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The dimensional growth and increasing difficulty in project management promoted the development of different tools that serve to facilitate project management and track project schedule, resources and overall progress. These tools offer a variety of features, from task and time management, up to integrated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) modules. Currently, a large number of project management software is available, to assist project team during the entire project lifecycle. We present the main differences between open source and proprietary project management tools and how those could be important for SMEs, describing the key features and how those can assist the project manager and the development team. In this paper, we analyse four open-source project management tools: OpenProject, ProjectLibre, Redmine, LibrePlan and four proprietary tools: Bitrix24, JIRA, Microsoft Project and Asana.
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*Correspondence to: a21190319@alunos.isec.pt, flpires@gmail.com, jorge@isec.pt
Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management, 1:3 (2016), 177-186
ISSN: 2468-4376 eISSN: 2468-4376
Open Source and Proprietary Project Management Tools for SMEs
Veronika Abramova1*, Francisco Pires2 , Jorge Bernardino1,3
1 ISEC Superior Institute of Engineering of Coimbra, PORTUGAL
2 Bettertech Business Software, PORTUGAL
3 CISUC Centre of Informatics and Systems of the University of Coimbra, PORTUGAL
ABSTRACT
The dimensional growth and increasing difficulty in
project management promoted the development of
different tools that serve to facilitate project management
and track project schedule, resources and overall
progress. These tools offer a variety of features, from task
and time management, up to integrated CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) modules. Currently, a large number
of project management software is available, to assist
project team during the entire project lifecycle. We
present the main differences between open source and
proprietary project management tools and how those
could be important for SMEs, describing the key features
and how those can assist the project manager and the
development team. In this paper, we analyse four open-
source project management tools: OpenProject,
ProjectLibre, Redmine, LibrePlan and four proprietary
tools: Bitrix24, JIRA, Microsoft Project and Asana.
Keywords
------------------------------
open source software (OSS),
project management,
PMBOK,
2016
---------------------------------
DOI: 10.20897/lectito.201633
1. INTRODUCTION
Project Management consists of a set of tasks and processes that are focused on creating a product or providing
a service. The PMBOK Guide defines a project as a temporary group activity that produces a unique product,
service or result. In this context project management is “the application of knowledge, skills and techniques to
execute projects effectively and efficiently” (Project Management Institute, 2013). Project Management refers to
the planning, monitoring and controlling of all aspects of a project, with the people involved in the project aiming
to achieve the objectives on time and on budget to a specific quality standard. One of the earliest perspectives
defines tools and techniques applied to diverse resources in order to accomplishment a unique, complex, one-time
task within time, cost and quality constraints (Oliveira, Tereso & Machado, 2014). Today, there is a large amount
of available project management tools that try to improve project management by organizing all the necessary
information. Not only there are available proprietary solutions, but also a large number of open source tools
(Ferreira & Tereso, 2014).
Open source software (OSS) has generated much excitement in the software market. There are different
solutions that try to satisfy user requirements and provide better functionalities (Bernardino, 2013), (Tereso &
Bernardino, 2011), (Sampaio & Bernardino, 2015). Those tools have been widely used for long time and are
continued being developed and improved to be able to compete with proprietary solutions. In this paper, we
extend on previous work (Abramova, Pires & Bernardino, 2016), analyzing and describing more tools. We get a
closer look at the project management tools while considering open source as well as proprietary software. For
functionalities description and comparison, we choose open source tools: OpenProject, ProjectLibre, Redmine
and LibrePlan while proprietary tools chosen are: Bitrix24, JIRA, Microsoft Project and Asana. This choice was
Copyright © 2016 by Author/s and Licensed by Lectito BV, Netherlands. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management, 1:3 (2016), 177-186
© 2016 by Author/s
178
supported on our research and tools popularity based on the number of posts and publications that mention that
software.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: section 2 debates open source technologies, section 3
discusses open source alternative tools, describing them and presenting a feature’s comparison table. Section 4
describes proprietary solutions and also compares their features. Section 5 discusses the use of open source tools
by SMEs. Finally, section 6 presents the conclusions and future work.
