Do you run a multi-author blog? Are you a student looking to work on a group project and need a task management tool? Brad Williams (@williamsba) from WebDevStudios has released a new plugin called CollabPress which transform a standard WordPress installation into a full featured project management application in a single click! CollabPress is an all in one project and task management plugin for WordPress that easily lets you create unlimited projects, task lists, and tasks with all of the features you would expect. In this article, we will give you a quick overview of CollabPress and how you can start using it.
Features of CollabbPress
- Unlimited projects, task lists, tasks, and comments
- Easily edit/delete projects, task lists, tasks, and comments
- Email notifications for new tasks and comments
- Task due dates with a calendar view
- Uses built-in WordPress user accounts
- Activity log tracking all activity
- Multisite compatible
- 100% GPL and Free!
First thing first, you need to install and activate CollabPress Plugin. Once you have done that, you will see a new option in the side navigation that says “CollabPress”. This menu has 2 options, one for “Settings” and another for Creating and managing tasks.
In the settings page, you can select what is the minimum user role that you want to give access to participate in your collaboration. This is an excellent option to have in such a plugin. It also allows you to set email notification for users, so they know if they have been assigned a task.
On the CollabPress Dashboard, you see a page that contains a lot of information such as Recent Activity, an option to add a New Project, List of all Projects, List of all Users, List of all Task lists, tasks, and a calendar view.
Once you create a project and create a task list, you can visit the project page and see the task list overview yourself to see what has been done by who. Who is slacking and needs to get going. This is a great tool because it shows which user completed it along with the Due Dates as well.
[ux_image id=”14975″]Let’s say someone needs help, or you have a comment about a task that is assigned to someone else, there is a way to have internal communication. This is a must have feature for every collaboration software, and Brad and his team did a great job adding it.
[ux_image id=”14976″]If you are working on a project that has a deadline and a lot of people, then there is this very cool calendar view for you to see what is due on which date and who is responsible for it.
[ux_image id=”14977″]Now this plugin is very new and still has a lot coming. The developing team has created a Roadmap for the new features that are coming in. Some of the noteworthy features that are coming in the future releases are: Front-end [shortcode] support; ability to upload files to a project, task list, or task; Task item priority settings; BuddyPress integration; Group task assignment list.
If you have a feature that you would like to see, then they have created a forum for support and feature requests. We recommend that you go to CollabPress Forum and request the features there.
Sneak Peak Preview
Brad recently tweeted out a sneak peak preview for the front-end shortcode support. Here is how it will look when embedded in the post:
[ux_image id=”14978″]This is a very exciting plugin in the development, and we can expect it to be great because Brad Williams is behind it. If you don’t remember him, he is the author of Professional WordPress book that we reviewed.
What are you waiting for? Download the plugin and try it to see if this is for you.