You can access activeCollab even when you are away from your computer by using advantages of activeCollab Mobile Interace.

Mobile Interface is a part of a default activeCollab package (including both versions, Small Biz and Corporate) and it is enabled right after you install your system. When you access activeCollab from your mobile phone the system will recognize that you are using a smaller screen resolution and will offer optimized interface with a lower bandwidth.

You don't need to use any additional software to access activeCollab via Mobile device. All you need is a browser on that device that supports XHTML. You will be able to use your iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Symbian based phone without any troubles.

The first time you login to activeCollab you'll see a Welcome Message instead of the regular Dashboard.

The Welcome Message is there to offer some pointers and general advice to make getting started with activeCollab as easy as possible. Here you'll find tips on: configuring the system for your needs; adding clients and people you'll be working with; creating and defining new projects; and much more.

To hide the Welcome Message and display the real Dashboard, simply click on the Hide Welcome Message button on the top-right of the screen.

To create a new company in the People Section, click on the New Company button, enter the company details and click Submit.

After the company is created, you will automatically be redirected to the Company Details page, where you can add new users to that company. When you've finished adding people, the page should look something like this:

To create a new user account, simply click the New User button on the Company page.

When you are creating a new user, only two fields are required: userʼs email address, and the role that user will have in the system.

Optionally, you can also:

1. Enter profile details, like first and last name, company title, etc.
2. Set a password for the user (if you don't set a password, then activeCollab will automatically generate a random password for that user.)
3. Send a personalized welcome message with login details to the user. This message can be sent when the account is created, or at any point in the future, from the userʼs profile page.
4. Assign the user to be automatically added to all new projects as they are created. This saves a lot of repetition later on when you know that a particular user is going to be involved in all future projects.

When a new user account is created, activeCollab will display the user's profile page. From here you can upload a picture or avatar for the user, re-send the welcome message, add the user to existing projects and more.

activeCollab lets you add users to multiple projects at once, a feature that can come in especially handy when someone new joins your team.

To do this, simply go to the user's Profile Page and from the Options drop-down select the Add to Projects option, as shown in the following screenshot:

On the newly-opened page, select the projects that you would like to add the user to and their Project Role or set of custom permissions that they should have). After you have set everything up, click the Submit button, and they will be assigned to all of the projects that you have selected.

Projects can be organized in two ways - by Group or by Client. Whether you use one or both of these classifications is entirely up to you. By default, Projects are organized by project Group, but you can switch to sorting by Client by clicking on the Clients option above the project list.

Each company you define in the People section can also be a client. If a client is not specified when you create a Project, that Project will be considered an internal project and the system will behave as if the Owner Company is the client.

If you prefer a Group view, click on the Group button and you'll be able to see currently defined groups as tabs on the right side of your workspace. By clicking on the Group tab, the system will display only Projects that belong to that group.

To manage project groups, click on the Manage Groups tab at the bottom of the list. This opens a simple dialog where you can create new groups or rename / delete existing ones:

Everything that you do here will automatically be applied to the Group Tabs on the page.

To create a new project, simply click the New Project button.

Each project needs to have a name and a Project Leader. The Project Leader is the person responsible for all actions in the project and will automatically receive notifications about each and every new event that takes place. This person will also be assigned full permissions for the project, regardless of their current Project Role settings.

When creating a new project, you can either make one from scratch or by using a Project Template:

Any project can be used as a template for a new one. Just select it from the Project Template drop-down list when creating a new project, and activeCollab will copy all the Milestones, Tickets and Tasks from the template to the new project. activeCollab will even alter due dates of the tasks to reflect the differences between start dates of the template and new project if these dates are set.

Once you click the Submit button the new project will be created, and youʼll be redirected to the People tab of your project where you'll be able to add everyone else who will be involved.

There are two types of projects in activeCollab:

1. Active projects are projects that are being worked on at the moment. These projects will appear in the Jump to Project dialog, will be listed in the Active Projects tab of your Dashboard, and Dashboard updates will still be provided for these projects etc.
2. Archived projects are projects that are no longer being worked on. They exist in the system, all data is still there, but they will not be displayed on the Dashboard, in the Jump to Project dialog, etc. The only way to access these projects is through the Archive link available at the bottom of Projects page.

activeCollab supports four project statuses:

1. Active - As explained above.
2. Paused - This status is used for projects that are on hold. Although paused, projects are not marked as completed. They are simply archived to avoid distraction.
3. Completed - Projects that have been finished will be in this section. All completed projects will be available in your Archive, marked as completed and archived.
4. Canceled - These are Projects that have been created and then, for one reason or another, stopped. They will be marked as completed and archived.

The status of a Project can be changed at any time by selecting Change Status from the Options drop-down that is available on the Project Overview page:

Besides browsing the Projects section, you can also use the following tools to quickly access all of your projects:

1. Active Projects tab on the Dashboard lists all active projects you're involved in.
2. Favorite Projects box on the Dashboard lists all projects you have marked as a favorite.
3. Jump to Project dialog will pop-up when you click the small drop-down menu icon next to the Projects button in the toolbar. Choose the project you need and you'll jump straight there.

