Looking for recommendations for Project and Change Management tools

Question

I'm currently researching software project management tools for a team of 12 developers. In addition to project management, we'd like to handle help desk tickets and a SOX compliant change management process. I've used Atlassian JIRA in the past (and loved it), but it was for a smaller team with simpler requirements.

Key features we're looking for:

Project Management

• Time tracking by task
• Multiple resources per project
• Allow requesters (users within our company) to track task progress, preferably without a user license (may be deal killer for JIRA since we have hundreds of users and JIRA requires a user license per login)

Help Desk

• Allow requesters (users within our company) to track task progress, preferably without a user license (may be deal killer for JIRA since we have hundreds of users and JIRA requires a user license per login)
• Escalate ticket if assigner does not respond within a certain time frame

Change Management

• Workflow that allows a request to be approved by multiple team members (Lead Dev, DBA, Dev Manager, Dept Manager of requester, etc)
• Audit trail that gives us SOX compliance

Has anyone successfully used a single product for software project management, help desk support tickets and change management? If not a single product, what do you use and why?

Answer 1

Before choosing a software, you should ask yourself some questions. How big is your team? Who will manage the software? Who will host? What is your budget?.

If you are a small-mid size firm, more features in the long run become more of a hassle. The best thing is to keep it simple and straightforward (KISS). For that I recommend Project Pier, it is open source, so it is free, easy to install, and easy to use. Unfortunately it does not have all the features you require, but you could easily take it to a programmer and modify the software to your firm needs. Google is your best friend when searching for tools and software.

Answer 2

Interesting feedback....write users vs. read-only. Alvazan, Inc will have to incorporate that. If you like this type of read status Alvazan Demo Status on a project by project basis, we would be able to do X write users per price and allow as many read only users as you like. Either way, thanks for the feature idea!!!!!

Dean (http://blog.alvazan.com)

Answer 3

Given the scale of your requirements you should go for Microsoft's project management software (the standard or enterprise version). It includes just what you'r looking for. The team collaboration built-in feature allows team members to report, test and tracking all your tasks. The application also has a tool which helps in effective resource allocation, helping project managers to be more productive. You can check out teir website for more information.