Fred,
For project status tracking and assignment, our group uses the on-line solution
from LeanKit (https://leankit.com/) . The initial set-up requires some thought
as to how you want to track the workflow but once the staff got use to the
system they really like it. It is very easy to pull up the board during weekly
staff meeting and know the status of each project at a glance. The built in
project tracking tools allow you to follow run queries on project metrics. You
can also attach documents that become available to everyone.
I should say that this software was not designed for a science lab but I found
it easily adaptable.