For awhile now,  I’ve been wanting to implement a project management system not only for myself but also to keep clients updated and informed.   Although i explored with systems like Basecamp,  I wanted to find an open source project management system I could host on my own server. When searching for an appropriate project management system here are some things I considered:

• Login for clients
• Break out of each phase of a project
• Ability for clients to assign tasks for me or my associates on my team
• Time tracking for billable hours
• Unlimited projects
• Milestones for date sensitive tasks.
• Notifications system
• Web Based
• File management system
• Message Board
• Permissions

Most importantly, since I understand many clients may not be technically savvy, I wanted to ensure that the system was very easy to use and understand.

For myself as the designer, I needed to find something that was

• Easy to implement
• SQL/PHP Based
• Community of advanced programmers in case I run into issues
• Other options/recoding if necessary

After much consideration, I decided to implement a system called Project Pier. Project Pier seems to be a very basic system easy enough for anyone to understand.   To learn more about the structure of  of Project Pier please visit: Project Pier Basic Concepts.