[kwlug-disc] What collaboration software am I looking for?

[Paul Nijjar]

I am trying to research some FLOSS alternatives for a problem some
people at my work are having. They are trying to track the following
things: 

- A (growing) list of potential employers
- A bunch of people who are looking for placements (which we call
  "participants")  
- Actual placements that are made between the participants and
  employers

They want to do things like the following: 
- Make notes about each participant, including which employers they
  have approached for each participant
- Keep track of employer information (such as contact information and
  prior placements)
- Keep track of tasks to be done with each participant and employer
- Record and evaluate placements that are made
- Generate reports on all of the following


I am looking for something maintainable, somewhat customizable (in
case they have extra fields to add to the different groups), 
installable on an internal Debian or Ubuntu server, and relatively
lightweight (this is a team of a few people, not a Fortune 500
company). 

Some jargon I have been looking at includes: "ERP", "CRM". I am not
even sure what category of things I am looking for. It feels like I am
looking for some collaborative project software, maybe. 

In my mind this does not seem that different from the problem the
infamous UW Jobmine system is trying to solve. 

Rolling our own database-driven application is a possibility, but one
I would prefer to avoid unless there is nothing that does what I want
(especially if the database application we end up using is Microsoft
Access, which would break my stony heart). 

I am sure that this is a solved problem. What software am I looking
for? Categories of software to search for would be helpful. Individual
software packages to try would be helpful. Personal experiences of
solving these problems would be very helpful. I am in the beginning
stages of my research and I am flailing around. 

- Paul 


-- 
http://pnijjar.freeshell.org