The first project tab is the Project Overview page, which is named after the project you're working on. The purpose of this page is to keep you informed with everything going on in that particular project, including:

Project overview page displays:

1. Project Details such as the project name, summary, status and client. From this area you can easily access manu common tools, like an RSS feed of the project activities, the project calendar, or a list of your assignments for that project.
2. Recent Project Activities displays a list of latest activities from the project. You can also subscribe to this as an RSS feed and have fresh news on project activities update automatically in your RSS feed reader.
3. Project Progress displays a project progress bar based on the number of completed and open Tasks, Tickets and Milestones in the project.
4. Late and Today Milestone displays Milestones that are due and overdue. This box gives a brief overview of anything urgent in the project.
5. People in This Project displays every person who is working on the project and the last time they logged in to activeCollab.

Checklists are simple task lists. In order for a Checklist to be completed, each task on it must be finished.

To see all the Checklists in a project, click on Checklists tab. Checklists are ordered by their time of creation, but you can also change their order by dragging and dropping the Checklist to the desired position.

To see the list of tasks within any Checklist, simply click the Little Arrow icon next to it and the list will expand. You can also see the same information by clicking the Checklist's name to access the Checklist details page where all information relating to it, including Tasks, will be displayed.

You cannot assign a Checklist to a team member. You can, however assign individual tasks within that Checklist to an individual, allowing you to have more than one person working on a single Checklist.

When you are on the Checklists tab and you have two or more checklists expanded, you can drag and drop tasks from one checklist to another.

Rememeber, Checklists are only considered complete if all tasks on it are completed. By adding a new task to a completed checklist it will be re-opened automatically.

All completed Checklists are automatically archived. To browse them, simply click the Archive link at the bottom of the Checklist page.

Due dates for Milestones, Ticketsfor each project can also be seen in a calendar view. Just click the Calendar tab for this useful overview:

The Calendar is automatically adjusted by activeCollab depending on the person viewing it, only displaying data (e.g. milestones, tickets or tasks) that this user would normally have access to.

To zoom-in on a particular date and see more details for that day's activities, just click on that date in the Calendar. To zoom-out and return to the previous view, click on the same date again.

The Calendar module also allows data to be exported in iCalendar format, meaning that you can easily export and synchronize data from activeCollab with your favorite calendar application (Windows Calendar, Apple iCal, Google Calendar etc).

Milestones mark important deadlines or phases in your project. For example, if you're developing a website, a Milestone can be an important meeting or a review, the initial design process, presentation to the client or launch date. A Milestone can be a single date (deadline) or a period of time during which a certain phase of the project is developed.

Project milestones are listed on the Milestones tab:

Milestones are sorted by the time they are due. You can also use the iCalendar feed to import a summary of Milestones into your favorite calendar application.

To get more detail on any Milestone just click on a particular one from the list to open the Milestone detailpage. This page shows all Milestone-related information and any other project items that are related to it. Project items that can be filed under a Milestone include Checklists, Discussions, Files, Pages and Tickets. Linking Milestones and other project items together in this way allows other members of the project team to easily see which part of the project their tasks relate to.

The Files area of activeCollab is designed to allow people to share project files, discuss them, work on them together, post new versions and much more. To access this section, simply click the Files project tab.

Files are ordered by the time they were uploaded, with most recent at the top. activeCollab displays an icon next to each file based on it's file type, making it easy to identify different types of files. If the file is an image (e.g. JPG, GIF or PNG) then activeCollab will display a thumbnail instead of the icon. To view or download an image file, simply click on its thumbnail image.

Click on any file name to visit the File page and view more details, including older versions and comments.

Each project in activeCollab has an area for discussion. To access it, click on the Discussions tab:

This part of activeCollab is similar to an online forum, with topics containing the most recent comments listed first. You can also mark some discussions as 'Important' and pin them to the top of the list.

Tickets can be used to make it easier for you to handle even the most complex jobs. Tickets can stand alone or be related directly to a Milestone. They can also have an unlimited number of attachments and comments and can be broken into smaller tasks.

When you click on the Tickets project tab, youʼll see the list of active tickets grouped by Milestone. If there are Tickets which are not related to a Milestone, they will be listed after the Milestones group, placed under Unknown Milestone at the end of the page.

Tickets are sorted by their creation time, but you can reorder them by dragging and dropping as you wish. You can even drag a ticket to another Milestone.

activeCollab also comes with a handy tool that makes it easy for people to log how much time they have spent working on any project or task, as well as what they were doing and when. This information can then be gathered together by activeCollab and displayed as a time report, which can then be used for billing clients or paying employees.

To see all the time logs for a particular project, click the Time project tab. This lists all time records by time of completion, with most recent entries at the top:

Pages is an area of activeCollab where your team can work together on text documents. In essence, a handy collaborative writing tool, which can be used for everything from short articles, such as blog posts, to longer documents, like books or product specifications.

To access this area, simply click the Pages project tab.

The Source Module brings a code repository directly to your projects. It allows code browsing, version comparisons and checking of the repository history. Additional functionalities, such as links between Tickets and Commits, Commit commands and more are also available.

