In activeCollab you can have an unlimited number of people using your project management environment to collaborate and work together.

To better organize these users though you can place them into Companies. A Company can be a firm you are working with or just a group of users with something in common. For example, you can create a group of freelancers or designers that you are working with, or you can group different departments within your own company that are in charge of different projects.

To create a new company, simply click the New Company button and complete the form that follows. Only the company name is required to create a new company, but optionally you can add more details such as its address, phone and fax numbers, as well as its homepage (this may also come in handy later as an easily accessible address book).

After creating a company you can use the Options menu to:

• Change details - edit all your entries;
• Change Logo - import the company logo instead of the default one;
• Archive Company - if you are no longer working with a company you can archive it. Company details will still be available under the Archive tab and if users from that company login later they will not be aware that their company has been archived;
• Delete the company - if you don’t wish to have them in your system anymore;
• See Invoices that have been issued to that company.

Once a Company is created and set-up properly, you can easily add users to it by clicking the New User button. Just enter their email address and choose the System Role you wish them to have in activeCollab and their account will be created. Optionally you can also:

• Set user details - first name, last name and title. If you fill in these details activeCollab will refer to that user by their first name, and mark any of their actions with their first name and capital letter of their last name (so Jane Johnson would be Jane J.). If these details aren't entered, only the email address of the user will be displayed.
• Specify the account password - you can set a password for the user or the system will generate one.
• Send personalized welcome message - if this is not checked, the system will send an automatically-generated welcome message to the new user. However checking the box allows you to customize the message with your own text.
• Set the user to be automatically added to a new projects - this feature allows you to add the user to all of your new projects as they are created. You can also set their project permissions on the spot.

Once you've completed and submitted the information on this page, the new user will be automatically emailed a link to your activeCollab homepage and the email address and password they can login with (after logging in for the first time, the user is able to change their password). Upon first accessing the system they will also see the activeCollab Welcome Message, instead of the regular Dashboard, which gives them some basic instructions on getting started.

To define what someone can see and access in activeCollab System Rolesare used.System Roles are groups of permissions that govern what a user can do and access in activeCollab and can be set in the ** Administration > Roles** section. Here you can choose between five predefined roles or create a new Custom Role.

Let’s see what predefined roles activeCollab offers and how they work:

activeCollab Project Roles define what a user can do inside individual projects and to the objects within them. A user may also have several project roles, different for each project they are assigned to. For example, you may allow a user to participate in Discussions in one project, but restrict them from even viewing Discussions in another.

Unlike System Roles though, there are no predefined Project Roles in activeCollab. Instead you can create them according to your needs. To start creating a new Project Role, go to the Admin panel in the Roles section and click the New Project Role button. Here you can name the role and choose the permissions you wish it to have. Once submitted, the role will be saved and available in all upcoming projects.

You can also create a role on an ad-hoc basis, even while creating a new project. For example, after setting up a new project and filling in the basic information to get things started, you will be taken to the People project tab. From here you can choose any user you wish to include in that project and select the Project Role for them, either by selecting an existing role or creating a custom one and assigning permissions on the spot.

Now let’s take a look at the permissions that are used in Project Roles. These permissions all relate to whether users can view, access or manage certain objects:

• No Access - the user cannot access or even see the tab containing the object. For example, a user set to have No Access to Ticket objects will not even be aware that the Ticket tab exists in this project.

• Has Access - the user will have access to the object and will be able see the relevant project tab. For example a user with "Has Access" set for Tickets will be able to see the Ticket tab, and browse all Tickets placed inside it, but will not be able to add any new tickets (the New Ticket button will not be displayed) or change any existing ones.

• Can Create - allows user to see the New Object button or, to continue our previous example, the New Ticket button and use it to add new tickets. However they will still not be able to change any objects (or Tickets, in our example).

• and Can Manage - user will have all permissions for this object within the project. They will be able to view, create, edit and delete these objects.

After everything is set up, you can start working on your project, knowing you have full control over who can access or change the data within it.