2. Open Source and SMEs
Open Source Software represents publicly accessible software design which means that available content may
be freely modified by its users. Differently, in proprietary or “closed source” software, the source code that cannot
be modified by anyone but the person, team, or organization who created it and maintains exclusive control over
it. This due to intellectual ownership and only owners are legally allowed to copy or modify their product. Currently
Open Source Software attempts competing with the proprietary on all the levels. Some people defend that while
being closed and paid, the product itself as well as support are higher quality when compared to the development
by the community while some of the developers may not even being paid for they work. However, if we look at
some of the available alternatives, this theory can easily be proven wrong. For example, these days many business
and government organizations use a large amount of open source software such as Linux. This operating system
has been developed for many years and provides different distributions and, therefore, just by that example, we
can discuss that proprietary software is not the only option as well as sometimes paying for software may not be
the best choice. So one of the questions while using enterprise alternatives may be “is this tool worth paying for?”.
Well that depends on its use and who will be sing it. Let’s take a look at the SMEs. These days most of the
companies may be considered SMEs - Small and medium-sized enterprises. For each company it is important to
understand which tools would be the most powerful ones, not only based on available features but also on usability
and learning curve. That means that there may not be a need on investing in software with a lot of features if those
are not needed of if there are non-enterprise alternatives that are capable of serving their purpose.
3. Open Source Tools
There is a variety of project management alternatives that provide a large amount of useful features during
project development, starting from time and task tracking (scheduling) and up to cost and resource management.
While considering available open source alternatives, it is important to notice that there are a vast number of tools
that provide similar features and are able to compete with proprietary software (Andersson, 2008). In this section
we describe four of the most popular available open source tools: OpenProject, ProjectLibre, Redmine and
LibrePlan.
3.1 OpenProject
OpenProject is an open-source project management software tool that allows de-fining project tasks associated
to an order list and allocates the resources (people, materials, machines) that are used in each task and their costs.
There is also a possibility to view Gantt charts, PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) diagrams for
management of project tasks, WBS, RBS and cost charts. The WBS can be viewed within the application, which
allows issuing reports, evaluating the histogram and progress reports. Differently from some of the open source
alternatives, OpenProject includes human resource management that allows better task management as well as
team management. Another possibility that this tool provides is financial resource management and cost tracking.
It is possible to keep track of all the effort spent and analyze the costs by filtering available data. It is possible to
view the cost and time spent as well as and the remaining budget with a breakdown per work package. Figure 1
shows a basic OpenProject scheduling that allows project task and time tracking.
It is important to notice that the main focus of this application is agile development, where a project can be
easily distributed into tasks and there is a possibility of managing User Stories and resources allocated to them. In
terms of compatibility with other available software, OpenProject is able to open native Microsoft Project files and
contains similar features (Carter & Lippert, 2006). Some of the available features are: Overview one or multiple
projects; Create schedule (timeline); Manage requirements in the product backlog; Create user stories and tasks
from the backlog view; Book time or units spent on tasks directly to work packages; Keep track of how much
effort the project activities require; Monitor the sprint effort using burn down charts.
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© 2016 by Author/s
Figure 1. OpenProject Timeline
(Source: https://community.openproject.org/news/41-new-design-for-openproject)
Consider that unlike most of the available project management tools, OpenProject is only available for Linux.
However, one of the main aims of OpenProject is establishing active community that would help this tool improve
ever more. Therefore, at the end of 2013, was created OpenProject Foundation (OPF), inspired by Ubuntu
Foundation and Apache Software Foundation. The main goal of this foundation is to constantly improve
OpenProject and ensure overall product quality.
3.2 ProjectLibre
ProjectLibre is open source project management software that provides management assistance during a project
development. It was released in 2012 as multiplatform software developed in Java by Marc O’Brien and Laurent
Chretienneau, under the company Projity, as a branch of already existent project management software
OpenProj. The development of OpenProj was discontinued and developers used this available tool as a base and
added some new features and improvements. This tool is known as open source alternative for Microsoft Project
(Kelly, 2012), (Hibbets, 2013), (Project Libre, 2015). Some of the available features are: Microsoft Project 2010
compatibility; Ribbon user interface; Earned value costing; Gantt and PERT charts; Resource breakdown structure
(RBS) chart; and Work breakdown structure (WBS) chart.
ProjectLibre is a system that is mainly focused on longer phases and iterations, providing an overview of overall
WBS and RBS during project lifecycle. In terms of installation, ProjectLibre can be easily installed on local system
using MSI engine used to install software on Windows. That means that a project is represented by a file that is
stored in a disk system and may be saved and posteriorly loaded. This differs from most of project management
tools that attempt to provide on-line collaborative environment that can be accessed and used from anywhere.