At the moment, Source module can access only Subversion repositories.

Each project in activeCollab can have as many people involved as you need. To easily view everyone working on the project at any time, simply go to the People project tab:

Regular members of the project team will only see a list of others who are working on the project. Anyone managing the project however will have additional controls to add or remove people from the project and to change any individual's project permissions.

activeCollab sends email notifications to all people involved with a specific Task, Ticket, Discussion, or File etc.

nlike some tools that email everyone about every small change to a project whether it is relevant to them or not, activeCollab is designed to avoid overwhelming people with too many email messages.

If users repeatedly receive messages on issues that are not relevant to them, it's likely that they will start to ignore all notifications send by the system. Because of this, activeCollab is designed to only email people who are subscribed to receive notifications about a specific object, instead of sending messages to everyone about every change.

activeCollab Corporate edition includes an optional module that enables you to export project information as a mini, static HTML website. Projects exported in this format do not require any web server to run (they can be opened with just a web browser) making them perfect for archiving projects.

Instal Project Exporter module

To install the Project Exporter module, go to the Administration > Modules page, and install it from the list of Available Modules:

Once the Project Exporter is installed, the Export Project option will be available under the Options drop-down menu on the Overview page of every project:

activeCollab also lets you pick which project data you would like to have exported:

Project objects such as Files, Tickets, Pages, Discussions and Checklists can be marked as private:

Default Visibility

Default visibility for new objects is configurable on a project-by-project basis. If you set Default Visibility when creating a new project to be Private, then all forms used for creating new objects in that project will have Private visibility selected by default when you open them:

When an object is marked as private, it is visible only to people who have can_see_private_objects permission set to Yes in their System Role. Other people will not be able to see or access it.

For example, you have a user with a Member role who has the can_see_private_objects permission set to Yes. You also have one user with a Client Company Manager or Client Company Member role where can_see_private_objects permission is set to No. Both users have access to the Tickets section in a given project. When you create a Private Ticket in that project, only the user with a Member role will be able to see it because they have sufficient permissions, while the other users (those with a Client role) will not be able to see that ticket.

By default, only system roles that are used for members of the Owner Company (Administrator, Project Manager and Member) have can_see_private_objects permission set to Yes. This default setup is useful if you want to have a private discussion or create some private Tickets on a particular project issue, without your clients ever knowing about it.

There are three ways to create an Invoice:

After you create your Invoice, it will be saved as a draft. To issue the invoice, click the Issue tab, which can be found on the right of the Invoice details page. On the page that follows you will thenbe able to set an issue date, due date and notify your client via email:

Besides receiving an email notification, users with a Client Company Manager Role, will also see an Important box on their activeCollab dashboard showing that there are one, or more, outstanding invoices. They will also see the Invoice icon on the toolbar and be able to access the Invoice page where they will see all invoices issued to their company.

Once an invoice is issued, you can track and record payments against it. To do this, just click the New Payment link and type in the amount that has been paid. activeCollab will record it, noting how much of the total sum is paid, and how much is still outstanding.

Once the total amount is fully paid, the invoice will automatically be marked as billed and will be saved.

Any invoice in activeCollab can be duplicated and used as a template for another. Using this simple feature frequently used invoices may be cloned to save time. To duplicate an invoice, simply click the Duplicate link from the invoice details page:

iCalendar feed links are available on the Global Calendar page, the Project Calendar page, and on the Overview page of the Active Projects list. These links are usually at the end of the page and you can spot them easily, because they are marked with a small calendar icon:

When you click on the link, the subscribe page will open:

activeCollab offers two types of iCalendar export:

1. File download. This file will let you import the data into your calendar application, but the data will not be automatically updated when data in your activeCollab is changed.
2. iCalendar feed. When you subscribe to the iCalendar feed, the data from activeCollab is imported in your calendar application. Additionally, your calendar application will then periodically check the feed for updates and refresh itself with the latest information.

At the moment Microsoft Project Importer is in a Beta testing phase, and as such it is not included in the default activeCollab setup. You can download it here.

After downloading it, you will need to extract the files and copy the folders within it to the respective part of the activeCollab root folder. If you are prompted to overwrite any files, please do so.

When this is done visit your activeCollab, where you will find the module in the Available Modules list on the Admin > Modules page. Just click the install button on the right; follow the on-screen instructions; and the activeCollab Microsoft Project Importer Module will be available for you in no time.

Once you have the activeCollab Microsoft Project Importer installed, you will find it under the Options drop-down menu of the Project Overview page.

Any user who has sufficient permission to create a new project in your activeCollab will also be able to use the Microsoft Project Import option.

To import a project, you will first need to export it from Microsoft Project as an XML file

To export a project as an XML file simply open the project you need within Microsoft Project, go to the Save As... option and make sure you select the XML File format. Now that you have the XML file, please visit the Project Overview page Options menu and click Import Microsoft Project option.

A new page will open where you can select the Microsoft Project XML file that will be uploaded. If the uploaded file is valid, you will be asked to select the data that you want to import into the project. After choosing the desired data, click the Import button and that data will then be saved.

In this way you can import data from any Microsoft Project to any of your newly created activeCollab ones.