/interactive designer has made me the "technical
> > guy" in the office so I end up shouldering this sort of thing.
> >
> > Any ideas, cautions, suggestions, insults, condolences etc. are welcome.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Brandon Gohsman
> > Square One Design
> > 560 5th Street NW, Suite 301
> > Grand Rapids, MI 49504
> >
> > T 616.774.9048
> > F 616.774.8003
> > E brandon at squareonedesign.com <mailto:brandon at squareonedesign.com>
> > W http://www.squareonedesign.com <http://www.squareonedesign.com/>
> >
>
>
>
>
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