There are two cases when activeCollab will automatically add people to projects as they're created:

1. When a blank project (ie not based on a previous template) is created. In this case activeCollab will add everyone who's marked to be automatically added to new projects and set their permissions accordingly. If you don't wish someone to be automatically added to all new projects, go to that person's profile, click the Change Settings link on the right and make sure that the Automatically Add to New Projects option is set to No:

1. When a project is created from a template, all users that were part of the original project (that the new project is based on) will also be automatically added to your new creation. Please note that people with the Automatically Add to New Projects option set to Yes (as described in #1) will not be added to the project (unless they happen to be involved in the project you are using for the template).

In this way you can assigne people to projects much faster. With a few Project Templates and list of people who should always be on one of your projects you could save a lot of time.

One of the most crucial things you can track in any project is the total amount of time spend working on it. Such information can then be used later to help calculate costs, assess the effectiveness of your team etc.

Once recorded, project time reports in activeCollab can be easily extracted. To extract one just visit a project's Time tab and click the Report button in the top right corner. Every time report previously logged will be displayed in the drop down menu for you to choose from (any filters that you apply will only be used in this project).

If you wish to create another report, click the New Report Button that is available after clicking the Report button in the project's Time tab. To run a report that lists every time record for a project, just set it up as follow:

1. Name the report ("Total Time", or however you wish);
2. Type in the Report Group name (optional);
3. Decide whether the report will be summarized per user or not;
4. In the Assigned to field select Anyone;
5. In the For Day field choose Any Time;
6. In the Status field select Any.

As you can see, creating a report that lets you see the total time from any project can be easily done. What you can also do though is change the reporting criteria (Assigned to, For Day and Status), and create more specific time reports (eg. time logged by one person; time logs for specific date; display all billed time etc.)

Any time reports that you set-up with certain criteria for specific projects in this way, will also be available for each of your other projects as well as global time reports.

As a Project Manager, it is important to know what your team is working on. Fortunately in activeCollab you can easily find out by using the Assignment Filters in the Assignment tool.

Remember though that, regardless of your System Role, this tool will only show assignments from projects you’re already involved with. If you wish to see a list of assignments in all projects then, first make sure you add yourself to the list of people already working on those projects.

To create a filter that will show you a list of only your Team Members' assignments, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Assignments page and click the New Filter button;
2. Define a filter Name and Group that the filter belongs to, by filling out the gaps in the first part of the New Filter form. Group is optional and can be created just by typing in the name you wish. You can also use a group you have previously created by entering the same name in this field;
3. Decide whether this filter will be available to other users or not. Though, if you're the only person in charge of people management and delegating assignments, we suggest you set this filter as private;
4. If you wish to see assignments from all members of a specific company, select the Member of a Company option from the Assigned To field and pick the company that you want;
5. If you wish to see all the assignments of an individual team member, choose the Selected User... value from the Assigned To filter and choose the person you wish.

And, that's it! If you want though, you can also set-up additional filters: for specific projects (note that activeCollab will still limit you to projects that you are assigned to); statuses; time frames etc. and use them to get all the information you need on what your team is working on.

Did you know that you can change the text and formatting of email notifications sent by activeCollab? To do so, just go to Administration and click Email Templates icon:

activeCollab will then list all available templates, grouped by the module they belong to. To change one of the templates, simply choose it from the list and once you are on the Template Page click the Edit link bellow the message body text.

All variables that can be used in the template are listed below the Body text field.

Have you already used Master Categories? If not, it can be a very helpful feature of activeCollab that enables you to create default categories which can then be used across all your newly created projects.

To set-up this handy feature simply go to the Admin > Master Categories and create categories you wish. These will then be available for all Discussions, Files, Pages and Tickets across all new projects in activeCollab.

If you don't need one of the default categories, for example a Tickets section in one of your Projects, you can delete it simply by going to the Manage Category tab and clicking the X mark next to the category name.

Have you noticed this handy feature in the Admin > General section:

When this option is set to Yes, activeCollab will use a client's company logo as the icon for all its projects automatically. If you wish to use a different icon for a particular project though you can still upload one separately via its Project Overview page.

This option can come in handy when you are working on a lot of projects for the same client and you want to make it obvious which client each project relates to.

