What do you recommend? Nothing to complicated. Just a simple and neat software we can use to communicate between our team members. We don't want a setup like a forum.

Thanks guys!

Any sort of instant messaging? It works.

Oh no, I meant something that will keep a record of our conversations so any staff can view it anytime necessary.

MSN, AIM, YIM, Gtalk etc. should do the job.

If you want something private then you could setup your own private IRC server or can look into using Jabber.

You are looking for a collaboration suite of sorts. SharePoint is an excellent choice.

You are looking for a collaboration suite of sorts. SharePoint is an excellent choice.

Thanks. I've already checked that out but it's too much or complicated for what we require. Anything simpler?

ICQ? Skype?

How about something like CampFire (http://campfirenow.com/) which ties in nicely with Basecamp (http://www.basecamphq.com)?

I don't know how well this will work, but I think you might be able to use some sort of live chat software and chat between operators (staff members).

I am looking for something similar to basecamp ; not looking for a *chat or IM* client.

It'll be used to leave notes for staff ; share/collaborate ideas ; to do lists etc. You get the idea!

A forum such as vBulletin might be one route you could take.

A forum such as vBulletin might be one route you could take.

well hmm...considering in the first post of this thread the OP specifically stated he did NOT want such a setup, I think it's safe to say that's not what he wants ;)

We don't want a setup like a forum.

Ha, damn skim reading. ;)

If I can ask sTag-Dan, why are you ruling out a forum?

Ha, damn skim reading. ;)

If I can ask sTag-Dan, why are you ruling out a forum?

does it matter why he is ruling it out?


As mentioned above I second Basecamp/CampFire

Nope - I'm just curious. That okay with you?

Cmon guys :P

I am ruling out a forum simply because I only see it being used for a "community" and not for a business *team* environment. Keyword is team and not hundreds+ members.

As mentioned above I second Basecamp/CampFire

I'll third Basecamp.

Dan, although you do not need a forum, there is a good chance you'll like vBulletin with a project management extension. Combine it with the calendar and a wiki module and you are at a good way to collaborate with your team.

Other than that, you should definetely check dotProject and especially phprojekt.

There are other options as well - a cms (like Zikula/Postnuke or Drupal), install some collaborative modules (calendar, tracker, address book, wiki, blog, forum etc.) and you are done.

Basecamp, Backpack, ActiveCollab, ProjectPier, TeamWorkLive

I am leaning more towards activecollab (paid) since it supports mobiles such as the iphone. Probably it's a paid software which makes it more appealing. The look and everything is just what I need. Love it! Is there anything similar?

Others such as dotproject/phpprojekt seems to be a bit complicated.

We're looking at activecollab too. Our team is the size where it needs something like this for us to stay on top of things. We're also considering Jive's offerings.

We already have internal jabber with full logging and conference rooms, that helps a lot.

One more from Microsoft. Microsoft Office Live Workspace. Works much like SharePoint but it is hosted by Microsoft and is FREE.
http://workspace.officelive.com/

We use OpenFire, a free/open-source Jabber/XMPP server. It works really well for us.

CampfireNow looks great for their chats, but doesn't have any sort of person->person private talks that I can see..

I'm a big fan of chats for a live, real time environment since you're working in a situation where remote workers are very far away, generally speaking. Something akin to Jabber provides a great tool. As far as logging, I'd look into a Jabber + Basecamp/Wiki solution to log the policy decisions.

There are a lot of options.
Try googling "groupware" ;)

You can give Trillian a whirl. It allows you to communicate with your ICQ, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, and IRC contacts and it has a pretty good message history record.

CampfireNow looks great for their chats, but doesn't have any sort of person->person private talks that I can see..
You need to use it in colab with BaseCamp, it integrates fully with it.

Xaurora uses skype! great for meetings.. and its free! ... but we also use forums as well... for projects and to post reports..

Our environment varies from project to project.

One client I'm working with uses fogbugz.com. I get the impression it costs a lot, but it's very easy to learn and does pretty much everything.. Bug/Feature tracking and assignment, time sheets, wiki for documentation and decent email integration.

For everything in house and for most other projects we use a combination of Bugzilla/SVN/WebDAV/(Google Docs/Calendar/XMPP/Groups) and a few in house developed PIM sites.

IMO, use what ever most of your team know. Ask their opinions on what they think would be most efficient. If 3 of 5 know bugzilla (likely) then I'd use that, the other two could quickly learn from the other three in this situation.

I'll personally second the suggestion for an internal IRC server as suggested above too. If you don't want to go the route of an entire IRCd you could just lock down a channel on freenode or something though.

http://www.citadel.org/doku.php

Very nifty appliance :-)

http://www.citadel.org/doku.php

Very nifty appliance :-)

I think we found our match :D

Thanks!

continual gtalk. works like a charm.

We refused to use any of Google's applications for business functions. Some of us value privacy.

We use MSN, email, an internal wiki, and bugzilla. The combination of those seems to work well. Actually, you can also use bugzilla as a task tracker (we don't though) and I think it'll work OK for that.

What features are you looking for ? Only IM ?

We refused to use any of Google's applications for business functions. Some of us value privacy.

You believe Google doesn't respect your privacy? They have a good track record thus far.

Most of our projects are either open source or front facing js anyway, so we use the tools we're most comfortable with. Anything sensitive is in our WebDAV or Bugzilla.