As presented on Figure 2, ProjectLibre has a Ribbon styled navigation menu, which is very similar to MS
Software style. This GUI makes this tool more user-friendly while trying to compete with MS Open Project.
Figure 2. ProjectLibre Gantt Chart (Source: http://sourceforge.net/projects/projectlibre/)
3.3 Redmine
This open source project management tool was firstly released in 2006 while being developed in Ruby on Rails
by JP Lang (Hartl, 2012). One of the advantages of this tool using Ruby is the use of “gems” which is an easy way
of distributing and installing software. Redmine includes calendar and Gantt charts to aid visual representation of
projects and their deadlines. It also features multi-project support, role based access control, a per-project wiki,
and project forums. Some of the features provided by Redmine are, as follows (Ozio Media, 2012): Multiple
projects support; Budgeting; Issue tracking system; Gantt chart and calendar; News, documents & files
management; Feeds & email notifications; Per project wiki and forums; and Time tracking.
While being a popular tool, there is a variety of plugins that can be added to Redmine to somehow enhance it.
This enhancement may be the installation process or management and visual customization to fit better accordingly
to a specific company (Ozio Media, 2012), (Redmine, 2015). Differently from most Open Source tools, Redmine
Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management, 1:3 (2016), 177-186
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has a large amount of plugins that are distributed by developers that are built on top of Redmine and are capable
of somehow enhancing its capabilities.
Figures 3a) and 3b) show Redmine user interfaces. However, while Figure 3a) shows basic GUI, Figure 3b)
presents a plugin that improves Redmine visual characteristics, making GUI more appellative.
Figure 3. a) Redmine Interface Figure 3. b) Easy Redmine Interface.
3.4 LibrePlan
Developed by Igalia, private company based in Spain, LibrePlan is an open source web-based project
management tool. This software started being developed in April 2009 in Galicia (Spain) with the aim to build a
planning tool for the Galician regional naval auxiliary sector. Project was originally named by NavalPlan and
posteriorly, past 1.2 version, renamed to LibrePlan (Libreplan, 2016). Some of the feature categories are as follows:
resource management, planning, control and monitor, data tracking, and connection. Resource management
represents both human and material resources that are necessary during entire project lifecycle. While focusing on
the human resource it is possible to easily manage team members by configuring their personal pages that contain
not only basic information but also assigned tasks, calendars, working time, expenses, available time and more.
Project planning represents one of the base pillars for any project management tool. LibrePlan provides time
estimation and deadline tracking, GANTT chars, resource allocation, activities and Monte Carlo simulation. Monte
Carlo simulation is a computerized mathematical technique that provides necessary data for risk in quantitative
analysis and decision making (Palisade, 2015). In this tool, it provides the probability density function of the project
duration using the PERT optimistic, most likely and pessimistic times of the tasks belonging to the critical path.
Also, it is possible to overview the entire company dashboard. This dashboard contains the information of all the
existent projects and allows to compare their progress as well as associated costs. Finally, it is possible to manage
subcontractors. Many of the enterprise highly invest into outsourcing and LibrePlan allows to easy track contracted
entities and track their scheduling and costs. Figure 4 presents an example of resource overview.
Figure 4. LibrePlan resource load (Source: http://www.libreplan.com/features/monitor-and-control/)
3.5 Open Source Features Comparison
In the previous sections we described some of the most popular open source project management alternatives.
In Table 1 we present the comparison list of features. This side-by-side comparison will let us understand better
which offers more functionalities. Note that we considered some of the main possibilities that are more important
during project lifecycle.
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Table 1 - Open Source Tools Features
OpenProject
ProjectLibre
Redmine
LibrePlan
Language
Ruby
Java
Ruby
Java
Multiplatform
Linux Only
Yes
Yes
Yes
Web-based
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Issue tracking
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Scheduling
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Resource
management
No
Yes
No
Yes
Document
management
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Reporting
No
No
No
Yes
Portfolio
Management
Yes
No
Yes
No
Forum
Yes
No
Yes
No
Email Support
/ Integration
Yes
No
Yes
No
Resource
management
No
Yes
No
Yes
Repository
integration
Yes
No
Yes
No
Task
management
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Budget
management
Yes
Yes
Yes1
Yes
Time tracking
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
CRM
No
No
Yes1
Charts
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Simulation
Scenarios
No
Yes
Yes1
Yes
Import/Export
data
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
1 Available using plugin.
After evaluating the results, we concluded that although Redmine is one of the most popular open source
alternatives and while it provides all the core features, most of those are additional modules and add-ons that
mostly are not open source. That means that while the core system is open source additional features may have to
be bought from the providers. When it comes to Open Project, this tool is limited to the Linux operating system.
