Installing_allocPSA_on_Windows
Installing allocPSA on Windows
Introduction
Do you run a services-based business? One that sells people's time and effort? Examples include IT services, marketing and management consultancies, legal and financial services work. If so, then you would normally need some way to track that work, track who is supposed to be doing that work, track the clients that you're doing work for, the documentation which changes hands between you and the clients and finally track the billing for your time and effort.
There are a number of ways to do this. Many accounting packages provide a time billing facility. There are project management systems which allow you to track projects and sometimes timesheets. However, to truly manage a professional services business and most of its idiosyncratic facets, you really need what is called a Professional Services Automation (PSA) solution.
allocPSA (<http://www.allocpsa.org/>) is an open source, on-line (ie, web-based) Professional Services Automation system. allocPSA provides a suite of integrated applications designed for organisations which provide services to clients. It enables services personnel to become more productive and profitable by increasing their efficiency through increased utilisation and productive time, improved planning and integrated knowledge management. It reduces the likelihood of slip-ups and increases the traceability and manageability of projects, expenses, tasks and people.
Being open source">open source means you can download it and run it for free and you have rights to review and modify the product source code.
Software requirements
In order to run allocPSA under Microsoft Windows, you need a version of Windows which supports the Apache web server, the PHP application server, and the MySQL database. Any version of Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows 2003 should suffice. You probably also need 256MB or more of RAM and 1 GB of spare disk space. All the software that allocPSA uses is itself free and open source, even for commercial/business use.
Downloading software
To download Apache, go here: <http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi> To download PHP, go here: <http://www.php.net/downloads.php> To download MySQL, go here: <http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/> To download allocPSA, go here: <http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=165183>
Installing the Apache Web Server under Windows
Step 1) Launch the Apache web server installation wizard and click Next.
Step 2) Read and accept the software licence, if in agreement. Click Next.
Step 3) Read about software, if you're keen, then click Next.
Step 4) Enter your Network Domain, eg, yourcompany.com, the server name, for example alloc.yourcompany.com and the email address of the person responsible for this web server, eg, webmaster@yourcompany.com
Then click Next.
Step 5) Select the Typical installation type, then click Next.
Step 6) Review the installation destination folder, then click Next.
Step 7) Click Install. Installation should only take a few minutes.
Step 8) Click the Finish button.
Installing the MySQL Database Server under Windows
Step 9) Launch the MySQL database server installation wizard and click Next.
Step 10) Select the Typical installation type and click Next.
Step 11) Then click Install.
Step 12) Check the Configure the MySQL Server now checkbox and click Finish.
Step 13) Click Next.
Step 14) Select the Standard Configuration checkbox and click Next.
Step 15) Select Install as a Windows Service and make sure that the _Launch the MySQL Server automatically _checkbox has been checked, then click Next.
Step 16) Select the Modify Security Settings, supply a root (ie, admin) user password, confirm that password and then click Next.
Step 17) Click Execute.
Step 18) Review and click Finish.
Installing the PHP Application Server under Windows
Step 19) Launch the PHP application server installation wizard and click Next.
Step 20) Read the software licence, and if in agreement, click Next.
Step 21) Review the default installtion folder and click Next.
Step 22) Select Apache 2.2.x from the list and click Next.
Step 23) Review the location of the Apache installation directory, and if different from the default, specify the new location and click Next.
Step 24) Select to install the MySQL, GD and Zip extensions and click Next.
Step 25) Click Install.
Installing allocPSA under Windows
Step 26) Place the allocPSA zip archive into the Apache htdocs directory.
Step 27) Rename the folder alloc, as shown.
Step 28) Open your web browser and point it to http://localhost/alloc/ and you should see the image at left.
If this doesn't work, point it to http://localhost/alloc/installation/install.php
Step 29) Verify that you have the software requirements, which you should have as you've just installed them. :-)
Enter the name for the new allocPSA database (eg: alloc), and supply the database authentication credentials (username and password) that allocPSA can use to connect to the database, specify the domain name of the Windows PC/server that allocPSA will run on (eg, alloc), specify a location for the any documents which will be uploaded during normal allocPSA operation and finally, specify the base URL that users will put into their web browser to access this new system (eg, http://alloc.yourcompany.com/alloc).
Click Save Settings when done.
Step 30) Now, click on the DB Setup tab. Follow the instructions, copying the database creation script, starting with DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS alloc; and pasting this into the command-line mysql program, as shown in the next figure.
Step 31) Paste the database creation script, starting with DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS alloc;
Step 32) Once done, click the Test Database Connection button to confirm that the database has been created properly. If so, click Next.
Step 33) Click on the Install Database button.
Step 34) Once successfully installed, click Next.
Step 35) Verify that the following checks are OK. If not, rectify as appropriate, perhaps using Windows Explorer to change or create settings, and clicking Refresh Page to re-check. When done, click Complete Installation.
Next, you will see the installation system prompting you to make the following system changes:
touch /the/path/to/alloc_config.php
chmod 600 /the/path/to/alloc_config.php
chown apache /the/path/to/alloc_config.php
For the first, you can run the following from the Windows command line:
echo. >/the/path/to/alloc_config.php
You will need to use Windows Explorer's ability to set permissions to modify the permissions for
alloc_config.php
so that the Apache user has the ability to read and write to the file and preferably own it as well.
Step 36) When done, you should see this screen. Click the link shown to be taken to your new instance of allocPSA.
Step 37) Log in with the admin user account (eg, alloc) and password (eg, alloc).
Step 38) And you should be presented with your allocPSA home page. From here, you can create new users accounts for your colleagues, new projects, clients and tasks.
Have fun!
