Wikified Project Reporting

So as mentioned in a tweet or two, I’ve been spending some of my time creating a project reporting tool using TiddlyWiki.

We started with a main objective, and things kind of spiralled out from there. First, I wanted to share a weekly report with the client (simple list of things like budget, status, etc.) and have all these archived and searchable. Then I figured if we were using TiddlyWiki, we could add the minutes in there too. Group them using tags. Auto-generate some templates when needed. And what about maybe using some task management tools?

So I’ve decided to use Phil Hawksworth‘s teamtasks as my starting point – which is why it bears a striking resemblance to said wonderful product – and, in the interests of sharing early and often, here’s a link (2023: link dead) to my early modest effort (use right click, save as to your desktop, then open it from there. Or open this version (2023: link dead) if you just want a play without downloading anything).

In keeping with the practice of giving TiddlyWiki based products ridiculous names, I’ve decided to call my product TiddlyTiller. As in ‘steady hand on the tiller’. I’ll be working on a product website a little further down the line, and have agreement from my company to release it under an open source licence (I did the extra work on company time). To most of the people reading this blog, it’s simply the right thing to do – but it’s a new concept to some of my colleagues. So they deserve credit for that.

So, next steps…I’m going to start using this on one of my projects. Hopefully the client won’t have any security constraints that prevent it being opened and read locally. We’ll see how we go and probably make some tweaks to improve the core product.

On a parallel path, I’m going to try and corral our designers at The Team into designing a product website for me. Might take a while as they’re busy, but we’ll see!

Feedback, comments, suggestions….all welcome.