Open Workbench Wiki

	Open Workbench wiki
Category Business Project Management

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Open Workbench
Open Workbench under Windows XP with Sun JRE 1.5.0b6
Developed by	CA Clarity Division , BSO (formerly Niku)
Latest release	1.1.6 / 2008-03-03; 663 days ago
Operating system	Microsoft Windows with Sun JRE 1.3.1 or later
Type	Project management software
License	MPL Proprietary EULA
Website	www.openworkbench.org

Open Workbench is a free project management software focused on scheduling. It is an alternative to Microsoft Project. It was originally called "Project Workbench" and developed by Applied Business Technology, Corporation (ABT) of New York in 1984. Niku Corporation purchased ABT and its products in 2000. CA Corporation purchased Niku and this software in 2005. Currently, Open Workbench only runs under Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista and requires Sun JRE version 1.3.1 or later. Although it is provided as free software, users still require the Clarity suite if they want to use a central database to manage enterprise collaboration. With Clarity's Schedule Connect module, it can specifically link to many PCs with Open Workbench 1.1 installed. The module installs on both centralized server and the desktops, adding database access to Open Workbench’s screens. There are a few differences between Open Workbench and Microsoft Project. Chief among them is that Open Workbench schedules based on effort whereas MS Project schedules based on duration. In other words, in an Open Workbench plan task schedule is driven by the number of hours each resource will work per week to cover the total number of hours required for the tasks; whereas Microsoft Project does the reverse by generating estimates for the resources based on the task duration rather than their work availability. For this reason, resource leveling is also different: Open Workbench will do it based on resource availability whereas MS Project will do it based on the next available block of time that fits the task.

[edit] Current development status

The latest release 1.1.6 was made available in March 2008. Downloading from the website requires registration. At this time, the registration engine does not seem to be working. There is no follow up authentication email.