Having a client on board can sometimes be complicated. What data should you disclose and what should you keep for yourself? How can you get them fully involved in the project but still make sure that sensitive information doesn't leak? Thankfully by using different sets of Roles and Permissions in activeCollab, you will be able to set-up client accounts so that only the things you want them to see and access will be available to them.

As Roles and Permissions can have such a big impact on what users can do and see in activeCollab, it's particularly to important to understand how they work when dealing with clients to make sure you fully understand their settings and can configure them correctly. To help, the following suggestions should help you to configure client role permissions quickly and easily:

• If you haven't already, first read the Roles and Permissions article Roles and Permissions article in the activeCollab Administrator’s Guide. It will help you learn about activeCollab's predefined Roles and the parts of the system controlled by each permission.

• From these pre-defined roles, the Client Company Manager has been created for the key contact/administrator in the client company. The person with this role is able to change company details; add people to their own company in activeCollab as well as accessing invoices issued to that company. Another role designed for clients is the Client Company Member where user permissions are restricted only to allow access to activeCollab and projects they are assigned to.

• Don’t give project_management, admin_access or people_management System Permissions to your clients or members of other companies. These permissions will enable them to see and access pretty much everything in activeCollab (all projects, people and data) and they will be able to add, update, and remove information from your system.

• Avoid setting a client as a Project Leader, unless you wish to give them all permissions in that particular project. The Project Leader will also receive email notifications for each and every new event related to a project.

• When adding people to a project, you can also set access level to each project section (Checklists, Pages, Discussions, Milestones, Files, Tickets). There are four levels available: no access; has access; has access and can create; has access, can create and can manage. This covers almost all situations that you need and gives you the freedom to decide what your client will be able to see and access.

• If you want clients to have access to a section of your project (Discussions, for example) but you don’t want them to be able to see all discussions that appear there, you can mark any discussion that you wish to remain hidden as Private. In this case only people with can_see_private_objects permission (recommended only for your team members) will be able to see and access these items. This option can be great when you want to have an internal discussion with your team, but don't want clients to be able to see it.

• We also suggest that you don’t give Time Reports access to a client (use_time_reports and manage_time_reports system permission). Time reports query the time data from all of your projects and that’s why they are designed to be used internally.

By following these simple tips, you can bring clients on board without worrying that your sensitive data will ever be exposed to them. If you're still not sure how to set things up feel free to contact us, we'll be here to help.

Once you have your team, external associates and clients all working together in the same project management and collaboration system, it's natural to want to keep some of that data separate and available only to certain users.

Here are a couple of tips on how to keep your data private and protected:

In activeCollab every project you've ever created can be used as a Project Template for a new one. This feature enables you to quickly set-up projects with all Milestone, Tickets and Tasks already created.

To do this when creating a new project, simply choose an existing projects to be the Project Template, and all Milestones, Tickets and Task, along with Assignment data and due dates, will be copied into the new project:

When the start date of a new template-based project is set though, all due dates (for Milestones, Tickets and Tasks) in the new project will be recalculated using the same number of days between due dates and the project's new start date.

Given that any project can be used as a template, the list of possible templates on the New Project form can become really long over time as you keep adding projects to activeCollab. This is why we have introduced something called the Project Template Group. When this group is selected in Administration > General Settings page, activeCollab will list only projects from that group in the drop-down menu on the New Project form:

As you can see, the Project Template Group is a nice, easy way to keep the list of templates clean.

To prevent this from confusing things we recommend you to create a few projects that represent the most common kinds of projects that you typically work on. You can then select these projects as your Project Templates Group. Once set-up we suggest that you don't work on anything in these projects, instead leaving them as fresh templates that will always allow you to create new, fully set-up projects with just a few clicks.

To replace the activeCollab logo and upload your company's one instead, you just need to change the following file:

/public/brand/logo.gif

By uploading your company logo in a place of the logo.gif file you will now have different look and feel of your activeCollab setup. Please note, the preferred file type is .gif. In order to fit into the existing CSS layout the image size should be no more than 40 pixels high.

Once your company logo is uploaded, it will still have the same functionality as the activeCollab logo has now: acting as a quick shortcut to the Dashboard from every page.

activeCollab Incoming Mail functionality allows you to:

1. reply to activeCollab's email notifications directly from your email software, with the reply automatically added as a new comment in the correct place in activeCollab;
2. create a new Ticket or Discussion directly by email.