This may be a limitation for some of the development teams. Overall, ProjectLibre may be the best alternative
since this software provides most of the important features. One of the drawbacks is it not being web-based and,
as previously stated, differently from other tools, requires local installation and created a project file on the local
disk system. LibrePlan is a tool with similar features to ProjectLibre. However, this software provides a feature
that others do not: Monte Carlo Simulation. This data may be useful to predict project evolution and be prepared
for some of the scheduling challenges.
4. Proprietary Tools
In the second part of our evaluation we describe proprietary tools. Similarly, to the previous section, that
presents open source alternatives, we choose four popular proprietary project management tools: Bitrix24, JIRA,
Microsoft Project and Asana. After a brief description we present a feature comparison table that allows an easier
comparison of the possibilities of those tools.
4.1 Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is a proprietary project management tool (Bitrix24, 2015). This is a web-hosted software which means
that there is a possibility of using this tool without any installation. However, there is also a possibility of using a
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self-hosted version that would require an internal configuration, per company. This is one of the most popular
proprietary tools for project management. It allows not only scheduling and task management but also to allocate
all the necessary resources, those being physical, human or even monetary. Differently from some of the available
solutions, when creating a Bitrix24 environment, there is a possibility of internally manage all the company
employees as well as clients. It is also possible to recreate organizational chart that would represent existing
departments and assign each of employees to their working space.
This tool looks professional and organized but may be complex when logging since all the latest
announcements, for example daily/weekly assignments, private messages, forum updates, tasks and groups will
pop to notify all the changes that have been made since last login.
Figure 5. Bitrix24 Interface (Source https://www.getapp.com /)
Figure 5 shows Bitrix24 user interface. Just by its visual aspect we can easily difference this tool from previously
described. Some of the main features are (Bitrix24, 2015): Task and schedule management; Employee management;
CRM; Reporting; Online Document management; and Charts. It is important to consider that staff, client and
enterprise management are some of the most important features of this tool. There is a possibility of assigning
responsible employees to projects, clients as well as teams. Also, a full client sheet provides all the necessary
information that may be useful for the future projects or as evaluation of already completed ones, for example,
locations, previous projects, previous responsible, contacts, etc.
4.2 JIRA
JIRA Software is a proprietary issue tracking tool, which is developed and managed by Atlassian (Atlassian,
2015). Differently from previously described project management tools, main focus of Jira consists of feature and
issue tracking. The name of this software comes from the widely known movie Godzilla. Originally, in Japanese,
it is pronounced as “gojira”, posteriorly “go” was dropped and JIRA became the software name. This project
management tool, similarly to Bitrix24, may be used as either a self-hosted or cloud-hosted. When is chosen self-
hosting, this tool supports multiple platforms which may be usefully accordingly to the enterprise architecture. As
previously stated, this tool not only allows task management but focuses mainly on issue tracking and agile
development. It works well with the agile development methods such as of SCRUM (Mishra & Mishra, 2013). One
of the main characteristics of this tool is a large amount of available features. Although the main focus of JIRA is
agile issue tracking, it provides a core set of any project management tool. Some of the available features are: Issue
and task tracking; Bug reports; Feature requests; Reporting; and Notifications.
Figure 6 presents JIRA interface. On this figure we can see that any team member can keep track not only of
all the tasks, but other team members’ tasks and progress. Pie chart acts as additional comparison, providing easy
visual understanding of how many issues have been addresses by whom.
Figure 6. JIRA Dashboard (Source: http://blog.tempo.io/2012/lean-customer-development-delivering-
solutions-to-your-customers-on-time-and-on-budget/)
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Currently there are a lot of plugins that are added accordingly to the enterprise needs. However, it is important
to notice that most of those add-ons are enterprise and have to be bought from the distributors. That means that
core JIRA distribution only provides main features.
4.3 Microsoft Project
Microsoft Project is a management tool with the right blend of usability, power, and flexibility all of which help
to manage projects more efficiently and effectively. It allows project managers to stay informed and be able to
control project work, schedules, and finances, keeping project teams aligned, and creating more productivity
through integration with familiar Microsoft Office system programs (Carter & Lippert, 2006).
