Intranet Journal
The online resource for intranet professionals

Digger IOS: An Open Source Intranet Focused on Projects

9/2/03

In this series I've examined two very competent content management systems: Drupal and PHP-Nuke. Digger Intranet Open Source (IOS) has two significant differences. For one, it is written using ASP, meaning it requires a server running Windows (or Chilisoft ASP on Linux). More significantly, it's designed to be used as a complete intranet solution, rather than a general-purpose CMS. It attempts to be a Jack-of-all-trades, including a time management system, a communications forum, a client database manager and a lot more. But can one, free, open-source CMS hope to do everything? This month I'll be finding out.

Installation | Usability | Features | Customization | Conclusions

Installation

Installation was an absolute breeze, with hardly any configuration required. The default Access database is already set up, although other systems such as SQL Server, PostgreSQL and MySQL are all supported. The only essential configuration is in stating the intranet's root folder and URL, which can be achieved using any text editor.

Usability

At first glance, the front page appears very crowded:

The Intranet Open Source (IOS) front page. Each element can be collapsed when it's not needed.

However, the problem of a crowded interface has been solved rather ingeniously. Each element of the page can be collapsed when not required, like minimizing a piece of software while not in use. However, these will all be reset to normal once the browser is closed. While it would be useful if employees could select what appears on their front page to suit their own interests, in its current form the interface is concise and packs all of the necessary information onto one screen.

There is good cross-platform support, with dynamic features working just as well on a Linux desktop computer running the Mozilla browser as a Windows machine running Internet Explorer.

Features

Digger intranet has more than enough features of to go round, and while separately they are not as developed as those of more pricey Intranet solutions, they give all the functionality that most mid-sized businesses would require. The base IOS package comes free of charge, with Digger making their money from selling add-ons, modifications, and even a trendy line of merchandise — ranging from branded mugs to T-shirts and even thongs. The free IOS package is missing several parts of the administration system, without which some information has to be manually entered in the database. At the time of publishing, the "Admin Pak" with all these missing features costs a reasonable $99.99. It seems that Digger have reached a good comprise between being commercial and offering open-source software.

So let's take a dive into some of the features of Intranet Open Source.

Projects
Much of the time management system revolves around projects. In defining a project, you can select which staff members will make up the team, and also at what rate they are to be paid. Disappointingly, creating a test project generates the following not-so-friendly message:

Error Occured:

Error # -2147217900 Syntax error in INSERT INTO statement.
SQL = INSERT INTO tbl_projects_budget (project_id, employeetype_id, employee_id, rate, hours)
VALUES (11, 2, 0, 115, )

Oh dear, something has clearly gone pear-shaped. The syntax error above will be obvious to anyone with SQL experience, and was caused by accidentally leaving part of a form blank (a problem which basic form validation would have solved). These kinds of errors can be ironed out by reporting them on the developer's message board. While virtually all pieces of software contain some 'bugs', you'd hope a business-critical system wouldn't suffer from these easily-solved glitches — emphasizing the importance of keeping up-to-date with new patches from the developer.

Once you've created your project (which works perfectly, providing you fill in the form correctly), there are several functions to make use of:

• Tasks: You can split your project into tasks, and delegate those tasks to members of the team. Those tasks will then automatically be added to your calendar, accessible via the front page.

• Timecards: Timecards allow an employee to record what work has been completed, and will also allow you to view a log of all of the work done for a particular client or project.

Clients
Projects revolve around clients, and various aspects of client communication can be planned and recorded. Most basically it's a database of client contact details, but you can also log any telephone calls for review at a later date.

Reports
IOS makes an excellent job of collating the information entered about clients, time management and projects, and presents that information in concise reports. Work logs for presentation to the client, hourly time sheets and details of current projects can all be easily printed or downloaded.

An automatically generated project report, looking good enough to show the client.

Document Repository
This is a fantastic feature, that allows for simple document sharing between users. For each project, files can be uploaded and shared between members of the team, and archived for later retrieval. The main advantage of this system over regular file sharing across a LAN is to be able to access the files globally (or between company offices) via the Internet. You don't, however, have the advanced security options that Windows file sharing provides.

News
A useful utility to display news and news feeds, with the latest headlines appearing on the front page. However, administration requires the 'News Admin Pak', costing $19.99 at the time of writing.

That's just a range of IOS's range of features, and there are many more, including a forum system and a survey manager for fielding employees' opinions. A complete list of features can be found at http://www.diggersolutions.com/features_ios.asp. To make full use of the system, however, several of the 'optional add-ons' become pretty much essential, and you can choose between buying the full set, or only the "Admin Paks" of those components you require.

Customization

If you wish to change the way IOS works by adding new features, modifying the system's look and feel etc, then you won't have a tough time. All of the source code is neat and well commented, winning Digger a "Superior Code Award" from Planet Source Code in 2002. Submissions of modifications written by the users of IOS are encouraged, and can be posted to the developer's forum for other users to share.

IOS is excellent as a starting point for developing an intranet, as well as an end product. The commercially available "Skinned" modification shows how much can be done, and clearly both the aesthetics and operation could be modified to suit your Intranet requirements.

Conclusions

Intranet Open Source is geared towards businesses with project-based work, a Web site design company, for example, and it really handles all aspects of communication that would be required: file sharing; time management; storage of client details, etc. To be fully useable, it's almost essential to purchase the add-ons — still considerably cheaper than the leading commercial intranet software. Alternatively, if you have someone available with ASP knowledge, replacements for the missing parts could be put together.

The code behind the system is well written and simple to modify, and while bugs can be found (such as the lack of form validation mentioned earlier), these will likely be dealt with quickly due to the open-source nature of the system.

If you're looking for a free-of-charge intranet tool that allows complete management of your clients, time and projects, then this is an ideal solution. If you see your intranet purely as a tool for sharing information, then it's worth looking back at more generic systems such as PHP-Nuke, designed to handle large quantities of information without specific reference to clients or project-oriented businesses.

Next month I'll be looking at a final open-source system, to help you decide if they're the right way to go for your Intranet. Until then!