If you are setting Incoming Mail for the first time, you will need to install the appropriate module first. It is available in both versions of activeCollab (Corporate and Small Biz) and you will find it under Admin > Modules > list of Available Modules. Just click its Install button and the new module will be automatically added to your system.

Before we continue, there is a few important things that you should prepared:

1. Your PHP setup needs to support the IMAP extension,
2. Since the mailboxes that we are going to use will need to be checked frequently, you will need to configure activeCollab's Scheduled Tasks. (If you are testing activeCollab on our Hosted Demo platform, then you will need to start Scheduled Tasks manually because they are not supported in the Hosted Demo setup);
3. Create a new mailbox that will be used only for activeCollab. Please note that all emails from the mailbox will be deleted right after activeCollab makes the import, so the best practice is to use a separate mailbox for this purpose, instead of your business or private email. We will be using projects@myCompany.com email address in the following example.

Now, go to Admin > Incoming Mail and click the New Mailbox button in the top right corner. A form will appear where you need to fill out:

• Information about Account - In the account email address field input the newly created email address - projects@myCompany.com, and in the account name filed type the name that will be displayed here, as a personal reminder.

• Server Information - the Incoming mail server, username, password, server type (POP3 or IMAP), server security (non, SSL, TSL), server port (it’s usually 110) and mailbox name (it’s INBOX by default, because of the name of the mailbox on your server) fields should all be filled out here. You can then click the Test Connection button to see if everything is working correctly.

• Automated Acton - this is the place where you can set the default action that activeCollab should carry out if it finds an email in a mailbox that it is checking that is not a reply to a notification. In this case, you can choose whether you wish to have a new Discussion or new Ticket created and also the project where it should be placed.

We hope these tips helped you to set-up your Incoming Mail mailboxes without much trouble. Should you have any difficulties or need assistance feel free to contact us. We're here to help.

By using the activeCollab Source Module you can:

1. Browse remote repositories (code and commit history);
2. View differences between commits and files;
3. Parse and link commit messages with activeCollab Tickets, Tasks and Milestones.

Currently, the Source Module only supports integration with the Subversion version control system.

Before you install the Source Module, you need to have:

1. a PHP setup that supports SimpleXML extension,

2. updated Repositories - since the repositories, that we are going to import to activeCollab, needs to be updated, you can update them manually or you can configure Scheduled Tasks to do it for you.

The Source Module is available in activeCollab Corporate only. Since it is not installed by default you will find the Source Module in the Admin > Modules > Available Modules list. Just click its Install button and it will be added to your activeCollab.

After the installation of the module a new icon will appear in your Admin panel: the Source Settings icon.

On the Source Module config page you can:

1. Enter the path to your SVN executable. This is the path to your Subversion executable file. Use the Check SVN Path button to see if a connection is established.

1. If you are using the default SVN Config Directory Path you may leave this field empty. If it is non default though you should insert it here;

2. Optionally you can decide whether you wish to use error output redirection;

3. and the trust server certificate;

4. Finally, click the Submit button and activeCollab will be linked to your SVN repositories.

You can learn how to import your repositories and more about how to use the Source Module in our User's Guide.

In this tutorial we will describe how to install activeCollab on Windows Server 2008 with Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 from a fresh operating system installation. We will start with the installation of the PHP server; then configuration of IIS 7; move on to the installation and configuration of the MySQL server; and finish with the installation of activeCollab on a new website.

If you are one of our dedicated customers who have been using activeCollab for years, or a person who likes to create many different projects for every idea that pops up to your mind, you must have a pile of projects and files stored in your activeCollab. In general activeCollab is good at handeling a large portions of data, but overcrowded system can cause problems with search, backup and its overal performance.

There is a handy tool that can help you in such case. It's called Project Exporter.

Use this module to export projects you no longer need in the system, but would like to keep a reference of. Project Exporter will create a set of static, HTML files that can be accessed without activeCollab, so you can archive them, burn them to a disk, send them to a client, etc. When you have an export created like this, you can simply remove that project from activeCollab and you will make a room for a new project and files!