After long last, the dotProject Manual is for sale! It's taken more time and effort than I care to consider, but I'm finally satisfied with the overall quality, screenshots, and the level to which each topic and module is covered.
This manual has been on the drawing board and in outline form for nearly a year. I realized that despite the heroic efforts of many in the dotproject forums, there is a certain amount of credibility that goes along with having a manual. I began sketching an outline, was promptly distracted by a flood of work, and the idea languished until early this year when I was contacted by multiple organizations seeking dotProject training. I brushed the dust off and expanded upon it to reflect the project direction and new functionality developed in the past year. Once I had that, I spent much of May and June fleshing out the content, collecting readable and useful screenshots and began to work with a potential publisher for distribution. Unfortunately, that distribution channel and a second one failed to work out, so I'm self-publishing and handling distribution myself.
So, back on point, what does the manual cover?
It covers everything from installation to configuration to creating your first projects to some Best Practices. Each of the core modules has an overview telling the point of the module and then breaks down the most common actions into a step-by-step process describing the how and why of doing something. During the month of June, a previous version of this manual was used to give training to 15 dotProject users for a major educational organization currently supporting over 1,000 users.
This reflects the work of myself and CaseySoftware as a whole to reach out to dotProject users all over the world to collect their thoughts, criticisms, and compliments and attempt to clarify and document them in a single place. These users include individuals and groups ranging from major law firms to non-profit organizations to software companies to construction companies to government agencies. To date, we are supporting handling anywhere from 4-5 dotProject customers/week and there's no one who knows the practices and potential problems better than us.
For further information, check out the dotproject manual product page and check out the full outline of information covered.
Yes, the on-site training curriculum will be made available once an update to the course materials are complete.