It is a proprietary software tool for project management designed to assist the project managers in developing
a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing a budget, and analyzing workloads. Some of the
available features are: Timeline; Integration with another Microsoft Tools; Scheduling and Task management;
Reporting; and Task path tracking.
Microsoft Project provides a standard MS Office-like interface and a set of project and time management
functionalities. Figure 7 shows a basic MS Project interface. Ribbon menus provide easier usability since these days
most of software users are familiar with other MS tools, like Office, that this interface becomes more friendly and
easier to understand even if used by an inexperienced user.
One of the important features of this tool is the user management based on the access levels. That means that
there are different classes of users that can have differing access levels to projects, views and other project-related
data. This type of access restrictions increases project security level and provide a higher control over project
tracking.
Figure 7. MS Project interface (Source: https://www.getapp.com/project-management-planning-
software/a/microsoft-project/)
4.4 Asana
Asana is a web-based project planning tool focused on team communication and collaboration. In was created
in 2008 by the co-founder of the Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz. This tool provides a full messaging system in order
to reduce the use of email and attempting to combine all the necessary features in one software. Project team may
create their workspace. This workspace is used to englobe similar projects into one main group. In order to track
a project different tasks are created that may contain attachments, comments and tags. If a team member is in this
project and subscribed to notifications, any changes to those tasks will be sent to user’s inbox as notifications. For
easier task scheduling tracking, Asana provides a calendar-like notification system where each task has a priority
and a due date. Team members assigned to this task will be automatically notified about due date approach. Besides
basic project management features, Asana provides integration with another available software tools, for example,
Dropbox. These days many people opt for cloud stored data and Dropbox is one of the most used tools for file
storage. Therefore, it is possible to attach files to tasks directly from Dropbox. Some of the other integrations are:
HipChat, Slack, Google Chrome, Google Drive, Zapier, Okta, etc (Asana, 2016).
While being a web-based tool in desktop environment, Asana is also available as application for iOS and
Android. Those apps allow team members and project managers to be constantly updated about overall project
status as well as tasks dues dates and notifications. Figure 8 presents an example of the mobile and web interfaces.
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Figure 8. Asana web and mobile interface (Source: http://www.hifluence.eu/hi-people/top-10-must-have-
business-apps-of-2015/)
4.5 Proprietary Features Comparison
In Table 2 we present some of the main features of the four proprietary popular tools: Bitrix24, JIRA, MS
Project and Asana. Although all of those tools require payment, we did not consider licensing and pricing on this
comparison. Our main goal is present their features in a most comparable way to features available in open source
tools.
Table 2 - Proprietary Tools Features
JIRA
MS Project
Asana
Development
Language
Java
.NET
Luna
Multiplatform
Yes
No
Yes
Web-based
Yes
No
Yes
Issue tracking
Yes
No
Scheduling
No
Yes
Yes
Document
management
No
No
Yes
Reporting
Yes
Yes
Yes
Portfolio
Management
No
No
No
Monitoring
Yes1
Yes
Yes
Forum / Wiki
Yes1
No
No
Email Support /
Integration
Yes1
Yes
No
Resource
management
Yes1
Yes
Yes
Repository
integration
Yes1
Yes
Yes
Task
management
Yes
Yes
Yes
Budget
management
Yes1
Yes
No
Time tracking
Yes
Yes
Yes
CRM
Yes1
Yes1
Yes
Simulation
Scenarios
Yes
Yes
No
Import/Export
data
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom
Integrations
Yes
Yes
Yes
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API
Yes
Yes
Yes
SSL Security
Yes
Yes
Mobile Version
Yes
Yes
Yes
1 Available using plugin.
Accordingly to Table 2, JIRA may be compared to Redmine, where there is a core package with the main
functionalities and additional features are add-ons. Bitrix24 is the tool that provides more options to its users and
since it is web-based it does not require any installation. Finally, Microsoft Project, as previously stated, is known
as proprietary version of open-source ProjectLibre and, therefore, it not only has similar available features but
same type of local install since both of those tools are not web-based. Asana is a good alternative for more agile
and task-based teams. It is important to notice that this tool provides a lot of integration with another software.
5. Discussion: Open Source vs Proprietary Tools
In the previous sections we described some of the most popular open source and proprietary tools while
considering some of the main available features. We described four open-source project management tools:
OpenProject, ProjectLibre, Redmine, LibrePlan and four proprietary tools: Bitrix24, JIRA, MS Project and Asana.
