[raphaelt]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here, so I hope I'm asking the right questions in the right place. If not, please let me know where to go.

I have a client who is a personal councillor. She would like a private members-only area of her site where her current clients can log in and engage in threaded discussions with her, one-on-one.

I visualize her needs as a combination of private messaging (a la PhpBB) and Ticketing Systems. She would really like the ability to have her clients attach files to their responses.

She has no need for any kind of public or group forums -- everything would be strictly private threaded messages between herself and individual clients. Each client would be given a username and password, and their account page would simply be a list of their threads. They wouldn't be able to create threads with other users -- only with her.

Perhaps you can see why I'm likening this to a ticketing system. It's also quite similar to the familiar private message functionality in most forum apps, only with the forums taken out! Privacy is utmost here, so one user can only "see" and interact with my client (though she, as "admin", can see and interact with everyone else, of course).

The budget on this project is rather limited, and I'd rather not to have to code this from scratch (I'm a moderate-level PHP coder, but I'm primarily a HTML/CSS designer). I'm hoping that you can direct me to a stable open source project or script that is specifically purposed for what I have in mind. I'd rather not have to hand her a modded PhpBB install which uses its private messaging system. She's not an advanced web user so I would like to give her as streamlined an admin or account page as possible.

Any advice, suggestions, or leads would be extremely gratefully received. If I've been vague with my explanation, grill me with questions.

Thanks very much!

Raphael
Los Angeles