May 29, 2004
Manage Your Projects with Movable Type - Part III
So we've walked through setting up Movable Type to be a project management system, and then some best practices for how I use it. Now for the final piece, a simple entry point for the entire system.
The Project Log Index
Its awfully convenient for you and anyone else looking at your projects to have a gateway that lists all of your projects in one place, and when the last time it was updated. To this end I cooked up a simple index page with some PHP and MySQL.
The index queries the MT database to find the blogs that are in your projects folder (which you set up in Part I). It then grabs the blog's name, URL, and the date of the last entry. The PHP jumps in there and displays them in an unordered list. That's it (I told you it was simple).
I've never needed more than the date indicator for my own purposes, but there are tons of possibilities to customize this index to your needs. I can see someone adding the latest entry from each log, or the latest milestone that was activated as a progress indicator, just to name a couple.
Download
If you want to give the index a try, you can download the PHP file. You will need to modify the file with your own database connection information and also the "$blogfolder" variable to the root folder of your system.
$blogfolder = "your foldername"
FTP the file into the root folder of your project system setup and you're ready to rock.
Project System Demo
I've created a demonstration of this index and the project system for the development of my own site, Inspired Nonsense (which I am trying to do out in the open).
Make It Yours
The index, and the system for that matter, is open for your interpretation. Make the system work for you (it's supposed to be a tool remember?). All I ask is that you send me a link when you're done tweaking so I can see how you use it!
Most of all, I hope that this helps you as much as it has helped me in my professional life. I can attest to getting ahead in my projects at work (sometimes as much as 2 weeks) instead of always working on deadline. The system has also improved communications and expectations with my coworkers and clients related to my projects. But most important, I've gained piece of mind because it remembers everything I can't (which is considerable when multitasking 6-10 projects at any given time) which allows me to sleep better at night.
I sincerely hope this can help you too.
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- Design Tools
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