All of those tools provide a large amount of available features, besides core project management functions. But
which ones are most suited for an SME? There are different aspects that should be considered while choosing a
tool for a company environment. Some of the most important are: security, quality, flexibility, support and cost.
All of those qualities may be discussed into favor of proprietary tools as most of the users would expect higher
quality for the enterprise options. However, if we think about it, does paying for something always translates into
much better quality? Big companies that crate software have limited resources not only to develop but also to solve
any posterior tool software problems. If we look closer, most of the bug fixes and corrections always take some
time to be released. On the other hand, there are always a lot of people working on the open source tools. Those
are constantly being improved and due to the large amount of developers, there is a higher chance of detecting any
failure on the early stages and correcting it as soon as possible. And what about support? Customers that spend
their money on services are expecting some big quality support systems where their problems are solved on-
demand. But does that happen? Is it faster to solve any problem by contacting software provider support that will
be handled by someone or having a large community available? In some cases, enterprise support may be able to
provide a solution considerably fast bit same may be said about community and developers, who’s availability is
almost 24/7, considering that there are users from everywhere on the globe. Considering all that, is it actually for
a smaller company to invest in proprietary software?
6. Conclusions and Future Work
While comparing available features, we concluded that proprietary and open source do not differ much. We
believe that open source tools are capable, to some level, to keep up with proprietary tools and offer some of the
basic necessary functionalities. However, after comparing some of those tools it terms of use, we defend that
proprietary tools offer a more user friendly and intuitive interface.
As future work we intend to install and evaluate these tools by comparing user interface and overall ease of use of
those alternatives in an enterprise, and understand the applicability and maturity level of project management tools
in support of Projects for Big Data, Cloud, Mobile, Social Networking and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
environments.
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... FOSS applications certify four mandatory user privileges to allow them to be used for any purpose, modified to fit needs, redistributed without authors' consent, and improved depending upon users' demands [6][7][8][9]. For these reasons, FOSS applications may be an ideal solution for Tanzanian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) [10][11][12]. Thousands of FOSS applications that have the potential to improve the quality of existing educational resources or aid in the development of new courses, such as open educational resources (OER), are freely available in the public domain [13]. However, based on the recommendations made by the OER Action Plan, the smooth adoption of FOSS applications, particularly OER, requires robust implementation of policies and guidance that may address the pre-adoption issues. ...
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Free and open-source software (FOSS) are viable alternatives to pricey proprietary software due to their low total cost of ownership (TCO). They are predicted to have a bright future because of their advanced technologies in service delivery. Despite the availability of FOSS adoption studies, public discourse as well as information and communication technology (ICT) policies, FOSS applications are inadequately adopted in Tanzanian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) due to lack of institutionalization. This finding poses a need for examining the institutionalization status. Institutionalization occurs when FOSS adoption and use becomes a standard practice. This study analyses the institutionalization of FOSS adoption by examining the national and selected universities’ ICT policies and observing the evolution of public discourse towards FOSS by examining multiple articles. The study adopted a systematic literature review and was guided by an analytical framework that triangulated new institutional theory, the underlying concept of organizing vision, and rhetorical diffusion theory. The findings show that, although there are sporadic use of FOSS in some Tanzanian HEIs, FOSS adoption is generally not institutionalized. As a result, the study recommends adjustments in preparation of ICT policies, making adoption of FOSS part of organizational strategic plans for them to enjoy decision-makers’ support.
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Ensuring usability is essential in software systems, and various testing methods are employed for this purpose. Expert-based inspection methods, like Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) and Heuristic Evaluation (HE), are widely used to identify usability issues. However, these methods can be time-consuming, highlighting the need to assess their effectiveness in usability evaluation. The objective of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of two expert-based usability evaluation methods, CW and HE, as applied to Absher’s website and mobile application, the most widely used governmental system in Saudi Arabia. Five independent evaluators applied these methods, and an in-depth comparison was made on the identified usability issues, their severity, and the corresponding usability attributes. HE identified a total of 83 issues, while CW identified 58, with HE being more effective at detecting major usability problems and CW excelling in identifying catastrophic issues. In terms of usability attributes, HE identified more issues related to effectiveness, efficiency, and errors, while CW detected a higher number of learnability problems. Both methods performed similarly in identifying memorability issues. This study offers insights into the strengths and limitations of both CW and HE, contributing valuable guidance on selecting the appropriate usability evaluation method based on the system’s context.
