[kwlug-disc] What collaboration software am I looking for?

[B.S.]

xtuple?

http://www.xtuple.com/get-xtuple-erp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTuple

Your list is in essence salesforce management, client relationships, 
customer service, etc.

 > - A (growing) list of potential employers

Salespeople, or customers, depending on how you want to look at it.

 > - A bunch of people who are looking for placements (which we call
   "participants")

Prospects, or potential sales, or sales leads.

 > - Actual placements that are made between the participants and
   employers

The other side of the top (salespeople/customers). A placement could be 
considered a sale.

 > - Make notes about each participant, including which employers they
   have approached for each participant

Journal or customer / supplier interaction history notes.

 > - Keep track of employer information (such as contact information and
   prior placements)

(Built in) Contact db / app, with notes.

 > - Keep track of tasks to be done with each participant and employer

Tasks assigned. Including calendared 'waiting for' (GTD parlance). 
(Journal item above, dated with date due.)

 > - Record and evaluate placements that are made

After sale follow up.

 > - Generate reports on all of the following

Moving target. There's a reason why most people csv data -> calc.


Your requirements also make me think wiki is some part of the solution 
so that they have a place to put notes and thoughts, share them, and 
gain a single repository from which to pull initiatives / thoughts / 
ideas. This could even be a starting point. One article per client and 
supplier, and wiki words would cross-reference.


I like what William said - pen and paper. They won't like that, but it's 
the honest truth, and the real (selling) point is that through doing 
what they do with pen and paper for some period of time they will be 
better able to express their desired result from any computer processes. 
And be better able to define specifications to help you short list 
potential solutions.

[It's not clear from your note, but for all I know this has been going 
on for a while, and they're already at this point.]

More importantly, through such they will better appreciate the 
administrative burden / overhead involved in any system. And if they 
perceive sufficient value to the result knowing the overhead work 
required to accomplish, there's a better chance for a successful, not 
abandoned, implementation.

e.g. Contact maintenance, diligent data entry, task assignment entry and 
reporting, and so on.

Put xtuple on a livecd or something so they can take it for a spin. At 
the least they'll start to get a sense of the nature of the beastie, 
what and how to organize things, and what sorts of things might be involved.

Regardless of your ultimate solution given your requirements list, the 
conceptual frameworks to be delivered will be similar, regardless of the 
specific solution chosen. Perhaps a demo cd or something will get you 
some buy in. Bonus, I suppose, if you could fire it up in a vm and they 
could access remotely. i.e. Equivalent to taking that live cd and going 
on to the next person. Person one might put in a contact and make a few 
notes. With a vm person two would be able to see that and build on it. 
By the time you hit person X they will be able to see how it might fit 
your environment. Or not. (Let alone if the live cd -> vm is actually a 
working server multiply-accessible by bowser - your demo becomes 
production if they like it. Native clients, if any, could be installed 
later.)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/postbooks/files/10%20PostBooks-VMs/ ?


Else "20 Top Cloud Services for Small Businesses" 
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361500,00.asp ?

http://www.zoho.com/ ?


On 11/26/2014 11:58 PM, Paul Nijjar wrote:
>
> I am trying to research some FLOSS alternatives for a problem some
> people at my work are having. They are trying to track the following
> things:
>
> - A (growing) list of potential employers
> - A bunch of people who are looking for placements (which we call
>    "participants")
> - Actual placements that are made between the participants and
>    employers
>
> They want to do things like the following:
> - Make notes about each participant, including which employers they
>    have approached for each participant
> - Keep track of employer information (such as contact information and
>    prior placements)
> - Keep track of tasks to be done with each participant and employer
> - Record and evaluate placements that are made
> - Generate reports on all of the following
>
>
> I am looking for something maintainable, somewhat customizable (in
> case they have extra fields to add to the different groups),
> installable on an internal Debian or Ubuntu server, and relatively
> lightweight (this is a team of a few people, not a Fortune 500
> company).
>
> Some jargon I have been looking at includes: "ERP", "CRM". I am not
> even sure what category of things I am looking for. It feels like I am
> looking for some collaborative project software, maybe.
>
> In my mind this does not seem that different from the problem the
> infamous UW Jobmine system is trying to solve.
>
> Rolling our own database-driven application is a possibility, but one
> I would prefer to avoid unless there is nothing that does what I want
> (especially if the database application we end up using is Microsoft
> Access, which would break my stony heart).
>
> I am sure that this is a solved problem. What software am I looking
> for? Categories of software to search for would be helpful. Individual
> software packages to try would be helpful. Personal experiences of
> solving these problems would be very helpful. I am in the beginning
> stages of my research and I am flailing around.
>
> - Paul
>
>