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Tujuan penelitian ini untuk memberikan referensi perangkat lunak untuk penjadwalan proyek. Penjadwalan proyek merupakan hal penting dalam pengendalian proyek. Proyek dengan skala besar tidak dapat dilakukan secara manual dalam perencanaan dan penjadwalan, sehingga diperlukan perangkat lunak untuk mambantu pengelolaan. Penjadwalan sejumlah besar dokumen akan sangat memberatkan manajemen, masalah ini dapat diselesaikan dengan menggunakan perangkat lunak manajemen proyek yang membantu memberikan pendekatan terencana untuk perencanaan. Semakin besar proyek berdampak meningkatnya kompleksitas dibidang manajemen proyek yang terdiri dari perencanaan prakonstruksi untuk menjadwalkan urutan kegiatan, menentukan tugas tenaga kerja, metode konstruksi dan menugaskan sumber daya dan tanggung jawab. Pemilihan perangkat lunak harus mempertimbangkan kebutuhan dan kemudahan dalam penggunaan. Tersedianya beberapa perangkat lunak memberikan pilihan dalam mendukung kebutuhan kelancaran penjadwalan proyek. Penelitian ini dengan metode studi literatur mengulas pengalaman peneliti sebelumnya dalam membandingkan alternatif perangkat lunak pengganti Microsoft Project.
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Building construction and infrastructure development have been a component of major civilizations throughout their history. Great examples of architecture include the Great Pyramid, the Great Wall of China, and many more ancient constructions of historical significance. The fundamental components of these buildings' completion are design, planning, execution, and closer. Planning of project execution is the most critical aspect, to have the ability to accomplish the required project execution in the allotted time and on framed expenses. Certainly, some outstanding quality and construction management procedures were implemented in the past, and someone was present to supervise the resources and time schedule. In today's construction project management, many mathematical tools and techniques such as bar charts, CPM, PERT, and so on are employed for project planning. To manage the multi-tasking and complicated building environment, other standalone computer software and web-based packages are also in use. This paper aims to investigate advancements in construction management when dealing with extremely complicated building procedures in a complex environment. The methodology applied is to study and cite the literature of various preferred software management tools in the construction industry with the sequential order of the year, purpose, uses and process of the particular software. The results obtained are the analytical study of the software tools used in the construction industry.
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Tujuan penelitian ini untuk memberikan referensi perangkat lunak untuk penjadwalan proyek. Penjadwalan proyek merupakan hal penting dalam pengendalian proyek. Proyek dengan skala besar tidak dapat dilakukan secara manual dalam perencanaan dan penjadwalan, sehingga diperlukan perangkat lunak untuk mambantu pengelolaan. Penjadwalan sejumlah besar dokumen akan sangat memberatkan manajemen, masalah ini dapat diselesaikan dengan menggunakan perangkat lunak manajemen proyek yang membantu memberikan pendekatan terencana untuk perencanaan. Semakin besar proyek berdampak meningkatnya kompleksitas dibidang manajemen proyek yang terdiri dari perencanaan prakonstruksi untuk menjadwalkan urutan kegiatan, menentukan tugas tenaga kerja, metode konstruksi dan menugaskan sumber daya dan tanggung jawab. Pemilihan perangkat lunak harus mempertimbangkan kebutuhan dan kemudahan dalam penggunaan. Tersedianya beberapa perangkat lunak memberikan pilihan dalam mendukung kebutuhan kelancaran penjadwalan proyek. Penelitian ini dengan metode studi literatur mengulas pengalaman peneliti sebelumnya dalam membandingkan alternatif perangkat lunak pengganti Microsoft Project.
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are very common in large companies. However, CRM systems are not very common in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Most SMEs do not implement CRM systems due to several reasons, such as lack of knowledge about CRM or lack of financial resources to implement CRM systems. SMEs have to start implementing Information Systems (IS) technology into their business operations in order to improve business values and gain more competitive advantage over rivals. CRM system has the potential to help improve the business value and competitive capabilities of SMEs. Given the high fixed costs of normal activity of companies, we intend to promote free and viable solutions for small and medium businesses. In this paper, we explain the reasons why SMEs do not implement CRM system and the benefits of using open source CRM system in SMEs. We also describe the functionalities of top open source CRM systems, examining the applicability of these tools in fitting the needs of SMEs.
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In an increasingly competitive market the use of project management techniques can help controlling scope, time, and cost in an efficient way. Either due to size or complexity that may exist in a project, it may be essential to use project management software tools. Some projects involve teams of people who may be geographically dispersed, being essential to exchange information among project stakeholders, hence the need for collaborative tools, best known as groupware. In this paper, we present an overview of project management and collaborative project management techniques and tools. Next, we present a framework, based on ISO 9126 and ISO 14598, to classify collaborative project management software tools. Finally, we present a model and an application to help on the selection of this type of tools.
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The task of managing a software project can be an extremely complex one, drawing on many personal, team, and organizational resources. The quality of a software product is dependent on the process in which the project is completed. Time delays in software development project and low productivity tend to fall right to the bottom line. Recently, the evolution of project management tools for both software and non-software applications has been accelerating at a rapid pace, and the number of available products have grown significantly. There are many project management tools and software being developed everyday to help managers to automate the administration of individual projects or groups of projects during their life-cycle. This article presents a short comparison of popular software project management tools.
Chapter
The dimensional growth and increasing difficulty in project management promoted the development of different tools that serve to facilitate project management and track project schedule, resources and overall progress. These tools offer a variety of features, from task and time management, up to integrated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) modules. Currently, a large number of project management software is available, to assist project team during the entire project lifecycle. We present the main differences between open source and proprietary project management tools, describing the key features and how those can assist the project manager and the development team. In this paper, we analyse three open-source project management tools: OpenProject, ProjectLibre, Redmine, and three proprietary tools: Bitrix24, JIRA, and Microsoft Project.
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The economic market constantly shifts and change, requiring increasingly complex and agile adaptations from companies, particularly in a global world where the future is becoming unpredictable. Therefore, it is critical for an effective accounting management tool to build a successful business, especially for SMEs - small and medium enterprises, where the margin for error is small. Accounting software systems are a great solution for SMEs to improve accounting management and to assist managers to overcome the complexity of the various regulatory and administrative obligations that currently attends any commercial transaction. Unfortunately, despite all the benefits, they are not yet common in SMEs that still favour outsourcing their financial information, frequently due to the wrong idea that accounting software is an intricate tool as well too costly. In this paper, we propose to refute this preconceived idea, and present open source software (OSS) as a viable alternative to proprietary software regarding accounting software systems. We describe and compare six top open source accounting software systems and study the applicability of these tools in fitting the requirements of SMEs.
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Today, projects involve members from different geographical areas more than any other time in history. Thus, adequate Collaborative Project Management Software (CollabPMS) solutions are needed to enable individuals and organizations to manage, communicate and work together across time and space barriers. This article describes a set of managerial and collaborative functionalities that a CollabPMS should provide to support the complexities of a distributed project effectively. Out of hundreds software packages available in the market, four were selected, ProjectLibre, Redmine, Microsoft Project 2013 and Clarizen, to assess if they have the described functionalities. Clarizen can be considered the best software for managing distributed projects, because it provides, by default, all the managerial functions and the collaborative features that support the coordinated collaboration level. ProjectLibre was the software that less stood out in this evaluation, although it provides the majority of the outlined managerial functionalities it doesn't support any level of collaboration.
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Decision-making is a crucial, yet challenging task in enterprise management. In many organizations, decisions are still made based on experience and intuition rather than on facts and rigorous approaches. This is often due to lack of data, unknown relationships between data and goals, conflicting goals and poorly understood risks. The success of organizations depends on fast and well-founded decisions taken by relevant people in their specific area of responsibility. Business Intelligence (BI) is a collection of decision support technologies for enterprises aimed at enabling knowledge workers such as executives, managers, and analysts to make better and faster decisions. In this paper, the authors review the concept of BI as an open innovation strategy and address the importance of BI in revolutionizing knowledge towards economics and business sustainability. The main objective is to discuss why the concept of BI has become increasingly important and presents some of the top key applications and technologies to implement open BI in organizations, which would like to enter into the new market and operate on a global scale.
Comparing Open Source and Proprietary Enterprise Content Management Systems
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Andersson, D. G. R. (2008). 'Comparing Open Source and Proprietary Enterprise Content Management Systems'. IT University of Göteborg Göteborg.
https://asana.com/apps
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Visual Studio Tools for Office: Using C# with Excel
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